Business Challenges, Our Strategies and Impact

Consulting

GE's Citizenship Report Sets the Bar High

The Challenge

GE decided to create a reporting strategy that would communicate a global, companywide approach while also encompassing its diverse business lines: GE Money, Commercial Finance, NBC Universal, Infrastructure, Industrial and Healthcare.

IBM Supports Small Businesses in Emerging Economies

The Challenge

IBM wanted to develop a virtual business incubator for small- and medium-size enterprises (SMEs) and asked us to help evaluate target markets, assess gaps in current offerings and desired functionality, and identify potential partners. Such an understanding would prepare IBM to develop a solution that best meets the needs of SMEs and maximize the impact on economic development.

Sino Gold Implements Action Plan for Community Development in China

The Challenge

Sino Gold's Jinfeng Mine is an Australian-operated joint venture with the Chinese government that entered production in May 2007. Sino Gold sought guidance on how to build its “social license to operate” by promoting long-term community development in the five remote villages surrounding the mine in the mountains of southern China. Sino Gold contacted BSR for advice on the design of a community development strategy that would go beyond traditional public relations or social marketing efforts to promote real, tangible improvements in people’s quality of life.

Working Groups

Achieving Global “eSustainability”

The Challenge

The Information and Communications Technology (ICT) sector moves quickly. It is known for developing new products and services, as well as driving the convergence of previously separate services into integrated products. These constant changes are accompanied by rapidly shifting CSR risks and opportunities. While companies often seek to maximize the sustainability of CSR efforts by prioritizing their most material issues, there is no consensus on which issues are most material for the ICT industry as a whole.

Shenzhen’s ICT Sector Strives for Social and Environmental Leadership

The Challenge

The Foreign Investment Advisory Service (FIAS), a joint initiative of the World Bank and the International Finance Corporation, sought to build the capacity of the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) sector in Shenzhen, China, to meet international social and environmental requirements and improve the “soft” competitiveness of the industry. This in turn necessitated an innovative multi-stakeholder project approach that included a wide range of industry and public sector players.

Research & Development

Promoting Business Engagement in Enhancing Effective Public Governance

The Challenge

Companies are increasingly finding that the boundaries between public and private responsibilities are unclear. Many CSR challenges flow directly from weak or poor governance, or from a lack of clarity about how to address questions of global significance. Appropriate business efforts to address topics ranging from climate change and labor standards to bribery and corruption are more likely to be successful where effective public governance is present. Indeed, truly sustainable economic growth is more likely where governance mechanisms function effectively.

The Environmental Markets Initiative

The Challenge

The landmark Millennium Ecosystem Assessment -- the most far-reaching ecological study ever undertaken, conducted by over 1,300 scientists around the world -- found that 60 to 70 percent of environmental functions, such as natural water purification and flood protection, are being degraded faster than they can recover. The private sector, its customers and its suppliers rely on many of these services for consistent supply, business continuity and consumer purchasing power. BSR took on the challenge of identifying and evaluating financial mechanisms that can be applied to these services in order to capture their value through new environmental markets.

Women’s Health Enables Return in Global Supply Chains

The Challenge

Women between the ages of 18-25 often comprise the vast majority of developing world workers making products for export to the developed world. Much of this work is performed in environments where access to information about reproductive health, as well as critical health services, is lacking. Moreover, factory managers often question the value of investing financial resources in health programs due to high turnover and the perception that young, unmarried women workers are not sexually active and thus not at risk for reproductive health problems. Despite the challenges presented by this reality, we set out to leverage our unique position to improve the general and reproductive health of women workers along global supply chains.