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Blog | Tuesday December 15, 2020

COVID-19 and Beyond: Technology, Responsible Decision Making, and Public Health Emergencies

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In May 2020, a Korean man visited a series of bars and clubs in the Itaewon district of Seoul. The next day, he tested positive for COVID-19 and the Korean Center for Disease Control and Prevention snapped into action. To find out who the man might have come into contact with they combined different data sources, including credit card transactions from the clubs and bars he visited and GPS locations of mobile phones in the area at the time.

Some of this information was shared with the media, who reported the places the man had visited and noted that some were gay clubs. This led to the LGBTIQ+ community being blamed for new COVID-19 cases and resulted in a surge in discrimination in a country where stigma against queer communities remains high.

The data collection and sharing practices of South Korea’s contact tracing system effectively risked the forced outing of LGBTIQ+ Koreans. One man told The Guardian, “My credit card company told me they passed on my payment information in the [Itaewon] district to authorities. I feel so trapped and hunted down. If I get tested, my company will most likely find out I’m gay. I’ll lose my job and face public humiliation.”

As countries around the world continue to battle outbreaks of COVID-19, South Korea has been held up as an example of how to successfully limit the spread of the pandemic. Widespread technology and data use, from contact tracing to quarantine enforcement, has been a key part of this success. Many other countries have taken note and attempted to follow suit by integrating technology into their own responses. While this can be a win for public health and safety, the example above shows how technology and data use for pandemic response can facilitate human rights violations.

In the current COVID-19 landscape, data and technology solutions can be used for many positive outcomes, such as facilitating “back to work” efforts, enhancing research into COVID-19 vaccines and treatments, and allowing the resumption of economic activity while also protecting public health. However, these uses may also result in the infringement of privacy rights, new forms of discrimination, and harm to vulnerable groups. Some governments are using the emergency as an excuse to expand their power, leading to concerns that initiatives launched to address COVID-19 could become permanent forms of state surveillance.

As the providers of data and digital infrastructure, technology companies are often central in public health emergency response efforts. A company's responsibility to respect human rights does not disappear during a public health emergency—indeed, the severity of adverse human rights impacts makes it even more essential that companies undertake robust human rights due diligence.

A company's responsibility to respect human rights does not disappear during a public health emergency—indeed, the severity of adverse human rights impacts makes it even more essential that companies undertake robust human rights due diligence.

With the support of Microsoft, BSR developed a human rights framework for responsible business decision-making before, during, and after public health emergencies. The framework is intended to be used as part of human rights due diligence to guide business decisions related to technology and data use in response to public health emergencies. It is informed by a combination of international human rights law related to states of emergency; allowable limitations and derogations of rights; relevant regulations, standards, and principles grounded in human rights; and lessons learned from past emergencies.

There are various human rights norms, principles, and standards that can help navigate a pathway through these dilemmas. For example, Article 4 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and its accompanying General Comment 29 allow governments to derogate from specified human rights during times of public emergency. The Siracusa Principles, adopted by the UN Economic and Social Council in 1984, describe limitations on the restriction of human rights that governments may apply for reasons of public health or national emergency.

However, three factors are challenging the application of these principles today:

• Changes in the digital realm: Ever-more-powerful computing, massive growth in the availability of data, increasingly sophisticated artificial intelligence capabilities, and the centrality of digital infrastructure in everyday life have transformed the opportunities and risks associated with the use of digital technologies for public health.
• Increased involvement of companies: These principles were written for governments rather than companies, yet today the private sector has a far more significant role and power in the fulfillment of human rights than when the principles were drafted.
• Complexities of a global pandemic: These principles were not written to address the complexities of a global pandemic, and new insights about their implementation are emerging in real time.

In addition to the framework, BSR’s report, Decisions, Decisions, Decisions. Responsible Decision-Making Before, During, and After Public Health Emergencies, makes recommendations for companies to help ensure they take rights-respecting approaches to future public health emergencies. These can be summarized as follows:

Act: What Companies Should Do Internally

Although responding to public health emergencies requires swift action, companies must still carry out human rights due diligence to identify, prevent, and mitigate their human rights impacts and foresee the possible impacts of their decisions. The framework outlined in the report can help companies balance privacy rights with the protection of public health.

