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Blog | Thursday January 12, 2017

Responsive and Responsible Leadership: A Look Ahead at Davos

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The year 2016 will go down in history as the year when elites and powerful institutions were delivered a sharp blow, not least through the Brexit vote and Donald Trump’s ascendance. In this context, what are we to make of 2017’s World Economic Forum annual meeting, kicking off next week in Davos, perceived by many as the ultimate gathering of world elites?

The theme of this year’s Davos is “Responsive and Responsible Leadership.” Responsive leadership requires that we listen to the aspirations and concerns of all our fellow citizens—including understanding and responding to the very real concerns expressed on the streets and in the ballot boxes in 2016. But let us also remember that responsible leadership, the other part of the equation, means defending principles that these same voters appear to have rejected.

The exercise of power in the post-financial-crisis world certainly leaves much to be desired. Income inequality continues to grow; too many people are excluded from power based on their gender, race, or other characteristics; and we continue to see blatantly unethical actions by institutions and leaders from the public and private sectors.

All this culminated in unexpected election results in two critical democracies, which in turn has led to the sudden rediscovery of the communities, needs, and perspectives that asserted themselves at the ballot box with a loud cry for change.

While this is the definition of responsive leadership, there is a huge risk, however, that in doing so, we will forsake crucial principles that should guide us politically, culturally, and economically.

After all, it is not elitist to stand up for human rights.

It is not elitist to defend climate science.

It is not elitist to embrace open societies—and, yes, open borders.

It is not elitist to demand respect for all people, nor to recognize that women, people of color, immigrants, and others have too often been failed by our economic and justice systems.

It is not elitist to defend journalists who seek the truth.

It is not elitist to consider the well-being of people across the globe (while also giving full attention to communities closer to home).

It is not elitist to call out leaders who give license to merchants of hate.

It is not elitist to expect that informal norms of civility and fairness be the guide star for all leaders.

So, as we welcome 2017, let us not only focus on power dynamics or the clarion call for change expressed by voters. The real question we face is whether all of us, as citizens, workers, politicians, or business executives, will defend essential values and principles. This is what responsible leadership demands, now more than ever.

Blog | Wednesday November 8, 2017

Microsoft’s Brad Smith Highlights Business Leadership at the BSR Conference 2017

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In a keynote address at the BSR Conference 2017, Microsoft President and Chief Legal Officer Brad Smith highlighted the company's experiences raising its voice on political issues and bridging the digital divide.

"As the first responders of this new era, those of us who are in the business of technology need to think about it as more than a business," Smith said. "We need to think about it as a cause to protect people."

Following his address, Smith joined a conversation with BSR President and CEO Aron Cramer and answered live questions from the audience and Twitter.

Watch the full video below:

The BSR Conference 2017 took place October 24-26 in Huntington Beach, California, and gathered sustainability leaders from business, government, and civil society to explore the theme of “How Business Leads.” Follow the conversation on Twitter at #BSR17. See all video highlights on BSR’s YouTube channel.

Blog | Thursday May 16, 2019

How to Drive Value through Supply Chain Sustainability

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No matter the industry, managing sustainability in supply chains continues to increase in importance. The majority of companies’ risks and opportunities are often in their supply chains, and companies with supply chain sustainability programs have a leg up against competitors to mitigate risk, find cost savings through resource efficiency, drive innovation through supplier collaboration, and access finance and improve working capital. To take just one example of the link between supply chain sustainability and business risk, the WHO, ILO and UNDP have found that productivity losses related to heat-related workplace disruption and injury could rise above US$2 trillion by 2030.  

As supply chain sustainability—also known as responsible sourcing, sustainable sourcing, responsible supply, or sustainable procurement—continues to evolve, companies must also stay abreast of the trends regarding best practice in order to build or maintain a competitive edge. At BSR, we have seen the shift from a compliance-based approach which started in the 1990s, to going beyond monitoring in the 2000s, and into supply chain transformation today. These trends align with overall management trends in the evolution of procurement and supply chain management, and companies need to navigate how to evolve with the times. 

