People

Mona Feneberg

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Mona supports BSR member companies across consumer products companies in respecting human rights across their organizations and value chains. Her primary area of expertise include human rights and promoting gender justice within global value chains.

Prior to joining BSR as a full-time staff member, Mona interned and worked as a student assistant at BSR, supporting collaborative initiatives as well as BSR’s general consulting services, focusing on human rights and equity, inclusion, and justice. Mona also interned at the Chamber of Industry and Commerce in Munich, Germany, and she worked with CenTouris, an institute focusing on market and economic research, where she participated in research and consulting projects across topics and industries.

Mona holds a MSc in Business and Development Studies, focusing on Gender Studies, from Copenhagen Business School and a BA in International Cultural and Business Studies from the University of Passau. Her master thesis was a feminist critique from a critical development studies perspective of workplace-based women’s empowerment programs. Mona speaks German, English, French, and is currently learning Danish.

Blog | Wednesday January 25, 2023

Upcoming Regulations in ESG Ratings: Three Implications for Business

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The field of ESG ratings is in a phase of rapid growth—as of today, it is estimated that there are 150 different ESG data providers in the market, and these figures are expected to grow with continued consideration from investors. The estimated scale of ESG-related assets under management (AUM) is predicted to reach US$53 trillion by 2025, equivalent to a third of all global investments.

This fast-paced development is due to an increasing regulatory focus on ESG in potential investments with the EU Taxonomy and the Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation (SFDR), together with more sophisticated demand from investors for products that shift society to a greener economy and help mitigate climate change. These two drivers are only likely to increase in intensity over the coming years, leading to ESG ratings taking on a key role in the ecosystem of sustainable finance.

However, with increased influence comes increased scrutiny, and the rapid development of this industry has rendered vocal criticism. This often points to the lack of common standards, as there is no unified definition of what “ESG” should be measuring. Instead, different ESG raters provide indicators on different aspects of sustainability, and applied methodologies vary.

ESG raters often find varying conclusions, despite access to the same information, and on average, the correlation between the leading providers’ scoring of the same company can be as low as 0.54. In comparison to the regulated field of credit ratings, where correlation is close to 0.99, this stands out. Consequently, the market receives mixed signals about ESG performance, and business, in turn, gets mixed messages about what steps to take to improve their scores. Plus, there is often limited transparency around underlying methodologies due to confidentiality, which makes it difficult for companies to understand the criteria used to assess them.

All these factors have created legitimate concerns over greenwashing, questioning the reliability of these ratings and how well they reflect a company’s commitment to ESG. Consequently, voices have started to call for regulations in the industry. There is a need for more standardization, to calibrate the market so that actors are more aligned with the help of regulatory initiatives.

In 2022, Japan’s Financial Services Agency released a Code of Conduct for ESG rating and data providers. This is the first of its kind being issued by a national regulator, consisting of six principles covering transparency around methodologies and data sources, with a comply-or-explain approach. Emerging trends are starting to move in other parts of the world—for instance, the UK government has established a working group for a voluntary best practice code for ESG raters, looking to bring them within the scope of the Financial Conduct Authority. Similarly, the European Commission expects to issue regulation to monitor the reliability and transparency of ESG ratings in 2023, as part of the European Green Deal.

Regulations seem to soon be the new reality for ESG rating agencies. But what are the implications for business? Is this good news?

Common language: Despite being rolled out in different global jurisdictions, regulatory frameworks in the making all strive for alignment of terms used in ESG ratings to enable common understanding across the industry. A cohesive terminology adopted by policymakers and regulators creates increased consistency for issuers and a chance to streamline sustainability efforts and related public disclosure.
Increased transparency: There is an increased demand for an improved understanding of how ESG raters arrive at their scorings, and upcoming regulations all promote more transparency around methodologies, data gathering, and the weight of certain metrics to assess ESG performance. Better insight into the rating criteria enhances issuers’ understanding of what it takes to improve their scores, target selected areas, and come out stronger in the next assessment.
Less greenwashing: One of the main objectives of regulating the ESG ratings field is to crack down on greenwashing and avoid (sometimes unintentional) misleading claims on ESG performance. Improved transparency of rating objectives and methodologies makes it more difficult for issuers to inflate their sustainability credentials, especially when overseen by a regulatory body. This puts increased pressure on companies to prevent exaggeration and instead back up their sustainability claims with hard evidence.

