Corporate Social Responsibility

Standards and Principles

On this page

• US Law Calls for Oil, Gas, Mining Company Foreign Payments Transparency
• GRI Looks to the Future
• EITI Releases 2009 Progress Report - Afghanistan and Iraq to Join
• Zedillo Leads Natural Resources Charter
• UN Global Compact Exec Director Kell Portrays the Rising CSR Priority
• World Bank's IFC Fails to Meet Its Own Environmental Standards in Indonesia
• UN Global Compact and Pacific Institute White Paper on Business & Climate Change
• Rio Tinto Discloses Tax and Royalty Payments to 13 Countries
• 2008 United Nations Global Compact Review
• ARMA International Releaases Key Recordkeeping Principles
• EITI Reports on Progress and Its Doha Conference
  
• Global Witness Comments on EITI's Development
  
• Publish What You Pay Underscores Civil Society Roles in EITI
• Corporate Library Launches Governance Standards' Directory
• CPA Study on Corporate Roles in Ballots
• Danes Legislate CSR
• International Labor Migration: A Responsible Role for Business
• Transition to a Global Green Economy Must Emphasize Decent Work
  
• The Ethical Trading Initiative Launches New Ethics Tips for the Retail Industry
• Anti-Corruption Manual for Professional Organizations
• Human Rights Reporting Mot Meeting Full Disclosure, GRI Says
• Working With Local Populations - Governments & Corporations Making A Positive Impact
• New Ethics Reports for Small and Medium-Sized Businesses
• International Organization Established to Promote Carbon Markets
• Rewriting the Social Contract - Alan White, BSR
• Connecting the Global Compact and the GRI
• FTSE4Good New Anti-Bribery Criteria
• New IFC Sustainability Standards
• UN Global Compact

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REVENUE TRANSPARENCY - US LAW

Sweeping US financial reform legislation includes key provisions that will compel US oil, gas and mining companies to publicly report foreign payments.

The law will apply to hundreds of companies, including 90% of the world’s largest internationally operating oil and gas companies, as well as eight of the world’s ten largest mining companies.

The new law is a major success for Publish What You Pay (PWYP), a global coalition of 600 development, environmental, faith-based and human rights organizations operating in over 50 countries.

The key provision of the new law was sponsored in the US Senate by Republican Senator Richard Lugar and Democratic Senator Benjamin Cardin who noted, “The Cardin-Lugar Energy Security Through Transparency (ESTT) provision will add stability to markets through greater information and predictability and help protect investors from undue risks associated with corrupt or unstable governments in oil-rich or mineral-wealthy countries. The provision requires extractive companies listed on U.S. stock exchanges to disclose, in their SEC filings, payments made to governments for oil, gas and mining.”

Senator Cardin added, “This provision is a critical part of the increased transparency and corporate responsibility that we are striving to achieve in the financial industry. Given the catastrophic events in the Gulf of Mexico, oil companies, in particular, should well understand that secrecy fosters instability, corruption and greater risk. Revenue transparency increases energy security and creates U.S. jobs by reducing the operating risk U.S. companies face in inherently unstable markets. We now have the tools to help people in resource-rich countries hold their leaders accountable for the money made from their oil, gas and minerals.”

Radhika Sarin, Coordinator of  PWYP International, noted that, “With this far-reaching new law, citizens now have a reliable tool to ensure the wealth created by natural resource extraction is used for essential social services such as health and education, and economic development opportunities.”

Global Witness, which has played key roles in the campaign for  extractive industries’ revenue transparency, said the new US law, Will help to lift the curse of corruption and conflict from poor countries that are rich in oil and minerals by promoting greater public oversight and responsible trading practices."

Radhika Sarin added that PWYP is calling for strict implementation of the U.S. law and for continued momentum in revenue transparency around the world. Coverage needs to be expanded to all companies using similar measures in other capital markets and through adoption of this standard by global bodies. This would produce a universal standard in corporate transparency and a level playing field.

PWYP said the Hong Kong stock exchange, which carries a number of Asian majors, Has enacted similar rules this year and the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) is considering a rule change to make disclosure of payments to governments standard in the 110 countries which use IASB rules.

Global Witness noted that the US law will also require companies whose products contain cassiterite (tin ore), coltan, wolframite and gold to disclose to the SEC whether they are sourcing these minerals from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) or adjoining countries. Companies will have to detail the measures they have taken to avoid sourcing these minerals from DRC armed groups, which are guilty of massacres and other atrocities.  Further, all information disclosed must be independently audited.

"These provisions are a huge victory for corporate accountability in the oil, gas and mining industries, and we commend the leadership of Members of Congress who have steadfastly championed them," said Corinna Gifillan of Global Witness. She added, "Now is the time for the United Kingdom and other major economies to follow the example of the U.S., so that these crucial reforms can become global standards," said Gilfillan.

Posted 07/20/2010

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The Global Reporting Initiative - GRI - Looks to the Future

GRI announces its 2015 and 2020 goals

Amsterdam Global Conference on Sustainability and Transparency 2010
Key Goals and Challenges Highlighted by Global reporting Initiative (GRI) Chief Executive Ernst Ligteringen --

excerpts for the GRI conference presentation

I would like to point out where we think sustainability reporting is - or Environmental, Social, and Governance reporting or ESG reporting as we now call it - and where it should be heading. And why.

…A transition to a sustainable mode of production and consumption is evidently necessary and urgent… So here is our rethinking challenge: how do we square the following equation:  

How to share our planet with 2.5 billion people more by 2050? While factoring in that the way each of us, each of our companies, and each of our countries use natural resources will , affect the air, rainfall, land, and energy available to others ?   

And considering that today nearly a third of all children in developing countries are underweight and that 80 percent of the world’s population lives in countries where income differentials are widening?   

How will we rethink the economic fundamentals of our markets and rebuild a sustainable economy, using our enormous ingenuity – for example our ability to grow organisms with synthetic DNA as was just in the news – to manage the world’s environmental, social and financial scarcities? How do we get there? And what role can reporting play?

GRI believes that reporting can be a valuable compass in our pursuit of a sustainable economy. The reason we believe this, is simple: if we want to move to a sustainable world, we must know how sustainable our economic activities are. We need to measure the environmental and social impact of our companies’ operations, our government policies, of basically any human activity. And we must be able to report on them. We must do this in a way that makes these data internationally understandable and comparable. This is why it is so important to have an international standard.

To underscore the logic of rethinking our reporting framework now, history offers us a few interesting clues. Accounting and reporting have been surprisingly inter-connected with economic and technological developments…A sustainable world can’t exist without accurate information on the environmental and social impact of our modes of production and consumption.

This brings me to the first of three concrete goals, that GRI is proposing, which we would like to hear your opinion on over the coming days:

The GRI proposes that ALL large and medium-sized companies should publicly report on their – material – environmental, social, and governance performance issues by 2015 or explain why, if they don’t.

This ambitious goal is in first instance proposed for companies in OECD countries and fast-growing emerging economies, covering up to 80,000 Multinational Enterprises and many more medium-sized companies.  This proposition is a departure from GRI’s initial position, and it therefore merits a clear explanation. The reason for the proposition is that we need ‘ESG’ information to be generally available to build a green economy.  The proposition is in the interest of business, markets and society at large.
…Considering the market and public interest, it is clear that if a company chooses not to measure and disclose – to fly blind as it were -  it does not only take a risk with its own business. It also deprives the market and society of important information. It potentially undermines solid and responsible decision-making, it creates an uneven playing field for companies, and it withdraws from an essential public debate on sustainability.

…Yet, more ESG reporting alone isn’t enough. ESG reporting should not remain a parallel track, it doesn’t make sense in a sustainable economy that needs to connect financial, environmental and social capital. The two forms of reporting need to converge; equipping companies, investors and stakeholders with a complete picture of the relationship between the companies' financial and ESG results.

The second goal the GRI would like to set today is, therefore, to promote integrated reporting: In 2020 we should have a widely accepted standard for integrated financial and ESG reporting.

..Mainstreaming integrated reporting is a big step. It means that traditional financial reporting rules, such as IFRS, must be combined with an ESG reporting framework. That presents a challenging puzzle. Getting there requires cooperation between sustainability experts, financial specialists, large corporations, investment institutions, regulators and governments.

…And then finally, in closing, a most important question: What role should GRI guidance play in the development of Integrated Reporting? The GRI will be active in the International Integrated Reporting Committee to promote convergence between financial and ESG reporting. The GRI believes we should have a widely accepted standard for integrated reporting by 2020. Interest is growing. Pioneering companies are experimenting and more companies are keen to learn from, and contribute to, the development of this practice. The worldwide communities of users of the GRI Guidelines expect us to give guidance on new developments in ESG reporting and in developments around it, such as the convergence between ESG reporting and financial reporting.

This presents GRI with a most significant question, one we would like to hear your views on.  

Is it time for the G4?

Should GRI start to work on the next iteration of the Guidelines? Could a G4 version help to disseminate the significantly expanded ESG reporting experience to make it more robust, help streamline and focus reporting more while also introducing guidance on the emerging experience with the integration of ESG reporting and financial reporting? Connecting it to strategy?  If published in – say – two years, that is 6 years after the release of the G3, could the G4 Guidelines offer a useful stepping stone, helping more companies and information users to gain experience and prepare for an international integrated reporting standard?

Posted 04/06/2010

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EITI Reports on 2009 Progress - Announces that Afghanistan and Iraq Join

Afghanistan and Iraq Join EITI Afghanistan and Iraq have become Candidate countries within the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI), the global standard for improved transparency in the oil, gas and mining sector. The EITI International Board announced the decisions after its Oslo, Norway meeting on February 10, 2010. In following the EITI standard, the governments commit to publish all payments of taxes, royalties and fees it has received from its nascent extractive sector. Equally, extractive companies operating in Afghanistan will publish what they have paid to the government.

Overseen by a multi-stakeholder group with representatives from national government, companies and civil society, these figures will then be reconciled and published in an EITI Report. Afghanistan and Iraq now have two years to implement the EITI standard and undergo an EITI Validation in order to become EITI Compliant countries.

The EITI Secretariat first presented its report for 2009 at the recent EITI Board meeting in Oslo.

The report provides an account of the EITI International Secretariat’s activities in 2009. Highlights from 2009 include:

• The Global EITI Conference in Doha had over 500 participants from 80 different countries, including Heads of State, CEOs, and civil society leaders. This event marked a progression of the initiative into a global standard for the governance of the extractive industries.

• Azerbaijan and Liberia became the first two EITI Compliant countries.

• In 2009 six new countries became EITI Candidate countries: Albania, Burkina Faso, Mozambique, Norway, Tanzania and Zambia. As a result, 30 countries are currently implementing the EITI.

• Several other countries declared their intention to implement the EITI including Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Iraq and Ukraine.

• Several new publications, including the EITI Progress Report, EITI Rule Book, EITI Communications Guide, EITI Parliamentary Guide, Advancing the EITI in the Mining Sector, Good Practice Notes, an EITI Video, and EITI Case Studies, were launched in 2009. Many of these have been translated to one or more languages.

• A total of 19 Validation seminars and EITI workshops were held in EITI implementing countries during the year.

• Of the 22 countries facing a Validation deadline in March 2010, two are now EITI Compliant, 15 have initiated the Validation process by end 2009 and one voluntarily suspended their Candidacy. The two countries with deadlines later in 2010 have also initiated Validation.

Posted 02/14/2010

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Ernesto Zedillo Named to Lead Natural Resources Charter Oversight Board

Consultations Open at least to January 2010, says Revenue Watch

The administration of the Natural Resource Charter will be carried out by the Technical Board on behalf of the Oversight Board. The Technical Board will be headed by Michael Spence, Nobel Laureate in Economics.

Ernesto Zedillo, President of Mexico between 1994 and 2000, has been named as the Chair of the board overseeing the Natural Resource Charter. The Natural Resource Charter is a set of twelve principles for governments and societies on how to effectively harness the opportunities created by natural resources.