Evolution of Supply Chain Management and Supply Chain Sustainability

In order to help companies either start their journey in implementing supply chain sustainability or improve their existing programs, BSR developed the Supply Chain Leadership Ladder in 2017. The Leadership Ladder is a maturity model for companies to evaluate and evolve their approach to supply chain sustainability. Today, we are pleased to announce the launch of its update, the Supply Chain Leadership Ladder 2.0. 

The Leadership Ladder helps illuminate a path to improved supply chain sustainability performance in the following ways:

• Providing a true assessment of the level to which a company’s existing supply chain and procurement practices integrate sustainability and are providing value across internal and external dimensions
• Ascertaining the company’s own level of ambition in driving supply chain sustainability: Does a company want to be driving impact, managing its most important priorities, or is it comfortable at the level of assuring compliance?
• Identifying concrete actions that the company can take to improve its program and approach, and to align with peers or leading practice.

The Leadership Ladder has four levels, reflecting the actions of companies across industries, as well as BSR’s informed vision for impact.

The BSR Supply Chain Leadership Ladder

Through anonymized assessment data of 32 companies, BSR found that the most common level of maturity across company programs is Level 2, Assuring Compliance. We work with companies at the Assuring Compliance level and help them identify opportunities to improve their programs. This can include identifying how to achieve better visibility of the most critical issues, categories of spend, and sourcing geographies in its supply chain; identifying the roles and responsibilities needed internally; or determining how best to engage suppliers and the supply chain workforce towards better outcomes.

The Leadership Ladder 2.0 incorporates learnings from our work with businesses across industries to assess and benchmark their approaches, as well as an external benchmark of the Leadership Ladder against other global frameworks.

We encourage companies to take a hard look at the opportunities to develop and evolve their approach to supply chain sustainability. As always, we welcome feedback and conversation on the new version of the Supply Chain Leadership Ladder.

Blog | Wednesday September 20, 2017

New Climate Leadership to Realize the Paris Vision

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As world leaders gather in New York for the UN General Assembly and Climate Week NYC, we are excited to discuss how we can all contribute to the achievement of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs): to end poverty, protect the planet, and secure shared prosperity.

Since the SDGs and the Paris Climate Agreement were adopted in 2015, we have seen a wide range of actors around the globe commit to bold action in support of this vision. Although the United States government indicated its intent earlier this year to withdraw from the Paris Agreement, in their G20 Declaration this year, “the Leaders of the other G20 members state that the Paris Agreement is irreversible.”   

Back in May, we expressed our confidence that the business community would continue to lead on climate action, realizing the Paris vision of a resilient, low-carbon economy that sparks innovation, creates jobs, and puts the world on a safer, more prosperous path. In fact, business leadership has been on display since the U.S. announcement, and it is especially visible this week. Through the We Are Still In declaration, 2,300 American businesses, investors, and other actors have re-committed to delivering on the promise of the Paris Agreement. America’s Pledge, led by California Governor Jerry Brown and Michael Bloomberg, is an effort to quantify and aggregate the impact of these and other American actors implementing emissions reductions and building climate resilience on the ground.

It’s exciting to see more companies engaged on climate than ever before, and individual companies are also making commitments on an unprecedented scale. Walmart’s Project Gigaton aims to remove one billion tons of emissions from its supply chain, and HPE’s supply chain management program seeks to avoid 100 million tons of emissions. Climate action up and down and value chain is fast becoming a hallmark of leadership: General Mills has a 28 percent emissions reduction target by 2025 from “farm to fork to landfill,” Carlsberg has a 2030 target to reduce emissions “beer in hand” by 30 percent, and Mars recently announced a 2025 target to reduce emissions by 27 percent across its value chain as part of its Sustainable in a Generation Plan. These goals not only align with the latest science on what is necessary to keep warming well below 2°C—they represent commitments to collaborate with suppliers and customers to create the climate future we need.

Equally important is leadership in assessing and disclosing climate risks and building resilience to these risks, in recognition of the climate impacts we now face. Yesterday, the We Mean Business coalition, of which BSR is a proud founding partner, launched a commitment to implement the recommendations of the Task Force on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures. Ten companies across seven sectors have become the first to commit to disclose information about the financial implications of their climate-related risks and opportunities.

