For the first time, the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR) is partnering with a private company – leading food and beverages giant Danone – to build a core set of knowledge that will help promote conservation, restoration and safeguard the planet.

 

Through UN CC:Learn, UNITAR and Danone will develop a learning program on climate change for Danone employees. This core set will be integrated in a larger internal learning platform with extensive resources related to Danone’s vision and goals. “Overall, this partnership nourishes the global ambition of the company to empower its teams so that they can drive sustainable change” said Danone in a statement. 

 

With products sold in over 120 markets, French-headquartered Danone generated sales of €24.7 billion in 2017, meaning that encouragement via the new partnership of Danone employees to take concrete action could potentially have a hugely positive sustainability impact for the food and beverage sector. 

 

Initial deliverables 

 

Initial deliverables in the multi-year partnership include the launch of a unique ‘One Planet. One Health’ learning platform for Danone employees using UNITAR e-learning resources from www.unccelearn.org.

 

Another deliverable will be the creation of specific features for Danone employees – namely, introductory courses on climate change and the green economy.

 

The partnership will co-build an e-learning module tailored to fit Danone's ‘One Planet. One Health’ vision 

 

Concurrently, the tie-up will embark on live training experiences delivered by UNITAR to Danone teams.

 

As part of the tie-up, Danone will also join the UN CC:Learn Steering Committee in 2019.

 

Promoting global climate literacy

 

“I am truly delighted to be able to launch this initiative,” said Angus Mackay, Head of the UN CC:Learn Secretariat. “The One UN Climate Change Learning Partnership (UN CC:Learn) is a growing initiative that seeks to promote global climate literacy for all. The corporate world has a huge and important role to play in achieving this outcome.” 

 

Earlier this year, Danone introduced nine goals, aligned with the United Nations 2030 Sustainable Development agenda, to drive long-term sustainable value creation and deliver its ‘One Planet. One Health’ vision. As a founding act for its goals, Danone launched ‘One Person, One Voice, One Share’ – a governance and employee engagement model to empower employees to co-own the company agenda, and actively participate in bringing these goals to life. 

 

“We want to empower our teams to co-create and co-own our collective future,” said Bertrand Austruy, Executive Vice President, Human Resources and General Secretary of Danone. “Danone leans on its strong heritage and every day, people at Danone demonstrate a strong engagement to bring our mission and our vision to life. We firmly believe that offering easily accessible learning opportunities on environmental and community-related issues is a great way to help them leverage concrete action to transform the company, at their scale. Today, we are very proud to join forces with UNITAR, as well as other like-minded partners, to achieve this ambition.”