The other members of the Oversight Board are Yegor Gaidar, former Acting Russian Prime Minister and Charles Soludo. Charles Soludo was the Central Bank Governor of Nigeria until May 2009. The Board responsibilities will include championing the Natural Resource Charter internationally and overseeing the consultation process.
The announcement of composition of the Oversight Board coincided with the launch of the formal consultation process on the Natural Resource Charter on October 4, 2009 during the annual IMF/World Bank meeting in Istanbul.

The consultation process will continue until at least January 2010. Comments can be made online at www.naturalresourcecharter.org or at the regional stakeholder workshops. The first of the regional workshops will be held in Africa. The Natural Resource Charter has the support of the UK government, UNIDO, the African Development Bank, and the African Economic Research Consortium.

Gareth Thomas, UK Minister of State for International Development, Department for International Development (DFID) reiterated the UK government support for the Natural Resource Charter: "The UK, through DFID, is supporting this important initiative which will help to harness the wealth from natural resources for all citizens of resource-rich countries—bringing growth, reducing the risk of conflict, and ultimately reducing the reliance on aid."
Professor Paul Collier, Director of the Centre for the Study of African Economies at Oxford University, and one of co-authors of the Natural Resource Charter said: "For many of the poorest countries, natural resources can be a lifeline to prosperity. But harnessing their potential is both technically and politically challenging. The Charter aims to furnish governments and societies with the key information they need."
Posted 10/09/2009

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Corporate Social Responsibility Rises Rapidly as a Top Priority
Excerpts from a presentation by Georg Kell, Executive Director of the United Nations Global Compact, to the Dow Jones Private Equity Analyst Conference in New York, September 16, 2009.  

What started as an experiment, with only 47 companies present at its launch in July 2000, has grown into the world’s largest voluntary corporate sustainability initiative with over 6,000 business participants and stakeholders from more than 130 countries.

The companies represent almost every conceivable industry and sector, and hail from both developed economies and emerging markets. Moreover, while the Global Compact includes some of the biggest public companies in the world, more than half of business participants are privately held, and include both large and small enterprises. Your firms no doubt have ownership interests in many of these.

Why are management teams joining the Global Compact – at the present rate of nearly 100 companies per month?

Certainly, the ethical imperative of addressing ESG issues remains as important today as it did ten years ago – some say more so given the recent crisis in markets and the related erosion of trust in business.

But questions of risk management, improving productivity, reducing costs and sizing new opportunities by making the Compact and its principles part of business strategy and operations have established themselves as additional and arguably far more potent drivers of the agenda. 

Indeed, the business case for what we call corporate sustainability – that is, the management of ESG issues – is increasingly clear. As the authors of a major article on corporate sustainability argue in this month’s Harvard Business Review: “In the future, only companies that make sustainability a goal will achieve competitive advantage”.

The Principles for Responsible Investment

With respect to investors, our work has centered on the Principles for Responsible Investment, co-launched by the Global Compact and our sister agency, UNEP FI, just over three years ago in partnership with institutional investors. Indeed, the PRI is today led and governed largely by institutional investors, all of whom are Limited Partners.

The rationale for launching the PRI included the following key observations:

• ESG issues can be material to investors, especially over the long term. Investors who do not take these issues into account are putting the interests and returns of their beneficiaries at risk.
• Institutional investors, especially when working together, can have significant influence as owners and clients over companies, fund managers, consultants and brokers and can use this influence to encourage improvements in ESG performance by companies.
• Three years ago there was no global framework in place to point investors in the right direction or to define this new era of Responsible Investment based on materiality, as compared to traditional SRI approaches.

Negotiated and drafted by a group of institutional investors and other experts, the Principles for Responsible Investment were launched in April 2006 at a special event at the New York Stock Exchange. Covering areas such as investment policy, active ownership practices, collaboration and disclosure, the six core Principles are designed to place ESG considerations into the heart of investment analysis and decision-making.

Let me be clear that the PRI is not an SRI initiative in the sense of employing negative screens or taking value judgments on companies or industries. Likewise, the focus is not on narrow clean-tech or other such specialized social funds. Rather, PRI recognizes that incorporating ESG issues into investment analysis, and improving the management of ESG issues within all companies and assets in the portfolio, can help maximize long-term investment objectives – while, at the same time, aligning the investment community with larger societal goals. In other words: a double dividend.

As with the growth of the Global Compact, the PRI has surpassed our wildest expectations. The more than 550 signatories are divided roughly in half between asset owners and asset managers, with a third category of service providers.

Signatories to the PRI are demonstrating an unprecedented level of collaboration and partnership as they work together to encourage investee companies or potential investments to improve their ESG performance – for instance, by joining and implementing the Global Compact.

From its inception the PRI was designed to be relevant to all asset classes, which ultimately led to the discussions with the Private Equity community.

Why Should Private Equity Care?

Clearly, the Private Equity industry – be it related to buyout, mid-stage, or venture capital – is a major force in international finance and in driving business innovation.

In addition to being investors, you are also business managers and employers – with a vital stake, I would argue, with respect to the role of business in society. In many aspects, you are much closer to the fabric of economies and communities than your publicly traded peers.

For these and related reasons, I would suggest, society’s expectations with respect to Private Equity will only increase.

And frankly, I believe Private Equity has an enormous opportunity to get out in front of the trends and demonstrate a new level of leadership – leadership that contributes both to your success as investor-managers, as well as to aligning your objectives with broader social goals – thereby building public trust in the industry.

Fixing firms, and creating long-term value, is your business. Yet, up until now, ESG considerations – especially with respect to environmental and social issues – have arguably not figured very prominently in your investment and management decisions. This is the prevailing view held by many Limited Partners in the PRI who feel that Private Equity managers give less regard to ESG risks and opportunities than public-equity fund managers. 
Rather than reacting to trends and negative headlines, why not begin to seize a leadership position?

Allow me, please, to suggest the following:

• As investment firms, embrace the new-era of “Responsible Investment”, sign the PRI, and actively incorporate ESG issues into investment analysis and decision-making. [The recent launch by the PRI of “Responsible Investment in Private Equity: A Guide for Limited Partners”. While this resource is focused on Limited Partners, it was developed by both LPs and GPs and indirectly offers guidance for GPs.]
• As investor-managers, sign your portfolio companies to the Global Compact. As a voluntary initiative with a straightforward disclosure component, the Compact offers your firms a learning platform to develop, implement and report on sustainability policies and practices. And encourage your portfolio company managers to look at the list of companies that are already engaged in the Global Compact – and ask them whether they might be missing anything.

Embrace more transparency. Opaque industries and companies become lightning rods for criticism – deserved and undeserved. The reporting dimension of the Global Compact offers one way of demonstrating transparency, but there are other avenues, including taking part in more public policy discussions on key ESG issues and becoming a more active member of the corporate responsibility community.

Posted 09/22/2009

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“The World Bank ignored its own environmental and social protection standards when it approved nearly $200 million in loan guarantees for palm oil production in Indonesia, a stinging internal audit has found,” writes LISA FRIEDMAN of CLIMATEWIRE, as published in The New York Times on August 19, 2009,The Forest Peoples Programme, a U.K.-based nonprofit group that originally brought the complaint, charged that the companies illegally used fire to clear forestland, cleared primary forests, and seized lands belonging to indigenous people without due process.

The World Bank’s International Finance Corporation Fails to Live Up to Its Environmental Standards on Investing in Indonesia – Finding by IFC’s Internal Auditors

The IFC is the private sector arm of the World Bank group and a leader in private sector socially responsible investing in developing countries. Its leadership is now questioned by its own Office of the Compliance Advisor/Ombudsman (CAO).

The Executive Summary of the CAO Report (dated June 19, 2009) reads as follows on IFC investments that amounted to some US 200 million. Executive Summary:

Large-scale oil palm cultivation in Indonesia began in 1911. During the early years of the Suharto era (1967–98), state-owned agricultural enterprises were promoted - including large-scale oil palm plantations. In the 1970s and 1980s, smallholder involvement in oil palm cultivation was strongly promoted and was supported through World Bank/IDA loans that also supported plantations, crude palm oil (CPO) mills and related infrastructure. From the late 1980s, private estates played an increasingly important role in oil palm expansion, with and without associated smallholders.

IFC financed one of its first oil palm projects in 1988 and, between 1990 and 2002, it concluded several investments with various palm oil producers. Between 2003 and 2008, IFC made four different investments in the Wilmar Group: Wilmar Trading (IFC No. 20348); Delta–Wilmar CIS (IFC No. 24644); Wilmar WCap (IFC No. 25532); and Delta–Wilmar CIS Expansion (IFC No. 26271).

The Wilmar Group is one of the world‘s largest processors and merchandisers of palm and lauric oils, and one of the largest plantation companies in Indonesia and Malaysia. IFC‘s Wilmar Group investments included two investments in a trade facility to facilitate CPO trading and two investments in a refinery within the Group to produce higher value end products.

In July 2007, non-governmental organizations (NGO), smallholders and indigenous peoples‘ organizations living and working in Indonesia, or in support of people in Indonesia, filed a complaint with the CAO. The signatories claimed that the Wilmar Group‘s activities in Indonesia violated a number of IFC standards and requirements.

For more than twenty years, IFC had information at its disposal on significant governance as well as environmental and social risks inherent in the Indonesian oil palm sector. This came from World Bank experience; from the various IFC projects appraised in the sector and the country from the 1980s and onwards; and from monitoring and reporting on ongoing IFC oil palm investments in Indonesia. Despite awareness of the significant issues facing it, IFC did not develop a strategy for engaging in the oil palm sector. In the absence of a tailored strategy, deal making prevailed.

With regard to its Wilmar Group investments, IFC applied a de minimis approach towards assessing each project‘s supply chain. For each investment, commercial pressures were allowed to prevail and overly influence the categorization and scope and scale of environmental and social due diligence. As a result, IFC‘s development mandate and mission were not robustly represented in the decision-making processes. This had the effect of insulating IFC from obtaining key information as to how each project would impact the palm oil supply chain. Because commercial pressures dominated IFC‘s assessment process, the result was that environmental and social due diligence reviews did not occur as required.

Therefore, the CAO concludes that IFC did not meet the intent or requirements of its own Performance Standards for its assessment of the Wilmar trade facility investment. Incorrect assumptions were made about the impact of certain types of financial products (trade facilities) without proper consideration of the sector and country context of the investment.

As for the Wilmar refinery investment, IFC failed to assess the supply chain plantations or other companies and suppliers linked through the Wilmar Group, as required by its Performance Standards. Finally the CAO concludes that the adoption of a narrow interpretation of the investment impacts—in full knowledge of the broader implications—is inconsistent with IFC‘s asserted role, mandate of reducing poverty and improving lives, and a commitment to sustainable development.

Posted 08/19/2009

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United Nations Global Compact and the Pacific Institute Release White Paper:
What Businesses Need to Know and Do
Managing Climate Change and Water

The UN Global Compact and the Pacific Institute today jointly released a white paper which explores the linkages between climate change and water – from both the scientific and corporate management perspectives. Entitled "Climate Change and the Global Water Crisis: What Businesses Need to Know and Do", the paper covers a number of critical areas, including:

• How climate change is expected to impact water scarcity, water quality, and water demand;
• The ways in which water and energy are interconnected, including trade-off scenarios;
• The business risks of water and climate change;
• How businesses can strategically manage water-climate risks;
• And the linkages between climate and water and the UN Millennium Development Goals.
  
  

"This paper underscores the importance of viewing the many ways in which different environmental challenges are in fact deeply connected, and the need to approach these issues in an integrated way", said Georg Kell, Executive Director of the UN Global Compact. "Climate change needs to be understood in terms of how it will impact a range of other issues – such as water, food, energy, and, of course, development and poverty."

The White Paper notes:

"Virtually every business decision is also a decision about the use of natural resources. In this paper, we describe how global warming is affecting water and energy resources, and the
challenges and opportunities this presents globally. We summarize the way in which connections among climate, energy, and water are likely to affect business and offer general guidance on how companies can respond to the challenges in an integrated way. The paper highlights how regions of the world that will experience the worst impacts of climate change are those near the equator and overwhelmingly impoverished. And we conclude by focusing on the UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) as they relate to climate change and alleviating the global water crisis, and suggest ways that business can partner with the UN to work toward their achievement."

