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Blog | Tuesday July 27, 2021

Reflections on a Sunset: Lessons Learned from the Global Impact Sourcing Coalition

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It has been seven months since we sunsetted the Global Impact Sourcing Coalition (GISC), and I’m still troubled by the question: “Did we fail?” 

If we measure our progress against our ambitions, the answer is “yes.”  

But I’m also compelled to make the case for “no.” While it didn’t live up to its full potential, we did something extraordinary. Our effort was valuable for those who participated and positively impacted thousands of employees’ lives around the world. The experience is worth learning from.

The GISC officially launched in 2016 with the aim of building more inclusive supply chains through Impact Sourcing—a business practice where companies prioritize suppliers that intentionally hire and provide career development opportunities to people who otherwise have limited prospects for formal employment.

We began with 20 members, and by the end of 2020, we had the support of over 75 companies and stakeholder organizations hailing from 32 countries. But ultimately, at the end of last year, BSR and the GISC Steering Committee made the responsible decision to disband the GISC, releasing the resources and energy we had centralized back into the universe to support new opportunities.

At BSR, we believe that collaborations go further and deeper when they are designed for impact and that the practice of multistakeholder collaboration is very much a work in progress. In our efforts to continuously improve, we are sharing a Lessons Learned report that seeks to capture both the successes and missteps that we encountered while running the GISC—so that other collective action efforts can build on our experience. 

What Worked Well

GISC’s premise was simple: By prioritizing suppliers that have established inclusive employment initiatives, GISC members could send a powerful market signal to all corporate suppliers—which employ a fifth of the global workforce—encouraging them to compete based on their social impact. Inspired by the supplier diversity movement, we held the ambition for all large companies to pledge a percentage of their procurement spend toward suppliers that intentionally offer good, career-advancing jobs to people who formerly lived in poverty.

To our delight, this market-driven approach began to work. Many supplier companies launched or expanded their inclusive employment programs to better distinguish themselves to their clients. They also began to update their policies and practices in accordance with the requirements of the GISC’s Impact Sourcing Standard and, as a result, created more inclusive workplaces and good jobs for all employees.

Due to the commitments of companies like GISC’s supplier members to hiring the most vulnerable in their communities, the business process outsourcing (BPO) industry is both expanding its talent pool and more evenly distributing gains across entire communities.

Our most visible success resulted from a multi-year Impact Sourcing Challenge that led GISC suppliers to pledge and then meet their goal to employ over 29,000 impact workers in good jobs from 19 countries around the world. This included people on the autism spectrum in the United States, long-term unemployed youth in South Africa, and people who formerly lived in poverty in India and the Philippines. Furthermore, suppliers reported to the GISC many additional business benefits that companies often report experiencing with more inclusive and diverse cultures, such as decreased turnover and a more highly motivated workforce, further reinforcing their commitment to inclusive employment.

What We Could Have Done Better

At the same time that we were seeing these advancements, cracks in our business model began to appear, and they only deepened as the GISC grew.

Among other important lessons, we should have worked to secure, from an early stage, multiple funding partners who shared the GISC’s vision for market-driven poverty alleviation across supply chains and who could provide strategic injections of philanthropic and patient capital to support this long-term vision.

We found that a business model built entirely around membership dues was weighted by the requirement to deliver member benefits, making it more difficult to engage in forward investment and the creation of public goods. To continue our progress, we would have needed to invest in in-depth measurement and evaluation, rightsholder engagement and consultation, due diligence, advocacy to reach new audiences, and to build up an emergency fund to better react to unexpected circumstances.

And because of these missteps, just as we had the evidence that our theory of change was robust and it was time to hit the accelerator to reach scale, we ran out of the funds necessary to do so.

Through the GISC, we managed to rally a wave of professional and personal energy whose ripples continue to spread around the world in new and exciting ways. We are proud to note that, beyond GISC’s tenure, many former member companies, industry networks, and other stakeholders have stepped up to continue to champion the Impact Sourcing movement, utilizing their influence, communications, and networks to inspire more companies. Several GISC members have gone on to launch Impact Sourcing chapters and working groups, taking collaborative efforts forward in key geographies such as North America, India, and South Africa.

