{"id":12228,"date":"2023-04-25T11:53:43","date_gmt":"2023-04-25T11:53:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/symposium.org\/?p=12228"},"modified":"2024-04-11T14:06:49","modified_gmt":"2024-04-11T14:06:49","slug":"ngc-principles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/symposium.org\/ngc-principles\/","title":{"rendered":"Emerging Principles of a New Generational Contract"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

How do we enable intergenerational leadership for long-term, regenerative strategies? Having asked this and similar questions through global surveys, student essays and cross-generational dialogues, our initiative and global community build on seven emerging principles for a New Generational Contract \u2013 developed in close partnership with the<\/span> University of St. Gallen Collegium<\/a><\/span>.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the <\/a>76th United Nations General Assembly<\/a> session in 2021, UN Secretary-General Ant\u00f3nio Guterres warned governments and businesses of a growing intergenerational divide<\/strong>. Young people, he said, will \u201cinherit the consequences \u2013 good and bad\u201d of decisions made by today\u2019s leaders in politics and business.  The UN\u2019s Secretary-General is right that the need to consider the impact of our current decisions on the world left to today\u2019s youth is greater than ever. Multiple ecological crises, intensifying resource scarcities and rising inequities demonstrate that current systems are unsustainable. A lack of future-oriented decision-making will affect current, and particularly future generations: the more than 10 billion people projected to be alive by the end of the century<\/a>, compared to around 8 billion alive today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Addressing this challenge, the generational contract captures an aspirational idea<\/strong>: that young and old depend on each other and are bound by mutual <\/strong>relationships and <\/strong>responsibilities<\/strong>. It also reminds us of the importance of being good ancestors and of meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today, living up to this idea through our actions is more relevant \u2013 but also more challenging \u2013 than ever: We need to simultaneously face immediate crises and pursue long-term transformations<\/strong>. So far, we have rarely been able to bring both perspectives together. For too long, a focus on immediate challenges has trumped our concern for longer-term developments. This reinforces a vicious cycle, where short-sighted responses lay the seeds for subsequent crises and urgent structural change is continuously postponed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Leveraging Intergenerational Leadership for Long-Term, Sustainable Strategies<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

While intergenerational relations play out differently across the world\u2019s regions and cultures, there is a growing desire \u2013 and need \u2013 to reaffirm and renew the ties that bind us across generations. Ultimately, this can act as a crucial lever in advancing more long-term thinking and systems transformation<\/strong>: by leveraging the unique perspectives of younger and older generations in new models of intergenerational leadership<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Therefore, the St. Gallen Symposium and the Club of Rome, in patnership with InTent<\/a>, have launched a joint initiative: A New Generational Contract. By convening diverse partners, we leverage intergenerational leadership and learning to accelerate the shift towards more long-term, regenerative strategies in business and policy-making<\/strong>. In this way, our initiative contributes to a growing global recognition of the need for change. This includes the UN Secretary General\u2019s \u201cOur Common Agenda<\/a>\u201d, which foresees the creation of a UN Envoy for Future Generations and a Summit for the Future<\/a> to be held in September 2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Principles for Change<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In doing so, we are guided by key principles which can serve as values and vision for reaffirming and renewing generational relationality on the levels of individuals, organisations, and communities. They primarily propose the hallmarks of positive collaboration across generations: how the idea of an intergenerational commitment to mutual and future-related responsibilities can be practised.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These principles build on thousands of voices having shared their aspirations with us throughout the past two years, through global surveys<\/a>, student essays<\/a>, and research <\/a>on intergenerational fairness, as well as a stream of global dialogues around frictions and common ground between generations, hosted together with the University of St. Gallen<\/a> and the St. Gallen Collegium<\/a>, as well as other partners, such as InTent<\/a>, the 5th Element<\/a>, the Learning Planet Alliance<\/a>, the UN SDG Lab<\/a> and the BCG Henderson Institute<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The New Generational Contract is also an invitation to define and pursue tangible actions on the level of organisations, communities, and societies through a process inspired by these principles. This is what our ongoing work, through dialogue and at as well as beyond the 52nd<\/sup> and 53rd St. Gallen Symposia, aspires to do: translating these principles<\/strong> into actionable impact projects<\/strong><\/a> for greater intergenerational leadership across the business and policy spheres, to enable more long-term, regenerative approaches.<\/p>\n\n\n\n