What businesses can do to manage water-climate risks strategicallyxvii
To evaluate and effectively address water and climate change risks, companies can take the following actions:

1. Measure water and carbon footprint throughout the value chain. Some of the most significant water and climate-related risks can be embedded in a company’s value chain, well outside of its direct operations or control. In many cases, such as in agriculture-based industry sectors, a company’s direct water use pales in comparison with water embedded in the supply chain. Even should water use or GHG emissions occur outside of a company’s sphere of influence, they can still pose financial or reputational risks to the company. Companies can only mange what they measure, so in order to accurately assess risks and opportunities, a first step for companies is to conduct a comprehensive and integrated water and carbon accounting. By aligning measurement of water and carbon/energy, businesses can identify how the three are interlinked, providing key basic information for developing a holistic management strategy.

2. Assess physical, regulatory and reputational water risks associated with climate change. Explicit attention should be paid to understanding energy-related risks posed by water (and vice versa), as well as any potential competing demands the company may have for water and energy. Companies should also seek to align, if not integrate, their water and climate risk assessments. Having a detailed understanding of local water conditions, including hydrological, social, economic, and political factors, can give companies room to anticipate and plan for a wide range of climate change scenarios. Companies should be prepared to provide details on the risks they face from water challenges and to be transparent about the energy trade-offs they may need to make to address them.

3. Integrate water and climate issues into strategic business planning and operational activities. When developing water management plans, companies will need to consider and integrate the potential impacts of climate change on water supplies and water quality. Climate-related impacts on water should also be considered when making a range of business decisions from factory design and siting to new product development. Companies should also consider potential energy/water synergy (or conflict) in business planning and decision making. For instance, integrated approaches to reduce water and energy use simultaneously have allowed companies at a single plant to achieve millions of dollars in savings while increasing output. In addition, such efficiency measures can demonstrate a company’s commitment to water management, boost public image, and help build positive relations with the communities where it operates.

4. Engage key stakeholders as a part of water and climate risk assessment, long-term planning and implementation activities. When developing a corporate water and climate
change management plan, managers can benefit from sharing information with employees, investors, customers, local communities, and other key stakeholders in order to gain valuable feedback. Through early and continuous engagement with concerned stakeholders, companies can better understand, anticipate, and respond to emerging issues and expectations. Open dialogue with water providers and local communities may also be helpful in preventing and reducing the risk of future water and climate change related disputes or disruptions. Such discussions may also identify pivotal inputs that help prioritize action steps.

5. Disclose and communicate water and carbon performance and associated risks. Companies should publicly report management activities and key metrics on their water and energy performance. This information can help shareholders and stakeholders assess how companies are addressing their water and climate change risks. Such metrics are also a useful tool for engaging employees across the enterprise.

6. Seek opportunities for collective action. Because water and energy are connected to social, cultural, and environmental issues, companies can rarely achieve the best management outcomes on their own. Most solutions to water supply, quality and sanitation, and climate change issues require co-management approaches involving sound water governance, collective action, and partnerships. By pooling resources and bringing together a wide range of expertise and knowledge through partnerships for a common goal, companies can respond to water and climate change concerns more efficiently and effectively than through individual actions. Collaborative actions are particularly helpful in assessing and addressing climate change impacts, since there are large gaps in knowledge related to climate change and water, especially data and prediction
modeling at the watershed level.

Posted 05/22/2009

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Rio Tinto Provides Tax and Royalty Data for 13 Countries
PublishWhat You Pay Says This Set Extractive Industry Standard

Annual Report statement by Rio Tinto - When we invest in a project, the taxes  we pay can have a major impact on the country in which we operate. Although federal governments collect most of these payments, a significant proportion of taxes were paid to local and regional governments.

Our analysis only captures where the tax payments are made, and not the internal redistribution of revenues that takes place within governments. How these payments are redistributed depends entirely on the fiscal and administrative structure of the host countries. For this reason, the ultimate effect of these payments at the local level is likely to be underestimated.

In 2008, our total tax and royalty payments were US$6,658 million. Of this, US$6,201 million was borne by the Group. In addition, tax payments of US$457 million were made to governments for employee taxes and other liabilities net of refunds of indirect taxes paid to suppliers.

Statement by Publish What You Pay

Rio Tinto, the global mining company, has taken an important step towards transparency by voluntarily disclosing, for the first time, the total tax and royalty payments that it makes to 13 of the countries where it operates, Publish What You Pay (PWYP) said.

Publish What You Pay is a global civil society coalition with over 300 member groups who work together for greater transparency in the oil, gas and mining industries. Revenue transparency is a crucial first step towards insuring that revenues from these industries are used properly to reduce poverty, not wasted or lost to corruption.

In an online supplement to its 2008 annual report, Rio Tinto has published its total tax and royalty payments to each of 13 countries where these payments totalled USD $10 million or more. In the 2007 supplement the company only disclosed this data by continent, not by country.

“We welcome this progressive step which shows recognition that more openness serves the enlightened-self interest of big corporations,” said Radhika Sarin, Publish What You Pay International Coordinator. “We would encourage Rio Tinto to go further next year and break down the different types of payments to each country, so that citizens of these countries can have a full picture of financial transfers to their governments by the company.”

In addition to these 13 countries, Rio Tinto also has investments in other countries – including Argentina, Ghana, Guinea and Zimbabwe – but did not break down the value of its payments to each of these countries in the 2008 supplement. Publish What You Pay urges Rio Tinto to disclose its payments to all the countries where it has investments, on a per-country basis.

Rio Tinto joins a small number of major oil and mining companies, such as Norway’s StatoilHydro, Canada’s Talisman Energy and US-based Newmont Mining Corporation, which disclose information about revenue payments that they make to governments on a per-country basis. Unfortunately, many of the biggest extractive companies do not publish such data, claiming obstacles such as “contract confidentiality”, a nebulous concept that is often cited as a reason for keeping payments secret.

Posted 04/29/2009

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United Nations Global Compact - Annual review and Business Survey

Companies are performing better on labor and environmental issues, but lagging on human rights and anti-corruption. Global economic crisis poses opportunities and responsibilities.

“Restoring confidence and trust in markets will require a shift to long-term sustainable value creation, and corporate responsibility must be an instrument towards this end. Now is the time to build on the advances made over the past ten years by companies in the Global Compact and bring this discipline to the mainstream. Georg Kell, Executive Director, UN Global Compact Office.

This 2008 Annual Review shows that corporate responsibility has evolved and become a truly global phenomenon, says the United Nations.  UN’s Global Compact is designed to promote global corporate citizenship based on 10 core principles concerned with human rights, labor, the environment, and anti-corruption, environment, involves over 5,000 business participants in 135 countries. Members must demonstrate a commitment to environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues. The Global Compact was forced to remove 404 companies from the initiative last year for failure to communicate progress – bringing the total number of delisted companies to 800 by the end of 2008.

Based on an implementation survey the Global Compact ranked the overall level of corporate responsibility performance of participants, using a scale from “beginner” to “advanced”. The results show that the Global Compact engages with a wide variety of companies – with only 8% identified as advanced performers and the vast majority ranked in the beginner to intermediate range. The span of corporate expertise on Global Compact issues translates into a wide range of implementation – from minimal to robust – on policies and actions to advance the Ten Principles. Despite this diversity, it is evident that, overall, companies are implementing key policies on labor and the environment to a considerably greater extent than policies on human rights and anti-corruption.

Human Rights

Despite high levels of awareness and inclusion of human rights in overall corporate codes, only a minority of companies are taking key steps to ensure that human rights are respected, including developing complaint mechanisms, conducting risk and impact assessments and engaging in multi-stakeholder dialogue.

Labor

According to the 2008 participant survey, the labor principles enjoy the highest overall rate of policy implementation compared to the three other principle areas, but guidance on actions to support these policies is still needed. Participants report challenges linked to the supply chain, particularly in relation to child and forced labor.

Environment

The Global Compact said the private sector has began to embrace a broader environmental sustainability imperative based on the present and potential impacts of climate change and other environmental challenges – chief among them the growing crisis in fresh-water availability and water pollution. Survey results for this Annual Review reveal a decidedly mixed picture with respect to overall environmental management by Global Compact participants – including significant differences between large and small businesses. For example, approximately half of respondents do not have systems in place to measure or track environmental performance. The gap widens when looking at company size – with less than one-third of SMEs having such systems in place, in sharp contrast to 84% of companies with over 50,000 employees. In addition, survey responses suggest that companies – large and small – are missing opportunities in areas such as eco-design, life-cycle assessment and technology management, and are instead engaging in risk-oriented actions, such as impact assessments. On a positive note, approximately half of the largest corporations indicate involvement in Clean Development Mechanism projects and emissions trading under the UN climate change convention (Kyoto Protocol) – a higher than anticipated figure that suggests climate change is gaining priority.

Anti-corruption

The integration of 10th principle into the corporate responsibility agenda in 2004 sent a signal worldwide that business shares responsibility for eliminating corruption. While progress has been made in the intervening years, respondents to our 2008 survey identify anti-corruption as the most difficult of the Global Compact issue areas to implement. A majority of surveyed companies do include aspects of corruption within overall corporate codes of conduct, yet only a minority are taking necessary steps to tackle the issue, including recording instances of corruption, having sanction systems in place to deal with breaches and establishing hotlines for anonymous reporting of corrupt practices.

Less than 2 in 10 survey respondents require suppliers to have anti-corruption policies. The Global Compact, in collaboration with a broad alliance of business participants and other stakeholders, intensified efforts to address implementation gaps in 2008. A first step was to bolster our Global Compact Working Group on Anti-Corruption by ensuring it included expertise from all regions and company sizes. Then, to better understand key anti-corruption challenges and develop methods for addressing them, the reconstituted Working Group identified priority workstreams, including: reporting, supply chain, tools and resources, and public-private partnerships. Work in seven key areas will be carried out by sub-groups in 2009, with the end-goal of helping companies improve overall performance in the complex area of anti-corruption.n.

 Few companies comprehensively report on the 10th principle in their annual Communication on Progress. When they do report, most state the existence of policies to combat corruption, but explanation of actual implementation tends to be weak. The goal of the task force on reporting is to help mainstream reporting by companies on anti-corruption efforts in financial and/or sustainability reports.

Posted 04/13/2009

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Recordkeeping Principles Uncover The Foundation Of Compliance
ARMA International - a not-for-profit professional association and authority on managing records and information – releases key compliance principles

The Generally Accepted Recordkeeping PrinciplesSM

ARMA reports:

Records are the foundation of compliance and the key to success for organizations of any size and in any industry. Litigation and compliance professionals are becoming painfully aware of the need to manage information at an organizational level in order to mitigate risk during the legal discovery process. In short, credible records sustain defense in law.

The needs of business can be fulfilled only if recordkeeping is an objective activity, fully insulated from individual and organizational influence or bias. To achieve this transparency, organizations must adhere to objective records and information management standards and principles, regardless of the type of organization, type of activity, or the type, format, or media of the records themselves. Without adherence to these standards and principles, organizations will have poorly run operations, legal compliance failures, and – potentially – a mask for improper or illegal activities.

It is in the general interest of all organizations, and of society itself, to be fully aware of these principles and to manage records and information assets in accordance with them. the aim of its Principles is to foster general awareness of recordkeeping best practices to assist organizations in developing effective records systems and policies.

Each of the principles has an expanded description containing detailed information on how to ensure organizations are meeting the criteria for a sound information management program.

The eight Generally Accepted Recordkeeping PrinciplesSM are: 

• Accountability
• Integrity
• Protection
• Compliance
• Availability
• Retention
• Disposition
• Transparency
  
  Three of the principles with ethical ramifications include the following:
  
  Principle of Transparency
  The processes and activities of an organization’s recordkeeping program shall be documented in an understandable manner and be available to all personnel and appropriate interested parties. Every organization must therefore create and manage the records documenting its recordkeeping program to ensure the structure, processes, and activities of the program are apparent and understandable to legitimately interested parties and the records documenting the program and its activities are reasonably available to them.
  
  Principle of Accountability
  An organization shall assign a senior executive who will oversee a recordkeeping program and delegate program responsibility to appropriate individuals, adopt policies and procedures to guide personnel, and ensure program auditability.
  
