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Blog | Wednesday July 13, 2022

What the ESG Critics Are Right About—And Where They’re Misguided

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Editor's Note:

It is obvious that we are living through a time of profound and accelerating change. Our world has been rocked by a series of disruptions: COVID-19, war and social conflict, rollback of rights and democracy, and now high inflation and the risk of recession. These developments have jolted society, and business.

These and other developments are also reshaping the world of just and sustainable business. After considerable momentum, there is now a backlash against elements of the sustainable business agenda. Claims of greenwashing are rising, including legal actions. The regulatory environment is changing, with heightened requirements for business on human rights, reporting and disclosure, and other matters. Generational change is reshaping public views about business. The rollback of human rights and democratic institutions is leading to calls for business to “take a stand.”

To help our 300+ member companies navigate this volatile environment, we are launching a series of blogs over the coming weeks to build insight into how to shape business approaches that address this unique moment.

We begin with this initial piece on the “backlash” against ESG. Future entries in the series will explore changing expectations of business in protecting rule of law, rights, and democracy; the emerging harmonization of reporting and disclosure standards; the implications of increased regulation of sustainability; the role of business in combating societal fragmentation.

 We’ll conclude with a deeper dive look into how BSR’s 2025 strategy can help your company to navigate these turbulent times—and how you can collaborate with our global network to push us further, faster, to achieve a more equitable, just world for all.

Like consumer prices, sustainable business has been on a rollercoaster since COVID-19 emerged over two years ago. Sustainability or ESG (environment, social, and governance) considerations were a business, investor, and media darling. Until recently.

Judging from 2022’s headlines, a casual observer might conclude that sustainable business has gone from hero to zero overnight. Regulators are looking to set rules to govern when investment funds earn the ESG label. Media, consumers, and now regulators are leveling claims of greenwashing on a frequent basis. The public asks: “If every company is doing what they say, and airing slick commercials to convince me how good they are, why is climate change and income inequality getting worse?” And “ESG insiders” have come out of the woodwork to assert that “the ESG emperor has no clothes.”

Some of these questions are not only legitimate, but hugely important.  Some questions, which reflect political backlash, are much less so. And for all of us focused on just and sustainable business, we ignore this backlash at our peril.

To start, the critics get three big things right.

First, there is undeniably a gap between aspiration and delivery. The rise of “net zero” carbon commitments is necessary, but clearly insufficient—so far—to put the world on a trajectory towards a stable climate that can sustain a healthy economy. The same is true with respect to companies seeking to protect biodiversity and oceans by being “nature positive” but not yet achieving the promised benefits. These big aspirations mark a leap in ambition from even five years ago. We need simultaneously to ensure accountability without creating incentives for business to retreat to incremental change.

Second, it also is true that there remains a disconnect between companies’ aspirations and what they—or more often their trade associations—do to oppose public policies needed to put our economies on a more sustainable path. For example, too many companies prioritize opposition to tax reform over full-throated support for climate action through efforts such as Build Back Better and other measures. It is critical that business close the “say-do” gap both with respect to their actions and their policy advocacy.

Third, there is widespread and legitimate confusion over what the terms “sustainability,” “ESG,” and "net zero” actually mean. The rise of consistent standards is welcome and overdue. The promise of global standards defining what companies can and cannot label “ESG,” through efforts like the International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB), will help bring badly needed order to the current chaos. This will help reduce concerns about greenwashing for the public, and will provide the certainty business needs to make ambitious commitments.

These critiques are both valid and valuable. It is also the case that those fostering the backlash get some big things badly wrong.  

First, sustainable business is about long-term change; it is, by definition, complicated to gauge progress quarter to quarter or year to year. Climate is the best test of this principle, with most net-zero targets up to decades away from full delivery. Showing progress today is needed, but it is to be expected that full delivery will take time. There is a big difference between critiquing illusory commitments and embracing structural change that, by definition, takes time. There must be space for companies to make long-term, high-ambition commitments, even as they know that technological innovation, consumer behavior, and public policy are massive dependencies that will also play a role in whether change takes hold.

Second, some of the backlash seems to be designed to provide an “off-ramp” for businesspeople who have been skeptical about the value of sustainability to begin with. It is remarkable how much media attention has been lavished on Stuart Kirk, who has now left HSBC after his infamous jeremiad against climate alarmists, or Tariq Fancy, who now claims that ESG investing is largely useless.

The media seem to be applying the same “bothsidesism” that climate skeptics have used to their advantage, never mind the science. Basic facts suggest that their critiques are at best overstated.  Climate and the destruction of nature quite clearly threaten business, imposing costs, and disruption. The flip side is also true: increased investments in new technologies, from energy storage to plant-based foods to inclusive hiring, deliver clear benefits. There will be inevitable ups and downs as these new markets mature and take hold; dismissing them is short-termism at its worst.