This new climate leadership, and many other examples like it, will be on display a year from now at the 2018 Global Climate Action Summit convened by Governor Brown. BSR is very pleased to serve on the Steering Committee of the Summit as the representative of the business community, and we will create channels for business input as plans for this event evolve. 

The 2018 Global Climate Action Summit will demonstrate how business, investors, states and regions, cities, civil society, and citizens are implementing climate action, inspiring new ambition, and creating an inclusive economy that works for everyone. It will be an opportunity for new climate leadership to shine, and to build momentum for the 2018 UN Climate Conference, when governments will take stock of the world’s progress towards the Paris goals and begin preparations to update their own targets in 2020.

To bring the Paris vision to life, it’s essential that we work together across industries, sectors, and borders. We are thrilled to represent business at next year’s Summit and excited to see this trend of bold, collaborative leadership continue. 

This week, we are featuring 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.

Blog | Monday July 10, 2017

Shape the Future of Sustainable Business at the BSR Conference 2017

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The BSR Conference 2017 will serve as the centerpiece of our 25th anniversary celebration. So much has changed since BSR launched in 1992. Our very first Conference, in Washington, D.C. in 1993, brought to the plenary stage a new president in his first year: Bill Clinton. President Clinton embraced a view of business that would make a meaningful difference in enabling people to reach their potential, of businesses that knew that a healthy environment was central to their success. He also knew that global trade could—done right—lift billions of people out of poverty.

While the view from Washington looks different in 2017, there is no doubt that in the previous quarter-century, we have developed an amazing ecosystem of sustainability leaders. I am exceptionally proud of the role BSR has played in building a real movement of changemakers in business.

At our 25th annual Conference this year, we certainly will celebrate what we have accomplished, in collaboration with our great network of member companies and other partners. But even more, we will take the opportunity this October to look resolutely to the future.

This year’s event will create the opportunities for networking and learning that so many have come to expect from the BSR Conference. 

In keeping with our approach to the 25th anniversary, we are taking the opportunity to redefine sustainable business—and the Conference as well. The venue itself will provide new opportunities for informal interaction in an inspiring beach-side setting. We have built an agenda that will take full advantage of the natural environment—from our opening night reception and dinner by the ocean to our closing 25th anniversary celebration overlooking Huntington Beach.

The theme for the Conference is “How Business Leads.” At this moment in history, business leadership is essential. More and more, sustainability leadership is crucial to successful business. Sustainability presents unique opportunities for innovation and value creation. Businesses lead through powerful collaborations that are fit for a world of distributed assets and diverse perspectives. And in today’s climate, the voice of business is crucially important, as other sectors often abdicate their leadership responsibilities. 

We have shaped a Conference agenda that will look to the future. This comes at a time when technology, economics, and politics are rewriting the sustainability playbook. We have dedicated a special track, “FastForward 25,” to sessions that will project the kinds of changes that business can create to make good on the promise of the Paris Agreement and the Sustainable Development Goals. Fitting with our location in California, from where so much innovation comes, we also will have multiple speakers looking at new business models, new collaborations, and new ways of engaging consumers.

BSR’s first Conference brought together a small but mighty band of believers who had a vision of a new way of doing business. Today, our numbers are greater, and the vision remains just as powerful as it once was. The scope of our opportunity is just as powerful, too.

Every year, I am excited by the prospect of being with many great leaders whom I consider to be friends and partners. This year, at the intersection of BSR’s 25th anniversary, serious disruptions affecting business, and the need for business leadership and voice, the question I have found myself asking is: “How will we meet this unique moment?” 

Come to BSR17 to shape the answer: Our shared future depends on it.

Blog | Friday March 15, 2019

Three Ways for Companies to Promote Women’s Leadership across the Supply Chain

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More than 90 guests joined BSR's HERproject, The Estée Lauder Companies, Inc., Nordstrom, UGG, and Williams-Sonoma, Inc. for a special event on women’s leadership on the eve of International Women’s Day last Thursday, March 7, 2019. In two engaging panels, leaders from business, politics, development, and media explored the challenges and opportunities for empowering women to progress as leaders.  

