UNLEASH — from idea to reality

My name is Kirstine Rasmussen and I am from Denmark living my life in Copenhagen where we will all meet soon. I am 26 years old and have a master’s degree in International Business and Politics. Since I graduated I have worked at the Carlsberg Foundation as Public Affairs Advisor to the Chairman, Flemming Besenbacher. Now some of you think “ey, the Carlsberg Foundation — it is part of the UNLEASH steering group”. Some of you might even know that Flemming is the founder and Chairman of UNLEASH.
So what does that mean to my role in UNLEASH? Well, in fact I have been part of the initiative since the idea of UNLEASH started growing around two years ago. It looked very different back then and ambitions where far smaller. But as we started fundraising and gradually realized the huge potential an initiative like UNLEASH could have, ambitions grew and now we are here! It has been an amazing — and admittedly hard — road to UNLEASH Lab 2017, but I am so proud and happy to have been part of UNLEASH from scratch. Since we established the non-profit organization behind UNLEASH and set up the secretariat to run it, I have officially worked in the secretariat next to my job at the Carlsberg Foundation. Lately, UNLEASH has taken almost all my time though, which I’m sure you can imagine why! I have met many inspiring people from companies, organizations, academia, foundations etc. during our search for support to UNLEASH. What I mostly take away from this process is that almost everyone has shared our desire to create a more sustainable world by fostering new innovative solutions to the SDGs and they have recognized how UNLEASH could be a valuable contribution to this mission. All though many where not able to support UNLEASH (this year at least…), they thus all showed great enthusiasm about it. We believed in the project and kept going and now it is a reality!
Now you know my background for being part of UNLEASH. But this is of course not what is important in the big picture. The important thing is that there now exists a new initiative to address the SDGs, which is truly innovative in the way it is based on the minds of global top talents and has an ecosystem of companies, NGOs, academia, foundations, etc. around it. I look much forward to meeting all of you — the core of UNLEASH — and I am honored to be part of the UNLEASH Lab 2017 talent group.
Finally, I would like to tell you a little about my passion for the SDGs and my experiences in this relation. Naturally, UNLEASH as a project in itself has been my biggest experience working on the SDGs so far, but in addition to this, I have co-authored a chapter on SDG 17 “Global Partnerships” in a Danish book about the SDGs from a Danish perspective. When I worked on that, it was the first time I really became familiar with the — at that point just adopted — SDGs. It was really something I enjoyed working on and learning about, as SDG 17 is my passion so to say. As I mentioned, I have studied International Business and Politics and from the beginning my interest has been in the nexus between the two fields and how they interlink. Private foundations are placed somewhere in this intersection and to the degree possible I focused on the role of private foundations in society during my masters and wrote my thesis on the subject. With specific regards to the SDGs, I believe foundations can be an important driver and platform for innovative and strong partnerships, which can tackle the global challenges. They have the financial resources, experience and insights, and compared to many other societal players they are “natural” by not being considerable linked to politics etc. Partnerships involving all sectors of society are desperately needed to create solutions to the SDGs that have the needed scale and backing to succeed. As SDG 17 is the goal that binds all the SDGs, we did not make it a separate track, but I will absolutely emphasize it in my work during the UNLEASH Lab 2017 for the above reasons and because this is where I have insight and experience. Instead I have been assigned to the sustainable consumption and production track. I have lately worked on the topic of circular economy because our Chairman have headed an Advisory Board for Circular Economy established by the government to make Denmark more circular and to achieve the great business opportunities that lies in transforming production and consumption from linear to circular. Besides that, my family has run a furniture factory since 1933, which also gives me some use insight into this track in addition to my academic studies.
That was all for now. Look so much forwarded to seeing you all on the 13th of August to do some serious work on the SDGs!