  Principle of Integrity
  An organization’s executives are ultimately responsible for business records, as they are strategic and operational assets. Proper corporate governance and integrity of the information are important, and it is necessary to maintain the authenticity of records in all media over time. Investors and government regulators should expect the integrity of an organization’s records and information.

Posted 04/02/2009

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EITI – Is it making a difference?

EITI moves from start-up initiative to a global transparency standard.

Ethicsworld reports on:

EITI's Progress Report

The EITI Doha Conference

The Views of Global Witness

The Views of Publish What You Pay International

Financier/philanthropist George Soros told the Doha meeting that the countries implementing the EITI would have a competitive advantage in attracting greater investment in a global economy that has become highly risk-averse. The high standards of accounting and reporting inherent in the EITI are attractive to investors seeking to minimize risk by ensuring greater openness and a more level playing field in the business environment.

Peter Eigen, who co-founded Transparency international and is the Chairman of EITI has stated, “The principles of the EITI have stood up well to this scrutiny, and the support for the initiative from governments, companies and civil society organizations has expanded enormously. This period has therefore been one of transforming the EITI from a mere “initiative” into a standard being implemented by many resource-rich countries.”

“No single initiative is sufficient on its own,” said Bennett Freeman, Oxfam America/Oxfam International EITI board member. “Mandatory disclosure requirements will strengthen reporting and bring us closer to achieving a global standard for disclosure of natural resource revenues.”

EITI, established at a conference in Oslo, Norway, in October 2006, brings together oil and gas companies, governments of countries engaged in the extractive industries and civil society. The shared goal is to ensure that, through transparency, extractive industries lead to development and prosperity. In a report on its 2006-2008 work, EITI’s Board of Directors makes the following critical overarching points:

• Deepening the initiative.We have provided political, technical and institutional support to the countries implementing the EITI. As a result, we are beginning to see the benefits of more transparent governance of the extractive industry sector for ordinary people. We have accredited 24 countries as EITI Candidates and clarified the validation process that will be used to determine which are EITI Compliant. We have worked to maintain strong implementing country ownership and to ensure consistent and equitable treatment between countries. The validation work, which is now underway in several Candidate countries, is an essential quality assurance mechanism for the EITI. We urge all EITI stakeholders to prioritise and support this work.
  
  
• Widening the initiative. Support for the EITI standard is growing, as more and more companies, development agencies, national governments, the UN, and other international bodies endorse the initiative. Most importantly, the number of countries implementing the EITI has also continued to grow.
  
  
• Developing the initiative. We have also looked toward the future of the EITI. The EITI focuses on a specific part of the extractive industry “value chain”. We acknowledge that there are important transparency and accountability issues relating to other parts of this chain. In establishing the validation indicators, we, the EITI Board, have reiterated our view that the EITI is best served by a focus on and adherence to the agreed principles and criteria guiding the validation process. We are encouraged to see that in country after country, the establishment of national EITI programmes governed by well-functioning multi-stakeholder groups also provides a platform for broader debates about the management of and revenues from natural resources...We remain fiercely committed to ensuring that the EITI and its partners are able to meet these challenges and continue on the joint mission of helping countries to maximize the benefits of their natural resource endowments for all citizens.
  
  
• As noted above, Validation is key. This is the EITI’s quality assurance mechanism and an essential feature of the EITI methodology. In 2008, the EITI Board clarified the EITI’s Validation requirements and set a Validation deadline of 9 March 2010 for the first 22 Candidate countries. Validation exercises are being carried out at the national level to assess implementation of the EITI guidelines. The Validation work at country level serves to safeguard the EITI brand by holding all EITI implementing countries to the same global standard of transparency and accountability. The EITI International Secretariat is providing technical assistance to implementing countries in preparing for the Validation process. At present, Azerbaijan and Liberia are the first countries to initiate the Validation process.
  

DOHA MEETING of EITI

Royal Dutch Shell CEO, Jeroen van der Veer, told the meeting EITI is in the interests of businesses who want to behave transparently and honestly.

Over 500 participants from 80 countries participate din the mid-February Doha EITI meeting. EITI’s Secretariat’s Summary noted that event “marked the EITI’s transformation from a start-up initiative to a global transparency standard.” Azerbaijan became the first country to achieve Compliant status. Reflecting a widespread conclusion at the Conference, the President of Liberia, Ellen Johnson- Sirleaf, highlighted in her opening statement that without strong political will in implementing countries, no EITI programme can be expected to succeed. In this spirit, participants agreed to redouble efforts to help implementing countries and ensure that the benefits of the EITI are recognised at the highest levels.

There was a general consensus at the conference among stakeholders that the current global economic downturn makes the EITI more important than ever. The steep reduction in international prices for oil, gas, metals and minerals translates into a sharp decline in government revenues in commodity dependent economies. The fundamental changes taking place in the international investment climate reinforce the need for transparency, as companies and investors have become increasingly risk-averse.
 
EITI Chairman Peter Eigen added, “The current financial and economic crisis is ultimately one of governance, or lack thereof. At times, smarter regulations and improved government oversight is clearly required. This is not, however, the only way to improve governance. I believe that all of the statements at our Global Conference and in the Progress Report 2007-2009 confirm that a multi-stakeholder coalition like ours can strengthen the governance fabric. Let us therefore make sure that we continue to ensure that natural resource extraction really does lead to benefits for the citizens to whom the resources after all belong. Let us also make sure that we learn from the impact of the EITI when seeking to address the broader challenges of good governance.”

CIVIL SOCIETY AND EITI

Supporting civil society organizations include: Catholic Agency for Overseas Development (CAFOD), GlobalWitness, Oxfam, Open Society Institute, PublishWhat You Pay Coalition
RevenueWatch Institute, Secours Catholique (Caritas France), Transparency International.

GLOBAL WITNESS COMMENTS ON EITI
Highlights from EITI Global Conference 16-18 February 2009, Doha, Qatar

Five challenges for the EITI to deliver (excerpt from March 3, 2009 press release)

EITI has passed an important benchmark with Azerbaijan becoming the first EITI Compliant country at the biannual conference of the EITI in Qatar on 16-18 February 2009. As one of its earliest supporters, Global Witness believes the EITI must meet challenges between now and the next Conference in 2011 if it is to be a success in the struggle against corruption and poverty in the resource-rich countries of the world EITI Compliance means that a country’s government has worked with the private sector and civil society groups to produce regular, audited reports of payments to the government by oil, gas and mining companies. This data enables citizens to monitor such payments, which have been corrupted or wasted in many countries in the past. Although EITI Compliance does not mean that a country is free from the risk of corruption, or that all areas of its oil or mining sectors are open to public scrutiny, it is a powerful signal to the world that the country is committed to openness.
 
The next year will be crucial for the success of the EITI because most of the other 24 EITI Candidate countries must also undergo Validation. One country making rapid progress is Liberia, a poor West African country still recovering from a devastating civil war. Liberia’s progress shows what can be done when the political will is there. As one of its earliest supporters, Global Witness believes the EITI must meet challenges between now and the next Conference in 2011 if it is to be a success in the struggle against corruption and poverty in the resource-rich countries of the world.
 
1. Civil society groups must be able to play a full and free part in EITI
Civil society groups are not just observers: they help to design, run and oversee the EITI and provide it with legitimacy. This formal, active role for civil society is what makes the EITI more than just a forum for worthy speeches about governance. Because civil society is so central to the EITI, any government that harasses, intimidates or censors its civil society activists is ensuring the failure of EITI in that country and undermining the work of other countries that implement it in good faith.

So all EITI stakeholders must take a strong and public stand against any government that harasses its own civil society activists, as has happened in Gabon recently. To retain the support of civil society groups, the Initiative must be able to defend its own principles.

2. The Validation process needs to be credible
In order to be awarded the status of EITI Compliant, as Azerbaijan has just done, a country must implement a series of steps towards greater transparency and have these actions checked by an independent third party called a Validator. Validation is the gold standard because it shows that a Candidate country has met the standards of the EITI. Without it, the EITI would be little different from the many well-meaning but ineffectual initiatives on governance that exist around the world. For this reason, Validation needs to be as objective and credible as possible. Any suggestion that a country has been given special treatment, for political or commercial reasons, would be fatal to the EITI’s credibility. It would also be deeply unfair to other Candidate countries which are making good-faith efforts to reach Compliance. So all EITI stakeholders must be ready to defend the objectivity of the Validation process, even if it produces results which are uncomfortable for some. This is the only way to protect the achievement of the EITI and give it value in the eyes of the world.

3. Countries that reach EITI Compliance must feel rewarded.
Reaching EITI Compliance will help countries to build trust with citizens, improve the efficiency of their extractive sectors and signal to the world their credibility as a destination for foreign investment and credit, at a time when both are scarce. However, these long-term benefits may not be visible at the point when a country achieves Compliance. So the international community must ensure in the short term that EITI Compliant countries receive the recognition that is due to them. This recognition needs to be nuanced by the fact that EITI Compliance is only one of many steps towards beating the Resource Curse. It does not mean, for example, that a country no longer faces any risk of corruption. And Compliance is not a once-only event but a process which ensures continuing transparency and public debate.

4. The United States, Canada, Australia and Britain should implement the EITI
The global financial crisis is creating a backlash against anything that looks like an attempt by rich countries to preach standards of governance to others which they do not apply themselves. The EITI has already been seen in this light in some quarters, with some justice, because almost all of the countries that implement it are in the developing world, while wealthy consumer countries can claim credit for supporting the EITI in various ways but do not have to implement it themselves. In fact, the EITI owes as much to the efforts of Nigeria and Azerbaijan as it does to many European countries that support the Initiative. Even so, this apparent disparity between developed and developing countries is damaging to the EITI and gives some countries a reason not to join the initiative. So the United States, Britain, Canada, Australia and other EITI Supporting countries with significant oil, gas or mining industries should follow Norway’s example and implement the EITI themselves. Future EITI Supporters should pledge to do the same.

These countries need to implement EITI to prove that it is not a global double standard. Whether or not they need the Initiative on economic grounds is beside the point, though recent revenue management scandals in the domestic oil industry of the United States show that they may in fact need it. Implementation would cost little for such countries and the reward for the global cause of transparency would be great.

Rich countries need to show that their other actions support the EITI Principles, rather than contradict them. Britain, for example, played midwife to the EITI but has dealt a damaging blow to its own standing by failing to enforce its own laws against corruption. In the United States, President Obama has committed to creating a more open and transparent government and we hope that implementation of EITI will be a part of that effort.

5. The EITI will need to evolve
At the moment, the core of the EITI is the publication, auditing and oversight of payments to countries from extractive companies. All EITI stakeholders believe that revenue transparency is vital to combat the Resource Curse but few believe it is sufficient because there are many other areas to address, from the award of oil, gas or mining rights, to the management and spending of revenues, to the flow of resource wealth through the global banking system. Global Witness believes that for now, the core of the EITI at the international level should remain transparency of revenue flows. It is more important at the moment to show that the EITI can achieve its current purpose, than to broaden that purpose.

That said, the EITI should rapidly adopt as standard the practice of ‘disaggregated reporting’, meaning that reports published in each country should include a breakdown of payments to the government on a company-by-company basis. This is the approach adopted by such EITI Candidate countries as Nigeria, Ghana and Mongolia. It is far more transparent than ‘aggregated reporting’, an approach favoured by some oil companies which lumps together all the payments from different companies, as if they were a single entity, before the data is published.

Over time, EITI will need to evolve beyond its current remit. Some countries have already chosen to broaden their implementation of the EITI to other aspects of the oil, gas or mining sectors, or other resources such as timber, or to trace revenue flows to sub-national levels of government. This versatility and national ownership of EITI is one of its great strengths. As the practice of EITI evolves in different countries, the international rules of the EITI should evolve too.

Global Witness, as its part in this debate, has drawn up some ideas on making the award of oil, gas or mining rights to companies more transparent, which will be published in a report during 2009. The many stakeholders of the EITI will meet again at its next Conference in two years’ time. The test of our work will be whether by that time we all have ensured that the EITI meets these five challenges.

Publish What You Pay International – Perspectives on EITI

In a statement on February 17, 2009, PWYP stated, “The Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) needs to redouble its efforts to protect civil society activists and ensure that civil society is an equal partner in efforts to achieve transparency in natural resource revenue management.”