We hope that, in reading the Lessons Learned report, you see that we were able to go further through collective action than any one organization could have alone and that there are many metrics beyond a collaboration’s continuation that might better define impact and success.

BSR continues to support companies in developing their Impact Sourcing strategies, so please contact us to learn more. And be sure to join the Impact Sourcing Champions LinkedIn group to connect with like-minded professionals.

Blog | Tuesday March 20, 2018

Our Challenge to Businesses: Hire 100,000 New Impact Workers by 2020

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The Global Impact Sourcing Coalition (GISC)—a collaboration between leading companies to build more inclusive supply chains—is challenging the business process outsourcing (BPO) industry to hire 100,000 new impact workers by 2020. This challenge is made in tandem with our launch of the world’s first Impact Sourcing Standard, designed to increase client companies’ adoption of Impact Sourcing as a high-impact procurement practice by setting out uniform criteria for suppliers.

Together, the standard and the challenge have the potential to drive job creation for economically and socially vulnerable people across global supply chains.

Through participating in GISC, client companies can partner with a network of suppliers around the world that are committed to upholding the Impact Sourcing Standard, which defines required policies, practices, and management systems expected of suppliers that set about hiring, training, and creating career opportunities for employees who were previously long-term unemployed or living below the poverty line. We call these employees impact workers because their employment can help them realize their potential to achieve economic self-sufficiency and support their families and communities.

Kemar, an employee at Sutherland Jamaica, describes his experience: “In high school I was concerned that, based on where I lived, I wouldn’t have the opportunity to be employed. A community leader came to me and said there are people who want to get in contact with youth like myself who grew up in volatile communities [to train us and help us find jobs]. I thought, let’s see what happens, and I am very thankful for the opportunity that was given to me.”

The benefits of Impact Sourcing include the following:

This practice is not just good for impact workers. It also benefits suppliers and their buyers directly. For buyers, the benefits include a more stable supplier workforce, as well as increased social impact and a demonstration of corporate citizenship.

Suppliers, meanwhile, gain access to a large and untapped talent pool, save costs compared with traditional workers, and stand to benefit from increased workforce performance. Cathy Kalamaras, managing executive of people at Webhelp SA, says of the benefits of inclusive employment, “In 2017, we placed 230 Impact Sourcing candidates into our business. Over and above the ROI, which showed a 46 percent cost saving and performance delivery improvements, we have enjoyed the enthusiasm, positive attitudes, and willingness to develop of our new group of colleagues. Webhelp sees this as testimony that this is a sourcing model well worth investing in.”

With the launch of this Standard, GISC is also unveiling our bold challenge to buyers and suppliers: to hire 100,000 impact workers by 2020. By taking part in the Challenge, companies will be contributing to Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 8 and 10.

Many of GISC’s members have already stepped up to the challenge, collectively pledging to hire 12,000 impact workers by 2020, with more pledges to come. Murali Vullaganti, founder and CEO of Impact Sourcing social enterprises PeopleShores and RuralShores, says, “As part of our continued commitment to improving lives through Impact Sourcing, we are pleased to respond to the Impact Sourcing Challenge and pledge to hire 3,000 new impact workers across different states of India in our RuralShores business and 1,000 new impact workers across different states of the United States for our PeopleShores business by the end of 2020.”  

We invite all buyers and their suppliers to get involved. For more information, please reach out to us.

Blog | Tuesday October 16, 2018

The Future Is on the Agenda at BSR18—Will You Join Us?

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This year’s BSR Conference comes at a time of profound change. Market conditions are turbulent. Around the world, poverty rates continue to fall—at the same time, inequality continues to grow.

Technology is sparking both utopian and dystopian views of the future. Culture is also changing fast, not least through the #MeToo movement. And just last week, the latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reveals that despite many important initiatives, the world is not taking sufficient action to avoid seriously damaging climate change.

It is almost certainly the case that these changes, many of which are intertwined, will only grow in pace and intensity in the years ahead. What is a business to make of all these changes, and how can companies navigate our era of intense, inter-connected, non-linear change?

What is a business to make of all these changes, and how can companies navigate our era of intense, inter-connected, non-linear change?

At the BSR Conference 2018, we will be unveiling scenarios that can help you and your company make sense of the evolving world over the coming years and decades. These are not predictions of what the world will be like in 2019 or 2028. Rather, they aim to illuminate the underlying forces that are creating the market and social framework in which business will be operating.

Specifically, the scenarios revolve around two fundamental questions:

1. What forces of centralization and decentralization will define our culture, economy, and political context?
2. Will the world continue to rely on familiar, consumption-led economic models or shift to a new economic model that defines value in a more holistic way?

There is no single answer to these questions. Instead, we will present four scenarios that anticipate how these crucial questions could play out by 2030.

These scenarios tell stories of how our world might evolve, with important implications for business.

This is no academic exercise. Each of our four scenarios explores core elements of the sustainable business agenda: the shape of supply chains, availability of natural resources, and nature of employment, as well as product and service development, health, and energy and climate. In this way, the scenarios will enable planning and decision-making central to the achievement of the social, economic, and environmental outcomes crucial to business and embedded in the Sustainable Development Goals and the Paris Agreement.

These scenarios will be unveiled on the opening night of the Conference. But they are intended to live well beyond that: We hope that these scenarios will be widely used throughout the BSR network to consider how business can shape strategies that will thrive, regardless of which scenario, or hybrid of these scenarios, ultimately defines the coming decade.

As we continue in our effort (launched at last year’s BSR Conference) to redefine sustainable business, we aspire to drive the agenda forward with this year’s event. As ever, the Conference will facilitate new partnerships and collaborations through networking opportunities with participants from around the globe. It will present insights and inspiration from a diverse array of speakers from the private sector, civil society, government, academia, and elsewhere.

We will explore the ways that leadership is practiced in our fast-changing world. Our sessions will offer both provocative thinking to change how you think about sustainability in the long term and practical insights you can use the following week.

If a truly just and sustainable world is our desired endpoint—and it must be—then the scenarios we will introduce can help companies and business leaders across sectors understand the changing conditions on the journey toward that goal.

We look forward to welcoming you to New York and to joining with you to make the most positive possible future our new reality.

Blog | Wednesday November 9, 2022

Inside BSR: Q&A with Jonathan Morris

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Tell us a bit about your background. Where are you from, and where are you based? What does a day in your life look like? What is your favorite hobby?

I was born and raised in New Jersey, studied computer science in upstate New York, and spent the first stop of my career working as a packaging developer for Coty in New York City. I had a “crisis of conscience” in my mid-20s and ultimately made my way across the pond to study sustainability at HEC Paris. I’ve lived in France for over 13 years, and I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.

A day in my life consists of lots of family time with my wife and two little ones, Olivier (5) and Agatha (3), biking in and around Paris, often on the way to the BSR office. My evenings are split between home-cooked meals with friends, a handful of hobbies, and a fair amount of external work events. My favorite hobby is definitely singing—second only to training for races. I’ve been singing and playing instruments since I was little, and today I’m a tenor soloist in a 30-person choir.

What are some interesting projects that you get to work on as part of your role at BSR? What do you enjoy about them?

I got involved in sustainable business thanks to a fluke, really. I was studying sustainability at the Business School HEC, but it was a real career shift moment and those are never guaranteed.

HEC held a speed-networking event with alumni, and I met Pablo Fuentes who had just finished the same masters program and then interned at BSR (who now works for Rever Consulting in Brazil). Once he described BSR’s work and mission, I was convinced it was the place for me.

I’ve now been with BSR for almost 12 years, and I've worn multiple hats over the years. I first supported our work in stakeholder engagement, sustainable fashion, and French regulation, and I supported a number of collaborations, such as Clean Cargo and Pharmaceutical Supply Chain Working Group. I also joined the Consumer Sectors team as BSR’s beauty and personal care sector lead, working with companies like L’Oréal and Estee Lauder. And over time I became our global reporting lead, founding our Future of Reporting collaboration.

Recently, I’ve shifted gears once again and I have three prime responsibilities: I lead BSR’s Paris office, I lead the intersection of tech and industrials sectors for EMEA, and I lead our engagement with high-growth companies in EMEA.

What issues are you passionate about and why? How does your work at BSR reflect that?

That’s my real passion—working in tech and in sustainability. I’ve always been a self-professed tech geek. I grew up surrounded by tech. My mom started her own communications business in our basement, and we always had cutting-edge Macs and high-speed internet. It was a perfect storm.

I found ways to involve myself with our technology members over the years, but today I count myself incredibly lucky to dedicate much of my time to solving the crunchy tech sector sustainability challenges—from identifying human rights risks to defining responsible product development and use practices, to enabling more sustainable e-commerce and building sustainability programs from the ground up for early-stage companies—and beyond.

There’s something about people working in tech. They’re passionate, innovative, energetic, and disruptive—but increasingly extremely well-informed on the responsibility that comes with the power of tech in the 21st century. It’s thrilling. And I get to dive into incredibly fun topics like AI, VR, virtual twins, the metaverse, electric vehicles, and much more. Working on these exciting and daunting topics is a way of pairing my passion for tech and my driving need to work on sustainability. As I said, I’m incredibly lucky.

What were the things that brought you joy amid the uncertainty and challenges of the past two years? What are you looking forward to in 2022 and beyond?

These past two years of COVID have been a challenge. But what has brought me joy amidst all of that is simple—the people around me. Watching my little ones continue to grow, finding a new rhythm with my partner, working with incredibly supportive colleagues, and connecting with family, friends, and peers all around the world in our shared, virtual, at-home existence. It was surreal, but it was also heartening that we found ways to reach out and be with each other.

Looking forward can be daunting. We have our work cut out for us. The planet’s getting warmer, our political divides are deepening, and our once taken-for-granted progress on issues like gender equality and diversity are being put into question. We have to accelerate our work. While tech alone won’t save us, I look forward to deepening my work in the sector and with the BSR team, because I know our people are motivated to overcome these challenges and make the world that much better.

Case Studies | Friday June 3, 2011

Actionable Research on Sustainability

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Our Research team tracks emerging trends and solutions central to building sustainable business. We aim to help business leaders stay ahead of the curve and shape future-oriented decisions on a wide range of challenges, from energy management, to sustainable consumption, to human rights.

We produce our research with two key business audiences in mind: executives responsible for shaping corporate strategy and practitioners in charge of implementation. Over the past three years, our output has grown considerably, and so, too, have the ways we convey our findings. Like many organizations, we have expanded the media through which we deliver our research, relying on traditional channels like reports, events, the BSR Insight, and external publications in the field of sustainability. In 2010, we also expanded our influence through the addition of social media channels such as Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and Youku (a Chinese video-sharing site), allowing us to reach new audiences with our research.

Research in 2010

In 2010, we focused on climate and energy, ecosystem services, human rights, and sustainable consumption.

In addition to offering insight on emerging trends and solutions, BSR’s Research efforts focus on applied learning designed to promote and accelerate innovative efforts across our member company network, the wider business community, and the public. We achieve this by marrying lessons learned through project work with research and analysis that allows for wider adoption of good practices.

Our climate and energy initiative provides one example of how this works. After working on Walmart’s supply chain energy-efficiency program in China, we produced a research guide showing companies how to replicate Walmart’s work with their own Chinese suppliers. Based on that research, we launched our Energy Efficiency Partnership (EEP) initiative, which brings BSR member companies together with major suppliers to improve energy management. The group has three objectives:

1. Create a platform to share investments and think collectively about emerging issues.
2. Train suppliers in the Guangdong and Shanghai regions on energy management.
3. Collect effective energy information for reporting to sponsoring companies.

Initially comprising 10 companies and nearly 80 suppliers in the consumer products; ICT; and food, beverage, and agriculture industries, EEP trained suppliers to develop energy-management plans and introduced them to local energy-service companies to help them pinpoint opportunities for improvement. As a result, suppliers started more than 100 projects that will help them conserve energy and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. In 2011, we will broaden EEP participation and develop tools for bringing energy-efficiency innovations to scale.

Also in 2011, we will focus on a new initiative related to sustainability futures—identifying the key trends that shape business success in the industries with which we work. We will also explore the business opportunities in making sustainable consumption a reality, and we will build on our previous work looking at how the world is responding to sustainability challenges and the implications for the future of business.

Blog | Tuesday February 14, 2017

Turning Global Challenges into Collaborative Solutions: BSR's Collaborative Initiatives

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Since being founded 25 years ago, BSR has had a consistent focus on uniting the business community and its stakeholders in collaborative initiatives that co-create solutions to systemic business and sustainability challenges. Today, we’re engaging more than 200 companies in 20-plus initiatives, covering a wide range of sectors and issues—from clean fuel for commercial road freight to ethical practices in luxury-industry value chains. And BSR had a hand in developing several well-known initiatives that today operate as independent organizations.

With the continuous efforts of our members and stakeholders, this collaborative work generates concrete positive outcomes for business, societies, and the environment through sharing best practices, changing business norms, and driving collective, sustainable solutions. For example:

• The Healthcare Working Group has developed the Guiding Principles on Access to Healthcare, through which CEOs of 13 major pharmaceutical companies have framed their efforts to reduce the global burden of disease by helping ensure that medicines, vaccines, diagnostics, and other medical technology and assistance are effectively developed and deployed.
• Through the Future of Internet Power, more than 20 technology companies have committed to sourcing 100 percent renewable energy for their data centers.
• Companies in the Responsible Luxury Initiative have developed and adopted a set of high-level principles for the sourcing of leather, fur, and exotic skins.
• The Clean Cargo Working Group continues to provide a leading industry platform for promoting responsible shipping, as well as reliable year-on-year emissions performance data from 23 of the world’s leading ocean carriers that represent approximately 85 percent of global ocean container capacity.
• The Maritime Anti-Corruption Network, now with more than 80 corporate members, is working with governments, local authorities, and civil society stakeholders around the world to improve the transparency, efficiency, and integrity of business operations at global trading hubs. 

Commitment to Transformative Change

The growth and impact of these initiatives demonstrate a clear desire among companies and stakeholders for coordinated action—but we’re convinced that we can go even further to drive truly transformative change. Last year, the United Nations reinforced this message with the inclusion of the 17th Sustainable Development Goal (SDG), which recognizes that the other 16 goals will only be achieved through “partnership that brings together governments, civil society, the private sector, the United Nations system, and other actors and mobilizes all available resources.”  

This year, we are strengthening BSR’s capacity to convene business and stakeholders to develop and scale collaborative initiatives that overcome the challenges the SDGs present. We will seek to radically evolve our capacity to drive transformative change through collaborative initiatives, using the following principles for success:

• Collaboration requires meticulous management: We’ll strengthen our operational capabilities, such as communication, technology, governance, and administration platforms.
• Impact requires scale: We’ll strengthen and scale our existing Collaborative Initiatives through several approaches, including by partnering more effectively with stakeholders, funders, and governments.
• Innovation requires multistakeholder involvement: We’ll employ inclusive and interactive innovation processes to incubate and develop new collaborative initiatives.

This work will build on our platform of key initiatives that tackle systemic challenges, and we will actively engage with our members to ensure that the new collaborations address their business needs, as well as drive positive societal and environmental change. This includes reaching out to our network to understand which issues our members and partners most want solved, as well as hosting a series of multi-day, multistakeholder workshops focused on systemic challenges and new ideas for collaboration.

Look out for further opportunities to engage as we build out this key element of BSR’s business leadership strategy for a just and sustainable world.

Over the next two weeks, we’ll highlight outcomes and impacts from BSR collaborations in a social media campaign—follow @BSRnews—and on the BSR blog.  

Blog | Friday December 7, 2018

The Maritime Anti-Corruption Network: More Members, More Action, More Impact

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The Maritime Anti-Corruption Network (MACN)—a global business network working toward the vision of a maritime industry free of corruption—was founded in 2011 by a small group of companies. It was created with the recognition that for many years, the shipping industry has faced a difficult issue: When a ship travels in and out of ports, there is an opportunity to ask for illegal payments.

For example, one captain told us recently:

“The customs officer threatened to delay the ship and fine us US$60,000 for an error on the luboil [lubrication oil] declaration. Then he asked us for US$7,000 to help us have no problem.”

These corrupt demands are bad for shipping companies, as they can lead to delays or other commercial consequences for those who stood their ground. They are bad for the ports and governments, who acquire a reputation for corruption and have friction in the trading environment. Above all, they are bad for the ships’ captains and crews, who come under pressure to reject demands yet face threats, intimidation, and sometimes violence when they try to do so.

MACN started small, but it’s not small today: In 2018, MACN was delighted to welcome its 100th member. Members come from across the shipping value chain and include the largest vessel owners and operators, as well as associate members like companies that provide agents for ships entering ports. Collectively, MACN members represent over 25 percent of total global tonnage.

A bigger membership means a stronger collective voice when speaking with governments, ports, and customs: With over 100 members, we have real power to bring to the table and push for change. It means more resources to deliver tools and resources to members. And ultimately, it means greater impact and a better operating environment for those on the front line—the captains and crews.

A bigger membership means a stronger collective voice when speaking with governments, ports, and customs: With over 100 members, we have real power to bring to the table and push for change.

Here are some of the things we have been proud to accomplish in 2018 and three reasons why we would love for you to join us.

Collective Action

MACN’s collective action in Argentina has resulted in the successful adoption of a new regulatory framework for dry bulk shipping. This year, according to MACN data submitted through our anonymous incident reporting mechanism, corruption incidents in Argentina have decreased by more than 90 percent. This has been driven in part by high-level support for the new regulatory framework from the customs authorities and also from high-level politicians, including the Argentine President.

Elsewhere, we have completed our collective action project in Nigeria, which was supported by (among others) the Danish Maritime Foundation, the Orient Fond, and Lauritzen Fonden. The project included training over 1,000 government officials and developing a training course on ethics for government officials. We are proud to work with local partner Soji Apampa, founder of The Convention on Business Integrity Ltd.

MACN is also preparing to launch a collective action in India, with a port integrity campaign through which vessels will prominently display signs and posters co-signed by the government about the “Say No” policy and opposition to corruption.

Culture of Integrity

In addition to collaborating with members and stakeholders to find solutions in corruption hot-spots, MACN seeks to influence the wider culture to ensure lasting change. In 2018, MACN was delighted to present its work to the Facilitation Committee (FAL) of the International Maritime Organization (IMO). This was a major step in engaging the broader maritime community, and MACN is following up through a cross-industry working group.

MACN also spoke at several major conferences this year, including Transparency International’s International Anti-Corruption Conference in Copenhagen.

Finally, MACN was invited to provide testimony at the U.K. House of Lords on the U.K. Bribery Act’s effect on the maritime industry. You can watch a recording of the session here.

Our Impact

We’re delighted to see that the word is spreading, and our impact is growing. Around the world, corrupt demands in hot-spots are decreasing, and where demands are still being made, our members are better prepared, with stronger policies, more resources, and the best practices of their peers.  

But don’t just take our word for it. We asked some of our members why they joined MACN, what its value was, and how it can enable fair trade to the benefit of society and all stakeholders. Watch the video below to hear from them, and if you would like to get involved, contact us.

Blog | Wednesday April 30, 2025

A Message from Aron Cramer, BSR President and CEO

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Video Transcript

The world is experiencing a staggering degree of change and uncertainty right now.

Some have said that this is not no longer an era of change, it's a change of eras.

No organization amidst all of this change has all the tools that they need in their toolbox and I'm convinced that BSR is most helpful for companies when we not only bring to bear what our amazing team of almost 200 people bring, but also work within the broader ecosystem so we can bring together complimentary resources and perspectives, and networks to help companies make progress at a time of great headwinds.

Business leaders succeed when they have a sense of vision. And a vision forward, not just for 2025, but for well beyond, has to be about companies that take their impacts on society very seriously, has to take seriously the challenges that they will face if our environment does not deliver the kinds of natural resources that we need to use and need to use wisely, and ignores the intersection of business and society. Put more positively, these are all things that create massive opportunities for innovation, massive opportunities for strategic advantage, and massive opportunities to ensure resilience at a time when the change is so intense, resilience is not just a buzzword, it is an absolutely essential value that companies really need.

The best way through the current environment, which indeed is challenging, is together.

The best way through the current environment, which indeed is challenging, is together. And so, we look forward to working with you, to hearing from you, to devise solutions, figure out new collaborations, and make sense of this world together, because that has always been the way that BSR has been the most valuable and I believe it is exactly the right model for us to work towards together in this moment.

Blog | Tuesday August 22, 2017

Turning the Internet Green: A Progress Update from BSR's Future of Internet Power

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Data centers—the large facilities housing networked computer server systems that keep the internet running—accounted for nearly two percent of all energy use in the United States in 2014. With more and more business being conducted in the cloud, and with the internet playing an ever-more-prominent role in societies around the world, energy demands for these centers are only expected to grow.  

Increasing the use of renewable energy to power data centers can therefore have a strong positive impact on corporate, regional, and national sustainability efforts. That’s why some of the world’s most influential internet companies—including Adobe, eBay, Facebook, HPE, Salesforce, and Symantec—are working through BSR’s Future of Internet Power initiative toward a bold vision: an internet powered by 100 percent renewable energy. Following completion of the initiative's fourth year of work, we’re taking a moment to look at what we have achieved recently and to highlight our ongoing efforts.

Corporate Colocation and Cloud Buyers’ Principles

Last July we successfully developed and launched the Corporate Colocation and Cloud Buyers’ Principles. Through these Principles, customers of data center colocation and cloud services set out six criteria that they expect their data center service providers to meet to help achieve sustainability goals. What’s more, signatories to the Principles intend to give preference to providers engaging in these Principles, which include delivering monthly data on energy consumption and engaging in advocacy efforts around renewable energy.

Thanks to a strong collaborative effort, 21 companies, including several data center service providers, have signed the Principles. This sends a strong collective message for the future of the industry that data center sustainability is good business. As signatories, such as Bank of America, Etsy, and Intuit, are making clear, addressing the carbon footprint of their data is not just important to the technology sector: Any company that has an online presence or relies on data center and cloud services can benefit—and can play a role in creating a more sustainable internet—by signing the Principles.

To build on this success, Future of Internet Power will be developing a toolkit to accompany the Principles. This toolkit will offer a practical, step-by-step guide for putting the Principles into practice, using examples and case studies to show how partnerships between a data center or cloud user and service provider can ensure that both parties have incentives and resources to reduce energy consumption and increase renewable energy use.  

White Paper: Greenhouse Gas Emissions Accounting, Renewable Energy Purchases, and Zero-Carbon Reporting

More recently, we have worked closely with the World Resources Institute (WRI) to produce a white paper addressing the issue of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions accounting, renewable energy procurement, and reporting in the data center sector. Research for this paper highlights the issue of double-counting scope emissions and subsequent zero-carbon claims, specifically when both data center service providers and their customers classify the same GHG emissions related to the data center as their own scope 2 emissions. Given the current accounting and reporting standards of WRI's GHG Protocol, this double-counting becomes problematic when both the data center provider and the customer want to make a zero-carbon claim related to a renewable energy purchase and scope 2 emissions at a particular facility. We will continue to work with WRI and other industry stakeholders to establish clear GHG accounting and zero-carbon reporting guidance for all parties.

Renewable Energy Buyers’ Alliance

Lastly, to strengthen our public advocacy for renewable energy more generally, we will continue to work closely with our co-founders of the Renewable Energy Buyers’ Alliance (REBA): Rocky Mountain Institute’s Business Renewables Center, the World Wildlife Fund, and WRI. Through this partnership, we can work with a network of larger companies to help scale renewable energy and reach REBA’s collective goal to help corporations purchase 60GW of additional renewable energy in the US by 2025. Earlier this year, REBA was awarded the Corporate Eco Forum’s C.K. Prahalad Award for demonstrating how collaboration is critical to widespread adoption of renewable energy.