For companies, three clear opportunities emerged.  

Companies Can Act to Demonstrate They Value Women’s Leadership 

All brand speakers emphasized the importance of walking the talk at the corporate level. From Pottery Barn, whose CEO is a woman and whose overseas leadership is 67 percent women, to The Estée Lauder Companies, Inc., which this year enacted a 20-week parental leave policy for men and women in the United States, panelists emphasized the need for companies to live their values and demonstrate a belief in women as leaders.  

This also extends to how leaders promote and nurture women within their organizations. Andrea O’Donnell, President, Fashion Lifestyle, Deckers Brands (UGG), pointed out that “our responsibility is to allow women to find their voice and their confidence, and be active mentors and cheerleaders for them”—a sentiment shared by Nancy Mahon, Senior Vice President, Global Corporate Citizenship and Sustainability at The Estée Lauder Companies, Inc., who highlighted the need for women to “throw the ladder back down.”  
 

Systems Need to Be Changed to Enable Women to Succeed 

While individual leaders and companies have significant roles to play, panelists also highlighted the many barriers that might stand in the way of women becoming leaders—or prevent them from fulfilling their potential once in leadership positions. Citing her own experiences of pregnancy and childbirth, Penny Abeywardena, Commissioner for International Affairs at the New York City Mayor’s Office, commented on the inadequacy of existing structures: “Women make up more than half of the American workforce, but the policies that dictate our experience in the workforce are from 50 years ago.”  

For Maria May, Program Officer at The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, these challenges affect how women progress into leadership: “The balancing that women have to do, and how silently they do it a lot of the time, leads women to evaluate opportunities differently and require different kinds of support.” And Jenny Hollander, Deputy Editor at marieclaire.com, highlighted the complacency that may develop as women achieve leadership roles: “People assume that the problem goes away when you put women and minorities into positions where they should be. I think you also need to make sure you are giving them the tools to succeed, because otherwise you are dooming them to fail.”  

For companies, it is therefore critical to maintain a focus on the specific challenges that women may face once in leadership positions, such as time poverty, lack of voice, and social norms that hinder career progress.  

Companies Can Influence Peers and Partners for Greater Impact 

Beyond the corporate office and across the supply chain, barriers to women’s leadership are greater still. Latha Ramakrishnan, an expert on women’s empowerment programs in India, highlighted the situation of many low-income women workers in India: “A woman faces limited access to the outside world and to education, and she has a limited voice. A girl has always to be under the shadow of a male person: her parents, then her husband, then her son.” This discrimination has knock-on effects, with girls and women less likely to acquire critical skills, more likely to accept low positions in business, and less likely to believe in their own abilities.  

Panelists, however, felt that change was possible through partnerships. Abeywardena highlighted how “the private sector has a beautiful opportunity to partner with governments to help develop and shape policies” and asked: “What does it look like if we work as a collective to move it for the entire community?” Mandy Seidel, Vice President, Global Sourcing at Pottery Barn, explained that through partnerships with suppliers and local experts within HERproject, Pottery Barn has created a happier and more stable workforce: “One of our largest manufacturers has run HERproject. They wrote to me and said that because of the investment we have made and that they have made in the workforce, they saw 100 percent worker retention rate after Chinese New Year, versus 80 percent in previous years.”  

Despite the ongoing challenges, panelists were optimistic about the future of leadership for and by women. Through individual and collective action, companies have the chance not just to promote women as leaders but to become leaders on women’s empowerment—and there has never been a better time to do so. As Hollander put it, “there is huge opportunity in this space where everything is changing so dramatically.” 

If you would like to find out more about how your company can empower women across your supply chain, please contact our team of experts.  
 

Reports | Wednesday January 18, 2017

The Supply Chain Leadership Ladder

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For many years, companies across all industries have had sustainable supply chain programs focused on managing sustainability risks and opportunities among their global supplier networks. Leading companies recognize that these supply chain sustainability programs create value, and we have seen a positive trend toward more impact-focused programs among these leaders.

This working paper introduces the Supply Chain Leadership Ladder, a maturity model for supply chain sustainability programs, which companies can use to identify their level of maturity and impact and develop their program toward deeper impact in accordance with their level of ambition.

