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Walmart, the world's largest retailer, will conduct its own safety inspections at its Bangladesh factories following a deadly building collapse. Labour groups have since drawn up an industry-wide pact to improve fire and building safety conditions. But Walmart, along with several other US retailers, said it would not participate. Walmart plans to perform its own inspections at its 279 factories, saying that will yield faster results. The company also said every worker would be provided with fire safety training. More than a dozen European companies, including discount clothing company Primark and UK supermarket chain Tesco, have signed up to the legally binding "Accord on Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh".
Giving Women in Zimbabwe’s Informal Sector Rights - Mollin Siyanda, 46, a single mother of three from Harare’s low-income suburb of Hatcliffe, is scared of being arrested by the council police as she sells fruit, vegetables and second-hand clothes on the pavement of the city centre without a permit. “I take the (fruit and clothes) to the city centre to resell on the street pavements during evenings at peak hours as people are rushing back home,” she says of the goods she purchases every day at Mbare Musika, a major market in Harare. “But I’m always operating under constant fear of council cops who often accuse me of being an illegal vendor,” Siyanda tells IPS. Selling goods without a licence from the Harare council authorities is illegal here. But a licence costs 20 dollars, which is a large sum to the many working in the informal economy who earn on average between two to five dollars a day.
Proposals for disclosure of non-financial information by large companies to beef up corporate social responsibility (CSR) launched by the Commission yesterday (16 April) go too far for business interests, but not far enough for NGOs. Launched in Strasbourg by Michel Barnier, the internal market commissioner, the CSR proposals would amend three accounting directives that require larger companies to report non-financial information, such as their diversity and environmental policies and to explain why they have not done so where necessary. As a first step, EU member states have been given the possibility to apply the new rules to listed companies only. Companies failing to do so would be required to explain why they have not included such information, in the first attempt to legally impose such a “comply or explain” regime on larger companies. The proposals will need the approval of the European Parliament and EU states before becoming law. Information is not needed for investors, say business leaders BusinessEurope, a federation that represents Europe’s largest companies, said in a statement that it was “disappointed” by the European Commission’s decision, claiming that the obligations ran the risk of “demotivating all companies that have embarked on genuine CSR activities on their own.” “This proposal will create red tape and further disadvantage for a large number of European businesses in international markets, running counter to the urgent necessity of re-establishing the conditions for confidence and competitiveness in Europe,” said Jürgen Thumann, BusinessEurope’s president.
Banking giant HSBC, which was hit with a US fine for money laundering last year, is facing fresh accusations of illegal activity in Argentina. Argentina has alleged that the bank used "fake receipts" to facilitate money laundering and tax evasion, and launder 392m pesos ($77m; £50m). The country's tax authority said it had filed criminal charges against HSBC. HSBC said that it would cooperate with the investigation, adding that the allegations were "of great concern". "We are committed to working cooperatively with authorities to ensure a thorough review and appropriate resolution of the matter," said Lyssette Bravo, a spokeswoman for HSBC. Last year, HSBC agreed to pay US authorities $1.9bn (£1.2bn) in a settlement over money laundering, the largest paid in such a case. Argentina laid out its case against HSBC late on Monday. "On the basis of what's been investigated so far, in six months we've recorded 392 million pesos in fraudulent transactions, generated by evasion and money laundering," said Ricardo Echegaray, head of Argentina's tax agency.
There is understandable outrage over the United Nation’s reaction to its role in first creating and then denying responsibility for Haiti’s cholera outbreak in 2010 that killed 8,000 people. But last week another UN cholera denial story garnered less attention, this time in Zimbabwe following a UN tribunal ruling in Nairobi. (Al-Jazeera is the only major news outlet I found that covered the story.)
