- The Good Business Festival reveals first details of Act 1on 8thOctober2020, with Act 2 taking place in March 2021
- British Fashion Council, Greenpeace, Iceland Foods, Liverpool Football Club, Mastercard and Coca-Cola among its partners
- Ambassadors include Athian Akec, Member for Camden Youth Parliament, Ann Cairns, Executive Vice Chair of Mastercard, Holly Tucker, UK Ambassador for Creative Small Businesses and Lord Bilimoria, President of the CBI
The Good Business Festival today announces the first details of its Act 1, taking place on 8thOctober with partners, content and ambassadors unveiled for the first time.
The Good Business Festival is part of a global movement that believes in the power of business to affect positive change. The Covid-19 pandemic has placed a sharp focus on the role and responsibility of business in broader society, in the face of great societal and economic upheaval, and in response, The Good Business Festival is determined to show leadership and continuity during this global challenge.
In light of recent events, the festival will take place in two parts:
October will form Act 1 of the festival, focused on Covid-19 response and recovery, uniting giants in the fields of finance, tech, sport, and retail in their support of the festival. The initial list of partners announced today include: ARUP, B Lab UK, British Council, British Fashion Council, Centre for Cities, Coca-Cola, DCMS, Eden Project, Greenpeace, IBM, Iceland, International Fashion Academy Paris, Ipsos MORI, LFC, Mastercard, Met Office, Nesta, Royal College of Physicians.
The Good Business festival will use Act 1 to enable, support and galvanise its network and its audience to develop real, change-making initiatives and pledges in the aftermath of the crisis, and then leverage Act 2 in 2021 to bring everyone together to openly discuss those commitments. Acknowledging the need for real and tangible change out of the pandemic, The Liverpool City Region will be the backdrop for this “build back better” initiative, while simultaneously providing a blueprint for cities around the world to emulate.
This is an international festival curated by Culture Liverpool and Hemingway Design, on behalf of the Liverpool City Region and Metro Mayor Steve Rotheram. An event that captures the global zeitgeist as more and more people get switched on to the idea of conscious capitalism and purposeful business. With a clear aim to be honest and disruptive, to tackle difficult subject matter head on, and to provide a platform for people to talk openly about issues, frustrations and opportunities within good business, there is significant ambition to drive tangible change for the future.
While October will be a hybrid of live, digital and broadcast content, the objective for March, one year on from lockdown, will be to present the festival in its original vision: a mix of hard-hitting talks, workshops, knowledge sessions, fringe events and social experiences, hosting content you wouldn’t expect in places you haven’t been; by fully leveraging all that the Liverpool City Region has to offer, the festival will take place across workplaces and warehouses, temporary pop-ups to heritage sites – an imaginative mix of arts, culture and business.
Steve Rotheram, Metro Mayor of the Liverpool City Region said:
Liverpool Football Club CEO Peter Moore said:
Ann Cairns, the Executive Vice Chair of Mastercard, commented:
Sir Tim Smit KBE, Executive Vice Chair of The Eden Project, said: