The world is united in the challenges it faces, but the world is not always united in solving them. Yet, acting together across continents, communities, religions, and political systems is critical to shape a global recovery that promotes social well-being within planetary boundaries.  

As the world continues to confront the realities of the pandemic and the ongoing pressure it is placing on health, education, and economic systems around the world, the need to arrive at systemic solutions to the short and long-term challenges people are facing has been brought into even starker relief. These challenges – such as climate change, environmental degradation, poverty and hunger, insecure and unsustainable food systems, global health deficiencies, malfunctioning multilateral institutions, digital governance issues, or economic and financial instability are acute, pre-existing, interconnected and systemic in their root cause, but they are not inevitable. 

The need to recouple economic and social progress, within our planetary boundaries, underpins the increasingly urgent conversations taking place between policy makers, academics, business leaders and civil society representatives. It is only by supporting a common framework for policy and practical action that we can galvanize our collective efforts, across sectors, to achieve a more sustainable future.  

The core sessions at this year’s Global Solutions Summit will all address a number of fundamental questions:  

• What are the prerequisites that enable a society to function well that must be met when deciding upon and implementing measures to protect the environment? 
• What conversation is needed between governments and citizens to arrive at practicable solutions that are acceptable to people, and that will therefore be supported by the political dynamics at play? 
• How can new and existing solutions to interrelated societal, economic, and environmental challenges be scaled up to reach a tipping point towards a more wholesale systemic transformation?  
• How can we better identify and overcome the current barriers to the recoupling of economic and societal prosperity so that we make more progress, faster? 
• Who needs to do what within their respective fields (government, policy, academia, business) to redesign the current system so that it delivers better, more sustainable outcomes for people now and in the long term? 
• How does our approach to reporting, governance and incentives need to change to drive accountability across government and business action in pursuit of common environmental and societal objectives? 

Our vision for the future rests upon the underlying assumption that our economic, societal, and planetary systems are indivisible and need to be treated as such in pursuit of a common aim: ensuring the wellbeing of people. It is only by meeting the needs of people and their communities that it is possible to define and therefore achieve common goals that reflect the interests of humanity. We must understand, act upon, and overcome global challenges by adopting a human-centric approach to effect systemic change within planetary boundaries. This means that economic prosperity must not be pursued for its own sake, but rather serve the needs of society, starting with the needs of the neediest. Policymaking, business strategies and civil initiatives must not be conducted in silos or in isolation from one another. Instead, collective action must be driven by a common understanding of the challenges we face and the appropriate levels of coordination.