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Blog | Friday January 17, 2020

Davos 2020: Progress in a Time of Turmoil?

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The 2020s dawn with the 50th Annual Meeting of the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, which calls for a cohesive and sustainable world. This first Davos meeting of the “Decisive Decade,” however, comes amid a world in turmoil.

U.S. President Donald Trump returns to Davos just as his impeachment trial opens in Washington. Meanwhile, U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson is proclaiming loudly that he wants to achieve a breakthrough as the host of COP26 but has mandated that his government boycott Davos, forfeiting the chance to lobby for climate action in the name of “Getting Brexit Done.” The governments of France and China face challenges to their leadership on the streets of Paris and Hong Kong. Australia continues to suffer horrific wildfires, and Jakarta has suffered monumental floods.

All this means that the new decade has arrived at a time when the global community (if such a thing can even be said to exist right now) is at a crossroads. The need to achieve genuinely shared prosperity and decisive climate action has never been clearer, nor has the science, which is increasingly driving policies and action on climate action and biodiversity. Indeed, the WEF’s latest Global Risks Report, released this week, unprecedentedly cites environmental issues as the top five risks in the world. Peoples’ movements and political figures are calling—ever more loudly—for a fairer economy to reverse growing inequality. And people in the streets are—quite rightly—standing up for the protection of democratic principles that have come under increasing threat.

The need to achieve genuinely shared prosperity and decisive climate action has never been clearer, nor has the science, which is increasingly driving policies and action on climate action and biodiversity.

The answer to this disquiet is found in the following shared goals that broadly reflect the aspirations of the Sustainable Development Goals. And the need for business leaders to recommit to these objectives is more compelling than ever. Entering Davos Week 2020, there is clearly a new climate for business. To face it successfully, here is the agenda that all the leaders who are making the journey should embrace:

• More widely shared prosperity: Markets are trusted less and less each year. Younger Americans are expressing rising support for socialism. There are many reasons for this, but it all boils down to growing concerns about extreme wealth at the top and diminishing opportunities in the middle and lower ends of the economic scale. When the public loses faith in basic economic fairness, no matter what statistics say, change will be demanded. New social contracts are needed to ensure that societies progress together, and fairly.
• Net zero carbon: The number of nations, states, and cities—along with businesses—that have committed to net zero carbon by mid-century is growing fast. Our collective task is to expand these commitments and even more so, translate them into lasting change in the “real economy.” This will achieve more than any COP can.
• Technologies aligned with human rights and ethics: The 2020s will not see technology maximize its benefit to society without greater trust. Something akin to the concept of the precautionary principle applied to old technologies should become the new normal. This may slow the rollout of some ideas and business models, but it will lead to more lasting innovation that society actually supports.
• Women’s empowerment: The fact is that the #MeToo movement risks being left behind as new ideas and crises emerge. This would be a tragic mistake. The 2010s erased any doubt about the unequal treatment of women in business. The 2020s need to be a time when more women are CEOs and Directors, pay equity becomes a reality, and all women are able to pursue opportunities to contribute in all fields the same way men are.
• Support for open societies: Finally, business cannot stand aside while the principles on which open societies are based are being attacked. CEOs are reluctant to step into “political” issues, but there is a clear need for basic civil liberties to be supported. Business depends on stable operating environments to succeed, including the rule of law, fair treatment of all people, the protection of democratic processes, and the protection of global human rights. There is risk involved in supporting these bedrock principles…but there is more risk is allowing them to vanish.

As we pointed out in our Doing Business in 2030 scenarios, the road ahead likely will be marked by increased decentralization of power and influence. While Davos may be an example of the abiding influence of the most powerful, the world away from the Magic Mountain is increasingly influenced by a diverse array of actors.

What the world so urgently needs is action, with far more commitment than we have seen in the half century since Davos launched.

Stakeholder capitalism is embedded into the program at Davos this year—that’s fantastic. The latest “Larry Fink Letter” on the eve of Davos signals that capital markets are moving faster to meet the challenge. But this more equitable and sustainable vision of capitalism must be more than a theme, a process, or a matter of talk. It needs to reflect a seriousness of purpose and a commitment to an agenda that resonates not only in Davos but in the places where people believe that Davos Man (and increasingly, Woman) are ignoring their needs.

The stakeholder model advanced 50 years ago by Forum Founder and Executive Chairman Klaus Schwab is the right one. Making it work in a fragmenting world is no small thing. Davos often frames global debates, and that is no small thing, though conference themes come and go. What the world so urgently needs is action, with far more commitment than we have seen in the half century since Davos launched. If we are to achieve human progress—and avoid exacerbating the turmoil that greets the 2020s—over the course of the coming decade, we have no choice.  And the prize—truly shared prosperity that averts climate crisis—should be all the motivation we need.

Blog | Wednesday January 15, 2020

Business Leadership in Defending Inclusive Societies and LGBTI Rights at Davos 2020

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Despite recent progress from Taiwan, which became the first country in Asia to pass marriage equality, to Botswana, where a colonial-era ban on same-sex relations was struck down, the ILGA World’s 2019 Map shows the breadth of discrimination currently facing LGBTI people across the globe. Nearly 70 countries still criminalize homosexuality, unconscionably very few countries legally recognize the identity of trans people, and only a handful protect the rights of intersex people. Tragically, for many LGBTI people around the world, homophobia, fear, and hate remain a daily reality. 

