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Symposium Spotlight: The Session Overview and the Keynote Speaker

Published onFeb 22, 2022
Symposium Spotlight: The Session Overview and the Keynote Speaker
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As the country slowly addresses and learns to control the prevalence and spread of COVID-19, conversations that were put on hold during the pandemic re-emerge with vigor and debate, including sustainability. Our student organization, the Journal of Business and Intellectual Property Law (JBIPL), seeks to narrow and focus the issue of sustainability into SME (small and medium enterprise) sustainability as the dominant theme of our 2022 Spring Symposium.

Within this broad and overarching topic, we intend to identify and discuss three subtopics in the form of three interactive panels: (1) SME Sustainability Governance: Private & Public; (2) The Role of Intellectual Property in Sustainable SME Innovation; and (3) SME Sustainability Regulation and Incentivization. The symposium will encompass frank and insightful discussion of each sub-topic and will emphasize the role and prevalence of SME Sustainability at large.

To many, public and governmental pressure play a major role in the push for companies to develop more environmentally-friendly business practices. Additionally, popular debate often involves issues about corporate responsibility and sustainability in the context of large corporations, forgetting the importance and impact of business sustainability on the numerous SME business owners present in the United States. The spring symposium hopes to spark dialogue to address facts and myths associated with this unexplored legal literature.

At the center of SME sustainability is corporate responsibility and the movement to reframe business objectives and missions into principles that aim to “conciliat[e] the lucrative objective with social and environmental goals.” This movement is rooted in Europe and is redefining the relationship businesses have with the public; businesses are taking societal values into consideration when implementing policies and choosing courses of action. It seeks to incorporate the vision of social and environmental commitment through business innovation that expands beyond mere compliance with laws. This model promotes corporate executive behavior that goes beyond ethical and legal considerations and seeks to implement a business structure that enables sustainable investment and growth. Our speakers will debate the motivation behind adopting an altruistic, public-centered approach to business through societal interest and growth, in addition to incentives and regulations.

Experts and Wake Forest faculty members with robust backgrounds in business and sustainability will contribute diverse perspectives regarding SME sustainability expansion into the United States, and the future of corporate responsibility/ESG within SMEs. Our partnership with the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences expands the audience, the conversation, and the pool of faculty speakers that grapple with this largely unexplored topic. Professors Alan Palmiter, Stan Meiburg, Keith Robinson, and Simone Rose each provide various takes and avenues on the reality of SME Sustainability, concerns for its future in the United States, and beneficial ideas to probe in the JBIPL 2022 symposium. Many of such professors will either speak or moderate panels to effectively integrate their experience, their scholarly work, and their expertise into the substance of the sub-panels, while also directing conversation among speakers to relevant and pressing dialogue. We will take perspectives, not only from lawyers and legal professionals but also business and sustainability experts who bring different layers and overlooked channels of thought to this multidisciplinary theme. In this respect, students, faculty, and scholars can engage in a holistic discussion of what SME sustainability is, and how it is and will be implemented in practice.

SME sustainability is an area of law, business, and environmental analysis that has little contribution from scholars and scholastic works. It is an untapped field that we identified as an emerging and prevalent topic that needs to be researched, scrutinized, and debated among students and professionals alike.

Keynote Speaker

Francisco Reyes

●      Consultant to the World Bank

●      Lawyer from the Universidad Javeriana in Bogotá, a Master’s in Comparative Law from the University of Miami, and a Ph.D. in Law from the University of Tilburg

●      Former Superintendent of Companies of Colombia and President of the United Nations Commission for International Trade Law (UNCITRAL)

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