Simon Zadek
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Simon Zadek (born 16 July 1957) is a writer and advisor focused on business and sustainability. He is the Co-Director of the
UNEP The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) is responsible for coordinating responses to environmental issues within the United Nations system. It was established by Maurice Strong, its first director, after the United Nations Conference on ...
Inquiry into the Design of a Sustainable Financial System.


Background

Zadek grew up in London, later attending Bristol University (BSc Economics, 1979). He has a PhD in Economics from
Brunel University Brunel University London is a public research university located in the Uxbridge area of London, England. It was founded in 1966 and named after the Victorian engineer and pioneer of the Industrial Revolution, Isambard Kingdom Brunel. In Jun ...
(''An economics of Utopia: the democratisation of scarcity'', 1992). He reports that the dissertation topic was rejected by potential supervisors at the University of Oxford and LSE, before he enrolled at Brunel. Most recently he has lived in China and Geneva.


Career

Zadek has held a number of positions broadly concerned with supporting alternative economic development and sustainable business activity. He is Co-Director of the
UNEP The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) is responsible for coordinating responses to environmental issues within the United Nations system. It was established by Maurice Strong, its first director, after the United Nations Conference on ...
Inquiry into the Design of a Sustainable Financial System, which started in 2014 in Geneva. From 1979 to 1981 he was an economic planner for the Government of
St Lucia Saint Lucia ( acf, Sent Lisi, french: Sainte-Lucie) is an island country of the West Indies in the eastern Caribbean. The island was previously called Iouanalao and later Hewanorra, names given by the native Arawaks and Caribs, two Amerindi ...
, followed by a period of consulting with
Coopers and Lybrand PricewaterhouseCoopers is an international professional services brand of firms, operating as partnerships under the PwC brand. It is the second-largest professional services network in the world and is considered one of the Big Four accounti ...
. In 1992 he joined the
New Economics Foundation The New Economics Foundation (NEF) is a British think-tank that promotes "social, economic and environmental justice". NEF was founded in 1986 by the leaders of The Other Economic Summit (TOES) with the aim of working for a "new model of wealth ...
, becoming its Development Director and leading its work on
corporate social responsibility Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is a form of international private business self-regulation which aims to contribute to societal goals of a philanthropic, activist, or charitable nature by engaging in or supporting volunteering or ethicall ...
. He helped to found
AccountAbility Accountability, in terms of ethics and governance, is equated with answerability, blameworthiness, liability, and the expectation of account-giving. As in an aspect of governance, it has been central to discussions related to problems in the pub ...
in 1995, acting as its CEO from 2002 to 2009, and was Founding Chair of the Ethical Trading Initiative. Positions in academic institutions have included: *Visiting Fellow at the
University of Sussex , mottoeng = Be Still and Know , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £14.4 million (2020) , budget = £319.6 million (2019–20) , chancellor = Sanjeev Bhaskar , vice_chancellor = Sasha Roseneil , ...
*Visiting Professor at
Copenhagen Business School Copenhagen Business School (Danish'': Handelshøjskolen i København'') often abbreviated and referred to as CBS (also in Danish), is a public university situated in Copenhagen, Denmark and is considered one of the most prestigious business scho ...
*Honorary Professor at the
University of South Africa The University of South Africa (UNISA), known colloquially as Unisa, is the largest university system in South Africa by enrollment. It attracts a third of all higher education students in South Africa. Through various colleges and affiliates, U ...
*Senior Fellow at the Centre for Government and Business of
Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of highe ...
's
Kennedy School The Kennedy School, originally the John D. Kennedy Elementary School, is a former elementary school that has been converted to a hotel, movie theater and dining establishment in northeast Portland, Oregon. The facility is operated by the McMenam ...
(until 2011) *Visiting Scholar at Tsinghua School of Economics and Management in Beijing * Visiting Professor, DSM Senior Fellow in Partnership and Sustainability, Singapore Management University (2018) He is also been an advisor to several green and business initiatives, including the
Centre for International Governance Innovation The Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI, pronounced "see-jee") is an independent, non-partisan think tank on global governance. CIGI supports research, forms networks, advances policy debate and generates ideas for multilateral ...
(CIGI), the
World Economic Forum The World Economic Forum (WEF) is an international non-governmental and lobbying organisation based in Cologny, canton of Geneva, Switzerland. It was founded on 24 January 1971 by German engineer and economist Klaus Schwab. The foundation, ...
, and the
International Institute for Sustainable Development The International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) is an independent think tank founded in 1990 working to shape and inform international policy on sustainable development governance. The institute has three offices in Canada - Wi ...
(IISD).


Contributions

Zadek's early interests were in alternative, utopian, and Buddhist economics. But he became interested in the corporate social responsibility movement and particularity the development of social auditing techniques, when working at the
New Economics Foundation The New Economics Foundation (NEF) is a British think-tank that promotes "social, economic and environmental justice". NEF was founded in 1986 by the leaders of The Other Economic Summit (TOES) with the aim of working for a "new model of wealth ...
(1992–1999) and then as founder and CEO of
AccountAbility Accountability, in terms of ethics and governance, is equated with answerability, blameworthiness, liability, and the expectation of account-giving. As in an aspect of governance, it has been central to discussions related to problems in the pub ...
(1995–2009). Latterly he has worked on promoting green and responsible financial policies across the banking, insurance and investment sectors. He has developed environmental and social risk policies for banks and corporate clients, and argues insurers need to report their exposure to climate risks and their strategies for resilience.