Next week, the World Economic Forum will host its 50th Annual Meeting, bringing together the world’s top leaders from the private sector, government, civil society, media, and academia to “address the most pressing issues on the global agenda.” The Partnership for Global LGBTI Equality (PGLE) is pleased that the economic inclusion discussion in Davos will shine a light on the discrimination faced by millions of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex people worldwide every day—more than fifty years after Stonewall, the “birth” of the gay liberation movement. 

Recognizing that the power of business could be leveraged to advance LGBTI inclusivity, in 2016, a group of companies organized a meeting in Davos that, according to UN Human Rights, “was a turning point in a long-overdue conversation among prominent business leaders and activists about practical measures companies can and should take to tackle LGBTI discrimination.” That conversation led to the UN Standards of Conduct for Business Tackling Discrimination against Lesbian, Gay, Bi, Trans, & Intersex People (UN Standards), issued by the UN in September 2017. 

From local jurisdictions to national assemblies, thought-leading companies have worked with a broad range of stakeholders across the world to fight homophobia, fear, and hate and to advance human rights for members of the LGBTI community. 

That meeting four years ago is but one of many examples of the key role that the business community has played in advancing LGBTI equality, diversity, and inclusion globally. From local jurisdictions to national assemblies, thought-leading companies have worked with a broad range of stakeholders across the world to fight homophobia, fear, and hate and to advance human rights for members of the LGBTI community. 

Like the UN Standards, the idea for forming the Partnership for Global LGBTI Equality was born in Davos—but a few years earlier—when some of the companies that later became our Founding Members organized an LGBTI roundtable discussion.  Over the years, the breadth of the Davos LGBTI discussions grew and, since 2015, have been part of the Forum’s official Annual Meeting program. 

Through the leadership, commitment, and support of our Founding Member companies, PGLE was formally launched by the Forum in Davos last year as a project of its Platform for Shaping the Future of the New Economy and Society. In addition to being a project of the World Economic Forum, PGLE is also working in collaboration with UN Human Rights and our civil society partners, Human Rights Watch and OutRight Action International. 

To quote in part from the Forum’s press release in announcing the creation of PGLE:

“Discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity not only violates universal basic human rights, it also adversely impacts the long-term economic prospects of individuals, businesses and countries. A 2017 UNAIDS study estimated the global cost of LGBTI discrimination at $100 billion per year. Businesses have an important role to play in respecting and protecting human rights through fostering workplace inclusion for LGBTI people.”

Simply put, PGLE is a coalition of organizations committed to leveraging their individual and collective advocacy to accelerate LGBTI equality and inclusion in the workplace and in the broader communities in which they operate. PGLE member companies recognize and take responsibility not just for the impact they have on their employees' lives but also on the broader communities in which they operate.

If you are in Davos next week, we hope you will join us for a discussion of “LGBTI Rights and the Role of the Private Sector” on January 21, 2020, from 7:30-9 a.m. at the SDG Tent (Ocean Room), 139 Promenade, Davos. Please RSVP here. 

We look forward to seeing you in Davos. If you’re unable to join us for the event, you can tune in to the livestream on the PGLE site. In addition, if you’re interested in learning more about leveraging the power of business to advance LGBTI equality, please feel free to connect with us.

Live from the World Economic Forum 2020: LGBTI Rights and the Role of the Private Sector

Blog | Tuesday January 14, 2020

Five Tips for Setting Bold Sustainability Goals for 2020 and Beyond

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2020, which for so long seemed like a distant future, is here. As we reflect on the past decade of sustainability goals, we recognize the substantial progress: commitments for financing renewable energy in developing countries have witnessed a tenfold increase since the early 2000s; 600 million more people have connected to the mobile internet since 2015, the majority in low- and middle-income countries; and extreme poverty continues to fall along with child mortality rates. Unfortunately, these encouraging trends ultimately do not create enough momentum to achieve a just and sustainable world. Progress on many of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) has been too slow and, in some cases, continues in the wrong direction: both hunger and greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise.

And now, we are in the decisive decade. As BSR CEO and President Aron Cramer put it in his 2019 annual letter, “[We’re now entering] the decisive decade of the 2020s. The next 10 years will be decisive for business, and for all of us. We will either deliver on the [SDGs] or we won’t. We will peak emissions in line with the Paris Agreement or we won’t. Business will regain public trust or it won’t. We will re-establish social mobility and reduce income inequality or we won’t."

So, how can companies make sure they’re on the right side of history?

In order to achieve the change we seek, it is clear we need business. But the tactics used by businesses to set goals in the past—benchmarking and forecasting—are inadequate. Incremental improvements in sustainability, while still relevant, are no longer enough. We need business to be willing to boldly tackle the complex challenges that society faces by committing to progress, even without a concrete plan. We need moonshots. Increased ambition is not just the way to achieve the SDGs—it’s also the best way to create truly resilient business strategies.

Increased ambition is not just the way to achieve the SDGs—it’s also the best way to create truly resilient business strategies.

In practice, we know that committing to a bold goal is not an easy task, but here are three reasons you should persevere:

• The Ethical Imperative. As we just outlined, society cannot achieve the SDGs without the full participation of business. High-quality employees gravitate toward work with a purpose and companies that they feel make a positive difference in the world.
• The Business Imperative. The climate for business is changing rapidly, and companies that are not proactively helping to shape the new paradigm risk obsolescence. Bold goals help to hedge against risks and spark disruptive innovation. Plus, companies that set innovative goals set the bar for good performance and often receive more support from partners—NGOs, foundations, governments—in attaining their goals than companies that don’t.
• The Stakeholder Imperative. Key stakeholders (employees, customers, investors, local communities) expect bold action. With the proliferation of sustainability data platforms and a rapidly increasing set of corporate “report cards” emerging, it’s more important than ever to take a visible leadership role.

You may be asking yourself: But what if we set this big goal and we fail? The answer is that it’s okay. We have seen time and again that stakeholders—even investors—are more likely to celebrate companies for setting a bold time-bound sustainability goal than penalize them for missing their targets. In fact, in today’s business operating environment, stakeholders are more likely to look askance if you hit a modest sustainability target early than if you miss an ambitious target.

Stakeholders—even investors—are more likely to celebrate companies for setting a bold time-bound sustainability goal than penalize them for missing their targets.

We’ve talked a lot about the why, so now let’s tackle the how. The tools that businesses have used for the past decade are no longer fit for purpose, so how are leading companies going about increasing their ambition?

1. They’re focusing on what matters most. The achievement of a bold goal is highly resource-intensive. Therefore, companies should be highly selective in determining where to go big and where to focus on continuous improvement. Big goals should be centered around issues that are highly material and core to the business. Most companies place no more than 10 big bets, with many focusing on just one or two key issues.
2. They’re seeing the big picture. A context-based goal is any goal that considers a company’s “fair share” of a societal challenge. For example, science-based goals, such as science-based climate targets, are a subset of context-based goals. Companies are enhancing their understanding of context using science (e.g., context-based water targets), international frameworks (e.g., the SDGs), or good old-fashioned stakeholder engagement. The thing they have in common is that they’re setting goals by determining what needs to be accomplished, not by determining what they think they can achieve.
3. They’re starting at the end and working backward. Whereas forecasting starts from the past and extrapolates forward to see where we might end up in the future, backcasting starts with an ideal future state (e.g., achievement of an SDG) and works backwards towards the present to identify what would need to happen to get there. Leading companies are defining the impact they want to achieve and using backcasting to understand the steps needed to get there.
4. They’re building holistic approaches based on quantifiable impacts. According to the Impact Management Project (IMP), impact management is the ongoing practice of measuring our risk of negative impacts and our positive impacts so that we can reduce the negative and increase the positive. For example, a company with a bold climate goal should consider all its impacts on climate—from direct emissions, to supply chain emissions, to policy statements, and lobbying activities. The quantification process adds rigor as it necessitates the development of a clear problem statement and theory of change, with a thorough understanding of the different dimensions of possible company impact. 
5. They’re not letting the perfect be the enemy of the good. Leading companies understand that their goal will not be perfect, but they act anyway with the understanding that they may need to course-correct over the life of the goal as they get new information, as the business changes, and as the operating context evolves. To that end, it can be helpful to pair a set of bold goals with a longer time horizon (e.g., at 10 years) with a set of achievable shorter-term milestones (e.g., three to five years). In addition, business can bring stakeholders on the journey by transparently reporting progress, both the successes and the challenges, at regular intervals. This will then help them understand if you need to make an adjustment to the original goals. 

It’s clear that we face a new climate for business—environmental and societal risks have overtaken economic and geopolitical risks in terms of both likelihood and impact in the World Economic Forum’s annual global risk reports. The critical role of business in successfully addressing societal and environmental challenges and the imperative for business to ensure a stable operating environment are increasingly apparent. 

The bottom line: go big (but credible) or go home—your business, your stakeholders, and the world will thank you. We look forward to working with businesses committed to a just and sustainable world on setting bold goals for 2030 and beyond. Please feel free to connect with us to learn more.

Blog | Wednesday December 18, 2019

COP25: National Governments Fail to Seize the Day, but Business Climate Action Continues

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As we enter the decisive decade of the 2020s—when significant steps towards decarbonization have to happen if we are to stave off the worst impacts of climate change—the 2019 UN climate conference in Madrid, COP25, was a poor jumping-off point.

This year’s COP was designed to pave the way for greater ambition on the part of national governments. Unfortunately, they failed to live up to the importance of the moment. In advance of the climate conference, the UN Environment Programme’s Emissions Gap report called for annual emissions reductions of 7.6 percent if the world is to keep global heating to 1.5°C. Measured against that benchmark, the last COP of the 2010s represents a serious setback.

There were multiple disappointments in Madrid. There was no agreement on alignment of carbon market rules, which would provide guidelines on how countries can trade emissions internationally. Also, countries did not prioritize the ground rules that would protect vulnerable nations after a climate disaster.

Even the aspirational language emerging from the negotiations took a step backwards from the more concrete commitments to heightened ambition in the run-up to next year’s pivotal COP26, when the “ratchet” of national contributions is intended to happen. And while 121 nations have committed to net-zero emissions, this is less significant in terms of impact: these countries represent only 15 percent of global emissions. 