While upcoming regulations will serve to make life easier for rated companies, it is a double-edged sword, as it simultaneously raises expectations to deliver on sustainability commitments. But at the end of the day, this is good news for everyone. ESG ratings play an important part in supporting the sustainable investing landscape and are here to stay; seeking a more harmonized and transparent system and eradicating claims for greenwashing will help create trust in this industry.

This is a win-win not only for rated companies and investors subscribing to the ratings, but also for the ESG raters themselves.

Blog | Thursday January 19, 2023

2023: Delivering Just and Sustainable Business Amidst Polycrisis

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As we enter 2023, it is easy to focus only on the polycrisis, the numerous and interconnected challenges business and the world are facing. It is more compelling, and certainly more useful, to focus on the immense array of opportunities to build on progress that is well within our grasp.

We should not learn the wrong lesson from the upheavals of the early 2020s. Instead, we should recognize that we clearly know what the challenges are, and embrace the fact that many business leaders have responded to health, social, political, and environmental challenges by raising ambition.

It is now time to deliver on that ambition.

Indeed, the unexpected developments of the past three years should serve as stark reminders of the essential value of our shared agenda: a rapid and inclusive transition to a clean energy economy; equitable societies and economies that work for all; business advocacy for policy solutions and good public policy; and corporate governance that eschews short-termism in favor of long-term leadership that benefits both business and society, all reinforced by global cooperation.

Some would dismiss these as luxuries during a time of change and disruption, others that they represent a hijacking of business by unwise social engineering. These arguments, many of them quite cynical, are fundamentally wrong. In fact, just and sustainable business is indispensable to building resilient, innovative companies; healthy and prosperous societies; and a stable natural environment that can sustain human life.

BSR is looking forward to advancing these objectives through our insights, advice, and opportunities for system-changing collaboration.

Our priorities for 2023 include:

Business transformation
Reporting and disclosure in support of value creation
Net-zero transformation
Climate justice and just transition
Preserving nature
Advancing social justice
Creating a fair and inclusive economy
Human rights amidst a changing geopolitical environment and new technologies

Our work entering 2023 is defined also by the need to ensure that just and sustainable business delivers on its promise. We will take head on the important questions about the delivery gap and how to define elements of ESG consistently and with integrity. Ensuring that sloppiness and misleading information is out of bounds is crucial. Put another way, there are legitimate questions about whether just and sustainable business commitments are being translated into real action that makes a difference: these questions must be addressed, with action.

At the same time, we will continue to counter the many cynical voices seeking to misrepresent ESG, or just and sustainable business, as somehow inconsistent with business objectives.

There is no doubt that the world will continue to deliver the unexpected. Whatever happens in 2023, we know that there are fundamentally sound business and social reasons to double down on delivering on sustainability commitments. This is precisely what we continue to hear from each and every one of our 300+ member companies. This is why investors continue to shift capital to just and sustainable business, and it’s why regulators are focusing increased attention on ESG. And it’s why we are excited to get underway in the new year.

Blog | Friday January 13, 2023

Six Actions for Business in Post-Roe America

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The fall of Roe v. Wade in 2022 reinforced that abortion access is a workforce and economic issue. Thousands of companies, from the Fortune 500 to small businesses, acted in the wake of the US Supreme Court decision, demonstrating that abortion access is about the health, safety, and well-being of workers as well as part of gender equity in the workplace.

Twenty-four states now have laws on the books that could outright ban or severely limit access to abortion for tens of millions of women, and only 14 states have passed laws that would explicitly protect the right to abortion since Roe fell. Meanwhile, bellwether ballot initiatives last year across six states, including Kansas, Kentucky, and Michigan, affirm that most voters want decisions about healthcare to remain between patients and providers.

This ongoing public health crisis sets up companies as a firewall when it comes to enabling access to abortion—a form of healthcare that one in four women may need over the course of their careers. Employees are aware of this as well. According to data from Catalyst, one in three employees is considering leaving their job due to their employer’s disappointing response to the overturning of Roe v. Wade.

Stories are coming out about the severe impact and consequences of the overturn of Roe and state abortion restrictions on women and their families. In Louisiana, two emergency rooms turned a mom away when she was experiencing a miscarriage; a former South Carolina beauty queen and her husband have become unlikely abortion access advocates; and in Texas, a woman and her partner may not be able to have children because of delays and dangerous complications to her obstetric care. Notably, maternal and infant death rates are already higher in states that ban or restrict abortion despite the business case for stronger health care coverage and benefits.

In this context, access to medication abortion is more important than ever. According to new research on Talent and Social Policies conducted by Morning Consult, on behalf of BSR:

By a 2:1 margin, workers want to live in a state where abortion is legal and accessible.
Nearly half of workers are concerned for themselves or their partner being criminally charged or going to prison for having an abortion in a state where it is illegal.
More than a third of workers are concerned about having enough money for themselves or their partner to travel out of state for an abortion.