The final and most corrosive element of the backlash has immense importance, especially in the United States. Many political figures, including several aspirants for the Republican nomination for president in 2024 have attacked so-called “woke capitalism.” This is nothing more than political opportunism, unfairly dragging ESG into toxic culture wars. “Green-baiting” in the 2020s is no more justified than the red-baiting that injected venom into the American political scene in the 1950s. It has been laudable to see business leaders including JP Morgan Chase’s Jamie Dimon and BlackRock’s Larry Fink push back on this narrative. One would think that Dimon and Fink’s bona fides as capitalists would put these specious arguments to rest, but the attacks continue nonetheless.

It is obvious that our world faces immense challenges. Business action can be a great asset in creating innovative solutions and new investments in a world that is safer, fairer, healthier, and more resilient. By all means, business should be held accountable, and greenwashing should be called out for what it is. If sustainable business is going to deliver the goods, and navigate a new level of scrutiny because of its importance and prominence, it’s time to get more serious. It is also time to push back on specious arguments that say more about critics’ self-interest than our mutual interest in human progress.

Blog | Wednesday July 12, 2017

Insights from Telia Company's Human Rights Impact Assessments

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This week, Telia Company published the human rights impact assessments (HRIAs) undertaken by BSR of the company’s subsidiaries in Sweden and Lithuania. This follows the company’s earlier publication (in summary form) of similar HRIAs undertaken by BSR of the company’s subsidiaries in Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Moldova, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan.

Taken together, these publications by Telia Company represent an impressive commitment to transparency on human rights impacts and how they are addressed. This level of transparency remains rare in the business and human rights field, and we hope these steps by Telia Company are frequently cited as a leading example for other companies to follow.

These HRIAs represent a substantial body of work. Along the way, BSR and Telia Company gained many new insights into how to apply the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, and we want to share four of them here:

• Stakeholder and rightsholder engagement is essential. To develop the eight HRIAs, BSR and Telia Company met with around 100 stakeholders and rightsholders, including human rights defenders, advocates, policymakers, diplomats, and regulators. Some were experts in telecoms, while others were not; some focused on the broad human rights agenda, while others specialized in specific areas, such as privacy, LGBTIQ+ rights, or gender equality. While companies can be hesitant to engage externally, with the right preparation, companies can gain valuable insights from these conversations and forge new relationships that are essential for the successful implementation of HRIA recommendations.
• Transparency by companies on human rights issues has impact. Over recent years, a number of internet and telecoms companies, including Telia Company, have become much more transparent in their approach to freedom of expression and privacy, especially when it comes to how they respond to government demands that risk violating the human rights of their users. These reports can be long and detailed, so it is tempting to assume they sit unread on a digital shelf. They are not—indeed, quite the opposite. In these Telia Company HRIAs, and in HRIAs BSR has undertaken with other internet and telecoms companies, it has been striking to learn how local human rights defenders and advocates have put them to use—for instance to inform their policy positions.
• An industry lens is required. The UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights are written for all companies in all industries, so applying them to a specific telecoms company raises new questions that require industry knowledge. What is the responsibility of a telecoms company when compliance with local laws, regulations, and licenses can result in human rights violations? How can telecoms companies reconcile the huge freedom of expression benefits of their services with their accompanying risks? What unintended consequences does a telecoms regulatory change have in a country with strong rule of law (such as Sweden) when that same change is replicated in countries without the same legal protections? How will disruptive technologies, such as artificial intelligence and the internet of things, alter human rights risks? Industry organizations such as the Global Network Initiative can help explore what these questions mean for telecoms companies.
• The link between ethics and human rights is strong. While freedom from corruption is not a human right, it was clear throughout our assessments in all eight countries that there are strong links between ethics, corruption, and human rights. An ethics violation—such as the selection of an unqualified supplier with poor health and safety practices—can result in significant human rights consequences. The victims of both ethics and human rights violations are often the most vulnerable populations. Upon completing the HRIAs, we became even more convinced of the need for holistic approaches to manage ethics, corruption, and human rights. We even believe a case could be made to acknowledge freedom from corruption as a human right.

We hope Telia Company’s publication of these HRIAs serves three key functions. First, we hope it enhances Telia Company’s ambition to integrate human rights into business decision-making. Second, we hope it informs further dialogue on human rights in the eight markets covered. And third, we hope it provides insights for the broader business and human rights community on how to undertake HRIAs.