(excerpts from the PWYP statement)

Speaking at the fourth EITI Global Conference in Doha, Qatar, the PWYP International Coordinator Radhika Sarin said: “Without civil society, there is no EITI. We are concerned that civil society is not being given a fair hearing in many countries while harassment and intimidation of transparency activists have occurred all too often in others, most recently in Gabon. We are very disappointed by the news that Marc Ona, the Coordinator of PWYP Gabon, remains under a travel ban placed on him by the Gabonese authorities and is therefore unable to participate in this conference.”

Mr Ona and another member of PWYP Gabon were arrested on 31 December 2008 along with three other anti-corruption activists and journalists. They were provisionally released on 12 January 2009 but face prosecution on unfounded charges in what appears to be an attempt to intimidate and silence anti-corruption advocates.
“The EITI Chairman has expressed his concern about the arrests to Gabon’s President El Hadj Omar Bongo Ondimba, which is positive. But we need the EITI to adopt a clear and public zero-tolerance policy for any attempts to stop civil society groups from operating freely,” Ms Sarin said.

Christian Mounzeo, president of Rencontre pour la Paix et les Droits de l’Homme, a human rights organisation in the Republic of Congo, called on the EITI to help equip members of civil society with the tools and information they need to make the initiative work. “As local watchdogs of the EITI in our countries, we deserve better access to information and greater protection from harassment, intimidation, false accusations and reprisals as a result of our work. It is central to the credibility of the EITI’s international standing that civil society activists are able to work freely and without fear of interference or threats.”

Slow implementation of EITI is a concern, rules must be respected
PWYP fully supports the implementation of the EITI but is concerned by its slow pace in many countries. Most of the current EITI Candidate countries are due to undergo validation, a third-party check to ensure they are meeting the rules of the initiative, by March 2010. “Rules are critical for the integrity of the EITI and we need to be rigorous about applying them over the coming year as countries approach validation,” said Gavin Hayman, campaigns director of the UK-based anti-corruption watchdog Global Witness.

PWYP welcomes the news that Azerbaijan has become the first country to undergo validation and achieve EITI Compliant country status. “This is a significant milestone and shows that the EITI standard is achievable,” said Ingilab Ahmadov, director of the Public Finance Monitoring Centre in Azerbaijan. “We also welcome the establishment of a permanent Multi-Stakeholder Group in Azerbaijan, which we have sorely lacked in the past. This is a positive achievement that has been the direct result of the validation process, and we expect to see a stronger and more robust multi-stakeholder process take root over the next few months.”

EITI is a start but complementary measures are needed
Heeding the alarming statistic that only 26 out of more than 50 resource-rich countries have thus far volunteered to implement the EITI, PWYP calls on the EITI and all its stakeholders to support complementary measures, such as stock market listing requirements and international accounting standards, that will strengthen and advance the agenda of resource revenue transparency.

Soon to be introduced in the United States Congress, the Extractive Industries Transparency Disclosure Act (EITDA) is proposed legislation which would require all companies registered with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to publish how much they pay each government for oil, gas and minerals. The EITDA would include American and foreign companies, and would apply to the vast majority of major extractive companies, including 90% of the major internationally operating oil companies.

Furthermore, the International Accounting Standard Board’s task force on extractives, has included the proposals put forward by PWYP for country-specific disclosure of extractive company payments in its deliberations and will soon be presenting its recommendations for a new financial reporting standard for extractive activities.
“No single initiative is sufficient on its own,” said Bennett Freeman, Oxfam America/Oxfam International board member. “Mandatory disclosure requirements will strengthen reporting and bring us closer to achieving a global standard for disclosure of natural resource revenues.”

 “The EITI is entering a crucial period, during which the validation process will be under great scrutiny. Civil society should be allowed to play its rightful part, from commitment through to full implementation,” Ms Sarin said. “Natural resource revenue transparency, achieved through a combination of voluntary and mandatory measures, is key to achieving poverty reduction, economic growth and development. PWYP calls on all stakeholders to support this multi-faceted approach.”

Posted 03/04/2009

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Corporate Library Launches Global Corporate Governance Directory

The number of standards are proliferating at the global, regional and national levels. The latest standards are captured now in a single palce by this not-for-profit organization. The major international and regional standards are highlighted here. Please visit the Corporate Library for its full array of standards from across the world.

Global Standards

• Basel Committee on Banking Supervision 1999
• Commonwealth Association for Corporate Governance (CACG) 1999
• International Corporate Governance Network (ICGN) 2005
• International Corporate Governance Network (ICGN) 1999
• International Organization of Securities Commissioners 2002
• Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) 2005
• Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) 2004
• Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) 1999

Regional Standards

• Europe
• Latin America

Posted 02/02/2009

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Center for Public Accountability (CPA) Report Shows How Corporate Bankrolling of
Ballot Measures Distorts Democratic Process and
Puts Companies and Their Shareholders at Risk

"Report focuses on the why’s and how’s of director oversight," says Bruce F. Freed, CPA Executive Director

New CPA report - Taking Initiative: How Corporate Contributions to Ballot Measures Pose a Risk and Why Directors Must Oversee Company Political Spending,

In the wake of one of the most divisive ballot measure battles in American history, CPA has completed a comprehensive study of how corporate bankrolling of initiatives can distort the democratic process and expose companies and their shareholders to significant risk. It calls for meaningful, knowledgeable oversight of political spending by company directors.

The report shows how politicians and political operatives aggressively solicit corporate funds to pay for increasingly expensive initiative campaigns – campaigns designed to agitate the electorate on the most controversial of issues, such as the anti-gay marriage measure that passed in California on November 4. Taking Initiative exposes the inner working of the initiative industry and reveals how political operatives manipulate the initiative process to benefit a particular candidate.

“As California’s recent experience shows,the initiative is a particularly insidious problem of campaign finance,” said Bruce F. Freed, executive director of the Center for Political Accountability. “The courts and federal election officials have allowed corporate contributions to initiatives to remain virtually unregulated. Corporations can easily hide hefty donations that support aggressive, and often deceptive, political advertising. All of this makes it critical that directors conduct serious oversight of company political spending.”

To illustrate this point, Taking Initiative takes as a case study California’s disastrous special election of 2005, in which a group of four initiatives, supported by California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, went down in defeat. Early on, the special election itself, and the four ballot measures in particular, were deemed political losers by press and polls alike. Yet, corporations gave generously to support them. Little evidence points to director oversight of this corporate political activity, or any concern that it be backed by a solid business rationale. Other case studies in the report - involving initiatives in California and Arizona - show how corporations, including Target, Wal-Mart, Gap Inc. and ExxonMobil, risked their reputations by funding controversial initiative campaigns.

Taking Initiative also demonstrates how corporations’ unchecked spending on initiatives presents a problem not only for voters but for corporations and their shareholders. A CPA survey has determined that corporate directors typically exercise scant oversight over their companies’ political contributions, allowing managers to lend support to initiatives that may have little bearing on a company’s business mission or may even undercut a company’s values.

CPA noted in a press release that since its founding in 2003, it has encouraged companies to take careful measure of their political spending and to ensure that their spending is backed by a strong business rationale, overseen by corporate directors and disclosed to shareholders and the public. “When a corporation discloses its spending, it sends a clear message that it carefully considers and oversees its political activity,” Freed said. “Freewheeling corporate spending on initiatives is proof that corporations need to better police their own political activities.”

Careful political spending will help companies avoid putting shareholder value at risk, as has been the case with too may corporations recently. Freddie Mac, for example, paid $3.8 million, the largest fine ever levied by the Federal Election Commission in 2006, for underwriting illegal fundraisers for Congressional candidates. And the chairman and a top executive of Veco, a multinational oil services company which has since been acquired by CH2M Hill, pleaded guilty in May 2007 to political corruption charges that included using company money to fund employees’ individual campaign contributions.

Taking Initiative provides a blueprint for corporations that want to establish or strengthen oversight of their political spending. It shows how directors are responsible for this oversight and must enlist senior managers and outside auditors to assure that political expenditures are made to advance the company mission. And it lays out how directors should go about conducting independent and knowledgeable oversight of their company’s political contributions.

Posted 1/13/2009

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Denmark Legislates CSR for Biggest Companies

The Danish parliament recently passed a law that makes it mandatory for the 1,100 biggest companies in the country to report on their work with CSR. However, it is still up to the company to decide if or how they want to work with CSR. Denmark’s Deputy Prime Minister Lene Espersen is quoted in an official press release as stating, “Many Danish companies are good at working with CSR. However, often they don’t tell the outside world about their efforts. I hope that this law will strengthen the knowledge abroad that Denmark is capable of creating responsible growth. In a globalised world facing a financial crisis and climate changes, CSR becomes an even more important competitive parameter.”

The law requires companies to report their CSR policies or socially responsible investments; how such policies are implemented in practice, and; the results obtained as well as managements’ expectations for the future with regard to CSR/SRI.  In addition, companies are asked to provide information on what results have been obtained so far and managements expectations for the future with regard to CSR/SRI.

While the implementation of programs is still voluntary, companies must now publicly explain their positions.  must state information to that effect explicitly. The new reporting requirement will take effect from 2010. More specific guidelines on how to report the required information will be issued.

Companies can choose to give the information in the annual report itself, in an addendum to the annual report or on the company’s website. If the information is not given in the annual report itself, the report has to say where you can find the information (e.g. on the company’s website).  Regardless how companies choose to give the information an auditor must verify that the information on CSR/SRI is in accordance with the financial information given in the annual report.

Georg Kell, executive director, UN Global Compact noted in a press release that, “By asking for the disclosure of non-financial performance, this bill will make an important contribution to enhance private sector responsibility. It is my hope that this bill will become a model for others to follow.”

Posted 12/31/2008

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International Labor Migration: A Responsible Role for Business
Business for Social Responsibility

Ninety million people migrate for work globally every year  and an increasing percentage of those workers are moving between emerging economies, rather than to industrialized nations. Otherwise known as South-South labor migrants, these workers are filling jobs in manufacturing, agriculture, construction and service industries in countries like Malaysia, the United Arab Emirates, Jordan and Egypt. Migrant workers provide a cost-effective and hardworking labor force in labor-intensive industries, but they are also vulnerable, isolated and often heavily indebted. Reports of abuse, forced labor and human trafficking are increasingly common.

Overall, current regulation in emerging economies largely fails to adequately protect foreign contract workers. As a result, migrant workers have become akin to other sourced commodities, with a premium on price over rights and protections. Systemic change is required to create the conditions under which labor migrants can safely move from one emerging country to another, contributing to the economic growth of both their origin and destination countries as well as their own personal livelihoods.

International companies1 are largely unaware of violations against migrant workers and the shortfalls in regulatory protections. As the drivers of the global demand for labor, businesses are in a unique position to affect sustained change through improved standards in their supply chains and enhanced engagement with policymakers and other key stakeholders.

BSR proposes a three-step process for companies to engage on labor migration:

Gain a more complete understanding of the use of migrant labor within your supply chains, including migrant workers’ countries of origin, recruitment process and terms of employment. Conduct a risk assessment of your supply chains examining the use of migrant labor within them:

--- Research the number of migrant workers in your supply chains and their origins
and destinations through conversations with suppliers and field research.
--- Determine the level of protections in place for migrant workers in policies and
implementation: – By government and regional bodies; Under existing codes of conduct. Develop policies that help ensure the protection of migrant workers in your supply chains and engage directly with your contractors on training and verification.
--- Adjust your code of conduct to include specific protections for migrant workers.
--- Train suppliers on management issues related to migrant workers and support their efforts to ensure fair treatment.
--- Include migrant worker issues in your auditing activities.
--- Tie purchasing decisions to ethical treatment of migrant workers. Actively engage with relevant stakeholders to influence the key systemic issues leading to the continued vulnerability of migrant workers.
--- Work with Government to improve laws and dispute resolution processes and to enhance protection of migrant workers. Support the development and proper enforcement of bilateral agreements focused on migrant worker protection.
--- Engage with Civil Society and Organized Labor to reduce risks in the recruitment
process, and to utilize and bolster existing networks and programs for enhanced migrant worker preparation and protection once they arrive in the destination country.
--- Participate in International Dialogues and Taskforces to develop international
consensus and efforts on how best to address South-South labor migration.

