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Despite many high street brands having signed up to the Accord on Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh, there are still some notable exceptions. A new campaign by the Trades Union Congress in the UK, specifically references River Island, Matalan, Bench, Bank Fashion, Peacocks, Jane Norman, Republic and Mexx.

The Accord follows April’s Rana Plaza disaster in which over 1,200 people died. The leader of Bangladeshi garment workers, Amirul Haque Amin, recently visited the UK highlighting the fact that the disaster not only exposed unsafe conditions but also the poor wages of garment workers in the country.

Amin commented: “It is high time UK retail chains, and other companies sourcing from Bangladesh, matched ethical claims with action to lift their suppliers’ workers out of poverty.”

His words coincided with the publication of a new report from charity War on Want.

The report features living wage campaigns among Bangladeshi and Cambodian garment workers, migrant and local employees in Malaysia, as well as workers in Indonesia, Africa, Latin America, the Caribbean, Scotland and the US.

It says that as labour’s share of national income has declined around the world, there has been a parallel rise in the number of workers who find themselves trapped in poverty despite having a job – the so-called “working poor”.
In the Asia/Pacific region alone, over 600m working people are still forced to live below the $2 (£1.28p) a day poverty line.

In the UK, more than 6m living in poverty are in a working household, meaning that in-work poverty is now more prevalent than out-of-work poverty among people of working age.
 

There’s no pleasing some people. News that England is to finally follow in the footsteps of Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland and introduce a charge on single-use carrier bags brought a mixed response. “Finally the government will help improve the environments we all love so much by implementing a policy that the Break The Bag Habit has shown to be popular with the public and effective in reducing litter,” beamed Andy Cummins, the campaign’s spokesperson.

However, Friends of the Earth’s policy and campaigns director, Craig Bennett issued a word of warning: “A plastic bag charge is welcome news, but let’s not get carried away. This small step will do little to tackle the nation’s huge waste mountain and can’t disguise the UK Government’s woeful green record. Tougher action and ambitious targets are needed to cut waste and boost recycling, and bring England in line with the rest of the UK and much of Europe.”

Personally, as you may have gathered from last month’s editorial, I was rather pleased. It may appear a drop in the ocean on some fronts – yes, it’s not a ban on carrier bags entirely (small and medium sized businesses don’t have to enforce the charge either) and no, it won’t mean that you’ll never see a rogue bag caught in the branches of roadside tree – but the move is a major aid to changing some very deep-rooted consumer behaviours.

Since Wales introduced the charge in October 2011, it’s seen a 76% reduction in single-use carrier bags. I think that initiatives for behaviour changes, even with small environmental impacts, make a lot of sense as they can lead to more far-reaching and environmentally significant changes in the longer run.

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs behaviour change team has speculated that simple and painless actions may function “as entry points in helping different groups to make their lifestyles more sustainable.” And I agree, though I guess some people may not think a 5p charge for a bag is painless. However, you only have to take a look around the next time you’re in the supermarket to see how many people are already opting to take their own bags and by changing that mindset, you have the potential to make further green in-roads. Every little helps, as some may say…

Not that supermarkets are in my good books right now. While I was amused to read about the absurdly long paper receipt issued to a customer at CVS in the US recently – it came in at a staggering 38 inches (96cm) – it reminded me just how annoying I find the endless coupons I now receive with my regular receipt.

On the one hand retailers are trying to dissuade us from using carrier bags and yet on the other they are loading us down with half a sycamore to stuff into our purses. CVS explained its rationale behind the monster receipt was that it was an effective way to inform its rewards programme members about its benefits. In an age of apps and eReceipts, I’m not convinced. Other retailers please take note. 

Coca-Cola is expanding its clean water and sanitation programme in African schools and health clinics together with the US Agency for International Development (USAID). The global soft drinks giant’s Water and Development Alliance (WADA) says it will provide more than 190,000 people with better water and improved sanitation services by the end of 2015.

In Nigeria, at least 65,000 people will benefit from the installation of hand-pump boreholes, improved sanitation facilities, hand-washing stations and rain harvesters at schools and health care facilities. Communities will also be trained in the long-term maintenance of the infrastructure and water management committees will be offered capacity building services.

