About the Roundtable
The Foundation’s major global meeting for the year was held in the heart of the Amazon Rainforest in Carajás, Brazil, from 13-15 August 2025. The Carajás Roundtable is the centrepiece of our Global Project, ‘Shaping Global Governance, Climate and Nature,’ in 2025 and builds on the momentum established at its launch in Rome 2024, where ‘business with purpose’ was recognised as a critical pillar in shaping and achieving global climate and nature goals. The Carajás Roundtable represents the next step in realising that vision – a platform for focused dialogue, action and long-term collaboration, intersecting with and contributing to Brazil’s hosting of COP30 later this year in Pará state, and the country’s role in advancing the energy transition.
The Roundtable was convened in partnership with and kindly hosted by our Global Project Partner, Vale, whose CEO, Mr Gustavo Pimenta, personally led the meeting. Brazilian non-profit, CEBRI (Centro Brasileiro de Relações Internacionais), also lent its support. Participants included senior Brazilian and global leaders from business, institutions and civil society.
The Global Foundation Leadership was represented by Ms Sharan Burrow AC and Mr Steve Howard.
Ms Sharan Burrow AC
Co-Chair, the Global Project, the Global Foundation
Mr Steve Howard
Secretary General, the Global Foundation
At a time when global systems are becoming increasingly fragmented and multilateral cooperation is under strain, the role of business in supporting and reinforcing international frameworks is more critical than ever. Businesses possess unique capabilities to operate across borders, scale innovation, and act decisively where policy alignment may be slow to emerge.
Hosted at Vale’s operations in the heart of the Amazon, the Roundtable offered a powerful setting to explore how partnerships between business, government, and institutions can accelerate solutions and drive systems-level transformation. The Roundtable, included visits to the Vale Amazonia BioPark, Vale’s iron-ore mine, along with other significant areas within the Carajás complex. The Carajás complex is a successful example of a public-private partnership based on a sustainable mining model, with a focus on protecting the forest.
Across industries – from infrastructure and energy to manufacturing and resource development – companies are driving significant progress through innovation, investment, and cultural transformation. Business leadership is essential to the transition. The Carajás Roundtable not only highlighted this leadership; it also provided a platform to clarify and strengthen the role of business in the broader architecture of global solutions.
The Carajás Roundtable offered a powerful setting to explore how partnerships between business, government, institution, and civil society are working in practice to preserve nature and facilitate the global energy transition, immediately prior to Brazil’s hosting of the United Nations Climate Conference, COP30, in November 2025.
The Carajás Roundtable:
- contributed in very specific ways to Brazil’s COP30 discussions to be held in November 2025.
- enabled Brazil’s public and private sector efforts with COP30 and with ongoing climate and nature positive initiatives to be better appreciated globally.
- provided further impetus to the proving-up Brazil’s Tropical Forests Forever Facility in the global market-place.
- helped build practical and useful bridges between Brazil’s COP30 and COP31 in 2026, which is anticipated will be hosted by either Australia/Pacific or Turkey.
- launched partnerships with the Global Foundation to help further globalise Brazilian peak business organisations and think tanks.
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