There is little doubt that this reflects, in part, the absence of American leadership under the current administration in Washington. While American business and investors were visible and there was political representation from a climate-friendly delegation of congressmembers, state governors, and mayors, they are not able to shift national government commitments. While the We Are Still In coalition remains vibrant and important, it cannot make up for the loss of climate diplomacy from the White House. And with the exception of the European Union, other major emitting nations did not step up either.

But while this was clearly a COP where national governments did not seize the day, there were still some glimmers of hope.

Because while national government action matters—a lot—it is far from the only pathway to progress. And in many other areas, COP showed important steps forward. Many businesses, reflecting what is known in the hallways of the climate talks as “the real economy,” continue to make new commitments. Nearly 800 companies are now committed to net-zero emissions by mid-century.

Many businesses, reflecting what is known in the hallways of the climate talks as “the real economy,” continue to make new commitments. 

While many heavy-emitting industries remain on the sidelines, there are some interesting new commitments. For example, Spanish oil and gas producer Repsol made its COP host country proud by announcing the first net-zero commitment in that sector to include Scope 3 emissions. More broadly, the number of companies joining the UN Global Compact’s Climate Ambition Coalition, committing to a 1.5°C target has doubled since September, expanding to 177 companies representing US$2.8 trillion in market capitalization. Goldman Sachs and AXA have both announced new divestment strategies.

In addition to action by businesses and investors, public demand for climate action continues to be heard. Coinciding with COP, Time named Greta Thunberg the Person of the Year for 2019, and “climate emergency” was named the word of the year by Oxford Dictionaries. It is clear public expectations about climate action are stronger than ever and growing.  

What does this mean for business? Looking ahead to 2020, business has both the interest and the opportunity to continue to raise its ambition. Companies can act by joining the growing parade of businesses committed to 100 percent renewable energy in service of augmented science-based targets and aligning their business strategies with the 1.5°C target.

Companies also can enable progress by working with their supply chains as the number of businesses seeking deep Scope 3 emissions cuts continues to grow. And finally, business should leverage its influence by calling on governments to drop the timidity that was—unfortunately—on display in Madrid.  A loud business voice was vital in the run-up to the Paris Agreement in 2015, and it will be essential to delivering the strong result that will be badly needed at COP26 next November in Glasgow.

The need for heightened urgency is coming from the science, the streets, and the employees of global companies. 2020 must be a year when the promise of Paris is given new life in Glasgow. With business engagement in the year ahead, we can redefine Madrid as a footnote in history, rather than lasting damage to climate ambition.

Blog | Tuesday December 17, 2019

Our Top Sustainability Insights of 2019

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As 2019 comes to a close, we are taking a moment to look back at the news and initiatives that shaped the year. The most popular blog posts and reports BSR published this year show reader interest in a variety of topics, from collaboration to climate change, that are sure to impact sustainability strategies for the decade to come.

Some common themes we saw across our most read content of the year were:

• Understanding the business landscape: We kicked off the year sharing our take on BlackRock CEO Larry Fink’s annual letter and its emphasis on ‘purpose’ and came full circle in November, publishing our President and CEO Aron Cramer’s first annual letter on the New Climate for Business, which presents an agenda for business leaders to take on in the decisive decade to come.
• Seeking a clearer picture of the future: The popularity of future-oriented content, from our report analyzing how the ‘future of work’ will affect gender disparities to a blog post on developing a 2030 strategy, demonstrates that our readers are thinking ahead.
• Staying on top of trends: Much of our top 2019 content looks at the latest trends—in sustainability reporting, stakeholder engagement, supply chain visibility, and private equity to name a few.

What insights will be the most valuable to take from 2019 and bring into 2020? See the list below of our most read publications from the past year and decide for yourself.

Most Read BSR Blog Posts of 2019

1. The New Climate for Business: In his first annual letter, BSR President and CEO Aron Cramer addresses the new climate for business and presented the urgency agenda for the 2020s—the decisive decade, now only days away.
2. Global Tech Companies, Partners Identify Tools to Fight Human Trafficking: This article provides a progress report on the Tech Against Trafficking initiative and their ambitious project to understand and map the landscape of existing tech tools being used in the anti-trafficking sector.
3. Supply Chain Visibility: Traceability, Transparency, and Mapping Explained: BSR experts explain three concepts for gaining and demonstrating visibility in multi-tier supply chains: traceability, mapping, and transparency. What are these concepts, how do they differ, and what do they offer?
4. How Private Equity Can Address TCFD and Climate Change: BSR suggests two types of approach for how private equity firms can address climate risks and opportunities in an actionable, meaningful way.
5. Three Questions to Think About for Your 2030 Strategy: With many sustainability strategies and goals expiring in 2020, companies should reflect on three questions as they begin to shape their 2030 strategies.
6. What Larry Fink's 2019 Letter Means for the Future of Business: Our four main takeaways from the 2019 letter of BlackRock's Larry Fink to CEOs, which mentioned the word ‘purpose’ 21 times.

