January 2023

New Years Revolutions 2023

It’s that time of year that our UBS Global Visionaries share their revolutions for the year ahead – from maintaining courage to achieve goals to motivating the world to take care of people and planet.

UBS are passionate about helping our clients make an impact on some of the world’s most pressing social and environmental challenges. We have gathered some of the best thought leaders to help guide you through the how with our Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) guides.

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Who doesn’t love a fresh new year and the sense of energy that comes with once again thinking everything is possible. Many would say that social entrepreneurs feel this more than most. So like last year, we asked some of our UBS Global Visionaries what their New Year’s revolutions will be for the year ahead!

2022 has seen several new UBS Global Visionaries join the program, bringing new missions and visions to solve some of the world’s biggest challenges. So, it’s not surprising that the diverse answers reflect the diversity of the cohort and the issues themselves, including milestone moments; “2023 is our pivotal year of action, to make primary health care more responsive to the unique needs of hard-to-reach populations in Africa”; going the distance, “We’re making the sustainability of our global learning programs a top priority”; to scaling up, “We have a role to play in all major climate conversations”.

Do these goals inspire you to do more? Check out our UBS Global Visionaries revolutions to boost your own ideas!

Photo of Christoph Gebald and Jan Wurzbacher

“2022 has been pivotal for Climeworks: CHF 600 million raised, ground-breaking of DAC+S “Mammoth”, our largest Direct Air Capture (DAC) plant, focus on high-quality Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR) materialized with the world’s first DAC+S 3rd party verified methodology with Carbfix and DNV, while growing to 300 Climeworkers.

2023 will see unprecedented momentum as a DAC technology leader, a scale-up company and major CDR actor. With the alignment of climate science, governmental programs and regulatory frameworks to build capacity towards the required goal of gigaton CO2 removal by 2050, the resources to rigorously execute on several projects, and a role to play in all major climate conversations. We will also demystify CDR to the wider public and new stakeholders, internationally. We are resolved to do so with passion and humility.

Let’s inspire 1 billion people to remove CO2 from the air. In 2023, more than ever before, this is an ambitious yet achievable resolution.”

Christoph Gebald & Jan Wurzbacher, Co-founders of Climeworks

Photo of Daniela Marino

“The coming year promises to be exciting as we start to receive results from the Phase 2 clinical trial of our lead product denovoSkin, the personalized skin graft for patients with severe skin injuries.
It means that we are one big step closer in our mission to give patients back more of their own healthy, natural skin to make them well again.

This year we opened our subsidiary in France, a R&D laboratory focused on innovations in tissue engineering, skin pigmentation, and automation, and look forward to continuing our groundbreaking research.

Our team is highly motivated to pursue the planned company milestones. Nonetheless, we need to remain focused on learning to walk before we run, and to maintain our courage in pushing our skills, know-how and technologies to the limits.“

Daniela Marino, CEO and Co-founder of CUTISS

Photo of Emily Bancroft

"For VillageReach, 2023 is our pivotal year of action, as make primary health care more responsive to the unique needs of hard-to-reach populations in Africa.
Why this year? Because we are working towards meeting an audacious goal: By 2026, we will ensure that feedback from the most under-reached communities drives change in how health products and services to at least 100M people.

We have set this goal because we know - deeply in our DNA - that if you design new health care delivery solutions around the hardest to reach communities and individuals, you will design a system that works better for everyone. And not only will it be better at ending preventable deaths today, it will be more resilient, more pandemic proof - more able to handle the shocks and changes that are inherent in our world today."

Emily Bancroft, President of Village Reach

Photo of Clare Brook

“Blue Marine’s priorities for 2023 are to stay positive and do everything in our power to protect life in the ocean. Hope springs from our projects all around the world where we witness first-hand the extraordinary beauty of nature and its power to bounce back, if only we give it space and stop annihilating it.

So we’re going to keep pressing for more marine protected areas; we’re going to expose the atrocities of overfishing and the way it’s not only ruining marine life, but taking food away from deserving mouths; we’re going to work with fishing communities on a ‘just transition’ away from harmful fishing to good stewardship of the sea; and we’re going to use all the tools at our disposal: legal, scientific, educational and economic to prove that a healthy ocean full of life is our best shield against future climate catastrophe.”

Clare Brook, CEO of Blue Marine

Photo of Susan Colby and Joe Wolf

“2023 will be an unprecedented growth year for us as we deliver foundational learning to hundreds of thousands of the most marginalized children across seven countries in Sub-Saharan Africa. We will continue to be laser-focused on increasing access, efficacy, and affordability of our child-directed, tech-enabled learning solutions.

Our 2023 “revolution” is to make the sustainability of these programs a top priority, working with governments and implementation partners to ensure innovative solutions to the global learning crisis can be fully owned and operated locally in perpetuity. We are committed to always putting the interests of children first and driving to sustainability.”

Susan Colby and Joe Wolf, Co-Founders, Imagine Worldwide

Photo of Katherine Holland and Dave Power

“Every child can learn - anywhere. In 2022, Perkins School for the Blind supported more than 750,000 children with disabilities, their teachers, and families.

In 2023, we want to reach more children- in Indonesia, Brazil, India, Bhutan, Croatia, Mexico, and beyond! We'll go where the kids are: schools, communities, orphanages, and refugee spaces. We'll coach teachers and parents with the special skills they need, for change that lasts.

Our new year's resolution has been the same since our founding almost 200 years ago: build a world where every child can learn and belong. Children with disabilities can’t wait, we know what works, and 2023 is the best time yet to make it happen!”

Katherine Holland and Dave Power 
Perkins School for the Blind