In their quest to take action, companies should also take care to avoid known pitfalls of applying technological solutions to social problems. This includes things like ensuring a tech or data-based solution is the right one for the given context, working with appropriate government authorities, creating effective escalation processes for handling government requests and contracts during times of emergency, and avoiding open-ended projects.

Enable: How Companies Should Work with Others

Public health solutions are seldom executed from start to finish by a single company. Businesses therefore must be as transparent as possible about the work they are doing and effectively engage with relevant stakeholders, including other companies in the industry and governments, who are often the customers for technology solutions. Through transparency and working with their peers, customers, and partners, companies can create more effective public health solutions and prevent scope creep or misuse.

Influence: How Companies Should Influence Public Policy

Governments have the obligation to protect human rights and therefore have an important role to play in ensuring that pandemic solutions do not unduly limit the rights of their citizens. As governments come to companies with various health emergency-related requests, companies have an opportunity to advocate for rights-respecting approaches and push back on requests that cross the line. Companies can also advocate for standards or regulations that provide clarity on the on the balance between privacy and public health, as well as stronger health data regulations that close loopholes related to non-traditional health data. When companies are required by a government to share data beyond what is necessary and proportionate, they should push back as much as possible.

When companies are required by a government to share data beyond what is necessary and proportionate, they should push back as much as possible.

Although COVID-19 may be the first truly global pandemic of the modern age, it certainly won’t be the last—in fact, experts expect that pandemics will become increasingly common, and business involvement in addressing them will only grow. However, while the public health crises of the future may share some features with the COVID-19 pandemic, they may vary in other ways too—such as different dynamics of transmission, severity of the illness, availability of treatment, and the necessary control measures—and it will be important to both take the lessons learned from COVID-19 and be able to apply them in different contexts.

Reports | Tuesday December 15, 2020

Decisions, Decisions, Decisions.

Preview

The COVID-19 public health emergency has surfaced important questions about the relationship between the right to privacy and other rights, such as the right to health, work, movement, expression, and assembly. Data and digital infrastructures can be used for many positive outcomes, such as facilitating “back to work” efforts, enhancing research into COVID-19 vaccines and treatments, and allowing the resumption of economic activity while also protecting public health.

However, these uses may also result in the infringement of privacy rights, new forms of discrimination, and harm to vulnerable groups. Some governments are using the emergency as an excuse to expand their power, leading to concerns that initiatives launched to address COVID-19 could become permanent forms of state surveillance.

As the providers of data, systems, and software, technology companies are often central in these public health emergency response efforts. For this reason, companies need to address the human rights risks associated with their involvement in disease response to avoid being connected to human rights violations.

This paper sets out the key elements of a human rights-based approach to the use of data and technology solutions during public health emergencies in today and tomorrow’s digital era, with a focus on the role of business and impacts to privacy.

These elements are primarily captured in a human rights-based decision-making framework for companies that can guide them through future public health emergencies. This framework can be found on page 5 of the report or can be downloaded separately.

COVID-19 is the first truly global pandemic of the modern age, but it won’t be the last. We hope this paper highlights lessons learned from COVID-19 that can be applied during the public health emergencies of the future.

Blog | Monday December 14, 2020

The Biden Administration and Sustainability in a Changing Asia

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When the Biden-Harris administration begins on January 20th 2021, it will face a changed landscape in Asia. This landscape has been evolving since the tail end of the Obama administration and throughout the Trump administration. It has evolved in terms of geopolitical relations and the clear growth of great power competition in the region: national reputations have changed—the United States in particular; political alliances have shifted as countries have responded to the changing power, reputation, and attentions; trade and investment flows have continued to evolve, with the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) the latest example; and economic development and growth perhaps most impacted by COVID over the past year.  

The impacts of climate change and the imperative coming from investors, activists, and government are accelerating the transition to a low carbon economy and resulting in changing energy choices, energy strategies, and investments. Human rights have in the spotlight due to increased focus driven by modern slavery act legislation, enforcement action, and evolving legal frameworks. COVID as well as various protest movements around the region have highlighted the intersection between human rights, privacy, and digital technology

Within this environment, key aspects of sustainability will be nodes of importance in terms of both competition and collaboration over the coming years. The choices the Biden-Harris administration make and the regional reaction to these choices will impact the region and how businesses navigate these issues. We will explore the following issues and more in BSR’s The Biden Administration and Sustainability in a Changing Asia webinar on Thursday, December 17th at 10am Hong Kong Time.

Whether you are a multinational operating in Asia, an Asian regional conglomerate, or a supplier within a global supply chain, these issues will impact your operations in the coming four years.

• Climate and Energy Infrastructure: Climate change and the energy transition in Asia will be a point of strategic alignment between the U.S., China, and other countries due to the increasing awareness and focus on the impacts of climate change globally; how this impacts energy infrastructure in the region will be a point of competitive, possibly political pressure as energy choices will be linked to national investment decisions.
• Human Rights and Technology: Human rights will become bifurcated. Human rights within normal business processes—modern slavery, working conditions, land acquisition, graft and corruption—will grow the consensus for corporate transparency, responsibility, and accountability across the region; the elements of human rights particularly related to social control (digital, surveillance, expression, privacy) will become increasingly complex and difficult to navigate.
• Business Integration: Navigating this time of change will require business to be nimble, informed with an increasingly sophisticated, and localized point of view to both mitigate risk and seize opportunity. Sustainability will increasingly migrate to the center of corporate strategy and governance.

What’s Next

What choices will face the Biden-Harris administration in relation to each of the above topics? What are pathways forward? How will regional trends influence these pathways? What issues should business be thinking about now as they plan for the shifting landscape? How can sustainable business practices drive a competitive advantage in this environment?

Our upcoming webinar will feature a rich and engaging discussion on these questions and more. Bennett Freeman, Principal, Bennett Freeman Associates, Sara Jane Ahmed, V20 Finance Advisor, V20 Secretariat, Golda Benjamin, Programme Director, Business and Human Rights Resource Centre, and Hans Vriens, Founder and Managing Partner, Vriens & Partners will join me to unpack this topic and add their considerable insights on Thursday, December 17th at 10am HKT. Please register here if you would like to join.

Blog | Friday December 11, 2020

The Paris Agreement’s 5th Anniversary: Accelerating the Momentum for Net Zero

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December 12, 2020: this Saturday marks the fifth anniversary of the historic adoption of the Paris Agreement. The world’s nations reached consensus to take on the existential threat of climate change—to protect our planet, the natural resources upon which we depend, our health, and our communities. The monumental victory gave us hope. Unbeknownst at the time, five years later we are reflecting on the leadership of business, rather than government, in charting the way toward a net zero future.

The Paris Agreement set a long-term goal to limit the increase of global warming to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels while pursuing efforts to limit it to 1.5°C. Through this agreement, countries agreed to peak global GHG emissions as soon as possible and then rapidly reduce them to reach net zero emissions in the second half of this century, on the basis of equity.

As part of BSR’s work with We Mean Business, we advocated for the adoption of the global net zero goal in the Paris Agreement. We sought an international agreement that would catalyze private sector action, making the transition to a low-carbon economy inevitable, irreversible, and irresistible.

Setting Paris-aligned emissions reduction goals—or science-based targets—has since become the gold standard for sustainable business. More and more companies have committed to goals representing their fair share of meeting the Paris Agreement. Their aggregate weight is now sufficient to dent the global emissions trajectory. For example, companies committed to the Science-Based Targets initiative now have aggregate annual operational emissions of 1.8 Gt/year—if they were a country, this would make them the world’s fourth largest emitter.