Most Read BSR Reports of 2019

1. Five-Step Approach to Stakeholder Engagement: This year, we released an update to our extremely popular 2011 report, providing a comprehensive stakeholder engagement approach and toolkit to help companies build and retain stakeholder trust as it becomes more important than ever.
2. ESG in Private Equity: How to Write a Responsible Investment Policy: Over the past 10 years, the private equity sector has seen responsible investment approaches move from exception to expectation. Formalized integration of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) considerations is becoming the norm. For all firms, a meaningful policy is fundamental to responsible investment and ESG integration.
3. Five Reporting Trends for 2019: Insights on the Future of Reporting: BSR's Future of Reporting collaborative initiative seeks to help members create sustainability reports that result in improved sustainability performance at companies and informed decision-making by stakeholders. In this report, it outlines the five innovations it was seeking to improve reporting and disclosure in 2019.
4. The State of Sustainable Business in 2019: The 11th annual BSR/GlobeScan State of Sustainable Business survey found the rise of climate change as the most significant issue and investor interest as a key driver in sustainability, among other insights into the world of sustainable business. 
5. How Business Can Build a 'Future of Work' That Works for Women: Businesses have a responsibility not only to help workers prepare and transition for the ‘future of work,’ but also enact strategies that create positive change and economic advances for women. This report outlines how to do so.
6. Making Women Workers Count: A Framework for Conducting Gender Responsive Due Diligence in Supply Chains: How can companies conduct more gender-responsive due diligence approaches, and what role does gender-disaggregated data play in this? This report, funded by the C&A Foundation, sets out to address this question.  

We published a lot of other great content this year on critical issues of the moment, from blogs on employee and CEO activism to reports on topics in supply chains, such as gender equality and leadership through maturity models. We also continued our Sustainability Short Takes video series, which highlighted the many major issues discussed at our BSR Conference 2019.

All of us here at BSR wish you and your colleagues a happy and safe new year, and as the new decade dawns, we look forward to working together to build a just and sustainable world.

Blog | Friday December 13, 2019

BSR19 Summary for Japanese Market

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Blog | Thursday December 12, 2019

A Human Rights Review of the Facebook Oversight Board

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Facebook makes decisions to take down, leave up, or restore content every day, and some of these decisions can be very challenging, with strong arguments for either removing or leaving up the content. Many users can disagree with these decisions, and millions are appealed each year.

In November 2018, Mark Zuckerberg announced plans to “create a new way for people to appeal content decisions to an independent body, whose decisions would be transparent and binding.” This idea has since become known as the Facebook Oversight Board, with the Governance Charter for the Oversight Board released in September.

The Oversight Board is intended to assess difficult content decisions and provide policy opinions, particularly where there is tension between the freedom of expression rights of users with other values, such as safety, privacy, and dignity. In this sense, the Oversight Board represents a new opportunity to provide enhanced access to remedy for individual users while also informing actions by Facebook to mitigate potential future harms.

Today, we are releasing a human rights review conducted by BSR to inform how the Oversight Board will work in practice.

The purpose of our human rights review is to inform the governance and operations of the Oversight Board such that it is consistent with human rights-based approaches, principles, standards, and methodologies. To achieve this outcome, we used an assessment methodology based on the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs), combined with a review of the various human rights principles, standards, and methodologies upon which the UNGPs are based.

One important challenge was immediately obvious to BSR upon commencing our work: Efforts to provide access to remedy in other industries typically meet the needs of a limited number of rightsholders, based in clearly defined geographical areas, and speaking a limited number of languages. By sharp contrast, the Facebook Oversight Board needs to meet the needs of billions of rightsholders, who could be anywhere in the world, and who may speak any language.

Combine this issue with the Oversight Board’s independent decision-making authority, and Facebook is creating an institution unlike anything ever previously created by a company. It’s a real leap into the unknown—to our knowledge, no company in any industry has ever established an oversight mechanism with binding decision-making power—and a leap that should be made in a manner consistent with human rights.

With this context, BSR’s review explored seven key human rights themes for the Oversight Board:

• Harms and Impacts: Addressing a wide variety of human rights issues and prioritizing the most severe cases
• Vulnerable Groups: Addressing the rights and needs of individuals from groups or populations at heightened risk of becoming vulnerable or marginalized
• Remedy: Providing pathways to effective remedy (i.e., efforts to restore the victim to the same or equivalent position before the harm) and adhering to the access to remedy and operational-level grievance mechanism expectations of the UNGPs
• Decision-Making: Ensuring that Oversight Board members are fully aware of the international human rights standards and that Oversight Board decisions are effectively integrated into Facebook
• Informed Consent: Ensuring that relevant users (e.g., those posting or featured in content) provide consent for each case and understand both their risks and their rights when consenting
• Safety and Integrity: Addressing new human rights risks arising from the existence of the Oversight Board
• Transparency: Accounting for how human rights impacts are addressed through external communications

In our report, BSR provided recommendations for Facebook and the board itself in each theme. In addition, three high-level insights emerged:

1. We determined that all human rights—not only freedom of expression and personal safety and security—can be impacted by content decisions. This implies that it will be important for the Oversight Board to understand the various human rights impacts at stake in each case.
2. The Oversight Board can help prevent and mitigate future human rights harms through both policy recommendations to Facebook and through the action Facebook takes to implement Oversight Board decisions. Policy recommendations could include new or modified language in the Facebook Community Standards, revisions to guidance on how content moderators interpret and enforce the Community Standards, and potential expansions to the scope of the Board’s mandate itself.
3. We believe it will be important for the Oversight Board to have a mechanism to identify novel cases, emerging trends, and cases that may become more prevalent or severe alongside upcoming social, political, or economic developments. This will enable the Oversight Board to proactively address areas of risk and anticipate future harms.