In Zambia, the project will provide sanitation facilities and hygiene education in schools in peri-urban Lusaka, benefiting up to 50,000 school children. The project includes resource mobilization strategies to support the long-term operations and maintenance of the schools' water, sanitation, and hygiene programs. It is also expected that this project will provide sustainable clean water access to up to 44,000 people through community water kiosks and a distribution network.

In Ghana, more than 35,000 people will benefit from the construction of clean water kiosks and sanitation services to include the provision of total sanitation marketing campaigns.

"Water stewardship is a key priority for our business and we are committed to returning the water we use in our beverages and their production back to communities," said Muhtar Kent, chairman and ceo, The Coca-Cola Company. "We are pleased to launch the next phase of impact with one of our longest standing and most valued partners, USAID. Expanding our work together will help bring safe water to thousands of people in communities we serve and continue to bring us closer to meeting our replenishment goal."

“This important public-private partnership builds on our Agency's new and first-ever Water and Development Strategy to improve health and food security across the world. Its programs represent the next generation of this vital alliance - helping families lift themselves out of poverty and communities onto a path towards sustainable development," added Dr. Rajiv Shah, USAID Administrator.
 

American FMCG titan Procter & Gamble (P&G) is partnering with Habitat for Humanity to fund the construction, repair, and cleaning of homes in 12 countries around the world.

The commitment represents Habitat’s highest level of global volunteer engagement in a single year, with nearly 3,000 P&G employees volunteering alongside Habitat partner families in countries including the US, Singapore, Malaysia, South Africa, Poland and Costa Rica.

In the Philippines, for example, five homes are being built and families provided with critical training on financial literacy, sanitation and hygiene while in the US, P&G will provide a gift basket of family and home care products to all new Habitat families – an estimated 6,000. Baskets include products like Charmin, Dawn and Tide.

“For the past 175 years, Procter & Gamble has focused on turning houses into homes,” Brian Sasson, global manager of social investments at P&G told Ethical Performance. He said that the gift basket initiative is to be taken a step further soon with the inclusion of a new booklet which is aimed at first-time home owners as a quick resource on how to look after the home. Starting in the US and Latin America , the guide will cover areas such as air conditioning and heating systems as well more fundamental issues “like taking care of your yard” Sasson explained.

Sasson agreed that P&G brands get a lot of positive reputation associations out of its social responsibility policy and that it was an important part of it. The company does look at the ROI of its programmes. “We look at how many people we can help and how many people we do help. We measure outputs and are looking at how we develop those metrics,” Sasson said.

He explained that there were two strands to his role: setting social responsibility strategy (looking at where the corporation will invest its money) and looking at implementing that strategy. He also looks at who P&G should work with and fosters partnerships with organizations such as Save The Children, World Vision and the Red Cross. P&G has been partnering with Habitat for Humanity for close to10 years.

“Disaster relief is an area where P&G can have tremendous value,” Sasson said and revealed that the next big challenge was within personal care, where the company is ramping up its efforts with the introduction of a personal care kit for disaster areas and people who have been displaced (the kit uses P&G personal care brands). “We are currently scaling that up. Hundreds of employees have recently been putting together those kits and put aside for when they are needed,” he said.

Sasson is thrilled that 3000 employees have already stepped up to the volunteering challenge and is hoping for steady, significant growth of that number in 2014 [the 3000 applies only to the Habitat programme]: “We have 127,000 employees around the world and we need to harness those talents and pitch those resources against solving society’s challenges and issues.”
 

Sandra Kerr, OBE, director of Race for Opportunity, the race equality campaign from Business in the Community, tells Ethical Performance why diversity is key to the responsible business model 

How important is diversity within a business’s CSR remit?
Responsible Business can only truly be so if it is being inclusive and ‘responsible’ with its own employees and in how it engages with the diversity of their communities, customers, clients and service users.

In recent times what businesses have impressed you with regards to their diversity programmes?
Organisations that have impressed me are those that are Champion members of the campaign that have integrated diversity into their core business strategy, understand their unique diversity challenges in order to implement targeted action, and are delivering real impact as well as continuously demonstrating their commitment to equality.