Reports | Wednesday May 15, 2019

The Supply Chain Leadership Ladder 2.0

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Across industries, managing companies’ supply chain sustainability has become increasingly important. Leading companies recognize that supply chain sustainability programs create value through mitigating risk, increasing resource efficiency to find cost savings, driving innovation through supplier collaboration, and more.  

The Supply Chain Leadership Ladder is a maturity model that BSR has developed for companies to evaluate and evolve their approach to supply chain sustainability. A better understanding of their current standing with regards to supply chain knowledge, management, and supplier engagement helps these companies to identify how and where they need to invest in their supply chain in order to drive competitive advantage. Supply chain sustainability, also known as responsible sourcing, sustainable sourcing, responsible supply, sustainable procurement, and by other names, continues to evolve, and as such, our approach needed to evolve as well.  

Two years following the launch of the Leadership Ladder, BSR is pleased to release this update. The Leadership Ladder 2.0 incorporates learnings from our work with companies where we use the framework to identify their level of maturity and ambition, benchmark their practices against their peers, and develop concrete action plans to improve. 

For companies looking to build or advance their approaches to supply chain sustainability, the Supply Chain Leadership Ladder 2.0 is a useful tool to assess practices and the opportunity to progress. Please don’t hesitate to contact our team to discuss how we can work together. 

Blog | Thursday April 26, 2018

Sustainability Management for a Rapidly Changing World: Q&A with Erb Institute’s Terry Nelidov

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In the spring of 2017, we spoke with a number of our members and key stakeholders about sustainability management, including what is working and what isn’t. These conversations informed our report Redefining Sustainable Business: Management for a Rapidly Changing World, which presents our blueprint for creating resilient business strategies.

Terry Nelidov, managing director of the Erb Institute, shared his insights on how millennials in leadership roles will impact sustainability management, the importance of metrics and leadership support for sustainability, and the convergence of environmental and social issues.

Alison Taylor: First, please tell us about your work in sustainability at the Erb Institute.

Terry Nelidov: The Erb Institute is the University of Michigan’s business-sustainability partnership between the Ross School of Business and the School for Environment & Sustainability. We started as a dual-degree M.B.A./M.S. program back in 1996, and we have expanded over the years to be a full-fledged institute with sustainability research, teaching, and business engagement. This is all in support of our mission to create a sustainable world through the power of business—very akin to BSR’s mission, I might add!

The young professionals in our graduate M.B.A./M.S. program have traditionally been focused on key environmental issues, like climate, energy, water, and ecosystems. What we’ve seen over the past five years or so, however, has been a shift to the social side of sustainability, with growing interest in issues like supply-chain labor conditions, business and human rights, community development, and diversity and inclusion.

Taylor: What are the characteristics of the millennials you teach, and how are you translating their issue experience into practical management expertise?

Nelidov: Ross Business School just leapt into No. 7 on the list of Top 10 M.B.A. programs in the U.S.! You can imagine that Erb’s business-sustainability students are ambitious, well-prepared, and also a little impatient for change and impact (which I guess isn’t unique to ambitious young people anywhere). While some complain of a sense of entitlement in the emerging millennial workforce, we see it more as a fundamental shift in how this generation views personal passion, professional purpose, and profit more and more as a means rather than an end. Our students aren’t looking for “just a job;” they want a purpose. And they see business as the most effective way to do that.

As a university, we sit very early in the “sustainability professionals value chain,” and we’re getting a glimpse into what middle management in large companies will look like in five to 10 years. I see a definite shift coming in employees’ expectations for their companies’ social and environmental performance. Soon, these employees will start to take on leadership roles in their companies, with the responsibility and the resources to drive deep change.

The impatience we see today will over time manifest itself as an expectation for a fundamentally different role for business in society, and that change will happen not only because activists and stakeholders are pushing from the outside, but even more importantly because new leaders deep inside the company expect it of any company where they choose to work.

Taylor: What about Erb’s executive education? Are we still stuck on the business case for sustainability?