BSR undertook the human rights review at the same time that Facebook created the Oversight Board, thus enabling Facebook to integrate many of our recommendations into the governance and operations of the Oversight Board. The result is an Oversight Board more consistent with human rights-based approaches, principles, standards, and methodologies. We welcome the following steps already taken by Facebook:

• The charter requires the board to pay particular attention to the impact of removing content in light of human rights norms protecting free expression. In his letter on the Oversight Board Charter, Mark Zuckerberg sets out how the values accompanying Facebook’s Community Standards—authenticity, safety, privacy, and dignity—are guided by international human rights standards.
• When prioritizing cases to refer to the Oversight Board, Facebook will consider factors consistent with the UNGPs, such as the severity of impact on someone’s voice, safety, privacy, or dignity, as well as the number of people affected.
• The board will be composed of a diverse set of members, including those who have familiarity with free expression, civic discourse, safety, privacy and technology.
• Facebook will provide resources to enable the board to hear cases in multiple languages.
• Facebook has designed the tooling and submission process with accessibility to vulnerable groups in mind, including prompts to assist users in submitting their cases and allow individuals to submit their case using a mobile device.
• The board will be empowered to instruct Facebook to allow or remove content, which is a form of remedy for users.
• Facebook commits to implementing decisions in a timely manner and communicating the implementation of the decision to the user, in line with some of the effectiveness criteria contained in the UNGPs.

Facebook is by no means the only social media platform facing the challenges of content moderation, and we hope that the BSR human rights review provides considerable value to other social media platforms, stakeholders, and policymakers addressing similar challenges.

While many companies have created advisory committees to provide guidance on human rights topics, to our knowledge, no company has ever established an independent body in this way. We are hopeful that this report will have lasting impact on the Oversight Board. It will be important for dialogue with the international human rights community to continue, especially as the board starts in earnest to formalize and implement its procedures for deliberation and decision-making.

This board represents a significant innovation in the field of business and human rights, and we look forward to learning how such a novel idea proceeds in practice.

Blog | Wednesday December 11, 2019

The New Climate for Ever-Evolving Technology: Q&A with Patrick Browne, Director, Sustainability, UPS

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Artificial intelligence. Autonomous vehicles. Sustainable fuel technologies. New and disruptive technologies are being adopted across all industries, making nearly every company—from agriculture to logistics—a tech company. This development is just one factor contributing to ‘the New Climate for Business,’ the theme of the BSR Conference 2019, which took place in San Jose, California last month. At the conference, UPS Director of Sustainability Patrick Browne joined us to share how UPS, as a logistics company, is adapting to the new climate of ever-evolving technology.

I had a chance to connect with Patrick to dive deeper into the types of new technologies UPS has deployed, the impact they have had so far, and plans to further integrate tech into their sustainability strategy for 2020 and beyond.

How is new technology playing a role in UPS sustainability efforts?

UPS is using innovative approaches to leverage new and disruptive technologies for an environmental benefit. Skyrocketing e-commerce is increasing demand for logistics and delivery services. The challenge for UPS is to meet this need and grow our business without significantly growing our carbon footprint.

We use a range of technologies to help improve the efficiency of our operations. For example, investments in ORION, our groundbreaking route optimization software, helps UPS determine the most efficient delivery route each day. ORION is essential to reducing emissions by minimizing UPS’s total miles driven. In the United States alone, ORION enables us to avoid 100 million miles and 10 million gallons of fuel each year—translating into 100,000 tons of emissions.

Why is it important to leverage new technology in addressing UPS’ energy use?

Our business sits at the intersection of disruptive trends, such as rapid urbanization and e-commerce growth, and associated challenges, such as congestion and climate change. At UPS, we’re embracing these trends and innovating to shape a future in which more people prosper, enterprises run more efficiently, and resources are conserved for future generations.

New technology allows UPS to stay on the cutting edge of sustainability. We’re investing in a range of technologies that could help reduce the environmental impact of last mile delivery, address urban congestion, and optimize daily routes. These shared value initiatives are good for the environment, our customers, and our bottom line.

What new, upcoming technologies is UPS looking into to achieve sustainability goals?

UPS is committed to developing and deploying technologies that improve service and enable more efficient operations of our global logistics network. In August, we announced a minority investment in autonomous driving company TuSimple, which is testing self-driving tractor trailers on a route in Arizona to determine whether the vehicles can improve service and efficiency in the UPS network.

We have long believed autonomous technologies would play an important role in the UPS Global Smart Logistics Network and the company’s transformation. We estimate that autonomous trucks will reduce fuel consumption and carbon emissions by 15 percent. The reduction of fuel consumption leads to a reduction in millions of metric tons of greenhouse gases (GHG). We are eager to determine how new technologies like this will help us increase efficiencies and reduce emissions.

What sustainability challenges require collaboration across industries/systemic responses? How is UPS engaging with partners on these issues?

Addressing global threats like climate change requires UPS—and all actors—to collaborate within the value chain and across industries. At UPS, collaboration is within our DNA. One great example is our Rolling Lab—our fleet of more than 10,000 alternative fuel and advanced technology vehicles. Our involvement with BSR’s Future of Fuels working group has helped accelerate our work in this area.