Where do you think most businesses are getting it right (when it comes to race diversity)?
Any business that is getting it right will be monitoring its workforce at every level and taking action to ensure that there is a diverse demographic of people within their workforce that matches the talent pool of the diverse communities across the UK.

The Business in the Community Gender and Race Benchmarking 2013 demonstrated three areas where businesses are getting it right. Those organisations that mandate unconscious bias training for those individuals or teams involved in recruitment, have clear and current objectives for recruitment of BAME talent, and provide transparent selection criteria for job roles, have better results in engaging and recruiting diverse candidates.

And where are they getting it wrong?
Not taking action. Not implementing any key performance indicators and not evaluating the impact of their actions. Not identifying areas where there are challenges that may need a more focused approach. Not understanding the diversity of the communities in which they operate and from where a growing number of their customers will emerge and that a ‘one size fits all’ approach may not be the best one.

What are the main challenges in CSR today?
Ensuring that diverse communities are benefiting from employer engagement activities at local level. For example, in the engagement to develop employability skills or support local entrepreneurs, all of which can in turn help to regenerate communities.

Ensure that an organisation’s employees are aware of the need to engage with all the diverse groups of people within the community and equipping them with the knowledge and skills to enable them to do this with confidence.

Do you admire any other companies in particular for their approach to CSR?
Marks & Spencer, the 2012 Responsible Business of the year for its recognition of the importance of employee engagement, particularly initiatives such as Schwopping that everyone can get involved with, and for putting Plan A at the heart of its business.

National Grid for its commitment to tackling youth unemployment. It is spearheading a new initiative, Generation Talent, from Business in the Community’s Talent & Skills campaign, which will work with the Department of Work & Pensions to help jobseekers by providing practical help for companies in their promotion of vacancies to the unemployed.

Some say the CSR debate has plateaued, do you agree?
I disagree. I think the next conversation is about inclusive CSR. Ensuring that you know the diversity of the communities in which you operate and ensuring that you engage all parts of it.

How do you see the evolution and future of CSR?
A greater engagement of partners in the UK and internationally via supply chains

If you could influence one major change in the way British business operates, what would it be?
To get diversity and inclusion into the corporate DNA and to raise employer consciousness of the importance of inclusion. I would like business to always check that they are being as inclusive as they can be as an employer, community volunteer and service provider. One of the most effective ways of influencing this is to build the requirements into the supply chain.
 

Business in 2013 is increasingly aware that it is no longer possible to be competitive without being sustainable. But sustainability reporting in 2013 is about more than transparency and accountability alone. Whether it be risks in the supply chain or the effects of resource scarcity, sustainability issues are strategic issues for businesses as well as their stakeholders – from investors to the communities in which they operate. In this sense the reporting of non-financial information not only informs and empowers; it has the capacity to transform, preparing businesses for the sustainability challenges that the economy of tomorrow will bring.

But in order for sustainability reporting to live up to this promise, it is crucial that the information contained within sustainability reports is focused and relevant, and that it addresses the sustainability-related issues that are most critical to businesses and their stakeholders, in order to drive change.

For this reason, sustainability reporting must continually evolve. In May 2013, GRI launched the next generation of its Sustainability Reporting Guidelines - G4. The launch marked the culmination of two years of extensive stakeholder consultation and dialogue with a diverse constituency of experts from across the world. The aim of G4 is simple: to help reporters prepare sustainability reports that matter – and to make such robust and purposeful sustainability reporting standard practice.

A sustainability report conveys disclosures on an organization's impacts – be they positive or negative – on the environment, society and the economy. Yet a robust sustainability report is far more than a data gathering or compliance exercise. By making abstract issues tangible and concrete, reporting helps organizations to set goals, measure performance, and manage change. The insights generated can have direct relevance for C-suite decision making, with the potential to spark operational improvement and innovation, and inform core business strategy.
To support organizations on this strategic journey, G4 places the concept of materiality at the heart of sustainability reporting. This means encouraging organizations to provide only disclosures and indicators that are material to their business, on the basis of a dialogue with their stakeholders.

