Blog

The COVID-19 pandemic—and resulting economic, political, and social crisis—is the most profound global disruption in decades. To help our members, partners, and community navigate this uncertain time, BSR is publishing a set of three scenarios, each depicting a different possible future in 2025.

To address deep disparities and systemic challenges, companies will need to take new approaches that move beyond diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) as primarily compliance-driven efforts, and transform these tools into strategic drivers to achieve social justice.

Since the tragic killing of George Floyd, Black Lives Matter (BLM) has received an unprecedented wave of support from all facets of society as people call for an end to racial injustice. This is not just an issue confined to the United States—this is a global human rights imperative.

Corporate policies can provide a bulwark against the erosion of access to reproductive healthcare, helping to protect and strengthen the new social contract between business and society that the 21st century demands.

Data protection is rarely discussed during dialogue about the need for a new social contract. However, the existing social contract was developed in the pre-digital world, not today’s data-rich environment, and a modern social contract must address a whole host of new risks and opportunities arising from how employee data are collected, shared, and used.

Through our work addressing modern slavery across supply chains, we have observed an alarming uptick in business actions during the COVID-19 pandemic that may lead to more individuals being forced into conditions of modern slavery, or on the brink thereof.

2020 has demonstrated powerfully the importance of a fully functioning social safety net, public health systems, and global collaboration. Reforms to the social contract are clearly needed to protect public health, economic security, and the right of all people to participate fully in society.

COVID-19 has aggravated existing inequalities, with rapidly changing business operating environments requiring fast decision-making based on often imperfect information. There is little doubt that some company decisions will have caused harm to employees, local residents, or customers. Companies will be held to account and asked to rectify these harms and to fulfill their duties to provide access to remedy.

Over the past year, The Estée Lauder Companies and Aveda have been working with LMR Naturals by IFF, BSR, and Envisible to establish a blockchain-enabled traceable supply chain that identifies opportunities to deliver sustainability benefits to all the actors in the supply chain. This post is the third in a series documenting the journey of this innovative partnership.

COVID-19 has exposed many of the structural and systemic issues disproportionately impacting vulnerable populations, including people of color, LGBTI people, migrants, and more. As we celebrate Pride Month in 2020, it is more important than ever to recognize the struggles of disenfranchised communities all over the world and the interconnectivity of these struggles for justice and equality.

BSR has developed three primers on how to respect human rights during the COVID-19 crisis: one for the energy and extractives sector, one for the food, beverage, and agriculture sector, and one for the transportation and logistics sector.

At GlobeScan and BSR, we spend our time working with some of the largest businesses in the world. We wanted to understand both the immediate effect on the sustainability efforts of the companies we work with and also to begin to understand what long-term implications they are anticipating as a result of the pandemic.

The brutal killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police officers last week—following on the previous killings of Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, Eric Garner, Alton Sterling, Trayvon Martin, and countless others—is yet another example of the systemic and institutional racism that persists in the United States.

COVID-19 has changed our present, and very likely our future. The parts of the sustainability agenda that deliver top-line value, motivate coworkers, and demonstrate to customers that a company is looking after more than short-term financial gain are the things that matter right now.