Another example is related to sustainable e-commerce solutions and final-mile deliveries, especially in dense urban areas. Cities are growing more crowded every day, and people are becoming more reliant on deliveries of everyday goods directly to their doorstep. This convenience creates impacts people may not think about—more miles, more fuel, more emissions. So we’re working with customers, cities, vehicle manufacturers, and other partners to create innovative last-mile delivery solutions. We now have around 30 projects underway in cities around the world. To stay up to date on UPS’s sustainability initiatives, you can subscribe to the UPS Horizons newsletter.

Blog | Tuesday December 10, 2019

Human Rights Day 2019: BSR Reflections on the UN Forum on Business and Human Rights

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Under the theme "Time to Act: Governments as Catalysts for Business Respect for Human Rights," the eighth annual UN Forum on Business and Human Rights brought together over 2,000 representatives of companies, civil society, and states in Geneva in the final week of November to discuss best practices and emerging issues in business and human rights. BSR attended the event both to share our learnings from working with leading companies on business and human rights over the course of the year and to keep our finger on the pulse of the latest trends.

As we look ahead to 2020—and to the dawn of this decisive decade when the decisions we make as a society on how to address economic inequality, climate change, technological innovation, and political polarization will shape our shared future for generations to come—what are the pivotal human rights issues that businesses should be paying attention to? Here’s what we heard at the Forum:

States and regulators are responding to the call to action to protect human rights through mandatory due diligence and increased regulation.

A crucial discussion throughout the Forum highlighted the role of states and regional regulators to take on their duty to protect human rights and close the gap in implementing the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs), as Pillar One, the state duty to protect human rights, remains the true catalyst to realize corporate respect beyond voluntary measures.

Mandatory due diligence in national legislation is gaining ground, with the latest laws being enacted in France, the Netherlands, and Australia and with more legislation proposed. What’s more, mandatory frameworks are only expected to increase. Comments by the European Union, the Council of Europe, and the OECD all stressed the importance of policy coherence at the state and regional levels. Regional bodies such as the EU and the African Union—which will soon be publishing its first human rights and business policy—are playing a growing role in creating a level playing field and strong systems for human rights protection and business accountability. Similarly, trade investments, public procurement practices, and state involvement in investments such as mega-sporting events must integrate human rights due diligence in project screening as well as regulatory measures to ensure law and trade agreements include respect for human rights. With interventions by states from all over the globe, notable leadership was taken by northern European countries Norway, Sweden, the Netherlands, and Finland, reflecting the region’s long-standing commitment to sustainable development and human rights.

Translating businesses’ numerous commitments to gender equality will require practical action.

Equality and inclusion must be prominent enablers in realizing the UNGPs.

The world is facing a profound inequality crisis as the divide between low- and high-income groups continues to deepen and discrimination remains a burden to the realization of human rights, especially for vulnerable groups. Creating and fostering equal and inclusive societies was the theme of many sessions, with emphasis on equal workplaces and supply chains.

BSR was represented on two panels, the first on the role of the private sector in protecting LGBTI rights and the second on applying a gender lens to the UNGPs in practice. According to the panel facilitated by Dan Bross, Executive Director of the Partnership for Global LGBTI Equality (PGLE), commitment to implementing the UN Standards of Business Conduct must be a priority of business, and joint action to decriminalize sexual orientation will be central to creating inclusive workplaces and enabling regulatory environments.

Similarly, we are at a point where translating businesses’ numerous commitments to gender equality will require practical action. BSR Manager Francesca Manta’s contribution to the panel on gender and the UNGPs stressed the importance of ensuring gender-specific impacts and issues are made visible and taken into account by using a new framework for context analysis and data collection in global supply chains. Diversity and Inclusion policies and commitments to the Women’s Empowerment Principles (WEPs) as well as to the UNGPs may remain a paper exercise if differentiated impacts are not identified, monitored, and acted upon, using operational tools such as the Gender Impact and Data tool (GDI), which BSR developed for supply chain due diligence. It is time for due diligence to stop being gender-blind and make women visible and counted.

In an increasingly fragile world characterized by rising violence, closing civic space, and more authoritarian governance, business has a critical role to play in preventing corrupt practices and human rights violations. 

Addressing corruption and conflict must become a priority of business and states if we are to realize a future of peace and stability.

In line with this year’s theme, the Forum had numerous sessions on the linkages between corruption, conflict, and human rights and the role both states and companies must play to eradicate unethical practices and resolve regional and global conflicts.

Whispered already as the theme of next year’s Forum, corruption took center stage with discussions ranging from the integration of compliance and human rights due diligence processes to holistic approaches to context analysis such as the one at the session facilitated by the UN Global Compact networks. Corruption is often seen as a ‘victimless crime,’ and the panels urged participants to recognize corruption as a strong contributor to human rights abuses. In an increasingly fragile world characterized by rising violence, closing civic space, and more authoritarian governance, business has a critical role to play in preventing corrupt practices and human rights violations. The UN Working Group on Business and Human Rights is currently working on the connection between anti-corruption efforts and implementation of the UNGPs to inform its 2020 report to the UN Human Rights Council. In conflict-affected and high-risk areas, part of business’s responsibility to respect human rights involves actively combating corruption by integrating their anti-corruption and human rights efforts. Companies cannot successfully respect human rights without also addressing issues of corruption in the environment where they operate and that impact their supply chain.

The digital sphere is now indivisible from human rights impacts.

In a world where nearly every company can be considered a technology company, another important theme at the Forum was how human rights are affected by digital activities and what due diligence will mean in this sphere regardless of industry. Discussions spanned from the use of AI and biometrics in high-risk sectors such as defense and surveillance, to what accountability, attribution, and remedy look like in case of adverse impacts from digital activities, to how even digital marketing has far-reaching impacts on organized crime and online and offline hate crimes, and also explored how due diligence is key to ensuring ethical advertising by any brand. Every company should seek to understand the nature of its digital activities—data collection and processing, content management, advertising—and prioritize due diligence to understand human rights impacts from both intended and unintended misuse of their technology or digital activity. States, particularly those in Europe thanks to GDPR, are more and more involved in corporate dialogue and regulations in this sphere, including interesting initiatives such as the Tech Ambassador, which was instituted by Denmark to promote diplomatic activities with technology companies.

Climate is the biggest business and human rights issue of our time, and aggressive emission reductions by both states and businesses should be a core human rights demand.

Climate is our biggest challenge and will have profound human rights implications.

Another theme throughout the three days, the Forum stressed how the climate crisis is now inextricably linked to the current and upcoming human rights impacts—on human life, inequality, health, access to livelihoods, migration. The Forum concluded with a powerful final session on the theme where a unanimous panel agreed that climate is the biggest business and human rights issue of our time and aggressive emission reductions by both states and businesses should be a core human rights demand. There are indeed positive developments and companies that are truly transitioning to fossil-free business models, such as the panelist Scania, but the pace is still too slow to keep emissions under control, particularly in light of the newly published UNEP Emission Gap Report 2019 which predicts increase in temperatures by 3 degrees Celsius. Again, policy coherence was called upon to urge states and businesses to be true to their commitment to the Paris Agreement and act immediately to address climate change in how they operate and our growth models.

We believe these key themes will take even more prominence as we enter the decisive decade next year, and we look forward to working with our members and partners to accelerate change and contribute to a just and sustainable future. To learn more about our work on human rights, please don’t hesitate to reach out and connect with our team.

Blog | Monday December 9, 2019

If Corruption Is a Cancer, How Do We Cure It? Lessons for International Anti-Corruption Day

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Twenty years ago, researchers and experts were relatively oblivious to issues of bad governance and corruption, but today, the link between the quality of government institutions that implement policies controlling corruption and economic development is clear. However, in many parts of the world, corruption is still one of the biggest obstacles to social and economic development. As the international community’s focus on corruption has increased, the following question has been increasingly asked: Are we winning or losing the battle?

First, fighting corruption may mean different things to different people and is unquestionably driven by different factors. In a company, the focus for a compliance officer or the head of the legal department is on legal risks; i.e., if a company engages in corrupt behavior, this may lead to massive investigations, potential prosecution, high fines, and senior management liability. For others, tackling corruption leads to a better and safer work environment, reduces operational costs, and avoids delays.

In the long-term perspective, being a clean company makes it easier to do business.

However, regardless of what the argument is internally, questions from front-line employees working in locations prone to corruption will be: “What are our competitors doing about it? If we say no and everyone else says yes, how can we eliminate it? What are governments doing about it? We can’t change the world alone!” As a compliance officer, you may have heard this input during compliance training sessions.  

Arguments like these are hard to answer and are one of the reasons why the Maritime Anti-Corruption Network (MACN) was created in 2011.

MACN now has 128 members, and our collective voice is strong when engaging in dialogue with governments. Within the network, members can discuss challenges and solutions to tackle corruption at the front line with one another. MACN’s in-country collective action programs mean that companies are not alone when saying ‘no’ to corrupt demands. In our case, the ship before you, and after, will have said ‘no’ to illegal demands. Captains and crew will be better protected by tested processes and procedures and by weight of numbers.

In answering the above questions, MACN members can say:

• We are working with peers and partners to address these challenges with global governments.
• We are stronger together.
• We may not change the world today but working together is a great place to start.

A few lessons from MACN that can be replicated in any industry are:

• Multi-stakeholder dialogue works. Blaming someone who is not in the room gets us nowhere. We need to create and foster dialogues and forums where the public and private sector can come together, where issues can be addressed, and where we move away from general statements about corruption and work on realistic outcomes.
• A sector-specific approach. Addressing issues unique to the sector helps with internal arguments so that front-line staff do not feel alone. They feel supported by a wider external argument of building a strong industry voice in combination with governments and other stakeholders.
• Identify drivers to improve the operating environment. When approaching governments, MACN’s argument is not to address corruption, but to support governments with experience and insights from our member base to reduce trade obstacles. This links the challenges to the government’s own priorities, which, in our case, focus on international seaborne trade.
• It is not a blame game. One of MACN’s key pillars is to support efforts and raise the bar within our own industry. This approach helps governments understand that it is not only about them. It is important we articulate that there is both a supply and demand side to this issue that need to be addressed, and it requires efforts on both sides to fight corruption.

In order to cure the cancer that is corruption, we must identify the challenges and discuss practical solutions that can implemented now—and not tomorrow. We must find ways to bring different stakeholders to the table, engage with industry peers to create a level playing field, and implement solutions on the ground.