Gordian Gaeta, chairman of Wealth and Society programme shared his wishes for building a better world.

The following is the edited transcript of the full interview:

Dear award winners, ladies and gentlemen, dear friends. I am Gordian Gaeta, chairman of the Advisory Council of Wealth and Society. I'm really very sorry that I can't come to China. But travel restrictions are a bit of a problem these days. So I will have to give you my message by video. In these times where everybody is stressed for different reasons, and everybody has issues and concerns about the future, it is a great pleasure and an honour to actually start a conference that is about Wealth and Society, or as we say, building a better world. We have an impressive array of speakers,a very impressive programme. And we have even more impressive award winners. And already now I congratulate all award winners, but I also congratulate all award candidates. Many have shown exceptional commitment and truly outstanding performance. But not everybody can win.

So Wealth and Society is about building a better world. The philosopher Herbert Spencer wrote in his book The data of ethics. He said, “General prosperity is principally advanced by individuals seeking to maximise their prosperity. However, individual prosperity depends on a commitment and a contribution to general prosperity.” This he wrote in 1879, that is 150 years ago. And it holds true today. And Wealth and Society, as the name says, is about individual prosperity and the role of society or prosperity of society. Over the last 20 years, we come to learn that if society or the community at large doesn't prosper, individuals can’t prosper. We have the financial crisis, a smaller thing. And we saw the impact. We have COVID, I would even call that a smaller thing. But when we look at climate change, a bigger thing, then we can see that individuals depend on the prosperity of the community, or in this case, our planet.

And we saw it at COP 26, where 200 government and business leaders got together and couldn't agree on the most basic commitments or efforts to combat climate change. So this is the most important aspects of our growing wealth and net worth. Individual net worth has reached biblical proportions. A very small proportion of the world's richest people control a huge amount of wealth, in trillions. Communities, on the other hand, suffer and communities are disadvantaged, inequality is rising. Now, where are we going with this development?

Well, initially, we started with having ESG (environment, society and government) criteria, where we said that if we keep certain criteria, then we’re making a contribution to communal benefits. The next stage is that we move from ESG criteria to the concept of impact. It is not only important to have a checklist of what we do or a checklist of administrative procedures, it is equally or even more important that what we do makes a difference. It is all about making a difference.

The second major trend is that because we have completely forgotten about the communal benefit, we have delegated that to governments, to multinationals, to institutions, it’s always somebody else. We're going to see a move from self-regulation to regulation. It wouldn't surprise me if the regulators demand of wealth managers, wealth advisors, financial consultants, that they are obligated of including ESG products in the portfolios, possibly mandating in minimum level. In fact, it will be intelligent to say that advisors are not allowed to advise on harmful investments. So, by ignoring that we are asking for more regulations, which will make our life a little bit more difficult. So, in the space of W&S, there will be changes and hopefully the community at large. In this case, the drivers are the wealthy individuals. They will come to realise that without a prosperous community, their wealth is endangered, their wealth cannot grow. And we should ask of all of them to make a contribution. Now, W&S hold conferences like the one today, we give awards, we provide intelligence, and we try and motivate the community to progress. We aim to contribute to bridging the gap.

Talking about awards, we have today two sets of awards. We have global awards and we have China awards. Let me make a few comments on the global awards. The global awards go towards individuals and organisations who have shown to make a significant contribution in the direction of communal benefit or general prosperity. We have individuals, which will receive a Leadership Award, who have set up programmes and initiatives, which have touched hundreds of thousands of lives and people for the better. We have institutions that have developed and issued programmes and products that benefit the community at large. We also have a number of initiatives in China. These tend to be on the business achievement side with an impact of becoming part of W&S in the sense that they start to develop in the direction of general benefits and communal support. A selection of these initiatives are already quite far down the road and this must be applauded. And our point about these awards is that anybody who does something over and above the call of duty should be applauded. It encourages people and it motivates people.

In today's meeting, you will hear from a number of very interesting people. And as I said, I regret very much that I won't be there. That will tell you where and how we all should and probably must contribute. In any event, I wish you a successful meeting, an interesting dialogue, some learning experiences for those who are interested in that. And to the award winners, I can only say well done, keep up the good work, and continue setting initiatives and building programmes that ultimately will benefit the individuals and your clients and the wealth, while at the same time conserving general prosperity. I congratulate all award winners, and I wish all participants a very good day and an excellent conference. Thank you very much.