The Arab world might have some of the most energy inefficient countries in the world, but if they use their natural and human resources to their advantage they can become leaders in modern energy. The Arab world might have some of the most energy inefficient countries in the world, but if they use their natural and human resources to their advantage they can become leaders in modern energy, believes the CEO of General Electricfor the MENA region.“A knowledge economy can solve the energy, water and food security problem – and it can address efficiency by creating jobs and improving skill sets,” said Nabil Habayeb, president and CEO of GE in the Middle East, North Africa and Turkey, which has been operating in the region for the past 80 years and has recently committed billions of dollars in research for sustainable energy projects. “The younger generation is worried about the crisis, which is good.” “Maybe if you treat it as a crisis things will get done faster than if you treat it as a challenge,” he said. The corporate leader and energy expert sees this as much as an economic issue as he does an environmental one, noting that key demands of the Arab Spring protests included not just unemployment but also access to basic resources such as electricity, to which 50 million Arabs still lack access. He also sees the opportunities in this frustration to transform the region from energy inefficient to one that uses its human and natural resources in a sustainable way. Read more: http://www.dailystar.com.lb/Business/Lebanon/2012/Nov-30/196600-arabs-can-become-modern-energy-leaders.ashx#ixzz2DwBVJK1Q
(The Daily Star :: Lebanon News :: http://www.dailystar.com.lb)
Dan made a useful point the other day about the possibility that increased energy production could yield a resource curse,i.e. an increase in unproductive and oligarchical rent-seeking when an economy becomes based upon resource extraction. One might add that this rent-seeking also tends to underdevelop a country’s human capital, as it has in Saudi Arabia: a nation’s leaders can simply buy off the population with partial rent payments instead of trying to make them and the country more productive.But possibilities are hardly sure things. And here in the United States, we actually have a good example of the resource curse not occurring: the Alaska Permanent Fund. Alaska, of course, relies heavily upon oil production as the basis of its economy. But instead of this wealth going to a few oligarchs, the state has established a Permanent Fund. The Earth Rights Institute explains: In 1976 voters approved a constitutional amendment, proposed by Governor Jay Hammond and modified by the legislature, which stated that at least 25% of all mineral lease rentals, royalties, royalty sale proceeds, federal mineral revenue-sharing payments, and bonuses received by the State shall be placed in a permanent fund, the principal of which shall be used only for those income-producing investments specifically designated by law as eligible for permanent fund investments.
Last night’s presidential debate offered contrasting visions on the role of government and business in society. President Obama described an activist government intervening and regulating to stimulate and direct growth. Governor Romney described his case for getting government out of the way and letting the invisible hand of markets determine growth with less government direction and regulation. But which candidate do business leaders think would encourage greater growth and corporate responsibility? Short answer: neither. We recently polled the 658 corporate responsibility leaders registered to attend the COMMIT!Forum. Thirty percent said an Obama victory would cause them to increase spending on corporate responsibility. By comparison, 20% said a Romney victory would cause them to increase spending. But the real headline: 50% said neither candidate’s victory would impact their investments in corporate responsibility. Does that mean corporate responsibility is post-partisan? Yes. Businesses have stopped looking to Washington and other national capitals for leadership on sustainability. This is a big shift in a relatively short time. During the mid-term elections, as Republicans racked up Congressional wins I remember many CSR leaders dreading a single-term Obama Administration as the “death knell” of corporate responsibility. By contrast, at many national and international gatherings — including the Rio+20 climate talks and Planet Under Pressure (the largest gathering of concerned scientists) — reports indicate that the “real action” shifted from the government-to-government meetings to the business-led talks.
By Dan Vexler, Head of Program Quality and Impact at CARE International UK The development picture for this early new century is one of a world with fewer poor countries, but many poor people. Indeed, as the gap between rich countries and poor countries narrows, inequality within societies is on the rise. This major shift in the global profile of poverty is raising fundamental questions about the future of development aid. While Europe and America struggle to shake themselves out of economic stagnation, many developing economies are expanding rapidly. The growth of the developing world is one of the great news stories of our time. From China to Brazil, hundreds of millions of people have been lifted out of poverty. The official number of poor countries, as defined by the World Bank, is falling steeply, from 63 in 2000 to 35 today. This cut on the figures is belied by a more complex story. As nascent, ‘middle-income’ countries – such as India, Vietnam, Egypt and Nigeria, with per-capita incomes greater than US $1,000 per year – develop, millions of their citizens remain trapped in poverty. Take Peru, which enjoys one of the world’s fastest growing economies, with average incomes equivalent to those of Western Europe in the early 1980s, but where many people in the Andean highlands still live on only a few dollars a day. In short, the locus of global poverty is increasingly found in ever more prosperous, but often highly unequal societies. Some three-quarters of the world’s poor currently live in middle-income countries, compared with only seven percent in 1990. Meanwhile, the economies of traditional aid donors are in turmoil, and governments are having to work harder to justify aid budgets. In this context, sending aid to middle-income countries is often a difficult sell. Witness the recent clamour in the UK to end aid to India, with one British tabloid declaring it “the country rich enough to have its own space programme.”
