Designing the New Economy

Authors

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  Aron Cramer

  President and CEO, BSR

  

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  Aron Cramer

  President and CEO, BSR

  

  San Francisco

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  Aron is recognized globally as a preeminent authority on just and sustainable business. In addition to leading BSR, which has grown substantially throughout his tenure as President and CEO, Aron advises senior executives at BSR’s 300+ member companies and other global businesses and partners on the full spectrum of environmental, social, and governance issues.

  Aron joined BSR in 1995 as the founding director of its Business and Human Rights program. He later opened BSR's Paris office in 2002, where he worked until becoming President and CEO in 2004. Aron has served on advisory boards to CEOs at AXA, Barrick Gold, Marks & Spencer, Nike, Recruit Holdings, SAP, Shell, and he serves as a director of the We Mean Business Coalition and RISE.

  Aron speaks frequently at leading business and public fora and is widely quoted in top-tier media, such as the Financial Times, Le Figaro (France), The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Axios, and Politico. He is co-author of the book Sustainable Excellence: The Future of Business in a Fast-Changing World, which spotlights innovative sustainability strategies that enable business success.

  Prior to joining BSR, Aron practiced law in San Francisco and worked as a journalist at ABC News in New York. He holds a BA from Tufts University and a JD from the University of California, Berkeley.

  Close

Davos is scheduled with military precision. The World Economic Forum plans the event to the last detail, and participants like me run frantically in the snow from meeting to meeting. But it’s the chance encounters that tend to make the time here especially worthwhile.

At the opening night reception, I had the fortune of meeting four people who are using design to build a more sustainable economy. What’s particularly noteworthy is that not one of them comes from a sustainability background; instead, they spring from urban planning, journalism, and architecture.

Paola Antonelli, Senior Curator for Architecture and Design at the Museum of Modern Art in New York spoke passionately about how sustainability should not be about piety, but rather passion and creation.

Christopher Luebkeman of Arup talked to me about his firm’s work on models for sustainable cities in 2030, including Hong Kong and São Paulo. He spoke of the need to break down silos within government and other constituencies as the foundation for sustainable cities. Arup is working with the C40 initiative of the UN Global Compact to make this a reality.

Toshiko Mori is using her platform as head of architecture at the Harvard School of Design to catalyze emerging architects and designers to think about the social impacts of their work.

Rounding out this impromptu gathering was Alice Rawsthorn, design critic for the International Herald Tribune, who’s facilitating a workshop on sustainability for tomorrow’s consumers, along with me, Brian Collins of COLLINS, and Tim Brown of IDEO.

There’s lots of talk at Davos about how the recession is taking everyone back to basics. But for these design gurus, sustainability is providing a path forward. And, in turn, it’s a path being enriched by folding design principles deeper into the world of sustainability.

For anyone asking the question of whether sustainability will survive the downturn, this is a shaft of light, giving reason for optimism.