Top jewellery brands are failing to meet the growing expectations of customers for ethical sourcing of metals and gemstones, thereby providing opportunities for new brands to emerge, according to an independent report. Published by Fair Jewelry Action, a non-profit organisation promoting fairly traded jewellery, and strategy advisers Lifeworth Consulting,... Read more
TAGS: Types of PartnershipIn the last few months we’ve been advising a department of the International Labour Organisation on potential new forms of collaboration with the private sector. When doing that work, I was surprised not to be able to find a clear and comprehensive typology of cross-sector partnerships, between companies and what we could term “public interest... Read more
TAGS: What Business Can do to Reduce Disaster RiskAs the full tragedy of the Japanese earthquake and tsunami begins to be undertood, it is important to consider what business can do not only in response to disasters, but to reduce people’s exposure to disaster risk. As the costs of natural disasters increase, so the topic of “business continuity” has become more important for risk... Read more
TAGS: Long live accountability!If AccountAbility, as an organisation governed by its stakeholders, is “dead” then long live accountability! Because many lessons can be learned for how to create more democratically accountable organisations and societies from the changes at AccountAbility and the subsequent criticisms from its disgruntled stakeholders and former staff. The lessons... Read more
TAGS: accountability, The Corporate Responsibility Movement Managing the Pro-Development Impacts of Your BusinessLooking back on corporate responsibility in 2010, one of the topics that rose to the top of the agenda was the role of business in international development. In particular, this was spurred by the UN’s review of (a lack of) progress towards meeting the Millennium Development Goals. There are a range of initiatives to advance business contributions... Read more
TAGS: base of the pyramid, inclusive business, social enterprise, sustainable inclusive business CSR Disclosure Gets HotYesterday I chaired a session of the CSR Singapore Compact Summit on measurement and disclosure of corporate responsibility. It was the type of topic I skipped at CSR conferences in the past decade, as I headed off to things seeming more exciting and new, like leadership, partnership, finance or enterprise. But now matters of measurement and disclosure... Read more
TAGS: asian csr, disclosure, Jem Bendell, reporting Study finds CSR, ESG and social enterprise overlook the publicly and commercially critical issue of economic inequalityEconomic inequality is increasingly recognised as negatively impacting on the environment, poverty, crime, peace, health and even financial stability. As such, the rates of economic inequality represent both a public issue and concern for business and investment. A study published on September 24th in the the Journal of Corporate Citizenship, finds... Read more
TAGS: Responsible finance could do more for development than MDG charityThis week the world’s leaders meet in New York to discuss progress on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which were agreed ten years ago as time-bound targets for achievable reductions in poverty. The spin masters of global policy have already been busy framing this milestone in the media. But aside from the spin, the reality is very different... Read more
TAGS: development, MDGs, poverty UN Report Calls for Further Standardising CSR & ESG to Promote Public Interest“In the wake of the BP oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, questions have been raised about the meaningfulness of voluntary corporate responsibility communications and the analysis of these by responsible investors,” claims the Secretary-General of the UN Conference on Trade and Development, Supachai Panitchpakdi. This has made it necessary... Read more
TAGS: responsible investment, UNCTAD From Global Compact to Global ImpactIn June the largest corporate responsibility (CR) initiative in the world, the United Nations Global Compact (UNGC) celebrated 10 years since its launch, with a Leader’s Summit in New York. I’ve followed the the Global Compact since correspondence in 1998 with its founder Georg Kell; we discussed how the UN could learn from how NGOs and... Read more
TAGS: Economic Goverance, Global Compact, Systemic Change, UN