KLM/Air France has stated in writing that it will not do business with the Dutch investment company Waterland International now nor in the future. Last month Milieudefensie demanded that the company immediately stops investing in jatropha, the plant used for the production of biokerosene for European aviation. Our report 'Biokerosene: Take-off in the wrong direction' showed that the cultivation of jatropha in Java leads to serious exploitation of farmers and has a negative impact on food cultivation for local people. This is a high price to pay for the production of a "green" fuel which, as it turns out, is not even environmentally friendly. Milieudefensie is pleased that KLM has disassociated itself from any form of involvement with Waterland International’s injurious practices. KLM’s statement can be found here. Statement from KLM ‘Following publication of the report Biokerosene: Take-off in the wrong direction, KLM has informed Milieudefensie that it will not do business with Waterland. KLM disputes the assertion by Waterland’s director, William Nolten, that his company has contracts with KLM to supply biokerosene. KLM has also told Milieudefensie that it has no current or future plans to directly or indirectly purchase raw materials to produce biokerosene from Waterland.’
By Francesca Rheannon Part One of a Two-Part Series With the climate talks in Durban seemingly headed for a train wreck, an innovative project is developing a new legal international framework for protecting the planetary ecosystem that could just be the most important legal initiative of our age. The climate talks had not even started in Durban when their epitaph was already being written. It was revealed in a number of reports that at the two previous talks in 2009 and 2010, the big industrial nations of Europe and the US had bullied smaller nations into accepting no action on the climate and that the rich nations, including the UK, EU, Japan, US and the UN have already decided to quash any agreement until 2020 – at which time, no doubt it will be conveniently put off again. It won’t matter by then because it will be, in the memorable words of Dr. James Hansen, “game over for the planet.” The narrow window we might just possibly still have to avert civilization-destroying climate change will close by 2015. To squeak through that window, we will have to begin ratcheting down our absolute emissions by then – in other words, reverse the direction we are currently on, which saw a 6% rise in emissions in 2010, despite the global economic downturn.
A Chinese baby-formula maker selling imported Australian milk to safety-conscious parents invested in the risky debt of lead, arsenic and cadmium refiners, seeking higher returns for its cash. The uncollateralized investment, sold by a middleman known as a trust, promises to pay Ausnutria Dairy Corp. about double China’s benchmark savings rate. It’s an example of how companies are undermining government efforts to cool lending that has led to soaring property prices and inflation of 6.2 percent, near a three-year high. “When companies neglect their core business and start speculating in hot sectors they know nothing about, it’s a sure sign the market is out of whack,” said Patrick Chovanec, an associate professor at Tsinghua University’s School of Economics and Management in Beijing who has advised private-equity funds.
GENEVA – Small-scale farmers can double food production within 10 years in critical regions by using ecological methods, a new UN report shows. Based on an extensive review of the recent scientific literature, the study calls for a fundamental shift towards agro ecology as a way to boost food production and improve the situation of the poorest. “To feed 9 billion people in 2050, we urgently need to adopt the most efficient farming techniques available,” says Olivier De Schutter, UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food and author of the report. “Today’s scientific evidence demonstrates that agro ecological methods outperform the use of chemical fertilizers in boosting food production where the hungry live -- especially in unfavorable environments.” Agro ecology applies ecological science to the design of agricultural systems that can help put an end to food crises and address climate-change and poverty challenges. It enhances soils productivity and protects the crops against pests by relying on the natural environment such as beneficial trees, plants, animals and insects. “To date, agro ecological projects have shown an average crop yield increase of 80 per cent in 57 developing countries, with an average increase of 116 per cent for all African projects,” Mr. De Schutter says. “Recent projects conducted in 20 African countries demonstrated a doubling of crop yields over a period of 3-10 years.” “Conventional farming relies on expensive inputs, fuels climate change and is not resilient to climatic shocks. It simply is not the best choice anymore today,” Mr. De Schutter stresses. “A large segment of the scientific community now acknowledges the positive impacts of agro ecology on food production, poverty alleviation and climate change mitigation -- and this is what is needed in a world of limited resources. Malawi, a country that launched a massive chemical fertilizer subsidy program a few years ago, is now implementing agro ecology, benefiting more than 1.3 million of the poorest people, with maize yields increasing from 1 ton/ha to 2-3 tons/ha.”
