Resilient Dynamism: Accenture’s Participation at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting 2013 in Davos, Switzerland

Accenture undertook extensive research to understand how companies can achieve high business growth in a slow-growth economy. The answer lies in recognizing how consumer behavior change is generating significant growth in a wide range of industries. Armed with that knowledge, business leaders can create the toolset, mindset and organizational structure that companies need to succeed in meeting expectations—including their own—for rapid growth.

An extension of the report Accenture provided last year to the World Economic Forum Sustainable Consumption Initiative entitled, More with less: scaling consumption and resource efficiency, this year’s research explores the key question, “How can companies engage consumers to trigger simple behavioral shifts that enable more sustainable lifestyles, grow demand for more sustainable products and create business value?” The report outlines how sustainability needs a makeover, that millennials present the greatest opportunity for engagement and how companies can employ six key strategies to enable more sustainable lifestyles.

In 2012, a team from Accenture Management Consulting's Operations worked with the World Economic Forum to explore key actions for developing dynamic supply chains by building agile, transparent and diversified systems. The resulting report ‘Building Supply Chain Resilience’ offers a blueprint for resilience through actions involving public and private partnerships, policy, strategy and IT and calls for a shift from predicting disruptions to being better prepared to minimize the impact of a disruption.

In collaboration with the World Economic Forum’s Green Growth Action Alliance Initiative, Accenture is working to identify and incubate financial models that will increase private investment in low-carbon infrastructure. As a knowledge partner for the Forum, Accenture has participated in shaping the Alliance from its inception and is supporting its practical work to deliver green investment. Following last year’s report, Financing green growth in a resource-constrained world, this year’s ground breaking Green Investment Report: The ways and means to unlock private finance for green growth aims to inform and inspire policy-makers and public and private finance providers to close the gap in delivering inclusive, sustainable growth.

The World Economic Forum in collaboration with Accenture and a panel of experts have released a new report called “The Global Energy Architecture Performance Index (EAPI) Report 2013”. The EAPI benchmarks and ranks 105 countries globally on how their energy system delivers against the imperatives of the energy triangle: promoting economic growth and development, while being environmentally sustainable and providing energy security and access.