Indeed, we at BSR are also taking a risk by being transparent about our own work. We are committed to being at the leading edge of business and human rights methodology, and we believe our approach can be improved by transparency and constructive criticism. Both Telia Company and BSR look forward to feedback and dialogue. 

View the full case study of our human rights impact assessments for Telia Company.

Case Studies | Monday June 1, 2009

Sino Gold Implements Action Plan for Community Development in China

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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.

Our Strategy

We responded to this challenge with a two-stage approach. First, BSR staff from our Energy and Mining team in San Francisco and our Guangzhou, China, office conducted a stakeholder mapping session with mine staff in China, as well as a series of in-person interviews with more than 100 community members and government officials in the area around the mine. By listening to people’s hopes and fears regarding the mine’s impact on their daily lives, we developed a short list of stakeholders’ key “issues of concern.” For example, community members were eager to work at the mine or develop small businesses supplying the operation, but did not always have the necessary education or skills to do so. Government officials were looking for increased opportunities to dialogue with the mine and explore options for collaboration in promoting local community development.

Based on these key issues, we next set out to identify and evaluate international development agencies and other domestic nonprofits as candidates to partner with the mine in the design and implementation of a community development program. Relying on its network, BSR conducted in-person and phone interviews with potential partners and then recommended a short list of domestic and international candidates that would be good development partners for Sino Gold.

Impact

Sino Gold is taking action on the recommendations we presented both in China and at company headquarters in Sydney. Sino Gold plans to establish a multi-year budget commitment for community development at Jinfeng and has begun a dialogue with the recommended development agencies to develop a long-term partnership agreement. Development work in the five communities around the mine is expected to be underway by the end of 2008.

Blog | Tuesday February 20, 2018

Assessing Suppliers: Inclusive Business or Business as Usual?

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Many companies are beginning to evaluate their suppliers based on their social and environmental impacts, both positive and negative. Particularly when assessing suppliers’ claims to have a social impact through employment, it can be difficult to determine whether a supplier is an inclusive business, or just doing business as usual.

In January, the Global Impact Sourcing Coalition (GISC) visited one of our members’ operations in Kingston, Jamaica to learn from its approach to inclusive employment. Sutherland is a process transformation company whose services include contact center management. Like other members of the GISC, Sutherland has grown its operations through intentionally hiring and providing career development opportunities to people who otherwise have limited prospects for formal employment, thus reducing social inequality and contributing to the Sustainable Development Goals to provide employment and decent work for all.
 

Graduates from Sutherland Global Services’ Community Technology Centre in Kingston, Jamaica. Photo credit: Sutherland Global Services.

Our tour of Sutherland’s investments in inclusive employment in Jamaica demonstrated how inclusive suppliers are distinguished by three traits.

1. Intentionality: Inclusive businesses do more than just hire people from disadvantaged backgrounds. They do it with intent, assessing what barriers vulnerable populations have in securing employment and deliberately removing those barriers through their application and onboarding processes. They assess how they might best source new workers from their communities and set goals to improve their diversity and inclusion.
   
   For example, Sutherland supports a network of Community Technology Centers (CTC) in Jamaica to train young adults in at-risk communities in the hard and soft skills they need to secure their first job in a modern workplace. When the company evaluated how to improve the impacts of the program, it decided to make a commitment to ensure that at least 10 percent of CTC graduates find employment. As a result of this pledge, participation in the program spiked, and the company now benefits from a new pipeline of qualified, enthusiastic employees who would not otherwise have had the academic credentials for employment there. Sutherland Jamaica has also set internal goals to increase the number of youth it trains and sources from the CTC program.
    
2. Social impact focus: An inclusive business seeks to understand, measure, and continuously grow the social impact that it is having in its workplace and communities. It goes further than traditional workforce engagement to understand and provide for the needs of its employees and ensure that they are equipped with the training, resources, and life skills that they need to succeed and grow. It aims for continuous improvement to ensure a positive impact on employees, communities, and the business.
   
   When Sutherland launched the 'Earn While You Learn’ program for university students to work part-time to pay their way through college, its focus was not only on producing a qualified workforce, but also on increasing graduation rates at local universities, which had seen graduation rates plummet as students struggled to afford recently introduced tuition fees. The company partnered with the university to set up contact centers on campus grounds, created flexible part-time work schedules that enabled students to attend classes on a full-time basis, and assessed academic achievement in employee performance reviews to determine if they need more time off to attend to their studies. More than 400 people have found employment with Sutherland on campus, many of them unlikely to have been able to afford higher education otherwise.
    