Nelidov: No, thankfully we are beyond “CSR 101” awareness raising and making the business case for “why environment and society matter.” Together with Ross Executive Education, Erb delivers executive education designed to respond to what we’re hearing from our business partners, namely “Don’t waste my time with why sustainability matters. We get it! But show us how to actually do it!” And that’s the hard part.

Taylor: That’s a huge focus for us at BSR, too. What do you see as the key success factors here?

Nelidov: First of all, this has to come from the top. There are ways to get around a lack of senior leadership commitment, but when leadership “gets” sustainability, you see rapid, deep, transformative change. Second, performance targets and measures are how ambitious goals and commitments at the top get translated to middle management. Simple targets for business units unleash innovation, even before you start to tackle building sustainability into individual performance targets.

It’s a cliché to say you “manage what you measure,” but I’ve seen over and over again that the very act of starting to measure sustainability impact is a huge motivator. We know how to measure environmental impacts, like water consumption or material waste, because we’ve been doing it for a while. We also have emerging experience in measuring impact on labor issues and employee engagement. But how do you begin to measure more social issues, like human development, economic inclusion, or business impact on water as a human right? That’s tough.

Taylor: Your point about human rights and water is so fascinating—are we seeing convergence between economic, environmental and social issues, or are we still suffering from siloed thinking here?

Nelidov: I have no doubt that economic, social, and environmental issues are converging. Water is a perfect example. It’s an operational issue, an environmental issue, a stakeholder issue, and now is being framed more and more as a basic human rights issue. Technology has enabled us to see systemic problems more clearly. We need systems thinking to develop more comprehensive responses to create a just and sustainable world through the power of business.

Blog | Wednesday February 28, 2018

Collaboration: How Business Must Lead to Achieve Sustainable Development

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How does business lead?

When we think of leadership, we often think of a single, iconic leader. We celebrate leading companies for their bold actions on sustainability risks and opportunities; yet one of the most important ways business leads is through collaboration.

In the past year, it has become increasingly clear that the world is changing fast—and profoundly. We are faced with challenges like catastrophic climate change, increasing inequality, and the rapid emergence of new technologies that are disrupting societies and raising new, fundamental ethical questions. These are not new phenomena, but the pace and scope of change is picking up. These challenges also come at a time when established governance models are being questioned—or outright failing—which makes new leadership constellations all the more necessary.

In partnership with The Rockefeller Foundation, today BSR is launching a new report, Private-Sector Collaboration for Sustainable Development. This report is based on the premise that business must take a leadership role through collaboration, both to ensure the future of sustainable business and for the benefit of society as a whole. As we look to meet the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and implement the Paris Agreement on climate change, it is clear that we must transcend the status quo of individual action to foster collaboration for impact at scale. We must mobilize, leverage, and direct the transformative power of business’s collective resources and capabilities toward these ends.

We need more business collaboration, but what we need most are well-designed, well-governed, accountable, and impactful collaborations. This report is a contribution in that direction. It sets out to identify the key success factors for collaboration and provide concrete guidance to business leaders on impactful collaborations. It has been informed by the rich experiences and thoughtful perspectives of practitioners from many parts of the private sector as well as insights from civil society organizations that have worked closely in partnership with companies.

Collaborative leadership has been a fundamental tenet of BSR’s 25 years of work to create a just and sustainable world. Our strategy emphasizes the need to ideate, design, and explore—and subsequently accelerate and scale—powerful collaborations that yield transformational change. We believe that the time is right to pursue such opportunities vigorously, aggressively, and with focus. We have written this report to provide guidance that we hope will encourage more businesses to engage in collaborations—and help them do so more successfully.

For The Rockefeller Foundation, building strategic partnerships is a core component of our strategic approach. We believe that creating coalitions that engage the full range of actors across a given system—from the private sector to government to civil society—can accelerate breakthroughs that deliver impact at scale. We hope that this guide to engaging the private sector in designing and implementing high-impact collaborations for sustainable development will serve as a catalyst for the next generation of transformative results.

We will only succeed in achieving the SDGs if we truly work together, combining our capabilities, resources, and assets. We invite you to join us to create shared solutions to global challenges—to lead through collaboration.