Frans van Houten led Royal Philips from April 2011 to October 2022, transforming the business into leading health technology company. Current responsibilities: Advisor to Philips; Member of the Supervisory Board of Novartis; steering committee member of the European Round Table for Industry; Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Erasmus Trust Foundation; Co-chair Platform to Accelerate the Circular Economy; Co-founder of NL2025 social acceleration platform; Co-founder of the Graduate Entrepreneur Venture Fund.
The severe global shortage of chips threatens to disrupt the manufacturing of life-saving medical devices and systems. If we fail to take immediate action to address this shortage, it wil...
Our current rate of consumption is unsustainable. The production and consumption of goods is a root cause of two of the greatest challenges the world faces: climate change and biodiversit...
Our planet is now warming at a rate unprecedented in at least the past 2,000 years, according to the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report by over 200 leading clima...
Approximately $57 billion of global electronic waste is generated every year. Additionally, food loss and waste accounts for $950 billion in lost value – a number equivalent to the Nether...
COVID-19 has created a human tragedy on a huge scale, with deep consequences for the global economy that will lead to an extended recession and long-term hardship.
As policy-makers worldwide respond to a rising tide of climate activism and extreme weather events, the concept of the circular economy has become a key lever in the climate action tool k...
As we enter a new decade, stakeholder models of capitalism are gaining more attention than ever. By following a path long-pursued by European companies, the Business Roundtable decision t...
It is time for a radical rethink about our relationship with natural resources.
The day after I was born, my grandfather wrote me a letter welcoming me as a new citizen of the world. “You will need courage and optimism,” he wrote, “to tackle the many challenges that ...
Our health underpins our happiness and is a foundation of economic advancement. But the challenges of promoting healthier lifestyles and providing access to adequate healthcare is enormou...
In 2011, the global population stood at under seven billion. The world was slowly recovering from the financial crisis of a couple of years before and, while the Arab Spring was in full f...
We all recognize that digital technologies are firmly embedded in our lives – the Internet of Things is becoming a reality, growing from 15 billion smart devices in 2015 to at least 50 bi...