More recently, the private sector is stepping up its ambition to build net zero value chains no later than 2050, thus contributing to reaching the Paris Agreement’s 1.5°C goal. Because collaboration is essential to achieving this, companies are increasingly working together—within and across industries—to scale their impact. One example is Transform to Net Zero, a cross-sector group of climate leaders with the vision of enabling an inclusive net zero economy no later than 2050.

We sought an international agreement that would catalyze private sector action, making the transition to a low-carbon economy inevitable, irreversible, and irresistible.

The spike in business commitments to net zero targets is even more remarkable when considering the backdrop of regulatory weakness. However, 2020 is signaling an emergence of government leadership.

In September, the European Commission announced its plan to reduce EU greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by at least 55 percent by 2030 compared to 1990 levels, putting it on a path toward climate neutrality by 2050.

At this year’s UN General Assembly, China—the world’s largest emitter—pledged to peak carbon emissions before 2030 and reach carbon neutrality before 2060. This commitment helps build desperately needed momentum to put the world on track to meet the Paris Agreement. However, with concerns about its current coal expansion, China’s forthcoming 14th five-year plan (2021-2025) will signal its first steps to reaching the 2060 goal.

Japan and South Korea recently also committed to carbon neutrality by 2050. Prime Minister Suga is focusing on green technologies as the driver of economic growth in Japan, the world’s fifth largest emitter. And the South Korean commitment followed the release of a Green New Deal, a national development strategy with an emphasis on expanding green jobs.  

In addition to these commitments from the EU and the three largest East Asian economies, a Biden Administration could put the Paris Agreement goals “within striking distance,” according to analysis from Climate Action Tracker. But the first challenges to reaching net zero emissions by 2050 are the near-term actions to cut carbon by 2030. Significant effort in this Decisive Decade is crucial to keep the world on track and avoid dangerous climate consequences.

Business action can demonstrate that the net zero economy is not merely possible but plausible.

As we reflect on the last five years and look ahead to the next five and beyond, we must remain laser-focused on results. National governments are now updating their pledges under the Paris Agreement, which will demonstrate how serious the public sector is in fulfilling their commitments. Business action can demonstrate that the net zero economy is not merely possible but plausible.

While ambitious climate policies are needed to catalyze business ambition, leading businesses will themselves continue to transition to a net zero, climate-resilient economy. We can no longer delay action, and we ought to seize the many opportunities before us to grow green jobs, improve air quality, deploy new products and services, and protect our communities.

Looking ahead to the Paris Agreement’s 10-year anniversary, BSR aims to make net zero corporate action so commonplace that there will be no doubt that we will make its vision a reality.

Blog | Wednesday December 9, 2020

The Human Cost of the COVID-19 Pandemic for Workers in the Supply Chain

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“I can hardly sustain the family on my salary alone. My husband lost his job due to COVID-19, and this has affected us both financially and emotionally. There have been increased arguments in the family.”  

Beatrice Ongari, a female tea farm worker in Kenya, is not alone in her struggle. The International Labour Organization estimates that globally working hours have reduced 14 percent during the second quarter of 2020, equivalent to the loss of 400 million full-time jobs. Women have been disproportionately impacted by job losses and reduced hours during the COVID-19 pandemic. It is likely that decades of previous gains in poverty reduction and gender equality will be lost.

To understand the human cost of the pandemic in supply chains, HERproject interviewed over 1,000 workers and managers in flower and tea farms in Kenya and in garment factories in Bangladesh, China, Egypt, India, Kenya, and Vietnam. Our new report, “I Can Hardly Sustain My Family”: Understanding the Human Cost of the COVID-19 Pandemic for Workers in the Supply Chain, paints a troubling picture of the situation confronting workers in supply chains. Even workers who, like Beatrice, have retained their jobs continue to struggle to manage the uncertainty and stress of work and personal lives that have been deeply disrupted.