What actions can companies take in 2023 given the post-Roe reality in America?

1. Continue to Mitigate Harm on the Workforce

Audit the availability of abortion care within provider networks through your medical plans in all the states in which you have a footprint, including remote workers. Ensure that employees can go out of network at no added cost, if necessary, and that travel costs are covered in addition to paid sick leave. Companies can also revisit practices to support pregnant workers who travel to states where abortion is illegal and may need to access care in emergencies.
Ensure programs actually close the gap on abortion access for workers who may not be eligible for regular benefits, such as hourly workers, contractors, and populations within your workforce that already face barriers to healthcare and financial security.
Strengthen your reproductive health benefits to go beyond the minimum requirements imposed by the Affordable Care Act when it comes to contraception, health screenings, and other prevention measures.
Communicate with your workforce about the benefits and other programs available to help them access time-sensitive and confidential healthcare.

The Pro Repro Playbook provides free guidance to companies on developing and implementing benefits to support the reproductive health of their employees. Download a copy here.

2. Advocate

At the national level, support codifying abortion access and let members of Congress know that employers oppose national abortion bans. Additionally, employers can make the case to officeholders to support efforts that reduce barriers to reproductive healthcare as a matter of worker wellbeing as well as implications on regulatory authority, interstate travel and commerce.
As many states will see additional abortion restrictions introduced in legislatures across the country, companies can contact officeholders about the onerous impact on employers and the chilling effect that restrictions have on the state business climate. Additionally, restrictions on access to FDA-approved medication for abortion may be especially problematic and chaotic for employers. Medication abortion accounts for more than half of all abortion care in the US and is also used to manage miscarriage. It is approved by the FDA. In November 2022, the abortion opponents who helped to overturn Roe v. Wade filed a lawsuit in the Northern District Court in Texas, asking a federal judge to undo decades-old approval of mifepristone for medication abortion and miscarriage management. Learn more about the medication abortion rulings and how companies can respond.
Use your voice in metro, state, and national business associations to counter the advancement of abortion restrictions by officeholders.
Join Don’t Ban Equality, a platform that enables companies to work with industry peers across the private sector as well as other influential organizations on the workforce impact and economic costs of abortion restrictions.

3. Align Political Contributions

Align—once and for all—public positions and political influence with operational and workforce policies. Abortion access is now legislated in every state, and a company’s public and internal commitments to worker health and well-being as well as gender equity may directly contradict political contributions and influence. This contradiction will increasingly become untenable for employees, customers, and other stakeholders.

Review the criterion for making political contributions and test what giving preference to candidates and organizations that support abortion access could look like. Be prepared to defend your position.
If reallocation is not possible, commit to educating recipients of political donations on how their positions on social issues harm your workforce and business environments. Appeal to them to reprioritize their agendas.

4. Audit Corporate Matching and Workplace Giving

Do not authorize corporate matching or workplace giving for anti-abortion organizations that infringe on reproductive health access. Consider criteria for organizations that receive corporate donations, including passive tools such as matching and payroll deduction.

5. Make Abortion Access Part of Event and Office Site Selection

Companies are enacting travel policies that restrict hosting events in places where abortion is illegal or inaccessible. Increased restrictions are prompting new questions relevant to site selection, including access to care and treatment for workers facing urgent health crises, let alone new threats of invasive law enforcement action.

6. Minimize Data Collection in Products and Services

The collection of user data by companies and tracking of users’ online activity about reproductive health creates significant risks to seekers and providers of healthcare services and unnecessary reputational risk for employers.

Minimize the collection and storage of user data, particularly data about reproductive health.
Take a human rights-based approach to respond to government or law enforcement requests for user data. Using the Global Network Initiative Principles as a starting point, respond to law enforcement requests in ways that protect user rights.

The fall of Roe was just the beginning of a new and tumultuous landscape in 2023, leaving employers to navigate an increasingly complex patchwork of new and proposed restrictions. Access to abortion is part of gender equity; diversity, equity, and inclusion; and the operational considerations that inform worker safety and well-being. The costs of inaction or insufficient action are increasing.

BSR’s Center for Business and Social Justice works with a network of civil society partners and experts in reproductive health to provide tangible guidance to business. All BSR members can contact the Center for specific inquiries.