BSR has identified a series of business-relevant trends common in current South-South labor migration, which will be discussed and paired with recommendations for companies in line with the framework described above:

Key stakeholders are engaged in proactive activities that companies can take advantage of and contribute to:

Stakeholders include governments, international organizations, local civil society and
organized labor. Their activities include:
--- Dialogues and taskforces
--- Bilateral and regional engagement
--- Communication channels for migrant workers to report maltreatment and dispute resolution assistance
--- International network building
--- Community outreach and support

Posted 11/18/2008

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The Green Job Initiative Argues Transition to a Global Green Economy Must Emphasize Decent Work

Jobs that contribute to a sustainable environment are prevalent worldwide, according to a new report, but have the potential to make a much larger impact on the “greening” of the global economy.  The United Nations Environment Program has launched the Green Jobs Initiative in conjunction with the International Labor Organization, the International Organization of Employers and the International Trade Union Confederation.  A new report outlines the challenges to the Initiative which aims to make a full transition to a global green economy.  Instead of simply defining a green job as one that contributes a sustainable environment, the report puts equal emphasis on the “decency” of that work.  The Initiative therefore has two aims: averting environmental degradation and including the over a billion people who are currently outside the formal economic and social networks. 

The Challenges

The “dual challenge,” according to the report, is that “climate change itself, adaptation to it and efforts to arrest it by reducing emissions have far-reaching implications for economic and social development, for production and consumption patters and thus for employment, incomes and poverty reduction.”  The goal of the Initiative is to tackle both in tandem.

Some current challenges need to be faced, the report says.  Progress toward creating new jobs is going too slow, many of the new jobs are not going to those who need them most, and creating decent work in some industries is particularly difficult.  A total transition to a green economy will mean many will win, but some may lose out.  The report acknowledges that specific, quantitative information is urgently needed but remains unavailable for enterprises and workers who will be adversely affected.  Finally, unsustainable business practices are still prevalent and often remain more profitable.  More advocacy and policy measure will need to be taken to realize the full benefits of a global green economy.

Assessing Green Jobs Worldwide

Not all green jobs qualify as decent work.  By recognizing this reality, the report attempts to assess the current state of green jobs and where more work needs to be done.  Data was collected for the global workforce in six different sectors which already have a significant number of green jobs.

RENEWABLE ENERGY SUPPLY – More than 2.3 million green jobs have been created worldwide.  They include jobs in the wind power industry, the solar power industry, and solar thermal industry.  Half of these reported jobs are in emerging and developing economies. 

ENERGY EFFICIENCY (CONSTRUCTION) – Some 2 million green jobs based on improving energy efficiency already exist in the United States and in certain European countries.  Buildings count for less of this total and are also responsible for 30-40 percent of all energy use, greenhouse gas emissions and waste generation.  According to the report, could represent a future source of many more green jobs.

TRANSPORTATION – Around 5 million jobs account for railway work in China, India and the European Union alone, the report states, and millions more in public transport worldwide.  As opposed to automobile production, public transport systems offer lower emission and more green jobs.

BASIC INDUSTRIES AND RECYCLING – Fewer than 300,000 jobs worldwide in iron, steel and aluminum can be considered green.  The report states that this industry is particularly difficult to transform and the best option is to increase green jobs in recycling.  Recycling in all its forms accounts provides 12 million jobs in Brazil, China and the U.S. (the only three countries where reliable data was available).  Certainly many more recycling jobs exist around the world, but many cannot be considered green because they cause both pollution and health hazards.

AGRICULTURE – As the largest employer in the world, there are 1.3 billion farmers and agricultural workers worldwide, but many do not constitute decent work nor would they be considered green.  This industry is in a unique position as it is particularly vulnerable to climate change and also a major contributor to it.  A major policy-driven effort will be needed to make major advancements in agriculture, where the advantages for green and decent work are “considerable and the environmental benefits could be enormous.”

FORESTS – Although specific data is scarce, some 40 million jobs and 60 million livelihoods or indigenous peoples can be considered sustainable and green.  Given the significant role forests play in producing renewable raw material, acting as pools of biodiversity, and as regulators of water flows and other environmental services, forests will be play an increasingly important role in the future, the report states.

The main argument in the report is that the successful transition to a global green economy will ultimately depend on the quality of green jobs.  This is particularly true in the recycling, construction and biofuels industries. 

New Opportunities

There is great potential in employer-driven initiatives to green individual workplace, which would require very little new technology.  People in jobs at all levels could see the content of those jobs change, with new performance and skills requirements, according to the report.  The gains would be quick and cost little.  On the other hand, the report warns that not everyone will win in the transition.  New jobs will be created while others are discarded; but on balance, “available studies of labor market dynamics for both sectors and entire economies suggest that there will be more jobs in green economies.”

Posted 9/29/08

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The Ethical Trading Initiative Launches New Ethics Tips for the Retail Industry

The Ethical Trading Initiative (ETI) has launched a series of new guidance tools to help retailers and buyers become more aware of their ethical business practices.  The Initiative, started in the UK, has been producing materials for its members over the past 10 years. 

The following are a list of guidelines for buyers:

ETI also provides essential elements of an ethical supply chain:

In addition to these newly revised tips, the group has produced the ETI Workbook.  According to ETI, the workbook helps companies tackle the many complex questions involved in ethical trade and is packed with practical tips, case studies, tools and resources.  It covers such issues as auditing, codes of ethics, ethical sourcing, employee relations and partnering with other groups to maximize programs.  The information in the book was gathered from ETI member companies; working groups composed of corporate, trade union, and NGO members; and ETI organized events.  The manual is far-reaching and can be ordered from the ETI website.

Another new initiative focuses specifically on the consumer.  The Ethical Pest Initiative encourages consumers to be more aware of the products they are buying in the retail industry and the companies that make them.  The Ethical Pest initiative is being spearheaded by Tara Scott and Stacey Dooley, two of the six young people whose experiences working in the garment industry in India were filmed as part of the BBC series Blood, Sweat and T-shirts. 

ETI offers 10 questions consumers can find out about retailers regarding their ethical trading policy, as well as other helpful tips which can be found on the ETI website.

Posted 8/20/08

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Anti-Corruption Manual for Professional Organizations Urges Industries to Take Responsibility for Its Behavior

The UK Anti-Corruption Forum has produced an anti-corruption manual for professional associations belonging to the infrastructure, construction and engineering sectors.  The manual encourages professional organizations to create procedures and regulations with a consistent approach which will help prevent corruption in their member companies. 

According to the Forum, the guide has three purposes:

• Assist professional bodies in the infrastructure, construction and engineering (IC&E) sector to establish effective rules and procedures to reduce the incidence of corruption involving their members and to deal effectively with those incidents that do arise.
  
  
• Help IC&E professional bodies to adopt a consistent approach in how they deal with cases of corruption involving their members.
  
  
• Encourage professional bodies to raise awareness amongst members that corrupt activity, in addition to being unethical and against the professional body’s rules, may also constitute a criminal offence for which members could incur personal liability.
  
  

Although each organization may develop different approaches to preventing corruption, the Forum recommends all anti-corruption rules should include at least the following:

• A clear statement that members must not take part, directly or indirectly, in any form of corruption, including bribery, extortion, fraud, deception and collusion, whether for their own benefit or the benefit of their employer or any other third party. Specific types of activities should be explicitly stated.
  
  
• A requirement that if members become aware of any corrupt activity in projects in which they or their employer have become engaged, they must report what they know within their employer’s reporting line.
  
  
• A requirement that members who are senior managers or senior officers in a company must properly investigate any suspicion of corruption of which they become aware, and for which they or their company may be responsible.
  
  
• A statement explaining that involvement in corrupt activity will be a breach of the professional body’s rules, and may also constitute a criminal offence for which members may incur personal criminal liability carrying serious penalties.

The Forum includes a list of activities that should be considered corruption behavior with grounds for investigation and penalty.

Disciplinary action by IC&E professional bodies should be swift and fair. Furthermore, the Forum encourages that In glaring criminal cases, these organizations should bypass criminal authorities who refuse to prosecute.

The Forum states both the need for severe disciplinary action, when necessary, and fair investigations.  Regarding the specifics of disciplinary actions, the Forum states that if the possible sanction will be expulsion or suspension from the professional body, or any other sanction that is likely to materially affect the livelihood of the member, the appropriate standard of proof should be “beyond reasonable doubt”. However, for a lesser penalty, the professional body’s procedures may allow a decision based on “balance of probability”. Where there has been a criminal conviction in a properly constituted court of law, the professional body may choose to regard this is as adequate proof of the activity in question without need of further investigation.  This is outlined in more detail in the full guide.

Additionally, the Forum emphasizes that in the case of a company that has been found to have committed criminal offenses, it may be appropriate for the professional body to take its own disciplinary action if it believes the criminal proceedings are likely to be unduly delayed or prolonged by the criminal authorities in the relevant country.  The professional body should also override the criminal authorities’ decision not to prosecute in cases where the evidence against a company is particularly strong.

The professional body should also take responsibility for raising awareness about its own rules prohibiting corrupt activities, the Forum states.  The organization should publish the conduct which it regards as corrupt and the likely disciplinary and criminal sanctions which would be a result of these activities.

UK Anti-Corruption Forum
The UK Anti-Corruption Forum is an alliance of UK business associations, professional institutions, civil society organisations and companies with interests in the domestic and international infrastructure, construction and engineering sectors. The purpose of the Forum is to promote industry-led actions which can help to eliminate corruption. The members of the Forum believe that corruption can only be eliminated if governments, banks, business and professional associations, and companies working in these sectors co-operate in the development and implementation of effective anti-corruption actions.

Posted 5/20/08

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Human Rights Reporting Not Meeting Full Disclosure, GRI Says

In new survey, only nine companies out of 100 fully met the Global Reporting Initiative’s standards on human rights reporting

The Global Reporting Initiative’s (GRI) “G3 Sustainability Reporting Guidelines” are widely used as a standard for companies developing their corporate social responsibility (CSR) reports, but a new survey from the Netherlands-based global network shows that reporting is still far from standard.  GRI, along with the Roberts Environmental Center (REC) at Claremont McKenna College in California, focused in this report on how companies are reporting on human rights specifically.  The findings show that even if companies declare that they follow GRI’s G3 Guidelines, many reports are not providing full disclosure, as GRI standards dictate. 

Corporate reporting on human rights is a relatively recent activity.  The concepts of what activities constitute human rights and how these activities should be presented in a report still vary from company to company, despite GRI’s attempt to standardize the process. 

In order to level the playing field, so that readers can gain a more accurate perception of how a company fulfills its human rights obligations, GRI developed the “G3 Human Rights Performance Indicators.”  They are composed of nine different topic areas, and there is a detailed explanation as to how companies should address each in terms of company policy, action and performance.  With these guidelines in mind, GRI and REC set out to assess 100 different company reports from corporations listed in the Fortune Global 500.  Their evaluation criteria included 1) the organizational structure of reporting; 2) what topics constituted human rights; and 3) the kinds of information reported. 

In addition, these organizations wanted to know how in-depth human rights reporting is across global corporations.  They evaluated the “presence, absence, or statement of non-relevance; for fully, partially or not meeting the requirements of the specific G3 Performance Indicators; for depth of reported information and for presence of performance information, both quantitative and otherwise.”  

The following are a few highlights from the report under the main criteria categories:

STRUCTURE

• About half of companies address human rights in the social section of their CSR reports.  Only 22% had a section dedicated solely to human rights.
  
  
• Companies in the manufacturing and banking sectors were the most likely to include human rights in their supplier guides.
  
  
• Overall, companies take a more broad perspective of human rights than GRI.  Categories that GRI labels “labor” and “procurement” are often included in corporate reports under human rights.     
  
  
• Many companies reference outside organizations as part of their policy statement.  The United Nations Global Compact and the International Labor Organization’s Core Conventions were the organizations referenced most often.
  
  

CONTENT

• There was a wide variation in the amount of attention given to each of the nine G3 Human Rights Performance Indicators.  “Non-discrimination” was addressed by 97% of the reports. 
  