3. Partnerships and collaboration: Finally, an inclusive business does not attempt to do it all on its own. It works in close partnership with other experts to identify areas of need, provide expertise, develop targeted services and interventions, and ensure that impacts are shared with the wider community.         

For example, Sutherland’s CTC program runs on partnerships with clients, governments, universities, youth training programs, churches, community centers, and civil society organizations to reach and train at-risk youth. On our trip, we heard stories from youth of the many actors in their communities—the pastors, community leaders, teachers, friends, and family members—who reached out to them to encourage them to participate in the program, and who share an equal role in their success. 

Of all of the company’s investments in inclusive employment, Country Head and Associate Vice President for Sutherland Jamaica, Odetta Rockhead-Kerr emphasizes, “Our clients are some of the most important partners. If they didn’t give us the business, they wouldn’t be able to impact lives. It’s their opportunity to be socially responsible.”

By participating in the GISC, client companies are able to identify and partner with suppliers that have made real commitments to inclusive employment, contributing to the sustainability and social development of the communities they source from. Visit http://gisc.bsr.org to learn more about how your company can start an Impact Sourcing program.

Case Studies | Monday June 1, 2009

Cleaning Up Industrial Water Pollution in Southern China

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The Challenge

In industrial regions of southern China, water pollution is an increasingly serious problem. According to the Nanfang Daily, 12.62 billion tons of polluted materials and 8.3 billion tons of wastewater were discharged into the waters off Guangdong in 2007—up 60 percent from five years ago. Perhaps most distressing, according to Guangdong officials, more than 40 percent of the province’s rural people do not have access to safe drinking water.

In southern China, the apparel and textile industry’s discharge of wastewater containing reactive dyes is a serious environmental challenge contributing to the problem of polluted water. The load is characterized by high color content, with suspended solids, salts, nutrients, and toxic substances such as heavy metals and chlorinated organic compounds that pose significant risks to human health, including exposure to constituents such as chloride, nitrate, nitrite, and sulfate. In addition, the effluents discharged lead to serious pollution of surface water sources and groundwater, inhibiting biological processes and the productivity of rivers and streams.

Our Strategy

In January 2008, BSR launched the China Water Initiative to determine how the private sector can help reverse the degradation of southern China’s water resources. Our aim is to create a network of organizations working toward the same objective—to protect the region’s natural waterways.

To do this, BSR built partnerships with organizations like the Center for Water Research at Beijing University, the Institute for Public and Environmental Affairs, the China Environment Forum, and the Association for Sustainable and Responsible Investment in Asia, which already are tackling this challenge.

Our Impact

Based on a series of factory visits in southern China, BSR identified a range of pressures on factory managers that impact the management of water resources and wastewater discharge. These include low worker retention rates, international competition, and rising prices for their material inputs.

After we presented these findings at a forum in Guangzhou, BSR incorporated the information into a training curriculum designed for factory managers. BSR is applying its expertise as a partner with brands and suppliers to provide best practices, tools, and training to factory managers at textile mills, dyeing facilities, and other finishing mills. Ultimately, this will help factory managers improve their environmental performance related to wastewater management, water and energy use, and efficient use of materials and chemicals.

Blog | Wednesday July 27, 2022

Business Leadership in the Great Fragmentation: Part 1

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Editor's Note:

It is obvious that we are living through a time of profound and accelerating change. Our world has been rocked by a series of disruptions: COVID-19, war and social conflict, rollback of rights and democracy, and now high inflation and the risk of recession. These developments have jolted society, and business.

To help our 300+ member companies navigate this volatile environment, we're releasing a series of blogs over the coming weeks to build insight into how to shape business approaches that address this unique moment. Following last week's piece on changing expectations of business in protecting rule of law, rights, and democracy, today's piece is the first of two blogs on the role of business in combating societal fragmentation. 

We’ll conclude with a deeper dive look into how BSR’s 2025 strategy can help your company to navigate these turbulent times—and how you can collaborate with our global network to push us further, faster, to achieve a more equitable, just world for all.

The recent US Supreme Court hearing that overruled Roe v. Wade is yet another reminder of the profound divisions plaguing the United States. The decision has caused states to take wildly different approaches to women’s rights, business to face the question of how to respond, and a society at each other’s throat.

As momentous as this decision is, it is but one example of the many ways that the world is fragmenting: politically, economically, environmentally, and culturally. Signs are everywhere: growing conflict between illiberal governments and liberal democracies, generational splits regarding the value of market capitalism, and culture wars in the US and many parts of Europe. 

This fragmentation is driven by a set of interconnected and accelerating factors, which present not only serious risks to human progress, but also a massive challenge for business. This is particularly true for those of us advocating for more just and sustainable business. 

