David Miliband Quotes

Understanding how your business affects human rights and using that knowledge to shape appropriate policies and practices is crucial to achieving what should be the goal of all corporations - sustainable growth.

We cannot choose between [economic] growth and sustainability - we must have both

[Professional accountants ] should be encouraging companies to enhance their green credentials by switching to renewables, and to respect core labor standards and human rights.

Corporate responsibility extends not only to the customers, the resources and the workers of the present, but also to those of the future.

The role of business is to provide products and services that make people's lives better - while using fewer resources - and to act lawfully and with integrity.

Our society does not give nearly enough credit to business leaders who create jobs, behave ethically and provide products and services that enhance our lives.

In abandoning the understanding that things - services, goods, wars, and houses - have costs, we risk becoming infantilised, incapable of making decisions about government or finance, and perhaps above all about the environment, the wellbeing of the planet upon which we depend and which our children will inherit from us.

Sustainability includes how you run your business, and my bottom line includes how you treat your people. Sustainability starts with your staff.

Look at your business and the activities that you undertake. Then, start to think about not just your economic concerns, but about social and environmental impacts that businesses have.

We cannot have profits at the expense of our children.

I have never believed we had to choose between either a clean and safe environment or a growing economy. Protecting the health and safety of all Americans doesn’t have to come at the expense of our economy’s bottom line. And creating thriving companies and new jobs doesn’t have to come at the expense of the air we breathe, the water we drink, the food we eat, or the natural landscape in which we live. We can, and indeed must, have both.

The concept of corporate social responsibility (CSR) has long been used as an effective lens through which to examine the actions business can take toward ensuring mutual long-term well-being and sustainability.

We cannot sustain long-term growth in our economies if we do not protect and preserve our environment.

We have the enormous opportunity in our hands to make a positive difference for business, people, and the planet.

GDP tells you nothing about sustainability

I never wanted to be a businessman; I was a craftsman and good at working with my hands. At some point, I decided that this company is my best resource. Patagonia now exists to put into practice all the things that smart people are saying we have to do not only to save the planet but to save the economy.

There is no business on a dead planet

If the Chinese business community takes the Declaration of Human Rights, core labor standards, and environmental standards seriously, the government of China will take them far more seriously, too.

The message from Wal-Mart today to the rest of the business community is there need not be any conflict between the environment and the economy. We will find the way not only to reconcile (those), but to find new profits and new opportunities as we do the right thing.

If we are going to carry on growing, and we will, because no country is going to forfeit its right to economic growth, we have to find a way of doing it sustainably.

We can't impede progress in the name of environmental action that yields little for the environment and even less for our people.. and we should look at the environment as an economic opportunity.

We do not have to choose between a healthy environment and a healthy economy.

Today, the UK must be the pioneer of a new model of economic change, that integrates social and environmental consideration. This is not just a question of values and moral duty. It is about our economy's capacity to sustain itself

We have an obligation to live in harmony with creation, with our capital... with God's creation. And we need to administer and work that very carefully.

I believe we should reframe our response to climate change as an imperative for growth rather than merely being a way of being green or meeting environmental commitments.