  
• 71% of the reports addressed child labor and 67% address forced and compulsory labor, BUT only 35% met GRI’s requirements, either partially or fully, for child labor and only 32% did so for forced and compulsory labor.
  
  
• The extractive and manufacturing industries had the highest scores in addressing human rights topics overall.
  
  

DEPTH

• Still only nine companies fully met the G3 Human Rights Performance Indicator requirements.
  
  
• The topic “investment agreements,” one of the nine G3 Human Rights Performance Indicators, was given the least attention in corporate reports.  According to GRI, “This indicator is meant to be a measure of the extent to which human rights are integrated into an organization’s economic decisions, such as partnerships or significant capital investments.”  Employee training on policies and procedures concerning aspects of human rights that are relevant to operations was also less frequently reported.
  
  
• Only 21% of companies who reported that they follow G3 Guidelines included information on performance in all cases, and only 11% of those that did not mention G3 Guidelines included performance information.  Quantitative information (included in the G3 Guidelines) regarding performance was used even less frequently in both cases.

NUMBER OF G3 AND NON-G3 REPORTERS MEETING SPECIFIC G3 PERFORMANCE INDICATORS

Source: Global Reporting Initiative's "Sustainability Reporting in Human Rights"

To read the full report, please visit the GRI website.

Posted 4/15/08

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Working With Local Populations – How Governments and Corporations Should Make A Positive Impact

Protecting local populations in developing countries, especially where the rule of law is weak, is fundamentally a human rights issue - both governments and companies have key responsibilities here. 

Two new reports focus on this complex and core corporate social responsibility issue.

Amnesty International emphasizes that the Cambodian government should be protecting their citizens, but instead it stands by as local populations are forcibly evicted without due process.  Here, and elsewhere, corporations are coming under increasing pressures to contribute to improvements in the communities where they work.  Caroline Rees writes in an article for Ethical Corporation that companies need to establish effective mechanisms for grievance processes. 

Government Failure - Forced Evictions in Cambodia Without Due Process

“Forced eviction is becoming one of the most widespread and systematic human rights abuses affecting Cambodians.”
– Amnesty International

Despite the Cambodian government’s claims to be “pro-poor” and its acceptance of numerous United Nations principles and conventions, Amnesty International reports in Rights Razed: Forced Evictions in Cambodia that well over 30,000 Cambodians have been displaced due to forced evictions in the last five years.   Based on field visits conducted between March 2006 and June 2007, Amnesty International found Cambodians were forced, sometimes violently, to leave their homes “without consultations, due process of law, legal or other protection, and with no consideration of adequate alternatives.”  These people were then relocated to barren land with little access to clean water and effective health clinics. 

Forced evictions target the poor because they have little knowledge of their rights, limited access to NGOs who could seek redress, and are the least likely to be able to represent themselves.  Indigenous peoples are particularly vulnerable.  Amnesty International reports that Prime Minister Hu Sen has called for an end to these abuses, but government officials have not demonstrated the political will to change legislation or enforce existing laws.

The UN has already established a comprehensive set of guidelines regarding the rights of indigenous peoples, the right to land, and the right to an adequate standard of living, which Amnesty International outlines in detail in the report.  The group advocates that government officials strongly enforce these principles, to which Cambodia has already agreed and that they better incorporate the principles into existing laws.  It also recommends a complete moratorium of forced evictions until these reforms take place.

Corporate Diplomacy – Establishing An Effective Grievance Process

“Companies with complex structures, operations and supply chains can expect to face disputes over their impacts on communities and other stakeholders, however good their policies, monitoring and auditing systems.”
– Caroline Rees, fellow at the Corporate Social Responsibility Initiative at Harvard University

Corporate activities are bringing companies in closer contact with local communities, which means disputes between the groups will likely rise.  The question for companies is how to resolve these disputes effectively.

According to Ms. Rees, courts are one strategy of resolving these disputes, but often create deep rifts between the two groups who have to continue working with each other, and legal costs are expensive.  Rees continues to discuss how grievance processes can be most effective in practice, based on principles devised by the Harvard University’s Corporate Social Responsibility Initiative. 

“A mechanism must carry legitimacy and trust, in part by involving all stakeholder groups in its design and oversight; it must provide ease of access to its potential end-users as well as predictability of process and transparency of outcome; and the processes it offers must be seen to be fair to all and empowering of those who are most vulnerable.

The type of process also matters. Many companies create an avenue for aggrieved parties to raise their concerns – via a complaints box, hotline or liaison officer – but then, after investigation, make a unilateral decision on the response. The principles therefore highlight the need for mechanisms at the operational level to focus on engagement and dialogue, with adjudication roles left to external bodies.

The principles are supported by accompanying guidance and explanation. They do not prescribe a uniform model, but offer scope to design systems that suit the sector, culture, scale and context in question.”

Excerpts of this article are reproduced with permission from the February edition of the London-based global business magazine Ethical Corporation. For a free trial, click here.

Posted 2/20/08

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Ethics for Small to Medium-Sized Businesses

2 New Reports
► INSTITUTE OF BUSINESS ETHICS
► TRANSPARENCY INTERNATIONAL

The Institute of Business Ethics notes that its recent briefing explores what business ethics means for small to medium-sized business enterprises and how they can introduce and support high standards of business practice. Why think about business ethics?

The report, issued in December 2007, noted:

Few directors of small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) will deny the importance of good, trusting relationships with customers, employees, suppliers and the community. The success of their company depends on it.

Also, due to requirements higher up supply chains, smaller firms are increasingly asked about their social and environmental credentials during tendering processes with large corporations.
SME owners and managers will also recognise the importance of trust and ethics in business when on the ‘receiving end’ of unethical business practice; for example, when suppliers deliberately do not meet agreed terms and conditions.

Owners and managers can often encounter ethical challenges. Examples include:
• Do I meet a deadline with my customer and ship out products even though I know there is a possibility they might be faulty, or do I openly discuss my difficulties with the customer?
• How do I ensure that my employees do their work properly and do the right thing?
• How do I deal with my employees’ desire to balance their work obligations with their personal ones?
• How do I respond when securing an important contract seems to require the payment of a
kickback?
• Do I delay payment to suppliers and the Inland Revenue when my cash-flow is currently limited?

The desire to build trusting internal and external relationships, as well as growing pressures from wider society, should lead SME owners and managers to consider to what extent ethical values and principles guide their business behaviour. What does ‘doing the right thing’ mean?

Ethical Values in SMEs
SMEs are characterised by informal understandings and shared expectations among the workforce of how business is done. Any values and ethical principles will usually be implicit rather than formally expressed through ethics policies, codes and programmes that are familiar in large companies. The ethics of a small organisation is typically influenced by the owner manager or managing director. Through their very visible presence, their personal attitudes and behaviours will set the tone of the business and have the potential to signal to employees how seriously ethical behaviour is to be taken in the organisation.

SMEs are not typically able to devote as many resources to building an ethical workplace culture as larger organisations. However, there are advantages to having a somewhat more formal ethics policy in place. Firstly, it reinforces and makes explicit the values and principles that are part of the organisational culture, so allowing them to be communicated to stakeholders. Secondly, a policy will provide guidance and support to employees on how they are expected to conduct their business.  A policy will provide a context and the vocabulary for employees to raise any concerns they have with their supervisors or the directors. It will form a framework for management and staff to decide what is the “right
thing to do”.

How to develop and implement an ethics policy

Identify and define core values of the business
An effective ethics policy will be based on a set of values. Values may be thought of as agreed standards of behaviour, expressing beliefs about the ‘good’ and the ‘right’ in the context of the organisation; they are commonly derived from wider cultural and societal value systems. When identifying the organisation’s core values, it may help to think of some values as business values and others as ethical values, although the distinction can be blurred and business and ethical values are often interrelated.

Some benefits of making ethical values explicit
• Increased employee loyalty, higher commitment and morale as well as lower staff turnover
• Attraction of ‘high-quality’ staff
• Reputational benefits (customers and suppliers)
• More open and innovative culture
• Decreased cost of borrowing and insurance
• Generation of good-will in the communities in which the business operates

(please see the full report.)

Transparency International has published a new guide, released in late January 2008, designed specifically to help small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) develop policies and procedures to address bribery (this is based on an earlier guide for all enterprises): The Business Principles for Countering Bribery - Small and Medium Enterprise (SME) Edition.

The new guide provides a framework for companies to develop comprehensive anti-bribery programmes. Whilst many large companies have no-bribes policies all too few implement these policies effectively. TI encourages companies to consider using the Business Principles as a starting point for developing their own anti-bribery programmes or to benchmark existing ones. The development of the Business Principles for Countering Bribery, introduced in December 2002, was spearheaded by Transparency International in co-operation with Social Accountability International. The Business Principles are the product of a collaborative effort involving companies, academia, trade unions and non-governmental bodies.

More than 95% of the world’s business is carried out by small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Small and medium sized enterprises may not have the same human and financial resources as larger companies but are just as vulnerable to the risks of bribery. SMEs also play a fundamental role in the supply chains of large international companies which increasingly are requiring anti-bribery commitments from their suppliers.

In addition to anti-bribery principles, the SME Edition includes practical guidance on how to develop an anti-bribery programme that is tailored to the size and resources of individual businesses and sample rules on gifts and entertainment.

Transparency International states that countering bribery makes good business sense for SMEs. It can help manage risk and build reputation, especially with customers. Practices that were once seen as an inevitable part of doing business in many parts of the world are becoming increasingly unacceptable. More stringent domestic laws and international conventions such as the 1999 OECD Anti-Bribery Convention and the United Nations Convention against Corruption are compelling companies to develop new anti-bribery policies or to review existing ones. The high-profile corporate scandals of recent years have made companies increasingly aware that corrupt practices pose serious and costly risks to their reputation and sustainability. This understanding, coupled with growing public expectation of accountability and probity in the corporate sector, are putting added pressure on companies to articulate and live up to more ethical business practices.

(please see the Business Principles for Countering Bribery - Small and Medium Enterprise (SME) Edition (pdf for download)

Posted 2/12/08

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A Call To Action...
International Organization Established to Promote Carbon Markets

The first coalition of global entities engaged in the process of designing or implementing carbon markets, called the International Carbon Action Partnership (ICAP), has been formally established. At a summit in Lisbon, Portugal on October 29, representatives from 11 countries, four U.S. states, British Columbia, and the European Commission, convened to set out several initiatives to promote the implementation of carbon markets through mandatory cap and trade systems, setting this strategy to combat climate change, which the U.S. administration has largely shunned, as an international priority. 

According to the organization’s website, “Membership is open to all public authorities and governments that have established or are actively pursuing carbon markets through mandatory cap and trade systems as one approach for reducing greenhouse gas emissions.”

ICAP declared in a press release that it “will open lines of communication for sharing valuable information, such as research, effective policy initiatives, lessons learned and new developments.” Among its principles, ICAP recognizes the need for urgent action, well-developed policies will create economic growth, market-based solutions in the form of cap-and-trade are a key component to economic strategy, reducing greenhouse-gas emissions requires global cooperation, and that national and regional carbon markets offer significant potential for international climate policy.

Participating members include:

British Columbia, New Jersey, California, New York, European Commission, New Zealand, France, Norway, Germany, Netherlands, Greece, Portugal, Italy, Spain, Ireland, United Kingdom, and Maine  

Posted 10/30/07

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Is It Time to Rewrite
the Social Contract?

By Allen L. White
Senior Advisor, BSR

Prepared April 2007

The following is an excerpt from a paper published by Business for Social Responsibility

In the midst of BHP Billiton’s assessment of the consequences of its massive and  dramatically successful effort to reverse malaria in the region surrounding its aluminum smelter in Mozambique, the general manager of the smelter commented, “you can imagine, it was huge disaster. We could not deal with that level of absenteeism, and we would have had more fatalities. If we didn’t treat malaria we could not operate.”

Not long ago, such an intervention on the part of a private firm in a traditionally governmental function like public health was a rarity. Today, interventions are increasingly commonplace, both in instances where a business case is evident (as in Mozambique) and in instances where the economics are less than compelling but the moral high ground is unambiguous.

