The Global Social Business Summit kicked off on Monday, November 7, in Turin. For two days in the Centrale della Nuvola Lavazza, Muhammad Yunus, Nobel Peace Prize winner in 2006 and ‘father’ of microcredit, brought together the global social business community for the annual event he founded in 2009, which this year came to Italy for the first time. In front of an audience of around 500 people from 45 countries around the world – including over 300 social entrepreneurs as well as exponents of global politics and economics, managers and scholars, representing about fifty international organisations – this Summit edition laid the foundations of a culture of peace through business to develop a three-zero economy: zero unemployment, zero poverty and zero CO2 emissions.

The day before the Summit started, Muhammad Yunus visited the Sermig Arsenal of Peace, welcomed by its founder Ernesto Olivero. The day at Sermig ended with the appointment “Cultivating a culture of peace with social business” a meeting with Turin’s young people, the 3 Club Zero and the Young Challengers. We talked about it here.

The opening ceremony on November 7 marked the official begin of the 2022 Summit. After the institutional greetings, it was Muhammad Yunus himself, together with Lamiya Morshed, executive director of the Yunus Centre, and Hans Reitz, CEO of The Grameen Creative Lab, who opened the proceedings, articulated through a series of thematic panels. The opening greetings also included a speech by Guido Bolatto, Secretary General of the Turin Chamber of Commerce, a long-standing promoter of TSI.

The first day’s meetings focused on topics such as energy, food, new financing instruments with social impact, technology, sport, and a focus on the coffee market in view of Agenda 2030, to continue the next day with further discussions on microfinance, social entrepreneurship, green mobility, public health, and circular economy. To access the full programme, and watch panel recordings, click here.

Many TSI’s partners attended the Summit: among them, Links Foundation and PerMicro brought their testimonies to the stage.

Also on November 7, the establishment of a Social Business Research Centre at the University of Turin was announced at the Yunus Social Business Academia Forum. For more details, read the news.

Those were all valuable opportunities to share ideas and results, create connections and learn good practices from the protagonists of local and global social business ecosystems, but also to spread public awareness on these issues, stimulating debate on the need to tackle inequalities in our society and promote the common good.

The Global Social Business Summit – which so far has been hosted in various countries around the world, from Mexico to Austria, from Malaysia to France, from Germany to Kenya – is promoted by The Grameen Creative Lab and the Yunus Centre, with the organisational support of the Italian tech media company TMP Group spa, which proposed Turin as the location. A choice that rewards an internationally recognised model in the social business sector also thanks to the work carried out in the area by Torino Social Impact, partner of the event together with the Turin Chamber of Commerce, City of Turin, Compagnia di San Paolo Foundation, Sermig, Tourism Turin and Province, University of Turin, Talent Garden and other Italian and international players such as Quid, Neoma Business School x KPMG, H-Farm, Circ, Az.imut. To these are added, in the role of sponsor, the Lavazza Group, which played a leading role in the event as well as hosting it, and the initiative’s historical partners: BNP Paribas, present with a large delegation also involving the Italian structure of its subsidiary BNL, and the organisations of the network created by Professor Yunus Friends of Social Business, Yunus Sports Hub, Yunus Environment Hub, YY Ventures.