On September 5th, 1,300 people gathered at the Palais Brongniart, in the heart of Paris, to celebrate the 15th edition of the 3ZERO World Forum. Supported by 204 speakers, almost 50 conferences and events were held, providing citizens and organizations alike – with the means and tools to act on the urgent issues of social justice and the ecological transition, and reflecting one of Alliance2015’s impact goals to strengthen local-to-global collaboration across sectors.
The Mayor of Paris as guest of honour for the launch
Anne Hidalgo, Mayor of Paris, spoke at the Opening ceremony, reiterating the City of Paris’ support to the event, which gathers a wide variety of stakeholders every year. Frédéric Roussel, Acted’s co-founder, and Fanny Roussey, Convergences’ Executive director, launched the Forum accompanied by longstanding international partners.
High-level panels reflecting around a Zero Exclusion, Zero Carbon, Zero Poverty world
On the occasion of the Forum, Convergences, Acted’s sister organisation and organiser of the Forum, launched its annual Impact Finance Barometer, a publication presenting key figures and global trends in financial inclusion and impact investing. Aurélien Daunay, Acted’s Vice CEO, introduced the panel of experts present at the launch, and discussed the increasing needs for projects with a green and inclusive agenda, and how we can join forces and foster partnerships to better reach them financially, with representatives of helios.do, BNP Paribas, KPMG, and the European Investment Bank.
Figure 1 Launch of the Impact Finance Barometer – 📸: Mary Lou Mauricio and Raphael de Bengy
The Forum offered a reflection around inclusion, and how it can be strengthened both through projects and within organisations. Session “Leave no one behind”, which featured UNESCO, OECD, and Orange representatives, tackled gender inequality in different contexts including work, and put forward examples of solutions already set up within organisations to encourage the inclusion of all genders.
“When we give more power and autonomy to women, the society as a whole benefits from it, everyone is happier and ultimately, the society as a whole rises” Mariagrazia Squicciarini, UNESCO representative.
Associations, start-ups in the social economy, activists… words of those who are making a difference
During the “pitch session”, NGOs, associations, or startups were given the floor to push initiatives and projects that drive them. In the middle of the nave of the Palais Brongniart, speakers such as Emilie Poisson, IMPACT Initiatives’ Executive Director, Clément Debosque, co-founder of Ma Petite Planète, and Félix Beaulieu, co-founder of Impact in Context, showed how they worked concretely for a 3ZERO World.
Zero Carbon-related talks were also on the agenda. During session “Facing the collapse of the living”, speakers addressed the critical loss of biodiversity. As part of this talk, Véronique Andrieux, WWF Executive Director, stressed the importance of scientific education, and mentioned instruments created at different level, and which aim at giving clear and quantifiable metric targets for companies to work on preserving land ecosystems.
“Since the arrival of man on Earth, 47% of forests have disappeared. 69% of wild vertebrates have disappeared since 1970. There is a major acceleration in the collapse of living species. 96% of mammals on Earth are humans and cattle” Maxime Thuillez, Greenletter club
Other conferences led discussed fair and green urban development, the importance of territorial anchoring, corporate CSR, cooperative models, and more.
While these talks were held, 27 stands were set up for participants to present their practical solutions for building a 3ZERO world – Zero Exclusion, Zero Carbon, Zero Poverty. As such, the Forum was the starting point for fruitful exchanges and collaborations.
Figure 2 The nave of the building, where 27 stands were set up to enable networking towards a 3ZERO world 📸: Mary Lou Mauricio and Raphael de Bengy
