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Europe’s largest CSR and Sustainability summit returns for the 12th year

LONDON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Featuring Jeremy Darroch, Chief Executive Officer of SKY, John Sauven, Executive Director of Greenpeace UK and Daniel Franklin, Executive Editor of the Economist - the summit will address how companies will conduct sustainable business both now and in the future.

“Extreme weather is going from a theory to a new reality. Middle class consumers will triple to three billion in the next 20 years with all the strains this puts on resources. The ‘cosy’ sustainability debate of a few years ago is fast being replaced by one of tough choices.”

International leaders from business and civil society will descend on London for the two-day Responsible Business Summit returning for its 12th year, on 7-8th May 2013.

The summit will be the meeting place for 500+ senior attendees and 50+ expert speakers from across the world to discuss how business can meet key social responsibility demands and ease environmental strain on the planet.

Among the corporate brands represented will be M&S, Microsoft, Unilever, BASF, Dow, Dupont, Rio Tinto, ASDA, HP, National Bank of Abu Dhabi, Patagonia and Hyundai. NGO’s and academia will also be sharing their thoughts and insight with speakers from Oxfam, Ethical Trading Initiative, EABIS, Cranfield School of Management, European Commission and Institute of Human Rights and Business.

The keynote topics for the summit will focus around resource scarcity, greater collaboration post Rio+20 and steps to rebuild public trust in corporations.

Mike Barry, Head of Sustainable Business at Marks & Spencer reflected in Ethical Corporation’s end of year survey: “Extreme weather is going from a theory to a new reality. Middle class consumers will triple to three billion in the next 20 years with all the strains this puts on resources. The ‘cosy’ sustainability debate of a few years ago is fast being replaced by one of tough choices.”

The Summit will feature over 20 breakout sessions focusing on the toughest CSR topics such as supply chain engagement, implementation of the Ruggie principles for human rights, public/private partnerships and how to engage frontline employees on CSR.

The usual conference format will be dispensed with; “It’s clear that there are better ways to learn than the conference format of “sit and listen to speakers and watch PowerPoint. At the Responsible Business Summit 2013 we’ll be using scenarios to generate comments and discussion with our speakers, we’ll be breaking attendees into small groups and using up to a dozen both tried and tested and new innovative techniques to make this our best ever learning and networking event”, said Toby Webb, founder of Ethical Corporation.

Priorities will be placed on contributions from corporate and civil society sectors with only limited passes available for solutions providers and vendors.

For more information about the event, visit http://events.ethicalcorp.com/rbs/index.php

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Ethical Corporation provides business intelligence for sustainability to more than 3,000 multinational companies every year. We provide objective analysis in our reports, news, events and updates for the corporate sustainability. Ethical Corporation publishes the leading responsible business magazine and website.