Supply Chain Workers Suffer from Hunger and Stress

The interviews revealed the extent to which workers’ health and well-being have been affected by COVID-19 and related work disruptions. Workers reported cutting back on meals due to reduced working hours and income: in Bangladesh, 54 percent of men and 40 percent of women reported limiting food expenses. Some workers, struggling to cover basic necessities such as food and rent,  reported resorting to using savings or taking out loans. These findings are aligned with a recent report published by Worker Rights Consortium.

Workers also expressed a constant fear of contracting COVID-19 and fear for their family’s health. This adds an additional layer to an already stressful working environment—and to lives that are already under pressure, especially for women who reported an increase in unpaid care work. The additional stress has resulted in higher levels of anxiety and strains on mental health and an alarming rise in gender-based violence, as exemplified by the situation in Kenya, where more than half of female respondents noticed an increase in violence against women.

Supply Chain Resilience Is at Risk

The evidence from the workers themselves shows the far-reaching impact of applying the brakes on the garment and agriculture supply chains, and for women in particular. Supplier management also told us they face high levels of uncertainty about the future of their businesses, which in turn puts more jobs and livelihoods for workers at risk.

In addition, the COVID-19 pandemic may accelerate broader trends such as supply chain consolidation and automation, which will hasten the decline of traditional manufacturing jobs and even farm work. Although these trends are likely to generate new types of jobs, experts say those opportunities will be out of reach for most of today’s low-income workers without planning and intervention.

How Companies Can Support an Inclusive COVID-19 Recovery for Workers and Supply Chains

The HERproject surveys suggest workers urgently need support. Here are some ways in which companies can act to support an immediate response:

• Find out how workers in your supply chain are impacted: Hearing directly from workers is essential to understanding the human toll of the pandemic.
• Support urgent relief: Workers need financial assistance and support services as they continue to face issues like hunger, mental health stress, and gender-based violence. 
• Reinforce relationships with suppliers: Workers are still struggling, and the risk of second and third waves of the pandemic is real. Companies should uphold their commitments to suppliers and support them in the face of uncertainty.
• Collaborate with others: Engage with other companies and stakeholders to support collective and coordinated responses to challenges for workers in the supply chain. Worker well-being is a pre-competitive issue that requires cooperation. 
• Develop a gender-inclusive recovery: Women are already emerging as the most at-risk group in terms of the economic impact of coronavirus. Companies have an opportunity to lead a recovery that puts the needs of women workers front and center.

Listening to workers is crucial for leading recovery strategies informed by the real-life challenges that workers are facing. Women are the backbone of global supply chains; it is now more urgent than ever for companies to listen to female workers’ voices to ensure a recovery that does not leave women behind. By understanding workers’ challenges, and by accounting for women’s specific needs, companies can seize the opportunity to take concrete action to improve the lives of workers and build back long-term resilience.

Reports | Wednesday December 9, 2020

“I Can Hardly Sustain My Family”

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The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in severe disruption to global supply chains. The financial, health, and social implications of production shutdowns and job losses can only be fully understood by hearing directly from the affected workers. HERproject interviewed over 1,000 workers in garment factories in Bangladesh, China, Egypt, India, Kenya, and Vietnam, as well as flower and tea farms in Kenya, to evaluate the true cost of the pandemic for these workers.

This report presents findings on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on workers, in the areas of physical and mental health, finances, and gender-based violence. It provides recommendations for companies and other stakeholders to support an inclusive recovery that benefits both workers and supply chains.

Blog | Monday November 23, 2020

Why Company Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Programs Need Intersectional Approaches

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Over the past two decades, women have made slow but steady progress toward workplace equality.

Globally, women’s share of board seats has increased, and the gender pay gap continues to gradually close. Over 3,800 companies around the world have signed up to the Women’s Empowerment Principles (WEPs) since their launch in 2010, and nearly a third of these companies have time-bound, measurable goals and targets to promote gender equality. Throughout this time, almost all corporate gender equality programming has worked under the assumption that a rising tide would raise all boats and that progress for some women would lead to progress for all. However, a more nuanced analysis shows that progress has not been felt evenly by all women.