This will result in sustainability reports that are centered on the issues that are really critical in order to achieve the organization’s goals and manage its impact on society - reports that are more strategic, more focused and more credible. In short, G4 reports should concentrate on what really matters, and the process of compiling them will require companies to think and act strategically. This in turn should help to curtail greenwashing, as reports produced following the materiality principle are less likely to camouflage problems among good news stories and initiatives.

Sustainability reporting is a journey. It is not a question of ‘pass’ or ‘fail’. In a world of complex challenges in which change is sometimes the only constant, no organization has all the answers at any one time.
G4 is designed to reflect this. It is quite possible that an organization may identify material topics for which it does not yet have a policy or even a monitoring system. A report that acknowledges this, identifying and disclosing risks, and outlining transparently the challenges that the company faces and the steps it needs to take to address them, is entirely consistent with the goals of G4.

The key here is integration into the business strategy and business model. G4 encourages organizations to view sustainability as a major strategic issue and an operational imperative, and to embed sustainability considerations into the everyday life of the business.

The transition to this way of thinking may require some companies to re-evaluate their approach to reporting. But it will also empower them. GRI is convinced that by taking a more strategic and materiality-based approach, reporting organizations - and their stakeholders - will get much greater value out of reporting, and a greater return for the resources they invest.
 

Ernst Litgteringen, Chief Executive of the Global Reporting Initiative

New IBE research has shown an apparent lack of explicit engagement at EU level with ethical principles in corporate governance guidance. There is limited requirement, or indeed encouragement, for boards to operate with high ethical standards. Leading edge companies increasingly recognise that embedding business ethics, sustainability and social responsibility throughout their operations as being essential for long term success. But boards can lag behind when it comes to examining their own behaviours and how ethical values ought to apply within the board room.

What can boards do to avoid their own integrity failures and actively demonstrate that they are committed to ethical standards in the way they govern and conduct themselves?

Purpose, strategy and vision
The choices made by senior leaders are open to analysis by all stakeholders, and there is a very real potential that board members could be pursued individually in the courts for any decisions they make. This means that mechanisms need to be introduced which will facilitate the consideration of the ethical dimensions of board decisions. This is the perspective that asks the question ‘how does this fit with our values and the way we do our business?’

Few directors would query the need for strong ethics and compliance within their business, but the need remains for rigorous ways to help them engage with their own decision-making processes.

Persuading boards to put the promotion of ‘how business should be done’ on a par with core operating strategies is a significant challenge. The challenge is how to define an ethical approach and then to apply it. It can take a great deal of courage on the part of a board, and sometimes be ‘costly’, to embed ethical thinking within strategy.

Tough issues like operating in territories with questionable human rights records, require boards to be equipped with ethical sensitivity and the right leadership skills. Although a company might say “we will not do business in countries where there is a risk of us becoming involved in human rights abuses”; or “we will not do business if it contravenes our ethical values”, in practice, these statements are difficult to deliver on. It is easier if the strategy can be explained clearly to the company’s shareholders and wider group of stakeholders using the company’s code of ethics as a reference point. (Anglo American’s decision to invest $400 million in a mining project in Zimbabwe is one example.)

The distorting influence of time pressures should not be underestimated when it comes to encouraging an ethical dimension to board decisions. Offering training in ethical decision-making or away day sessions on ethical issues and risks for the company will give board members the opportunity to consider these matters in a neutral and reflective space. The building of ethics into strategic reviews will, over time, become part of the board psyche.

Example and leadership
The continual reference to and demonstration of ethical values and by board members are essential if a board wishes the rest of the organisation to operate in line with a set of core values, and for it to enjoy the benefits which doing business ethically can bring.

It goes without saying that members of boards should have personal integrity, as well as being champions of the company’s values. So, recruiting the right board members with the experience and ethical acumen to support the organisation is a good way to ensure that ethics is part of the language of the board.

Oversight and controls
In order for the directors to influence the ethical culture, they need first to establish meaningful values for the company and develop the policies, mechanisms and controls, an ‘ethics programme’, that support employees in making ethical choices. They need to understand the ethical challenges that employees face and the pressures that might drive them to cross ethical lines.

