Pitt’s newly created Center for Sustainable Business will host a panel discussion on March 3 about “Corporate Purpose, (Social) Equity, and the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals.”

The center, which was created in the fall, is led by CB Bhattacharya, the chair in Sustainability and Ethics at Katz Graduate School of Business. 

The panel — from 12:30 to 2 p.m. in the University Club, Ballroom B — will discuss the role of business in driving social change in line with the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals framework. Panelists include: Shareen Hertel, associate professor of Political Science, University of Connecticut; Grant Ervin, chief resilience officer and sustainability manager, City of Pittsburgh; Aurora Sharrard, Pitt’s director of sustainability; and Bhattacharya. The event will be moderated by Michael Goodhart, director of the Global Studies Center at Pitt.

On March 2, Hertel, a Heinz Foundation visiting fellow, will give a lecture on how global supply chains link consumers, brands, manufacturers, workers and local community members as “stakeholders” with significantly different levels of risk and benefit. When harm occurs in the course of business activity, prevailing approaches to stakeholder consultation are typically driven by companies, without significant input from people at the grassroots level. This talk reveals where stakeholder consultation is taking place globally; how the process unfolds at the community level; and what types of innovation might be possible but are currently missed by “top-down” approaches to consultation.

The lecture is from 5 to 6 p.m. March 2 at 117 Mervis Hall.