Recognition

In 2003 he was named as one of the
World Economic Forum The World Economic Forum (WEF) is an international non-governmental and lobbying organisation based in Cologny, canton of Geneva, Switzerland. It was founded on 24 January 1971 by German engineer and economist Klaus Schwab. The foundation, ...
's 'Global Leaders of Tomorrow'. Zadek's book, ''The Civil Corporation: the New Economy of Corporate Citizenship'' (2001/2007) received the Academy of Management's Best Book Social Issues Award in 2006 and has been called one of the most influential books on sustainability, by the Cambridge Programme for Sustainability Leadership.


Writings


Books

* Simon Zadek. 2015. ''Eco-China Inc.'' Routledge, London. * Simon Zadek. 2001/2007. ''The Civil Corporation: the New Economy of Corporate Citizenship'', Earthscan, London (2001, Second edition 2007) * Simon Zadek, Peter Raynard. 2006. ''Tomorrow’s History: Selected Writings of Simon Zadek: 1994-2003''. Earthscan, London (2006).
ch 1
* (With Niels Højensgård and Peter Raynard (editors), ''Perspectives on the New Economy of Corporate Citizenship'', The Copenhagen Centre, Copenhagen (2000) * (With Jutta Blauert (editors)) ''Mediating Sustainability from the Grassroots'', Kumarian, Hartford CT (1998) * (With Peter Pruzan and Richard Evans (editors)) ''Building Corporate Accountability: Emerging Practices in Social and Ethical Accounting and Auditing''. Earthscan, London (1997) * Thake, Stephen and Simon Zadek (1997) ''Practical People, Noble Causes: How to Support Community Social Entrepreneurs'', New Economics Foundation, London * ''An Economics of Utopia: the Democratisation of Scarcity''. Avebury, Aldershot (1992)


Selected articles and working papers

* Zadek, Simon (2017). Partnership alchemy: engagement, innovation and governance. In ''Perspectives on corporate citizenship'' edited by Jörg Andriof and Malcolm McIntosh. London: Routledge. *Zadek, Simon,
Maya Forstater Maya Forstater (born 3 July 1973) is a British business studies and international development researcher who is the claimant in '' Maya Forstater v Centre for Global Development''. The case established that gender critical views are protected as ...
and Kelly Yu (2012) The Political Economy of Responsible Business in China, ''Journal of Current Chinese Affairs'', July 2012 *Zadek, Simon (2011) Civil Society and Market Transformation, in Michael Edwards (ed.), ''The Oxford Handbook of Civil Society''. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, Oxford*Zadek, Simon (2011), “Beyond Climate Finance: From Accountability to Productivity in Addressing the Climate Challenge”, Climate Policy, Volume 11, Issue 3, June 2011: 1058-1068 *Zadek, Simon (2010) “Emerging Nations and Sustainability: Chimera or Leadership?”, Politeia, XXVI, 98, 2010. ISSN 1128-2401 pp. 153-167 (reproduced by Harvard University as Working Paper, 2010) *Forstater, Maya, Simon Zadek, Yang Guang, Kelly Yu, Chen Xiao Hong, Mark George (2010) Corporate Responsibility in African Development, Working Paper, Corporate Social Responsibility Initiative, Harvard Kennedy School, Cambridge, Mass. *Zadek, Simon (2008) Collaborative Governance: the New Multilateralism for the 21st Century, in ''Global Development 2.0'', Brookings Institution, Washington DC *Zadek, Simon and Alex MacGillivray (2008) “Responsible Competitiveness: Making Sustainability Count in Global Markets”, Harvard International Review, Summer 2008: 72-77 *Zadek, Simon (2006) “Corporate Responsibility and Competitiveness at the Macro Level”, Corporate Governance: Vol 6, No 4., 2006: 334-348 * Zadek, Simon and Sasha Radovich (2006) Governing Collaborative Governance: Enhancing Development Outcomes by Improving Partnership Governance and Accountability, Working Paper 23, Corporate Social Responsibility Initiative, Harvard Kennedy School, Cambridge, Mass. *Zadek, Simon (2006) The Logic of Collaborative Governance: Corporate Responsibility, Accountability, and the Social Contract, Working Paper 17, Corporate Social Responsibility Initiative, Harvard Kennedy School, Cambridge, Mass. *Zadek, Simon (2004
The path to Corporate Responsibility
''Harvard Business Review'', December 2004 ''The Guardian'
articles


References


External links


www.zadek.net
(dead link, 2018)
www.opendemocracy.net/author/simon-zadek www.guardian.co.uk/profile/simon-zadek
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Zadek, Simon Living people Writers from London British male writers Economics writers 1957 births