On September 17-19, we will co-host the 2017 REBA Summit, which will gather 400 energy buyers, service providers, developers, financiers, nonprofit organizations, and utilities in Santa Clara, California, ahead of GreenBiz’s VERGE17 conference and expo, to identify opportunities to accelerate corporate procurement of renewable energy. We look forward to continuing the conversation with our Future of Internet Power members and the greater REBA network at the summit.

Submit registration requests for the 2017 REBA Summit on the GreenBiz website.

Blog | Wednesday March 15, 2017

A New Tool to Help Companies Close the Gender Gap

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At the current rate of change, it will take more than 100 years to achieve full gender equality. The UN’s High Level Panel on Women’s Economic Empowerment, which includes leaders from business, the UN, government, and women’s organizations, reported last autumn that progress has been “far too slow.” And a recent McKinsey study highlights the fact that while many companies are making top-level commitments to women’s empowerment and gender equality, few companies have matched commitments with concrete plans integrated throughout the business. As a result, companies are missing out on tremendous potential gains across their business—from improved performance and retention of employees, to innovation, to expansion to new markets.

With so much clear evidence of the social, moral, and business case for promoting gender equality, what is needed to accelerate the pace of change and for companies to take intentional, ambitious action? One challenge we’ve heard from companies is identifying the right entry point for their company—essentially: “Where do I start?”

A new tool released today is intended to begin answering that question. The WEPs Gender Gap Analysis Tool helps the global business community identify gaps in its performance on gender equality and enables companies to make informed decisions on setting goals and strategies. Inspired by the Women’s Empowerment Principles (WEPs) initiative, the tool is a joint project of the UN Global Compact, UN Women, the Multilateral Investment Fund of the IDB, and the Inter-American Investment Corporation, and is supported by the Governments of Japan and Germany, The Coca-Cola Company, BSR, Itaipu, and KPMG.

The tool is grounded in the WEPs global framework, which helps companies empower women in the workplace, marketplace, and community. BSR signed the WEPs in 2015 to uphold best practices in our own organization, as well as to work with our member companies to promote, share, and scale best practices on women’s empowerment. Since we signed the WEPs, we joined its Leadership Group to contribute to the promotion and uptake of the WEPs by our network of member companies. We’re pleased to be among 38 of our BSR members in joining the WEPs initiative—and more than 1,400 companies globally.

As many of our members know, women’s empowerment is a central focus for BSR, and through our women’s empowerment practice, we work with companies to catalyze effective and ambitious action. Our women’s empowerment practice draws on more than 10 years of experience working on global women’s issues. Developing practical strategies, tools, and solutions with companies is one prong of our strategy.

Through our work on the WEPs tool, we are adding another resource to assist companies to take action on women’s empowerment. BSR and our partners designed the tool to translate the WEPs from principles into action through two key features.

First, the tool provides a broad overview of areas in which companies affect women. The tool asks a number of questions, including around companies’ leadership commitment and workplace policies and programs to support women, as well as a companies’ approach to supply chain, product development, CSR, and more. Companies and gender equality experts identified these areas during 12 global consultations with more than 170 companies.

Second, the tool helps companies understand how far they’ve gone in each area. Have companies made a formal commitment in a particular area, such as business relationships with women-owned businesses? Are they implementing practices to improve their performance? Are they measuring impact and ultimately sharing results with their board or external stakeholders? The tool provides a checklist for companies to see what action looks like across commitment, implementation, measurement, and transparency.

Initial feedback on the tool has been positive. Through the consultation phase, as well as a pilot with an additional 20 companies, we’ve worked to make the tool reflect real-world business practices. During the pilot phase, companies liked that the tool covers broad points of analysis of how a company takes action on gender equality. The tool also inspired internal conversations across the business about “what good looks like.”

By applying the tool, companies will not only have a better understanding of their own status, they will also be equipped to take the next step. BSR now offers additional services to help companies understand the tool’s results, identify priority investments, design and implement a women’s empowerment strategy, and measure impact.

Although much work remains to achieve gender equality, the launch of the new WEPs tool is one resource to make progress. We look forward to supporting companies to take stock of their current performance, and we hope that, in a few years, the tool will evolve to reflect emerging, leading examples of corporate practice.