Blog | Tuesday December 20, 2022

Neurorights: A Business Response

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The emerging field of “neurorights” questions how neurotechnology could impact the human rights of people to freedom of thought, identity, privacy, and free will. Undoubtedly, technology is getting closer to influencing our behavior. Following our initial piece exploring how this technology could impact our human rights, today we focus on the responsibility and role of business—from tech companies to tech-enabled products and services—to protect and respect users, both now and in the future.

Evolving Rights Frameworks

Fundamentally, human rights principles and frameworks need to evolve to respond to the emerging implications of neurotechnology (neurotech). Already, there are efforts at both the national and international levels to enshrine neurorights in laws and treaties—indicating that a shift in expectations and regulations for business related to the influence and impact of technology is on the horizon.

For instance, in Chile, a draft constitution proposed the world’s first legislation on neurorights, including a “neuro-protection” bill to regulate technologies that are capable of “interfering” with brains, including mind control and mind reading, and prohibit the buying or selling of neural data, declaring it the equivalent of trading human organs.

While the constitutional changes were rejected in a referendum, they show the issue making headway into public policy. The EU is developing an artificial intelligence (AI) act to protect human rights and define high-risk uses, which will introduce requirements to address the impacts of AI on society, and the UN has indicated that neurotech is one of the frontier issues for human rights. The Inter-American Juridical Committee, which promotes the codification of international law across the US, has approved a neurorights declaration on neuroscience. Meanwhile, new legislation on human rights taking shape across the EU and at a national level (see Japan, New Zealand) could also plausibly expand to encompass neurorights, impacting future human rights due diligence efforts and assessments.

There’s also the European Commission’s Digital Services Act, which creates a common set of rules for the transparency of recommender systems across the EU, with implications for the "right to free will." How can businesses prepare to meet more regulation and scrutiny on the extent and impact of their services? And how might regulators distinguish between technologies that influence our brains and those that could one day control them? For instance, could future neurotech users outsource some daily decisions to a trusted service, for instance, to limit their appetite or override their impulse to smoke?

Ahead of these regulatory frameworks, what actions should business take to meet their responsibility to respect human rights, including both technology companies and those that use tech?

Active Engagement

A first step is undertaking human rights due diligence of technology that might implicate neurorights to identify potential impacts across the full range of internationally recognized human rights and establish strategies, alone and with others, to address those risks as part of product development. Business can actively engage in this conversation and work to establish guardrails before adverse impacts related to neurotech escalate.

Stephanie Herrmann, a human rights attorney and co-author of the NeuroRights Foundation report, points out that some of the concepts underlying neurorights can be difficult to define and therefore protect, such as identity. Therefore, international human rights law must evolve alongside the technology to provide more explicit protection.

Businesses can get ahead by asking how the applications and impacts of neurotech might evolve over the next decade and by identifying appropriate actions to address new risks. Additionally, business leaders should play a role in adapting and creating normative frameworks to help shape the field and positively contribute to human rights protections of their users today and in the future.

Questions for Business

How might technologies in product road maps impact existing rights to privacy, freedom of expression, thought, and opinion? How might they impact the proposed new rights of mental privacy, personal identity, free will, fair access to mental augmentation, and protection from bias?
Who will be most vulnerable to adverse impacts from neurotech? Which communities, stakeholders, and experts should we be engaging with? How might these impacts vary across geographies and contexts?
How might our technology be misused, and what harms may arise from this misuse? What leverage do we and others have to avoid, prevent, and mitigate these harms?
How should the adverse impacts of neurotech be remedied, and by whom?
What policy, legal, and regulatory framework is most appropriate for neurotech, and how can we help shape it?

Blog | Wednesday December 14, 2022

How Advances in Neurotech Will Impact Human Rights

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The emerging field of “neurorights” questions how neurotechnology could impact the human rights of people to freedom of thought, identity, privacy, and free will. Undoubtedly, technology is getting closer to influencing our behavior. This piece asks how this technology could impact our human rights, and it will be followed by a second part exploring the responsibility and role of business—from tech companies to tech-enabled products and services—to protect and respect users, both now and in the future.

Technology can increasingly detect and influence what we think and how we behave. An expanding field of “neurotechnology” can record or interfere with human brain activity, from physical devices, like wearables and medical implants, to artificial intelligence (AI), designed to decode thought or spoken patterns. Then, there is technology that impacts how we experience the world and feel about ourselves, from algorithms to social media apps.

While many of these technologies offer benefits to health, wellness, and human capacities, it is important to understand how they impact human freedoms. Under international human rights law, business has a responsibility for protecting and respecting human rights, such as rights to privacy, freedom of expression, thought, and opinion. However, as technology accelerates into new and unknown territory, many believe that the current international human rights framework may not be adequate to meet emerging human rights risks.