Sources of Fragmentation

To understand—and address—our current context, it is essential to understand the six interlocking factors that are accelerating fragmentation. Each is potent, and taken together, they reinforce and amplify each other, creating challenges that metastasize by the day. 

• The Digital World: Digital technologies and social media are both sources and enablers of fragmentation, with three key elements. First, social media enable communities of interest to gather in ways they never could in the physical world. While this is not inherently negative, the phenomenon is clearly corrosive. Second, disinformation and misinformation are turbocharging the digital communities’ embrace of their own realities, untethered to fact. Finally, the rise of the “splinternet,” with multiple walled off internets replacing the initial vision of a single, connected web (e.g., the Great Firewall of China and the “Putin-net”), prevents universal access to information, fostering further division.  
• Social Progress…and Backlash: The rise of #MeToo and Black Lives Matter and increased recognition of LGBTIQ+ rights are, on balance, leading to more equitable societies, with greater awareness of the structural inequities that plague us. There is also a powerful backlash, resulting in expressions of hate and violence. Business is increasingly being pulled into these culture wars, with competing claims of “woke capitalism” from the right and expectations from many, including the rising generation of employees and consumers, that business speak out for social justice. 
• Income Inequality: Our societies also continue to face income inequality that both reflects and reinforces fragmentation. According to the New York Times, the CEO-to-median-worker pay ratio in the US reached 339-1 in 2021, a tenfold increase from the late 1960s. Coming at a time of structural change and dislocation, this fuels extreme distrust, as well as populist movements from both right and left. Brexit, Trump, and Le Pen all galvanized widespread political support, often expressed through and with fear and xenophobia, by capitalizing on income inequality as proof that the system is rigged for the benefit of the wealthiest, leading to further social division.  
• Political and Geopolitical Division: Political divisions within and between countries are also on the rise. The recent French parliamentary elections spread votes across four coalitions, including two that are far to the right and left. The US has been mired in gridlock for two decades. “The Great Sorting” of populations has created urban and rural political divides in Europe and North America. The same is true globally, with sharpened geopolitical tensions. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, China’s increasingly muscular nationalism, and competition between liberal democracies and illiberal regimes are creating a more politically volatile environment than we have seen since in decades. 
• Social Impacts of Environmental Collapse: Human-caused environmental collapse also fuels fragmentation. The direct impacts of climate change already are more than enough for society to manage. The second- and third-order effects of climate change, however, are sparking additional social division. Climate refugees are adding to human migration, both to Europe from Africa and the Middle East and to the US from Central America, exacerbating already sharp divisions over migration and contributing to further xenophobia. The sheer scope of the energy transition, with the undeniable fact that there will be winners and losers, and pitting historical emitters against vulnerable nations, also magnifies fragmentation. Whether and how to act is also politicized, especially in the United States, where one political party has systematically—and cynically—denied climate science.
• Maximalist Thinking: Finally, these factors, which are powerful enough on their own, are also amplified—and at times weaponized—by the troubling rise of maximalist thinking. Various communities see “their issue,” whether climate or equity or democracy protection as the issue of existential importance. No matter how legitimate—indeed important—their vision and objectives, this kind of thinking has contributed to an environment in which tribes of reformers fail either to achieve their goals or to build needed coalitions. As Ford Foundation President Darren Walker put it recently in The New York Times, “[W]e are mired in a culture of absolutism and tearing ourselves apart at the seams. Everything right now, it seems, is black or white, all or nothing, perfect or unacceptable.” Indeed, if every cause is presented as an existential threat, advocates will retreat to their own corners, many others will simply tune out, and the consensus needed to make progress is rendered impossible.

Each of these developments has immense significance for business. Taken together, they are reshaping the expectations of customers, employees, and other stakeholders; the ways business communicates; and the policy environment shaping crucial issues from climate to employment to reporting and disclosure. 

In Part 2, we will spell out how business can respond to reduce these sources of fragmentation and adapt their activities to address them.

Case Studies | Tuesday November 4, 2014

Managing Greenhouse Gas Emissions in Chinese Supply Chains

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The Challenge

For manufacturing companies, the supply chain typically accounts for 70 to 80 percent of lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions. Much of these emissions are found in China, which contributes to approximately a quarter of global emissions annually, as well as the majority of emissions from products for export. For these reasons, many companies that are serious about addressing climate change are seeking to manage supply chain emissions, with a focus on this region.

But they face obstacles, many of which are common among emerging markets: Suppliers’ ability and readiness to manage emissions vary widely, making it hard to rely on a standard approach with all suppliers. In addition, policy incentives are not sufficient to encourage factories to upgrade inefficient equipment and systems. And climate change often takes a back seat to other, more visible supply chain agendas, including labor conditions, worker safety and fires, and toxic spills.

