Blog Archives: July 2010
July 30, 2010
Water as a Human Right: Good for Business
Faris Natour , Director, Human Rights
On Wednesday, the UN General Assembly declared that access to safe and clean drinking water and sanitation is a human right. While not directly legally binding, this step will end the longstanding debate about the status of water as a human right. With almost 900 million people worldwide without access to clean water this long-overdue declaration reflects the importance of water as a sustainability challenge. It is also good news for business. Read more
July 28, 2010
Sustainable Consumption: Back to the Future…and a Call to Action
Eric Olson , Senior Vice President, Advisory Services
The publication of BSR’s latest report on sustainable consumption, which describes the topic as the “New Frontier in Sustainability,” gives me cause to reflect on more than a decade of work in the field. I entered the “field” of sustainability under the influence of corporate pioneers such as Ray Anderson of Interface and thought leaders such as Paul Hawken, Amory and Hunter Lovins, and Bill McDonough, who together shined a bright light on the role that business can and must play in the transformation of our global economy from one based on the linear “take-make-waste” industrial model of the 20th century to one that recognizes the need to fully account for environmental and social impacts on a cyclical, “cradle-to-cradle” basis. Read more
July 26, 2010
Should Businesses Publish Integrated Reports That Include Sustainability?
Aron Cramer , President and CEO
As the 2010 reporting season winds down, and the debate over integrated reporting heats up, it is a useful time to take stock of where reporting is today, and where it may be headed. Read more
July 23, 2010
Know What You Carry
Peder Michael Pruzan-Jorgensen , Vice President, Europe, Middle East, and Africa
“Know what you carry” was the threatening message that met me many years ago as I crossed the border between two South East Asian countries. The accompanying noose on the sign left no doubts to the consequences of not knowing what I was (inadvertently or not) transporting. Read more
July 22, 2010
The Oil Spill in the Gulf: An Argument for CSR, Not Against It
Faris Natour , Director, Human Rights
Ever since the extent of the environmental, economic, and social damage of the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico became clear, blame has been assigned to BP, its business partners, the U.S. government, and, perhaps most appropriately, all of us. Then, earlier this week, Chrystia Freeland, global editor at large for Thomson Reuters, offered a new theory in the Washington Post: The “cult of corporate social responsibility” is to blame for the spill, and for that matter, for the financial crisis and many more unnamed “business disasters of the past 24 months.” Read more
July 22, 2010
What the U.S. Legislation on Conflict Minerals Means for the Private Sector
Marshall Chase , Associate Director, Advisory Services
The U.S. financial reform legislation signed into law yesterday includes a provision requiring publicly traded companies to report on their use of “conflict minerals”—including gold, tin, tantalum, and tungsten—whose trade helps fund armed groups in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). Read more
July 9, 2010
What Does the Global Network Initiative Tell Us About the Value of Multi-Stakeholder Initiatives?
Dunstan Allison Hope , Managing Director, Advisory Services
I didn’t know it at the time, but it was a phone call that would change my life. It was November 2005, and a group of internet companies wanted BSR and Harvard’s Berkman Center to help explore the human rights to privacy and freedom of expression that were of growing risk in many markets around the world. Read more
July 1, 2010
Advancing Entrepreneurship with Women in Saudi Arabia
By Nandini Hampole
BSR recently met with a number of leading women entrepreneurs in Jeddah as part of a three-part workshop on corporate social responsibility and human rights for Saudi companies, NGOs, and employees of the Jeddah Chamber of Commerce and Industry (JCCI). This meeting was a unique opportunity to better understand developments in the Kingdom regarding women’s participation in the private sector and in the job market. Read more