What are Neurorights?

The NeuroRights Foundation, co-founded by Rafael Yuste of the Neuro Technology Center at Columbia University and Jared Genser of Perseus Strategies, aims to address gaps in existing human rights frameworks by outlining five distinct “neurorights” that could be forsaken by the misuse or abuse of technology.

The right to mental privacy highlights the vulnerability of neural data for sale, commercial transfer, and unauthorized use.

Today, wearable devices, like headbands, monitor and stimulate brain activity to help users increase their focus or improve their sleep patterns. Brain-to-text interfaces access brain activity in a way that allows you to write simply by thinking. Medical brain implants can help patients with severe paralysis gain a level of functional independence. Recent AI models aim to decode speech from recordings of brain activity, which could help patients with traumatic brain injuries communicate again, as well as voice biomarker technology that analyzes snippets of a person’s speech to identify mental health issues, like depression and anxiety.

While these technologies could vastly improve quality of life, complete access to deeply personal neural data also raises privacy concerns for users beyond the scope of current human rights protections. One concern is the vast area of uncertainty in how neural data might be used in the future: what potential applications are users consenting to? While there are limits on what can be deciphered from today’s data, technology will get smarter at processing, decoding, and leveraging it. Entities collecting neurodata—whether that’s from wearable devices and implants, or monitoring systems for workforce safety or productivity—could face increased scrutiny on data storage and management.

The right to personal identity calls out the power of technology to impact how we perceive and express ourselves.

Social media has already had a profound impact on freedom of expression and identity. While research suggests moderate use of screens and devices can support social and emotional well-being in children, significant screen time has been shown to impact circadian rhythms, disrupting sleep and hormonal rhythms, which may be a factor in early puberty. Overuse of TV and video games may impact how we develop, disrupting motor skill development and the ability to concentrate.

The right to personal identity may be among the least protected of the neurorights under current international frameworks, where there is currently no concrete language on how identity is formed and how to protect self-perception and self-expression.

What happens to our identity in a world where technology is interacting daily with our neural activity and hormones, and responding to data from vocal and facial expressions? And how might society and regulators respond to new research documenting unintended consequences?

The right to free will recognizes that decision-making is increasingly subject to technological manipulation.

Algorithmic amplification and recommender systems—common in social media and streaming services—also have tremendous potential to impact how we access information and form opinions. There are a wide variety of studies into the impact of algorithmic amplification on news, conflict, and commerce, with an equally diverse range of conclusions—everything from increasing the prominence of high- over low-quality information to the potential impact of algorithms on elections.

For a long time, we have accepted the role of advertising in influencing our decisions, and increasingly, we accept predictive text and corrective algorithms editing in real time how we express ourselves. However, the use of technology to discern and manipulate thoughts and behavior poses a very different level of risk to human rights.

While the NeuroRights Foundation doesn't specifically address risks to freedom of thought or freedom of opinion, as these are already established human rights, it does explore the impacts of neurotechnology on these freedoms.

The right to protection from algorithmic bias points to the widespread impacts on socioeconomic outcomes of bias in algorithms and neurotechnology.

Bias is widespread in the development and application of technology. Research has shown that algorithms used by healthcare companies, to support the detection of heart disease, for instance, source from data that is not diverse, which leads to unequal outcomes or inaccurate results for patients, particularly those of color. The UK’s Department of Health recently launched an investigation to explore the impact of potential bias in medical devices on patients from different ethnic groups, including data used in algorithms and AI tools.

Without proper controls, bias can influence neurotechnology, which may directly impact the quality and outcomes of user experiences. Diverse, cross-cutting teams and research methodologies need to be in place when designing, implementing, and monitoring technologies that interact with our minds to ensure challenges in access or adverse impacts from use are identified and mitigated.

This brings us to the final right, fair access to mental augmentation, which raises the question of how far a "neurotech divide" could hinder equality and inclusion. While some new offerings aim to enable inclusion, by restoring or replicating brain functionality, access to these will not be equitable, while the application of neurotech geared towards augmenting human capacity could require scrutiny in classrooms, workplaces, and competitive arenas.

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Mona Feneberg

Blog | Wednesday January 25, 2023

Upcoming Regulations in ESG Ratings: Three Implications for Business

Blog | Thursday January 19, 2023

2023: Delivering Just and Sustainable Business Amidst Polycrisis

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Neurorights: A Business Response

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How Advances in Neurotech Will Impact Human Rights

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