A Roadmap for Business on Social Justice in the U.S. for 2024 and Beyond

Date and Time

February 28, 2024
1:00 pm-2:00 pm EST

Location

Webinar

Event Resources

Recording Presentation

Amid ongoing political polarization and uncertainty in the United States, BSR’s Center for Business & Social Justice offers a guide for meaningful business engagement on social justice issues.

Though corporate social impact efforts face heightened scrutiny, stakeholders also expect business leadership on social justice issues—this is the new normal. Companies have and are expected to continue to act on social justice in practice, if not in name, including issues such as climate justice, democracy, economic stability, racial justice, gender equity, LGBTIQ+ inclusion, caregiving, unionization, and community impact. Social justice encompasses many economic and social issues that affect everyone.

Business must therefore wrestle with how to prioritize positive and equitable social outcomes as a primary strategic objective. Join us for a panel discussion to hear firsthand:

• Why are social justice issues relevant to business?
• How can heightened scrutiny in the legal, political, and consumer domains help advance meaningful progress? 
• Where can business exert its collective influence to advance social justice?

Gain insights from The Social Justice Guide for Business: Moving Beyond Crisis to Action, set to be released by the end of February 2024. The Guide is designed by and for large companies across industries with complex value-chains, diverse stakeholders, and is focused on the U.S. region.

Who should attend? Social justice often isn’t anyone’s job at a company yet implicates many functions and roles including DEI, Sustainability, ESG, Public Affairs, Investor Relations, Stakeholder Engagement, and many more. The Guide can be applied by executives empowered to make organizational decisions and is also designed to support practitioners looking for approaches grounded in methodology.

This event marks the first installment of a comprehensive series. BSR Members, register today to participate or access the recording.

Scheduled Speakers

• Jarrid Green, Co-Director, Center for Business and Social Justice, BSR
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Jarrid Green
Co-Director, Center for Business and Social Justice, BSR
Washington, D.C.
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Jarrid is the Co-Director of the Center for Business and Social Justice, a recently launched initiative of BSR which seeks to mobilize companies to take systemic and intersectional approaches to their social impact efforts.
As Co-Director, Jarrid co-designs and implements the Center's near- and long-term programmatic efforts including the development of research, thought leadership, frameworks, and capacity-building opportunities related to corporate social impact strategies. Jarrid also provides collaborative oversight and direction for the center’s organizational and administrative functions, facilitates the execution of the Center’s ongoing corporate, civil society stakeholder, and donor activities including BSR member and external client consulting engagements.
Prior to joining BSR, Jarrid worked at Freedman Consulting, where he developed and managed strategic philanthropic initiatives, including donor coalitions and nonprofit initiatives focused on racial and civic justice issues, climate/sustainability impacts, and public health. Jarrid has also served in senior research and project management capacities at The Democracy Collaborative and The Center for Social Inclusion, where he led, supported, and published policy research and case studies focused on opportunities to dismantle structural racial inequities within community and economic development fields and practices.
Jarrid received his MBA in Sustainability from Bard College where he served as an inaugural member of the program’s Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (JEDI) Advisory Board and provided advisory support and instruction to first- and second-year MBA students in his role as a part-time faculty member for the college’s experiential-learning, sustainability consulting course, NYCLab.
Jarrid holds a BA in English Language and Literature from the University of Maryland. He is also an alum of the Council of Urban Professional Fellowship Institute.
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• Jen Stark, Co-Director, Center for Business and Social Justice, BSR
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Jen Stark
Co-Director, Center for Business and Social Justice, BSR
Washington, D.C.
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Jen is the Co-Director of the Center for Business and Social Justice. She is a strategy development and implementation expert at complex health and humanitarian organizations with 20+ years of experience. She launched the Center in 2022 alongside Jarrid Green to illuminate a path for companies to shift from performative to transformational actions with a focus on public policy engagement and influence. 
Prior to joining BSR, she directed investments at the Tara Health Foundation to advance meaningful change among private sector employers on gender and racial equity, including historic progress on paid family and medical leave, reproductive health, and other workplace protections. Before working in philanthropy, she founded the corporate relations program at Planned Parenthood Federation of America to unlock advocacy, grantmaking and employee support to preserve access to reproductive healthcare nationwide. She also managed the disaster fundraising team at the American Red Cross, coordinating large scale efforts to responsibly raise and deploy hundreds of millions of dollars. She is frequently cited in business press on flashpoint topics and is an advisor to Gauge.ai and GoFundMe’s Compassion Leadership Network. 
Jen holds a BA in Economics and Political Science from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and is based in Washington, DC with her family, where she also plays cello in a community orchestra.   
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• David Stearns, Managing Director, Marketing and Communications, BSR
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David Stearns
Managing Director, Marketing and Communications, BSR
New York
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David leads BSR’s marketing and communications initiatives, working with a global team to amplify the organization’s mission and showcase its activities, impacts, and thought leadership to members, partners, and the wider business and policy community.
David previously worked for The B Team, a group of global business and civil society leaders working to catalyze a better way of doing business for the well-being of people and the planet. Throughout his 20-year career, he has worked with businesses and nonprofits in economic development, public health, and sustainability to define and communicate their purpose and impacts. .
He has built high-impact communications campaigns for a collaboration to improve maternal health in Zambia and Uganda, driven top-tier media coverage for a major economic development project in upstate New York, and helped strengthen parliamentary capacity and voter education efforts in South Africa and Zambia. He began his career as a newspaper reporter.
David earned his M.A. from The Elliott School of International Affairs at the George Washington University and his B.A. in Journalism and Political Science from Michigan State University.
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