• In the U.S., white women hold nearly four times as many Fortune 500 board seats than women of color.
• Research from the U.K. reveals that LBTQ+ women’s experience of sexual harassment and assault at work varied significantly depending on their ethnicity; 54 percent of lesbian, bisexual and trans Black and minority ethnic women reported unwanted touching compared to only 31 percent of white women.
• In France, Black, Arab, and Asian women are 2.5 times more likely to experience employment discrimination than white women.

Today, the COVID-19 pandemic—with its economic and social impacts—threatens to undo the progress toward women’s workplace equality, one of many considerations business must take into account as they plan for a post-COVID world. At the same time, the momentum of the Black Lives Matter movement has forced companies to look internally at how they perpetuate or dismantle racial discrimination. As more and more companies develop, enact, and expand women’s empowerment and diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives, business needs to understand women’s diverse and distinct experiences and undertake an intersectional approach.

One Size Does Not Fit All

Coined by Kimberlé Crenshaw in 1989, the term intersectionality recognizes that individuals experience discrimination based on multiple and intersecting identities, including race, religion, ethnicity, migrant status, sexual identity, sexual orientation, disability, age, or socioeconomic status. These individual characteristics “intersect” with one another and overlap contributing to unique experiences and may expose individuals to double or even triple discrimination grounds, making individuals more vulnerable in the workplace and in society.

Despite the growing awareness of intersectionality, companies have rarely applied this to their women’s empowerment efforts or wider DEI work. Instead, they tend to focus on one diversity characteristic, such as gender, race, or disability. This “either/or” mentality falsely pits the needs of underrepresented groups against one another and ignores the multiple and intersecting forms of discrimination and oppression that people face.

Current company ambitions and targets related to only one aspect of identity may leave some people out—and have the potential to disproportionately harm certain individuals in the workplace, albeit unintentionally. Furthermore, companies must recognize how ignoring intersectionality also misses opportunities for broader cultural change and policies that support a wider range of employees. Companies should learn from previous efforts, which focused narrowly on one issue, to see what works to promote greater diversity, equity, and inclusion for all.

Current company ambitions and targets related to only one aspect of identity may leave some people out—and have the potential to disproportionately harm certain individuals in the workplace, albeit unintentionally.

As companies think through developing or strengthening their DEI efforts, we recommend considering the following actions:  

• Investigate intersectional data to capture the local context and challenges: Instead of looking at gender and race, for example, as two separate issues, look at them together wherever possible along with other characteristics such as disability or sexual orientation. Salesforce, for example, reports its workforce profile in the U.S. broken down by race and ethnicity and how that intersects with gender. Looking at intersectional data can help to ensure that certain groups are not falling through the cracks of the very programs designed to support them. Intersectional data should also be used to design targeted approaches for specific groups where needed.
• Use qualitative data to understand the diversity of experiences: Quantitative data tells part of but not the whole story. Regular and meaningful employee engagement can provide a more complete picture of employees’ lived realities. Surveys, town halls, safe spaces for discussion, or other feedback loops can give insights into the lived realities of employees both in and out of the workplace. It can also offer a more nuanced understanding of the impact of policies and programs on different employees that can then be used to adjust or revise your approach as needed.
• Integrate multiple lenses into ambitions and targets: Set targets that look at the intersectionality of individuals, such as gender and race, disability, sexual orientation, among others. For example, closing the gender pay gap is a crucial step to achieve gender equality, but it ignores other groups who may face pay discrimination. In 2020, white women in the US earn 81 cents for every dollar a white man earns; however, for American Indian, Alaska Native, Black, African American, and Hispanic women, this number is 75 cents. By expanding to a wider pay equity approach across diversity categories, such as race, ethnicity, and gender, companies can create a more equitable workplace for all employees.
• Include an equity dimension: Give all individuals equal opportunities based on their background and unique circumstances/challenges. This means reviewing how current programming can unintentionally leave people out. As mentioned above, time-bound, corporate commitments to promote women’s leadership have led to impressive gains for white women, but women of color have seen less progress.
• Foster a diverse and respectful culture: Through communication, employee awareness-raising events, sponsorship programs, and employee resource groups, companies are transforming the workplace culture and ensuring that employees are part of and driving this change. Samsung, for example, has hosted open forums for employees to explore and learn from the different identities that make up the companies, with the intersection of race and sexual orientation as banner topics.

