Friends consider the purpose of business
The Quaker and Business Group's eleventh annual conference took place on 4 November
More than ninety Friends met on 4 November for the Quakers and Business Group’s eleventh annual conference.
Quakers and Business Group (Q&B) elder Tim Phillips opened the conference with the quotes ‘The business of business is peace’ and ‘Power is accountable to those whom it affects’. He highlighted that while Q&B focuses on the practicality, not the theory and theology, of business, Quakers recognise that these lie at the root of their practice. Speakers included sustainable business expert Giles Hutchins, who spoke of the future of business in a time of transformation.
Professor Colin Mayer of the University of Oxford’s Saïd Business School gave a brief history of corporations and models for the future. He concluded that companies need to rebuild trust and combine economic efficiency with ethics.
The conference also featured an open session where Friends considered issues such as who decides public interest, the government’s investment in an old-fashioned approach to business and how to educate the leaders of the future.
Seventeen students from Quaker schools attended the event.
