The Kenan-Flagler Business School hosted the conference, titled Redefining the Bottom Line, for Net Impact, a national association of master of business administration students that encourages social responsibility.
Events included speakers, workshops and networking opportunities centered on integrating social and environmental well-being into business strategies.
Event organizer Valerie Cook, a second-year MBA student, said the business school's Net Impact chapter competed with other business schools to host the conference. "In past years, it has been held at a couple Ivy League schools, which means there is stiff competition," Cook said. "We felt like because of our sustainable enterprise curriculum that we had a lot to offer students from other schools that might not have that curriculum."
During the conference's keynote address Friday, Jeffrey Swartz, president and CEO of The Timberland Company, shared his thoughts on how business leaders can enhance social accountability within their organizations.
"To the consumer, what you stand for is at least as important as what you do," he said. "We must do well, but we can also do good -- doing well and doing good are inextricably linked."
Swartz emphasized the importance of the conference. "The purpose of Net Impact is not to listen to any speaker but to create a sense of community among people of passion -- a belief that there is a new model through which great good can be done," he said.
Participants also examined the challenges the United States is facing after the terrorist attacks. In a panel discussion Friday, panelist Allen Hammond of the World Resources Institute discussed how the attacks have influenced domestic and international business tactics.
"If terrorists are the flint, what is the tinder?" he asked. "We have to respond to 9/11 militarily, but if we don't respond to the tinder, too, we're kidding ourselves."
"There's a world out there, and it matters; four billion people are not part of our economic system and desperately want in but lack the opportunity."
