On September 2, 2021, Yury Blagov, Director of the PwC Center for CSR at GSOM SPbU took part in the VI St. Petersburg Conference "Corporate Volunteering". The conference, which was held in a hybrid format, was attended by over 200 representatives of domestic and international companies, NGOs and social enterprises located in the North-West Federal District, heads of relevant government institutions, journalists, experts in the field of CSR and sustainable development.

Yury Blagov presented a keynote speech on the Role of Corporate Volunteering in Achieving the UN SDGs. In his speech, he noted that if in 2015, when the UN General Assembly adopted the Sustainable Development Goals, their relationship with volunteering was mainly interpreted as new opportunities to demonstrate a sense of solidarity, now the key aspect of this relationship is the responsibility entrusted to all inhabitants of our Planet. Moreover, it is corporate volunteering based on the development of partnerships of different levels, that can play the role of a locomotive helping to effectively overcome the so-called “big disconnect” between the development of corporate social responsibility and the continuing deepening of the entire range of global problems.