The board needs to know what is truly happening both within the company and its sector in order to make sound judgements in the best interests of the company,. As part of this, directors need to monitor the extent to which the company is really living up to its stated values, otherwise all pronouncements on ethics will be viewed as flimsy and without substance. Using monitoring and assurance tools, such as the Investing in Integrity charter mark (www.investinginintegrity.org.uk), checks that the boxes are ticked, but it also assesses the extent to which the company is doing what it says it does ethically, as well as financially.
Ethical assurance and monitoring are vital risk management tools; as we have seen in recent years, risks to integrity do need to be deemed a threat to financial performance.

Summary
The board’s role is to give direction. It is vital that it provides an ethical compass for the organisation that it oversees especially when executives, immersed in the day-to-day business of the company, may be unable to do so. It is vital that board members are aware of the ethical issues and challenges affecting their sector, their company, their executives and their staff. They must continually develop their own ethical sensitivity and acumen, and use it actively to strengthen the culture and mitigate integrity risk - as a preventative measure and not just so as to be able to handle the ethical lapses once they have happened. Above all, they must look to themselves. To coin a phrase “ethics begins at home”: if the board are confident that their own way of governing has ethics at its core, the rest will surely follow.

A Review of the Ethical Aspects of Corporate Governance Regulation and Guidance in the EU by Julia Casson is available as a free download from IBE’s website http://www.ibe.org.uk/userfiles/op8_corpgovineu.pdf
IBE’s Good Practice Guide: Ethics in Decision-making by David Barr and Chris Campbell is available here 

Written by Dr Nicole Dando, head of projects at the Institute of Business Ethics
 

Russia can expect environmental bodies to protest that its planned extraction of oil and gas in the Arctic off the Siberian coast would do enormous harm to the area’s thriving polar bear and walrus populations.

Rosneft, Russia’s biggest publicly traded oil company, has already begun seismic explorations in the Laptev Sea stretch of the Arctic Ocean. Huge deposits are virtually certain to be found, and large-scale production could begin during the next 20 years.

However, the fear is that exploration, drilling and industrial activity will unsettle the polar bears and walruses and reduce their food supply. Many of the animals have been forced ashore anyway because climate change has dramatically shrunk the Arctic ice cap.

In addition, conservationists think the growth of an oil industry in the Arctic will encourage more hunting and add to the destabilisation of the balance of nature.

At the same time, WWF, the international conservation NGO, is worried that if there should be an oil spill in the Arctic it would be hard to control, and would cause further damage to the natural habitat and poison the animals.
WWF believes alternative sustainable sources, not oil, should provide the world’s energy, but argues for safeguards if fossil fuels are to be extracted.

Igor Chestin, WWF’s chief executive in Russia, said: “Before the real oil and gas projects develop in the area we need to know that there is sufficient knowledge of the conservation needs here, which would allow us to put in the necessary protection.”

Rod Downie, head of WWF UK’s marine and polar programme, said his organisation was likely to lobby directly Rosneft and any other companies that become involved. He emphasised: “We think the risk and potential impacts are irresponsible.”

The environmentalists now see yet more threats to the area’s wildlife and ecosystem from the China-to-Europe commercial shipping in the seas north of Siberia. This traffic has become far busier thanks to the melting of the ice cap, increasing from four ships in 2010 to 400 projected this year.

WWF’s challenge coincides with the Russian storming of the Greenpeace International icebreaker Arctic Sunrise in the Pechora Sea about 1,500 miles to the west.

Russian commandoes wearing balaclavas dropped by ropes from a helicopter on to the ship have arrested the 30 Greenpeace activists on board.

Greenpeace is protesting about attempts by the Russian Gazprom company to drill for oil in that stretch of sea, which contains three nature reserves protected by Russian law.

The Russians are threatening a piracy prosecution. Greenpeace rejects piracy claims as the charge does cannot be applied to peaceful actions. The Russian foreign ministry said: “The intruders’ actions … had the outward signs of extremist activity that can lead to people’s deaths.”

Russia also summoned the Dutch ambassador demanding a halt to such protests – the ship is Netherlands-registered.

Greenpeace official Jasper Teulings said that as the ship was outside territorial waters the raid lacked justification. He said: “This looks like a retrospective attempt to create that justification and avoid embarrassment.”

Gazprom already has a platform in the planned drilling area. Four Greenpeace protesters who scaled the platform earlier have already been arrested.