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New studies attempt to quantify just how harmful the rampant exposure to lead and other chemicals is in the developing world Living near a toxic waste site can be a recipe for poor health. And scientists know that the problem is widespread in developing countries where there are few cleanup programs. A pair of new studies adds a level of much-needed detail about exactly how widespread and harmful the problem can be. One study led by the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City looked at 373 sites across India, the Philippines and Indonesia, and calculated how much damage elevated levels of lead, chromium and other chemicals imparted to human health. That work, published online in Environmental Health Perspectives on May 4, found that living near toxic sites leads to health impacts comparable to all the combined malaria issues in those three countries, or as much as the total negative impacts of air pollution. The researchers used “disability life-adjusted years,” or DALYs, as a way to quantify the extent to which environmental toxins led to early death or illness. One DALY equals a year of healthy life lost.
A combination of multiple, mostly man-made pressures are largely responsible for the continued global decline in honeybees, bumblebees, and other insect pollinators, say scientists. It seems individual stresses like intensive farming, climate change, the spread of alien species and diseases are almost entirely to blame for pollinator losses. But the researchers say complex interactions between these separate issues may be making matters worse. The situation is so grave that our ability to supply adequate nutrients and dietary diversity to the world's growing population is seriously threatened. This is because honeybees, bumblebees and other pollinating insects are vital for many fruit, vegetable, seed, nut, and oil crops around the world. Since 1961, the number of these crops grown worldwide has grown so much that demand for pollination has increased threefold. One estimate suggests the annual worth of pollination to the global economy is about US$215 billion. Not just that, but globally, pollinating insects improve the yields of around three-quarters of crops, while up to 94 per cent of wild flowering plants depend on pollinators for reproduction.
The future sustainable development or how to face the 3-6-9 reality
Following up the recent UN Meeting on the definition of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), a group of international scientists have published an article in Nature, arguing for a set of six SDGs that link poverty eradication to protection of Earth's life support. What is the 3-6-9 reality? As we are entering a new geological epoch, the Anthropocene, leaving behind the long and fairly stable interglacial period Halocene, humans face a new reality. We are moving rapidly towards a 3 degrees warming, we are in the middle of the 6 mass extinction of species which undermines genetic diversion and ecosystem services and by 2050 the planet would have to support 9 billion people, (2.5 billion more people). In numbers that means that in 2050 we will need: Food: + 60% Water: +55% Energy: + 80% Safeguarding the planet’s life support system and ending poverty must therefore be, twin priorities The international team identified six goals that, if met, would contribute to global sustainability while helping to alleviate poverty. The six goals 1) Thriving lives and livelihoods 2) Food security 3) Water security, 4) Clean energy, 5) Healthy and productive ecosystems, 6) Governance for sustainable societies The targets beneath each goal include updates and expanded targets under the MDGs, including ending poverty and hunger, combating HIV/aids, and improving maternal and child health. Also, a set of planetary "must haves": climate stability, reducing biodiversity loss, protection of ecosystem services, a healthy water cycle and oceans, sustainable nitrogen and phosphorus use, clean air and sustainable material use.