At BSR, we are committed to working with our members and partners to design meaningful approaches to look at diversity, equity, and inclusion through an intersectional lens. Please reach out to our team for more information on this work or to get started on transforming DEI approaches at your company.

Blog | Wednesday November 18, 2020

Five Steps to Sustainability Reporting in an Evolving Landscape

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Sustainability reporting is no longer optional—it's a stakeholder expectation. Most business leaders understand this: 90 percent of S&P 500 companies now issue public sustainability reports. By reporting, they capture a number of external and internal benefits, which include meeting regulatory requirements, improving relationships with stakeholders, enhancing trustworthiness and reputation, clarifying a company’s performance on sustainability issues (which can trigger a greater focus on improvement), and identifying sustainability risks and opportunities.

However, the reporting landscape is shifting, increasing expectations of what is needed in the sustainability report. In the past few months, several new proposals and announcements have shaken up the space, including:

• A Statement of Intent to Work Together from five reporting framework and standard setting organizations that emphasizes alignment and harmonization;
• A proposal from the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) Foundation to create a new Sustainability Standards Board (SSB) that would develop global sustainability standards;
• Pending changes to the Non-Financial Reporting Directive (NFRD) in Europe; and
• The World Economic Forum International Business Council paper that puts forth a global set of 21 core metrics for disclosure, building on existing sustainability reporting standards and frameworks.

These developments imply future changes to a company’s reporting structure and process. Most significantly, they lay the groundwork for a closer linkage to financial reporting, which would mean that companies will need to treat sustainability information with a higher level of rigor, akin to information included in financial reporting.

Sustainability reporting is both a beneficiary and an enabler of good performance on a company's material issues.

Even with the new developments, two key points remain clear: first, the sustainability report will continue to play an integral role in the future of company disclosure, and second, stakeholders—the users and readers of the report, including investors, customers, suppliers, NGOs, and others—expect high-quality and robust information on both the company’s impact on sustainability and sustainability’s impact on the company.  

Meeting stakeholders’ increasing expectations can be a complex task. As a result, BSR has published a practical guide, Five Steps to Good Sustainability Reporting, to help companies master the fundamentals of decision-useful disclosure that enables positive sustainability outcomes. In the guide, we have distilled the complexities of sustainability reporting into key principles and common steps, combining existing guidance from leading reporting standards with practical case studies from 10 BSR member companies.

As reporting practitioners likely already know, sustainability reporting requires continuous learning and improvement. Accordingly, this guide may be utilized by new reporters and experts alike. Those just starting out on their reporting path can lay the groundwork for their first disclosure and set out a strategy for year-on-year improvement. Expert reporters can "sense check" their reporting processes, learn from other companies, and use the document to educate peers and build capacity internally on what it takes to get the report done.

As report readers and users increasingly seek comparable, balanced, and performance-focused sustainability disclosures, there is an increasing need for companies to not just tell their story, but to also link it back to the core business and be confident that the issues they’re prioritizing and communicating are the right ones. Sustainability reporting is both a beneficiary and an enabler of good performance on a company's material issues. As part of a company’s process of identifying and addressing the sustainability issues that impact their business and stakeholders, reporting is a tool that can not only build a sense of purpose and unity within a company, but also one that promotes change within and across industries.

BSR works with companies all along the reporting journey, from those working on their first sustainability report to expert reporters who need help developing a long-term reporting strategy. If you’re interested in learning more about this work or in joining our Future of Reporting initiative, in which members learn from each other and share reporting best practices, please don’t hesitate to reach out.