Our Strategy

Over the years, BSR has led a series of initiatives to reduce supply chain emissions, working with brands and their suppliers to use BSR’s local networks in China.

In 2008, we launched this work in a project with Walmart and the Environmental Defense Fund: To help Walmart meet its corporate commitment to reduce the emissions of 200 Chinese factories, we led outreach to suppliers and determined individual energy profiles and trends. Through this initiative, BSR identified four key priorities for suppliers to address energy challenges: preliminary diagnostic evaluation, management and technical training, on-site energy audit and opportunity assessments, and development of action plans.

Reflecting on lessons learned, we developed the Energy Efficiency Partnership (EEP), a coalition of 10 companies working with 100 suppliers in South China to coach and share information on energy efficiency. Through our work together, one significant partner, HP, has developed energy-management action plans for 20 factories. We helped HP identify current opportunities for motivating energy efficiency while segmenting and targeting suppliers for different kinds of interventions—with some focused on making the business case, and others focused on providing detailed energy audits. We complemented this by interviewing HP suppliers’ managerial and technical staff to understand how to address individual challenges.

Our Impact

Through this work, companies like HP have gained a greater understanding of where and how they can drive greenhouse gas reduction in factories by gaining support from suppliers’ senior management and by understanding the barriers suppliers face.

Following our initiative, which catalyzed more than 100 new energy-efficiency projects, HP became one of the first companies in the world to announce a greenhouse gas reduction goal for supply chain, where it committed to driving a 20 percent decrease in its first-tier manufacturing and product-transportation-related greenhouse gas emissions intensity between 2010 and 2020.

This work also has contributed to our broader Business in a Climate-Constrained World initiative by developing a significant body of knowledge about how to harness supply chains in China and other emerging markets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and adapt to climate change.

Lessons learned

Companies can—and should—have goals for greenhouse gas management in their supply chains. To do this in a way that is effective and manageable, companies should:

1. Understand suppliers’ level of ambition and assumptions about the business case for investing in energy efficiency.
2. Be judicious in asking for data requests in an era of survey fatigue by focusing on information that is actionable.
3. Help suppliers improve their ability to manage greenhouse gas emissions by providing expertise and technical resources to suppliers and sharing in investments for energy efficiency.

Blog | Thursday August 31, 2023

Inside BSR: Q&A with Juliette Pugliesi

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Tell us a bit about your background. Where are you from, and where are you based?

I grew up in a small French village close to Paris, surrounded by oak forests and rivers. I have a background in environmental sciences and sustainable development. Currently, I’m based out of BSR’s Paris office. 

How did you first get involved in sustainable business? What is your current role, and what does that entail? 

I’ve felt deeply passionate about nature conservation since I was a child. My favorite cartoons were wildlife documentaries. At ten-years-old, I was in the local newspaper for identifying a specific owl (Athene Noctua) at a competition organized by the region.

In my third year of university, I had the opportunity to work in Kenya at a wildlife reserve owned and operated by the local community in the Great Rift Valley. My main responsibilities included maintenance, inventory, and diagnosis of the fauna and flora of the reserve as well as communication around biodiversity. The reserve focused on preserving the ecosystem and protecting a specific endangered giraffe—the Rothschild Giraffe. Scientists currently recognize only one species of giraffe with nine subspecies. It is easily distinguishable from others because of its white legs that look like long socks! 

Following this, I worked in sustainability and nature topics at various entities, including a research department on waste management in a mission-driven company and an audit company, assessing the reliability of companies' data disclosed in CSR reports. At WWF France, I supported companies on their nature issues across different industries. I was also seconded to Science Based Targets for Nature where I was lead coordinator for the working group on biodiversity metrics for companies. I really enjoyed working at the interface of international research and supporting business with taking action on nature.

At BSR, I help companies identify and address their impacts on nature and develop ambitious strategies. I love the variety of projects around nature across various industries and organizations—including nature benchmarking, biodiversity or freshwater risks site assessments, commodity risks assessment, nature strategy, implementing actions and roadmaps, and support in training and education around nature. I love the people I work with, the international environment, and the BSR mindset to build impactful projects to achieve a just and sustainable world.

Congratulations on the recent “Le Cercle de Giverny” nomination! Could you tell us more about the award?

Thank you! The Cercle de Giverny is a hybrid think-tank to scale up corporate social responsibility in France. The work is placed under the patronage of the Ministry of Economy and Finance. The Cercle de Giverny has 2 main activities:

• Propose recommendations for the French Government on CSR topics: Le Cercle de Giverny built up working groups of experts and companies that will present 20 to 25 recommendations to the French government on CSR issues. I’ve been appointed to belong to the working group on how to represent nature within decision-making bodies.

