The European SPES served as collaborative partner of the Indian Institute of Management Shillong in organizing the 9th SUSCON International Conference on Sustainability in November 3–5, 2022 in Shillong, India. The theme of the conference was “Collaboration, Compassion and Co-Creation”.
Challenging the dominantly prevailing competitive model of mainstream management a more collaborative approach and strategy is urgently needed to address the concerns around the sustainability issues of today’s business worldwide. Such organizations will seek to build long-term, mutually beneficial relationships with all stakeholders for creating sustainable values for their global business ecosystem inspired by a holistic and shared vision.
Building collaborative enterprises cannot be possible merely by addressing the critical issues at an academic level. Touching and transforming the lives of others, especially the underprivileged at the bottom of the pyramid, will need momentum, inspiration, and commitment from the deepest level of our noble emotions. Thus, intellectual concerns need to be enlivened with care and compassion for others to produce any desirable outcome and tangible impact on the lives of humankind.
Finally, for bringing about real and meaningful transformation in modern business organizations, mainstream academic institutions and all other stakeholder communities, the need is to design and implement creative interventions in a collaborative spirit with compassion as the inspirational power from the core of our heart. Intense engagement in such co-creative interventions driven by technological innovations and guided by the spirit of social entrepreneurship will not only help transform our society, organizations and the planet at large but also question and change the way we think and live, the way we see ourselves and look at the world from the depth of our inner space and vision.
On behalf of European SPES, Ove Jakobsen and Laszlo Zsolnai were lecturing in the conference. Jakobsen’s lecture was entitled “Ecological Economics —A Realistic Utopia?” while Zsolnai’s lecture was entitled “The Ethos of Sustainable Value Creation”.