United States

ELC Engages in UN General Assembly 2022

A Night Focused on Equity With the UN Foundation and Estée Lauder Global Changemaker Amanda Gorman

Company Feature

The Estée Lauder Companies (ELC) was honored to lead, convene, and participate in several events as part of the recent 77th session of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA)—the annual week when global leaders from United Nations (UN) member states gather in New York to debate the most important issues facing the world. ELC’s participation this year amplifies their continued efforts to inspire action beyond beauty, reinforcing the company’s commitment to collaborative solutions to critical global affairs, from sustainability to racial and gender equality.

Amanda Gorman and ELC team

As part of the week, ELC partnered with the UN Foundation to host The Power of Partnerships: Advancing Gender Equality and Impacts, an event driving conversation across multilateral leaders for the advancement of women across the globe. Leaders from ELC, government, and civil society, joined by Estée Lauder Global Changemaker and National Youth Poet Laureate Amanda Gorman, convened to highlight the partnerships building equality through inclusive system changes.

ELC President and CEO Fabrizio Freda and Executive Chairman William P. Lauder kicked off the conversation, emphasizing the company’s continued commitment to women’s advancement and gender equity. “Our company is proof of the power that all women hold to make the impossible, possible,” Freda said. “We want the success that our founder fought for to be accessible to everyone.”

Speaker

Elizabeth Cousens, President and CEO of the UN Foundation, highlighted the urgency of the issue: “During the last couple of years, we suffered a generational setback in gender equity. That’s partly the result of the pandemic and its fallout, but it is also because of the dynamic in many of our societies that have emboldened sexism, emboldened discrimination, and enabled and encouraged regression in countries all over the world.”

Amanda Gorman

Journalist and women’s advocate Cindi Leive sat down with Amanda Gorman to discuss the importance of engaging and encouraging the next generation of women at the helm of these challenges. “What I am hearing on the ground level is this sense of disillusionment with the world, a lot of frustration among a lot of people that we’re living in a world that not only needs to be changed but in a world that needs to be saved. It’s a huge sense of urgency,” said Gorman.

Sara Moss, Vice Chairman at ELC, expressed the need for ELC to have a stake in the conversation and facilitate solution-based partnerships surrounding gender equality.

ELC has recently made several commitments to women’s advancement and gender equity. The Estee Lauder Companies Charitable Foundation is the proud inaugural funder of Co-Impact’s Gender Fund, with a multiyear commitment of $15 million over five years that will contribute to the Fund’s goal of raising and deploying $1 billion. In May, the Estée Lauder brand launched the Estée Lauder Emerging Leaders Fund and announced a partnership with Vital Voices, while ELC partnered with Global Changemaker Amanda Gorman to create WRITING CHANGE, a three-year initiative to advance literacy as a pathway to equality and social change.

The Power of Partnerships event was just one of several UN General Assembly convenings that ELC participated in. Other highlights include:

  • ELC’s SVP of Corporate and Global Brand Packaging, Value Chain Technical Readiness, Daniel Ramos, spoke at a World Economic Forum event, convened by The Consumers Beyond Waste community, to address “Scaling Reuse: From Pilots to Metrics."
  • The Estée Lauder Companies Charitable Foundation and Co-Impact hosted a special event at ELC’s Corporate HQ, Corporate Philanthropy—Realities and Best Practices in Supporting Gender Equality and Women’s Leadership in the Global South. The morning event included a roundtable conversation, led by ELC SVP of Global Citizenship and Sustainability Nancy Mahon and ELC’s Vice Chairman Sara Moss, who discussed how the private sector and corporate foundations play a critical role in supporting gender equality and women’s leadership.
  • Moss also spoke at an event hosted by the Global Business Coalition for Education, called ESG: Unlocking Impact and Through Education—A New Approach to ESG. 
  • Clinique and Origins Global President Michelle Freyre presented at the UNGA 2022 Kick Off Reception, hosted by We Are All Human, Edelman, S&P Global, and Salesforce. 

Through continued collaborations like those activated through UNGA week, ELC is able to be a part of long-lasting, systemic change. “We’re honored to be activating and expanding partnerships with the UN Foundation and others to advocate for gender equality. It is partnerships like these that will enable us to realize the change we seek to create in the world,” said Moss.

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