• The Palmares of Giverny. This award brings together 50 committed leaders who are helping to accelerate France's ecological and social transformation. It recognizes commitment, entrepreneurship, and creativity of young people who are building the future with hope and pragmatism. I am very proud to have won this award and to represent BSR. It was also a wonderful opportunity to meet a group of inspiring young people who are motivated to act on sustainability in their day-to-day work. 

What are some interesting projects that you get to work on as part of your role at BSR? What do you enjoy about them? What are you looking forward to in the next 6 months? 

I have largely focused on developing BSR’s Nature services for members based on the Science Based Targets for Nature (SBTN).

SBTN aims to set the standard for ambitious measurable corporate actions on nature which includes, and builds upon, climate actions. It is a network of 80+ NGOs, business associations, and mission-driven consultancies contributing their expertise to collectively define targets to stay within planetary boundaries. The first technical guidance was released in May and provided insights on how companies can assess their impacts on nature, prioritize, and set targets for Freshwater and Land. I truly believe that companies’ action on nature needs to be informed by science to ensure they are doing enough and that their activities fit into the biophysical limits of our planet. 

I am currently involved in a project to support SBTN in building a “Readiness Check Framework”—a self-assessment tool that will help companies, NGOs, and consultancies to assess the accuracy of their work prior to target-setting. This tool is currently tested by around 30 companies and will help SBTN scale up actions and impact.

I also support a wide range of companies on nature topics. I worked with an IT company to assess the current state of nature in 14 countries in Asia-Pacific and develop recommendations to reduce nature loss. I also carried out nature benchmarking for a hydropower company and built-up recommendations on a nature roadmap for their direct operations and upstream impacts. Recently, I worked on a commodity risk assessment as well as a biodiversity and water site assessment of more than 2000 sites for a jewelry company. All of these projects raised key and concrete questions on how to avoid and reduce the company’s impacts on nature as well as restore and regenerate natural areas.

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

I am passionate about nature. Nature loss would be the most important challenge we are facing today and need to tackle in the future. I am driven to learn more about my favorite subjects, nature, and biodiversity, from other people. I also like to share my knowledge with my colleagues and educate others outside of BSR. I am a temporary teacher at AgroParisTech, an engineering school where I am speaking on biodiversity as well as tools available for organizations to tackle nature and biodiversity topics.

Case Studies | Tuesday June 1, 2010

Pfizer: Focusing, Refining, and Aligning CSR with a New Strategy

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The Challenge

In late 2008, Pfizer began a process to refine its CSR strategy to better support the company’s evolving business priorities and organizational changes. This presented a new opportunity to involve senior leaders and functions from across the company in guiding the company’s approach to CSR. The company also wanted to leverage its strong environmental, health, and safety (EHS) programs to build a leading environmental sustainability initiative that would connect to and support its other CSR strategies. Pfizer’s CSR leadership and its EHS team asked BSR to help guide the development of these new strategies, to support their global implementation, and to assist with its external reporting.

Our Strategy

BSR worked with Pfizer to achieve three main objectives:

Out Impact

Our work has enabled Pfizer to make significant progress in aligning internal CSR efforts, engaging colleagues throughout the organization, and improving transparency.

There is now stronger board oversight and a global network of employees who meet regularly to share approaches to managing CSR issues in their regions. Our materiality analysis allows Pfizer to focus its environmental sustainability strategy on three key issues—climate, product stewardship, and water—where the company can have the biggest potential impacts, maximizing benefits to the environment and the company’s bottom line. Specific action plans and strategies for each are now being developed.

Finally, Pfizer’s most recent CSR report has provided readers with improved information to evaluate the company’s performance on key issues and challenges, as well as a set of specific goals and metrics for the year ahead. In 2010, Pfizer will begin to incorporate CSR into the company’s annual review that accompanies its financial report and will provide more information to all investors about how Pfizer integrates CSR into its business practices. By providing such information directly to all investors, the company is signaling to the broader investment community that management of CSR issues is a critical part of its long-term business success.

