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In This Issue
Editor's Note
Total Cost of Ownership and Sustainable Purchasing
Since the launch of BSR’s Center for Sustainable Procurement, we have been exploring how purchasing managers can wrangle sustainability data to make decisions about the products they buy.
This week, we look at how the total cost of ownership approach—which accounts for all costs associated with a product over its lifetime—can help give procurement a sustainability lens. BSR’s Jessica Davis Pluess spoke with Hilton Worldwide’s procurement expert and the director of Stanford University’s Global Supply Chain Management Forum to identify the challenges associated with using total cost of ownership, and the lessons this approach can lend to sustainable procurement.
Also this week, we share lessons from our work on human rights in the information and communications technology sector, and we highlight a new BSR report evaluating the effectiveness of global health partnerships between the pharmaceutical industry and NGOs, governments, and academia.
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In Depth
What Total Cost of Ownership Offers Sustainable Procurement
To explore the opportunities to align total cost of ownership, which captures the costs associated with a product over its lifetime, and sustainable procurement, which integrates sustainability data into everyday purchasing decisions, BSR gathered perspectives from experts in the field.
Read more →
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Spotlight
Ten Lessons From a Year’s Hard Work in ICT and Human Rights
By Dunstan Allison Hope, Managing Director, Advisory Services, BSR
One year ago, we published a report on applying the Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights to the information, communications, and technology (ICT) industry.
Today, we're publishing an updated version with 10 lessons based on the work we've done to put our thinking into practice. Here are five of those lessons:
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Human rights impact assessments (HRIAs) at the level of the product, service, or technology (rather than more traditional HRIAs at the corporate or country level) can be especially important for ICT companies.
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The speed of innovation in the ICT industry presents a daunting challenge for HRIAs, with products often changing during the course of a single assessment.
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Applying a "tree structure"—a single policy that branches out to other issue-specific policies—works well for human rights policies in the ICT industry.
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Outside headquarters, such as at the country or business unit level, the standard of human rights expertise in a company can be very low. Clear guidance is required.
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ICT companies have a significant opportunity to enhance their human rights reporting—for example, by covering how they manage relationships with law-enforcement agencies.
Toolbox
Improving Partnerships to Solve Global Health Challenges
By Mark Little, Director, Healthcare, Advisory Services, BSR
BSR's new report on global health partnerships—an evaluation of 220 programs in more than 160 countries—reveals the challenges and success factors in partnerships between the pharmaceutical industry and NGOs, governments, and academia.
The report—for which BSR surveyed 20 pharmaceutical companies and interviewed experts from organizations including the World Health Organization, TB Alliance, GAVI Alliance, and the Global Fund—assessed the impact of partnerships formed around four health challenge areas: availability of treatment, health system infrastructure, research and development, and awareness/prevention.
The report identifies two main challenges:
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Because most partnerships involve one company, they do not fully benefit from the collective expertise that would come from having multiple companies involved.
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Until now, there has not been a uniform means of tracking outcomes and measuring the impact of these partnerships.
The report also lists critical success factors for global health partnerships:
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Adoption of an approach based on health needs
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Emphasis on broad-based, multicompany partnerships
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Alignment of existing and future partnerships to maximize shared resources and expertise
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Emphasis on existing country systems and local ownership
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Implementation of tracking and measurement programs to evaluate impact
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