Crowdfunding enterprises, like Kickstarter, can provide an alternate avenue for innovative entrepreneurs to access investment finance. The basic premise is that the investor showcases his or her idea on the website and sets a funding goal (i.e. US$ 500,000) to be met by a set deadline. Potential investors pledge money to the idea if they are interested enough in it and only have to pay if the funding goal is achieved. This has allowed projects that may not have otherwise have interested traditional investors (i.e. investment banks etc.) to “kickstart” their production processes. In addition “newer” types of crowdfunding initiatives that allow equity based investments (i.e. investing in a company for a particular percentage of its equity) are also gaining traction i.e. Indiegogo as new rules and regulations aimed at such ventures are being introduced (such as the USA’s JOBS Act[1] and related regulations). Whilst such platforms have been increasingly successful in high income countries, can this idea be applied to developing country entrepreneurs? Crowdfunding typically targets enterprises that usually fit the SME (small and medium enterprise) and start-up archetypes, exactly the same type of enterprises that have the greatest difficulty in accessing finance in developing countries. According to the World Bank (2011), 47% of small and 41% of medium enterprises in Africa cite access to finance as a major constraint to growth. In addition, financial institutions in developing countries tend to cherry pick who they invest in, preferring stability and security over potentially risky innovators or unknown start-ups. So the idea that a developing country SME or even a particularly enterprising individual can bypass formal financial institutions or even microfinance programmes (which could lend to them but typically charge higher interest rates than traditional financial institutions) in order to access finance could seem a solution to one of their major growth blocks.
Ten years ago, the first Better Air Quality (BAQ) conference brought policy makers, experts, and advocates to Hong Kong to review the status of air quality in Asia and to recommend how to improve it. Today we are here once again to kick off the seventh BAQ in ten years, organized by the Clean Air Asia (formerly Clean Air Initiative for Asian Cities), Hong Kong Environmental Protection Department, and Hong Kong Polytechnic University. The theme of BAQ 2012 is “Growing Cities, Healthy Cities,” Since the first meeting, we can say with certainty that the average air quality in Asian cities have improved despite their economic growth. The yearly average PM10 (particulate matter less than 10 microns) concentration for cities in the about 20 Asian countries engaged in the Clean Air Initiative for Asia was above 80 µg/m3 (microgram per m3) in year 2000. Now it is around 50 µg/m3. Although there are huge differences in air quality between countries and cities within the Asia region, the overall trend over the last decade is that most of the countries and cities have shown progress. Most Asian countries have established, tightened and expanded ambient air quality standards (AAQS). A decade ago, only few Asian countries had standards, now there is regular air quality monitoring and air control programs. Despite the improvement in air quality and its management in Asia, there is a need to come together and do some collective thinking. Over 50% of Asians now live in cities, which are estimated to grow by another billion over the next 30 years while the number of megacities will increase from 12 to more than 20. The air quality of 7 out of 10 cities in developing Asian countries is unhealthy, and the number of people struck by cancer, heart attacks, asthma and other diseases caused or made worse by air pollution continues to rise. The challenge is to deal with accelerated urbanization and economic growth, while reducing air pollution.
From all innovations in 21st century, international development assistance for Less Developed Countries (LDC) escaped scrutiny through elaborate PR stunt. International aid agencies in partnership with ruling tyrants’ of LDCs defy every rule in governace doing essentially noting except justify spending more good money after bad regimes. Professor William Easterly of Development Research Institute at New York University and a stanch critic of foreign Aid to authoritarian regimes came up with yet another innovative ways to explain the double standard of morality of foreign aid as surveyed on the Social Media. The survey reinforces part of the cause of poverty; partnering with cause of the poverty (authoritarian regimes) corresponds with their feeling than their rational. Thus, the cause of poverty must be a function of Western version of morality than the rational of good governance. The bold statement might not sit well for the new breed of development innovators like Gates/Bono of the world (the funders), the apologist on both sides (the middlemen) and the tyrants of Africa (the recipients). Therefore, the conventional morality of helping the poor in partnership with the totalitarian regime is fast running out of oxygen; sustained by innovative PR stunt at this givers end and at a gun point at the receiving end, what a record?