Ben Ayliffe, head of Greenpeace International’s Arctic oil campaign, responded: “It’s clear that oil companies receive special protection from the Russian authorities, who seem more interested in silencing peaceful activists than protecting the Arctic from reckless companies like Gazprom.”
 

Wasting 1.3 billion tons of food causes huge economic losses and a lot of needless hunger, but there are climate environmental issues deeply connected to food waste, according to a report from the U.N.’s Food and Agriculture Organization.

FAO’s Food Wastage Footprint: Impacts on Natural Resources is the first study to analyze the impacts of global food wastage from an environmental perspective, looking specifically at its consequences for the climate, water and land use, and biodiversity.

Some key findings from the report:

• The carbon footprint of food produced and not eaten is estimated at 3.3 billion tons of greenhouse gases: making food wastage the third top GHG emitter after the U.S. and China.


• Globally, the blue water footprint (i.e. the consumption of surface and groundwater resources) of food wastage is about 250 cubic kilometers (km3), which is equivalent to the annual water discharge of the Volga river, or three times the volume of Lake Geneva.


• Produced but uneaten food occupies almost 1.4 billion hectares of land; representing nearly 30 percent of the world’s agricultural land area.


• Fifty-four percent of the world's food wastage occurs "upstream" during production, post-harvest handling and storage, according to FAO's study. About 46 percent of it happens "downstream," at the processing, distribution and consumption stages.

While it is difficult to estimate impacts on biodiversity at a global level, the report continues, “food wastage unduly compounds the negative externalities that mono-cropping and agriculture expansion into wild areas create on biodiversity loss, including mammals, birds, fish and amphibians.”

Beyond its environmental impacts, the direct economic consequences to producers of food wastage (excluding fish and seafood) run about $750 billion annually, FAO's 63-page report estimates.

Achim Steiner, UN Environment Program (UNEP) Executive Director, said UNEP and FAO have identified food wastage as a “major opportunity for economies everywhere to assist in a transition towards a low carbon, resource efficient and inclusive Green Economy.”

The report, he continued, “underlines the multiple benefits that can be realized, in many cases through simple and thoughtful measures by, for example, households, retailers, restaurants, schools and businesses that can contribute to environmental sustainability, economic improvements, food security and the realization of the UN Secretary General's Zero Hunger Challenge.”

UNEP and FAO are founding partners of the Think Eat Save - Reduce Your Foodprint campaign that was launched earlier in the year.

"All of us, farmers and fishers; food processors and supermarkets; local and national governments; individual consumers -- must make changes at every link of the human food chain to prevent food wastage from happening in the first place, and re-use or recycle it when we can't," said FAO Director-General José Graziano da Silva.

"We simply cannot allow one-third of all the food we produce to go to waste or be lost because of inappropriate practices, when 870 million people go hungry every day," he added in statement.

The global volume of food wastage is estimated to be 1.6 billion tons of “primary product equivalents,” while the total wastage for the edible part of food is 1.3 billion tons. Compare that amount against total agricultural production (for food and non-food uses), which is about 6 billion tons.

That’s enough to take one’s breath and appetite away.

Image credit: Dan Gold via Unsplash

Whitbread-owned coffee chain Costa is heading back to the classroom. Costa for Schools (www.costaforschools.com), is a new online tool to support teachers and help students understand more about communities and economies in coffee growing countries.

Developed in conjunction with the Rainforest Alliance, it’s a free resource to teach 11-14 year olds more about the coffee trade. Through an array of community case studies and an interactive map, students will learn about the journey of a coffee bean from start to finish.

Andy Marshall, Costa Corporate Responsibility Director commented: “Costa baristas across the country are often asked by teachers to talk to students about the origins of our beans, so we thought it was time to put a nationwide resource in place so that all teachers can access the same insight from Costa.”

Costa for Schools has been written for UK teachers and is specifically designed in line with current UK secondary curricula. The programme also provides teachers with usable lesson plans and curriculum guidance usable across secondary geography teaching.

“The coffee trade is something everyone should know about as part of a wider awareness of the impact our lifestyles have on the cultures and environments of others,” added Tensie Whelan, president of the Rainforest Alliance.