Nobel Prize Winners Praise Ethical Business

OSLO, Norway--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Three Nobel Laureates will for the first time select business leaders who stand out as examples for others within the business community by his or her ethical business activities.

The Award Giving Committee consisting of Professor Muhammad Yunus (Nobel Peace Prize Laureate 2006), Dr. Wangari Muta Maathai (Nobel Peace Prize Laureate 2004) and Professor A. Michael Spence (Nobel Prize Laureate in Economic Sciences 2001), has selected 7 Nominees for The Oslo Award 2009.

The prize will be awarded to one of the nominees for the first time on May 14th in the City Hall of Oslo. The Oslo Award will be awarded annually to the business leader whose actions and commitments are making an outstanding contribution to the promotion of ethical behaviour and peace.

“It is important to inspire and encourage business persons to be conscious of the role they can play as individuals to foster stability and peace. This is an element that should be incorporated as a matter of course into Corporate Social Responsibility,” says Nobel Laureate HE Kofi A Annan, who is a key supporter of The Oslo Award.

The winner of The Oslo Award 2009 will be presented at the Award Ceremony on May 14th, in the same hall and surroundings as the Nobel Peace Prize, in the City Hall of Oslo, as the high event of the annual Oslo Summit on Peace through Trade.

“The Oslo Award develop as a natural consequence of discussions and deliberations during the The Oslo Summits on Peace through Trade in 2007 and 2008,” says Mr Per L Saxegaard, representing the Business for Peace Foundation in Oslo, the initiator of the Award.

The Nominees are:

• Zhengrong Shi (China)
• Jeffrey R. Immelt (US)
• Mo Ibrahim (Sudan)
• Mohammed Jameel (Saudi-Arabia)
• Josephine Okot (Uganda)
• Jiang Jianqing (China)
• Anders Dahlvig (Sweden)

For more information please enter: www.businessforpeace.no/press/

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