Last week more than a thousand people from around the world participated in Business for Social Responsibility’s 20th Annual Conference in New York to consider how to put corporate social responsibility (CSR) into “fast forward,” the theme of this year’s conference. I’ve thought a lot about what I heard from the presenters and from speaking with many accomplished CSR professionals. Here’s where I ended up: I no longer believe that CSR is the best way to capture the relationship between business and society or an effective approach for addressing complex social issues. The revelation that CSR has had it’s day came to me during a remarkable presentation about social change by Dr. Rajiv Shah, the sixteenth administrator of USAID – a man who leads the efforts of more than 8,000 professionals in 80 missions around the world. Dr. Shah’s remarks brought home the fact that, despite many positive efforts by governments, nonprofit organizations and corporations, the social circumstances of many people in the developing world remain untenable and unsustainable. According to USAID,
The Nobel-prize winning economist Amartya Sen has twice changed our thinking about what we mean by development. Traditional welfare economics had focused on incomes as the main measure of well-being until his ground-breaking work in the 1980′s which showed that that poverty involved a wider range of deprivations in health, education and living standards which were not captured by income alone. His ‘capabilities approach’ led to introduction of the UN Human Development Index, and subsequently the Multidimensional Poverty Index, both of which aim to measure development in this broader sense. Then in 1999 Sen moved the goalposts again with his argument that freedoms constitute not only the means but the ends in development. Sen’s view is now widely accepted: development must be judged by its impact on people, not only by changes in their income but more generally in terms of their choices, capabilities and freedoms; and we should be concerned about the distribution of these improvements, not just the simple average for a society. But to define development as an improvement in people’s well-being does not do justice to what the term means to most of us. Development also carries a connotation of lasting change. Providing a person with a bednet or a water pump can often be an excellent, cost-effective way to improve her well-being, but if the improvement goes away when we stop providing the bednet or pump, we would not normally describe that as development. This suggests that development consists of more than improvements in the well-being of citizens, even broadly defined: it also conveys something about the capacity of economic, political and social systems to provide the circumstances for that well-being on a sustainable, long-term basis.
18 June 2012 Britain will help millions of poor farmers across Africa to use innovative technology to boost food security through a scheme backed by world leaders, the World Bank and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
The new joint initiative will help develop and introduce successful farming and agricultural technology to farmers who need it most. Backed by Britain, Canada, the United States, Italy and Australia, the scheme will harness the creativity of the private sector – such as large grain traders, cereal millers or food processors – by offering funding to help bring tried and tested products to a wider market. Similar financing has already revolutionised the production and supply of new life-saving vaccines at lower prices in developing countries. Creating a market for tried and tested technologies will help reduce the cost of production and make it easier for companies to deliver them to the poorest farmers.
Earth Divas, the organisation that fair trade accessories made by women for women from around the worl, has just launched a social media campaign to help lift women out of poverty by harnessing the consumer power of women shopping during the holidays. It is called Divas4Divas – Women Change the World. Shop Different. Here’s the press release sent out via CSRwire. Please help us spread the word!
Companies are failing to provide the safety data required by Europe’s sweeping chemicals law REACH (registration, evaluation, authorization and restriction of chemicals), according to a study for the Centre for Alternatives to Animal Testing at the University of Konstanz in Germany. The research looked at 400 documents drawn up by companies and detailing toxicity data for the chemicals they produce. REACH requires companies to produce these documents. The study found that “most” didn’t meet the requirements for providing safety date set by the European Chemical Agency – the REACH regulator based in Helsinki, Finland. In particular, documents lacked adequate data on the toxic effect of chemicals on reproduction and embryo development, the research found. For example, nearly half the documents were found to have missing or inconclusive evidence of chemicals’ toxicity on embryo development. But in only around 11% of documents did companies propose conducting new tests to fill these gaps.
Companies have been cautious about investing heavily in sustainability initiatives, which have often been seen as cost-drivers rather than sources of new efficiencies or revenues. According to a new report by Deloitte titled "Sustainability 2011: a difficult coming of age" companies around the world have been cautious about investing heavily in sustainability oriented initiatives, which have often been seen as cost-drivers rather than sources of new efficiencies or revenues. Even the strongest proponents of the sustainability agenda are consistently tasked with compelling connections between sustainable business practices and increas
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