This past week, I joined my final board meeting for Forum EMPRESA, the network of 20 corporate responsibility organizations across the hemisphere, from Canada to Chile. I have had the privilege of serving on the board since 2004, assuming the seat first occupied by Bob Dunn, my predecessor as president and CEO of BSR.

The expiration of my current board term provides a great opportunity to reflect on how far EMPRESA has come since its earliest days. In the late 1990s, Bob Dunn and Oded Grajew, cofounder of Instituto Ethos in Brazil, shared the vision of a network of organizations that would advocate for corporate responsibility throughout the hemisphere. At that time, civil wars were just winding down in Central America, the internet was only beginning to get wide penetration, and the Asian—not American or European—financial crisis was shaking the global economy.

Working with like-minded pioneers in Peru, El Salvador, and elsewhere in the region, Bob and Oded planted the seeds of a network that has grown to cover almost every country in the hemisphere. Indeed, EMPRESA has been actively involved in promoting sustainability in Cuba, embracing inter-American solidarity more fully than many political figures have.

Today, the network is strong and growing stronger ,reflecting both the common goals and diversity found throughout the Americas. Ethos in Brazil has grown rapidly and is taking on big challenges like sustainable mega-cities and the need preserve the Amazon. Fundemas in El Salvador, under the early leadership of former BSR Board member Roberto Murray Meza, has helped promote the type of collaboration that is so urgently needed to achieve reconciliation in a country that faced a long civil war. Accion RSE in Chile recently gathered well over a 1,000 people to its annual conference in Santiago. 

The network has made things happen.  A coalition of organizations led by Ethos have enabled capacity-building in several Latin American countries, and BSR has done the same working with national partner organizations in Central America and the Dominican Republic. More than 3,300 companies are members of EMPRESA-affiliated organizations. EMPRESA has served as an important conduit for Latin American voices to be heard in the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), the UN Global Compact, and other international forums.  (For more about Forum EMPRESA, watch a recent video from the organization’s annual meeting in May.)

When Forum EMPRESA got started, BRICs were just building blocks for homes and offices. Today’s world, of course, looks very different. Latin America is delivering growth rates far stronger than those here in El Norte. At the same time, income inequality, natural resource preservation, and good corporate governance remain immense challenges throughout the region. Happily, one of the ways today’s world looks different is that there is a network of strong organizations that are able to support enterprises in Latin America to create homegrown solutions to these challenges.

It has been a privilege to help support Forum EMPRESA. BSR is now represented in Latin America through a new office in São Paulo, Brazil, as well as a representative in San Jose, Costa Rica. And while I step down from the EMPRESA board, BSR remains committed to the ongoing development of the network, which continues to both drive and reflect the best of sustainability, Latin American style.