1. Create a more coordinated and effective approach to CSR management. In addition to providing ongoing, strategic guidance to the company on how to improve global coordination of its CSR strategy, we developed recommendations on ways to expand board-level oversight of CSR and identify new opportunities to involve the board in CSR strategy and decision-making. BSR also worked to support the development of Pfizer’s global CSR network that brings together Pfizer employees from around the world who have CSR-related responsibilities in an effort to localize their global CSR strategy.
2. Develop an environmental sustainability road map. BSR partnered with Pfizer’s EHS taskforce to develop a more strategic approach to environmental initiatives that will result in greater business and societal value. We began with an assessment and benchmarking of Pfizer’s current practices by interviewing key staff with responsibility for Pfizer’s sustainability programs. We then led a materiality analysis and workshop with senior business leaders to identify the environmental issues for which Pfizer could have the biggest impact. Based on these inputs, we worked with Pfizer to design a road map for environmental sustainability that aims to achieve cost efficiencies, product and brand differentiation, and, most importantly, progress on some of the world’s most pressing environmental challenges and their impact on global health.
3. Strengthen Pfizer’s CSR reporting. BSR also supported Pfizer’s ongoing efforts to improve the measurement and communication of its performance on CSR issues such as access to medicine, research and development, patient safety, and corporate governance. Drawing on our knowledge of best practices in reporting, we guided the day-to-day development of Pfizer’s CSR report, drafted the content, and identified opportunities for innovation such as the inclusion of stakeholder voices and more balanced commentary about challenges.

Blog | Monday September 18, 2017

Collaborating to Achieve Climate Leadership

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This week, leaders from around the globe will converge in New York City to participate in the conversation about the UN Sustainable Development Goals and our climate future.

Corporate climate action has been on the rise for a few years now: Since We Mean Business launched in 2014, 596 companies have made 1,030 climate commitments; almost 300 of those are commitments to set science-based targets for greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reductions.

For the world’s largest companies, climate action increasingly means collaboration. As ambitious as these companies are, they cannot reach their GHG emissions reduction goals without forging partnerships in their value chains and beyond. Moreover, they are finding that collaboration can reap benefits beyond emissions reductions.

This past June, BSR and CDP convened 19 companies in Stockholm to share their insights on the value of partnerships in reducing GHG emissions. Stora Enso, who hosted the event in its new innovation center in the Swedish capital, demonstrated how its own climate programs are driven by deep collaboration. The company, a leading provider of renewable solutions in packaging, biomaterials, wooden constructions, and paper, has entered into many fruitful public and private partnerships in support of its climate ambitions, including the following:

• 13 of its mills provide biofuels to local municipal district heating systems.
• In Belgium, its Langerbrugge mill is helping Volvo Car Gent cut CO2 emissions via a district heating connection that uses industrial waste for energy production.
• The company’s Montes del Plata pulp mill produces electricity from biomass and delivers five percent of Uruguay’s annual consumption to the national grid.
• Stora Enso has entered a Carbon Pact with Maersk Line to jointly reduce their GHG emissions.

These types of partnerships were a common theme in the discussion around the table—Electrolux, IKEA Group, and H&M, for instance, also shared their own experiences collaborating, with suppliers in particular, to pursue ambitious emissions reduction goals.

Other recent major climate announcements have similarly strong collaboration components. For example, Mars announced that it will spend US$1 billion in the coming years to tackle sustainability issues, including climate change. Specifically, Mars will focus on its supply chain, acting on the words of CEO Mark Reid, that “We must work together, because the engine of global business—its supply chain—is broken, and requires transformational, cross-industry collaboration to fix it.” Mars already had goals in place to reach net zero emissions within its own operations by 2040, but under its new “Sustainable in a Generation” plan (which will complement existing targets), the company has committed to reduce emissions across its value chains by 67 percent by 2050.

Last year, Walmart—the world’s largest employer and largest company in the world by revenue—launched its Project Gigaton to pursue an absolute greenhouse gas emissions reduction of 18 percent by 2025 and further work to prevent the release of 1 gigaton of emissions in its global supply chain by 2030. With this project, Walmart will provide an emissions reduction toolkit to a broad network of its suppliers, focusing on areas such as manufacturing, materials, and use of products.  

As these examples reveal, the future of climate action is a path charted with innovative and transformative partnerships, and many companies are already working with their various stakeholders toward a climate-compatible future.

I invite you to join me at the annual BSR Conference next month in Huntington Beach, California, as business pioneers this new territory. I will be moderating a conversation with Björn Hannappel, head of responsibility strategy and standards, Deutsche Post DHL Group, and Brandon Owens, director of environmental strategy and analytics, GE, to explore how current modes of production, manufacturing, consumption, product design, and financing tools will be affected by climate change, as well as how collaboration can help companies face risks and seize opportunities as leaders in a low-carbon economy.

This week, we will feature several blog posts about the role of collaboration in shaping our climate future. Follow @BSRnews on Twitter for updates from Global Goals Week and Climate Week NYC; see our recent blog post for the full list of where we’ll be.