28 June 2021

When the term “sustainable development” was coined by the Brundtland Commission, it interwove environmental and social needs quite explicitly. Yet, almost 25 years later, these two fields seem to have drifted apart, divorcing their battles, the way they measure progress and the way they consider affectations on one another.

In this episode of Building Bridges for Impact, I chat with Jane Nelson about why respecting people’s rights is fundamental to sustainability and about how, by returning to a more “people-centered” approach, companies can be better equipped to address both the causes and outcomes of environmental degradation and climate change.

ABOUT THIS EPISODE’S GUEST

Jane Nelson is director of the CORPORATE RESPONSIBILITY INITIATIVE at the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, and a nonresident senior fellow in the Global Economy and Development program at Brookings. She has lived and worked on five continents and served on a variety of boards and advisory councils for companies, nonprofit organizations, and governments, with a focus on the areas of corporate responsibility, sustainable development and finance, public-private partnerships, global health, nutrition and agriculture, and mining and energy. She has authored five books and over 100 other publications on these topics.