Examples of corporate activities that impinge upon public goods abound: pharmaceutical  companies providing affordable HIV/AIDS drugs to battle the pandemic worldwide; beverage companies controversially extracting potable water resources in India; multinationals assuming control over public water supplies in Bolivia; and privatization of mass transit in the UK and roadways in India.

Amid the broad spectrum of public goods — public health, public education, public lands — the emergence of the corporation as an investor, advisor and partner has moved from the exceptional to the expected. By all indications, this trend will accelerate in the coming decades as societal expectations of business stretch the traditional boundaries of companies from purely profit-driven entities to organizations with an obligation to operate with an enduring commitment to the public interest.

Click here for the complete paper in pdf

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Connecting the UN Global Compact and the Global Reporting Initiative

To download as .pdf

An agreement has been reached between the United Nations Global Compact, which is dedicated to stimulating global responsible corporate citizenship, and the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), the leading international institution setting standards for corporate social responsibility.

The Global Compact now embraces more than 3,000 companies in over 100 countries who endorse and claim to actively promote the organization’s key social responsibility principles that embrace strengthening human and labor rights, protecting the environment, and promoting anti-corruption. Until now, however, the range of codes and values-statements and basic CSR standards accepted by all of these companies has ranged greatly. The Global Compact has announced that it will encourage its member companies to pursue the sustainability reporting approaches of the new GRI G3 Guidelines.

The two organizations, which explained their new relationship at the recent annual meeting of Business for Social Responsibility in New York (November, 2006), released a “draft publication” in October that explains how the two frameworks of these global organizations are going to work together and how companies can best take advantage of this cooperation. The two organizations are looking for feed-back on this initiative and plan a final version of their guidance publication in July 2007 at the next Global Compact Leaders Summit.

Behind this initiative lies an effort by the GRI to expand the universe of users of its standards and the goal of the Global Compact to assist its member companies as they comply with the its requirements on “Communication on Progress” (COP).  The Global Compact is keenly aware that companies may want to join it for the prestige of an association with the United Nations, but then do nothing to demonstrate adherence to the core principles. Accordingly, reporting on COP is key.

Companies can provide COP reports in many forms, but over time it is likely that they will be encouraged increasingly to use the GRI’s G3 guidelines. According to the Global Compact, “The purpose of the COP requirement is not only to ensure and deepen the commitment of Compact participants and to safeguard the integrity of the initiative. It also aims to create a rich repository of corporate practices that serves as a basic for continuous performance improvement. For companies, it is a tool to excercise leadership, facilitate learning, stimulate dialogue and promote action.”

Georg Kell, Executive Director of the Global Compact, says, “Companies participating in both initiatives have long stressed the understanding that the GRI is a practical expression of the Global Compact.”

The two organizations assert that the value of sustainability reporting is not only found in the final product but also in the process. Leading companies are using the reporting processes as an internal management tool. 

Posted 12/4/0

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FTSE4Good Index Launches New Countering Bribery Criteria

“The FTSE4Good criteria signal that countering bribery is an important part of the corporate social responsibility agenda. If we are to achieve the Millennium Development Goals, then bribery must be tackled and the FTSE4Good criteria are an important contribution towards this aim.”

- Jeremy Brooks, Board Director of Transparency International

In this summary -  details on the new bribery criteria, and background on the FTSE4Good Index.

FTSE Group (Financial Times Stock Exchange Group), the leading UK index provider, will launch, effective, July 1, 2006, a new set of criteria to counter bribery for its FTSE4Good Index  - the leading socially responsible investing (SRI) index in the UK.

The criteria, which FTSE claimed in its February 22, 2006 press release is the most developed and transparent counter-bribery criteria in any CSR index. The new criteria take the Transparency International Business Principles for Countering Bribery as a starting point. Bribery is defined as “an offer or receipt of any gift, loan, fee, reward or other advantage to or from any person as an inducement to do something which is dishonest, illegal or a breach of trust in the conduct of the enterprise's business.”

The Countering Bribery criteria were developed on the basis of broad consultation over an 18-month period involving input from many stakeholders, including corporations, fund managers, government representatives, NGOs, business associations and private investors (see more detail below).

Background

FTSE4Good has three goals:

• To provide a tool for responsible investors to identify and invest in companies that meet globally recognized corporate responsibility standards.
• To provide asset managers with a SRI benchmark and a tool for SRI practices.
• To contribute to the development of responsible business practice around the world by encouraging companies to strive to meet the criteria.

FTSE4Good can be used in four ways:

• Investment – a basis for socially responsible financial instruments and fund products.
• Research – a research tool to identify socially responsible companies.
• Reference – a reference tool to provide companies with a transparent and evolving global corporate responsibility standard to aspire to and surpass.
• Benchmarking - a benchmark index to track the performance of socially responsible investment portfolios.

The FTSE4Good Index is revised semi-annually through the scrutiny of annual reports and other publicly available material, questionnaires and the research of the Ethical Investment Research Service (EIRIS).

Before the introduction of the Countering Bribery Criteria, the FTSE4Good Index consisted of four other criteria sets: the Environmental Criteria, the Social & Stakeholder Criteria, the Human Rights Criteria, and the Supply Chain and Labour Standards Criteria.

 
The Bribery Criteria

“Operating in an open and transparent environment is essential for good business practice, both in the UK and abroad, and the launch of the FTSE4GOOD criteria is another strong step towards improving international business behaviour and combating bribery.  Tackling bribery remains a key component of the UK Government’s efforts to improve governance and sustainable development.”

-Gareth Thomas, UK International Development Minister

The criteria will be implemented into the index series on a phased basis over two years, starting July 1, 2006.  One key challenge is that an estimated 130 companies out of about  200 covered by FTSE that have been identified as having the highest level of exposure to potential bribery, may need to take actions to meet the new criteria, such as putting new policies and management systems in place to mitigate bribery risk.  FTSE’s in-house Responsible Investment Unit will be working with companies to explain the criteria and what they have to do to meet it. 

FTSE has established three levels of bribery risk (high, medium, or low) that are being analyzed in terms of three filters or screens: 1) its sector; 2) the country/countries it operates in; and, 3) its involvement in public contracts.

The countries determined to be at highest risk for bribery are based on the World Bank’s Governance Indicators and the Transparency International Corruption Perceptions Index.

Some of the sectors found to be at the highest risk for bribery were:

Oil and Gas Producers; Oil Equipment, Services, and Distribution; Chemicals; Industrial Metals; Mining; Construction and Materials; Aerospace and Defense; General Industrials; Electronic & Electrical Equipment; Industrial Engineering; Support Services; Electricity; Gas, Water & Multi-Utilities; Pharmaceuticals; Hotels; Fixed Line Telecommunications; Mobile Telecommunications; Software and Computer Services; Technology; Hardware & Equipment.

In order to be rated, a companies’ policy, management, and reporting is measured according to the following criteria:

While these criteria make up the first stage of implementation, the FTSE4Good Committee intends to introduce further criteria for high-risk companies. These include:

On the policy level:

- board-level Commitment made public;
- tranparency of any political donations; and,
- policy applies to business partners.

On the systems level:

- sanctions process for breaches of policy;
- risk based-assessment or risk-led prioritization;
- communicate policy to business partners; and,
- appropriate systems for appointment and remuneration of business partners and intermediaries

For more information please visit: www.ftse.com/ftse4good

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IFC Adopts New Environmental and Social Standards

On February 21, 2006 the International Finance Corporation, the private lending arm of the World Bank, adopted a new set of environmental and social standards. The standards, which replace the IFC's 1998 Safeguard Policies, build upon the environmental and social requirements that the IFC currently applies to private sector projects it finances in the developing world.

The new standards come after an extensive period of public comment and consultation with stakeholders, governments, NGOs, and other members of civil society on updating the safeguards. According to the IFC, this period was triggered both by the realization that the old safeguards had proved inadequate in complex project situations, and by the IFC’s transition to a new business model, which is based on the premise that long-term profitability and strong project outcomes are better secured by companies that manage all of their risks well.

The standards cover more areas than the old safeguards and give those already in place more force and specificity. For instance the standards now require firms to consider the impact projects will have on the wider community's health, safety, and security as well as establish a grievance mechanism for affected communities. The new standards also include a comprehensive approach to labor conditions, which addresses all four core labor standards of the International Labor Organization (forced labor, child labor nondiscrimination, and freedom of association and collective bargaining).

While the old safeguards put special emphasis on assessing the social impact programs have on vulnerable groups, for instance on concerns over involuntary settlement, Indigenous Peoples, and cultural heritage, the new standards add a reference to human rights. In particular, the standards tackle the difficult issues of adequate housing and security of tenure. 

Furthermore, the standards adopt a new outcomes-based approach, which replaces a rules-based system with a principles-based one. According to the IFC, the outcomes-based approach hinges on three policies which it hopes will help clients identify and prepare for the risks intrinsic to their business: 1) developing a clear business model with concrete management systems for handling problems 2) outlining, with help from the community, clear desired outcomes and specific plans of action tailored to the specific project and 3) considering a diverse set of means and maintaining the flexibility that will enable clients to seize new opportunities. 

The IFC is also adopting a new policy structure that more clearly defines and distinguishes between the roles of the IFC and its private sector clients, thereby increasing accountability. The Sustainability Policy outlines the IFC’s responsibilities to project outcomes and communities, while The Performance Standards describe those of its clients. These include clear requirements for public disclosure by clients both at the beginning, and throughout the course of, the project.

The Disclosure Policy identifies and expands on the IFC’s duties to publicly disclose information on its activities and governance. In particular, it creates a request-driven process and internal review mechanism that will enable the public to request and receive information and challenge decisions in an easier and more timely manner. Moreover, the IFC will now regularly post more key internal documents for public scrutiny such as its budget, business plans, minutes from Board meetings, and summaries of project impacts and successes.

Finally, three additional documents, while not IFC policy, will serve as advisory material for clients and IFC staff. These are guidance notes for adhering to the new standards, directions for completing environmental and social reviews, and technical guidance for addressing environment, health, and safety issues.

The Equator Principles are also expected to be updated in accordance with the new IFC standards. These are a set of environmental and social guidelines, based on IFC’s safeguards, that are now applied by 40 leading commercial financial institutions, which collectively represent some 80 percent of global project finance.

Please visit the IFC website for full report.

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Recent News - Pemex Joins UN Global Compact.  Mexico's state oil company Pemex has signed the Global Compact. Pemex’s decision could have a major influence on other Mexican companies and represents a key step forward for the Global Compact, which currently claims to have 2,000 member corporations.

The Global Compact, managed by the United Nations, challenges corporations to strengthen global corporate citizenship by working together with UN agencies, labor and civil society to support its Ten Principles. The Global Compact is a direct initiative of the Secretary-General. It is a purely voluntary initiative with two objectives:

• Mainstream the ten principles in business activities around the world
• Catalyze actions in support of UN goals
  
  

Ten Principles

The Global Compact's ten principles in the areas of human rights, labor, the environment and anti-corruption enjoy universal consensus and are derived from:

• The Universal Declaration of Human Rights
• The International Labour Organization's Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work
• The Rio Declaration on Environment and Development
• The United Nations Convention Against Corruption
  
  

The Global Compact asks companies to embrace, support and enact, within their sphere of influence, a set of core values in the areas of human rights, labour standards, the environment, and anti-corruption:

Human Rights

• Principle 1: Businesses should support and respect the protection of internationally proclaimed human rights; and
• Principle 2: make sure that they are not complicit in human rights abuses.  
  
  

Labour Standards

• Principle 3: Businesses should uphold the freedom of association and the effective recognition of the right to collective bargaining;
• Principle 4: the elimination of all forms of forced and compulsory labour;
• Principle 5: the effective abolition of child labour; and
• Principle 6: the elimination of discrimination in respect of employment and occupation.  
  
  

Environment

• Principle 7: Businesses should support a precautionary approach to environmental challenges;
• Principle 8: undertake initiatives to promote greater environmental responsibility; and
• Principle 9: encourage the development and diffusion of environmentally friendly technologies   
  
  

Anti-Corruption

Principle 10: Businesses should work against all forms of corruption, including extortion and bribery. 

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