Reports | Wednesday November 18, 2020

Five Steps to Good Sustainability Reporting

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About This Report

Sustainability reporting and disclosure on environmental, social, and governance (ESG) issues is increasing globally. In 2011, 20 percent of S&P 500 companies published sustainability reports; by 2019, that number reached 90 percent. This dramatic increase reflects how sustainability reporting is increasingly seen as a way for companies and their stakeholders to see a changing world more clearly and create long-term value. High-quality sustainability reports allow for:

1. Business transformation and performance improvement at companies, by enabling investment in resilient business strategies that improve company performance.
2. Better outcomes for sustainability, by focusing board and management attention on how the company can help achieve the Sustainable Development Goals, accomplish the Paris Agreement targets, and fulfill international human rights standards.
3. Decision-making that accelerates progress toward an equitable and sustainable economy, by eliciting information from companies needed by investors, customers, civil society organizations, and governments to make informed decisions that support a rapid transition to sustainability.

The five steps detailed in this report are supported by 10 principles on content and quality that characterize best-in-class sustainability reporting. The principles combine and draw on features of several prominent reporting standards and frameworks, namely GRI (formerly Global Reporting Initiative), the International Integrated Reporting Council (IIRC), the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB), and the Taskforce on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD).

So how can you produce a good sustainability report? This new guide is based on BSR’s long experience working on sustainability reporting with companies, a literature review, and interviews with BSR member companies across sectors, including Adobe, AstraZeneca, Flex, Keysight Technologies, Inc., Millicom, PayPal, SABIC, Sempra Energy, and Verizon. It is designed primarily for first-time reporters, offering a clear and simple process framework to structure the reporting journey. If you are an experienced reporter, this guide may nonetheless provide some tips and best practices that can help you improve your process, product, and impact.

Discover the five steps to good sustainability reporting.

Blog | Tuesday November 17, 2020

Building toward Mandatory Human Rights Due Diligence

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This blog is the third in a three-part series. In the first blog, we focused on the current landscape of mandatory human rights due diligence (HRDD), disclosure requirements, and the push towards a more universal approach. In the second blog, we discussed the elements that BSR has found important for effective HRDD. In this blog, we explore some of the challenging questions that the forthcoming European mandatory human rights due diligence (EU mHRDD) legislation should seek to address.

Over the past 25 years, BSR has worked with companies to manage human rights risks, including conducting more than 200 human rights impact assessments worldwide and supporting countless companies with integration and implementation. And due to our strong presence in France, we have also supported companies’ efforts to align with the French Corporate Duty of Vigilance Law (the French Law) requirements and learned a lot about the complexity of moving from soft to hard law.

As we have noted in previous blog posts, we believe that the proposed EU mHRDD legislation is a significant development for corporate human rights programs because it provides a regional-level mandate for due diligence. However, many aspects of the proposed legislation are still largely unclear and up for debate. Based on learnings from our experience working with companies to navigate the French Law, we present the following recommendations on how the upcoming legislation can be most effective.

Include All Types and Sizes of Businesses

In the absence of an official list of companies covered by the French Law, it is often difficult to assess whether a company is within its scope. To avoid such confusion, the EU legislation should establish a clear scope of application and cover all types and sizes of businesses, including state-owned enterprises and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Beyond reducing confusion, universal scope would strengthen corporate efforts to address human rights impacts. All organizations have an impact somewhere in their respective value chains, including SMEs, and we need all players involved to drive effective change.

Instead of spending time trying to determine the right size or type of company within the scope of the law, a better option would be to cover all entities with appropriate guidance for their type or size and operation to implement the due diligence expectations. By leveling the playing field and requiring HRDD for all business entities, we can effect real change across all types of businesses and encourage more cooperation among all types of companies in tackling human rights challenges, regardless of where they fall in the value chain.

Address All Types of Human Rights

The EU legislation should require business entities to apply due diligence with respect to all human rights across their entire value chain, in line with the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs). This broad scope is necessary to ensure that all areas of potential risk and impact are adequately assessed, prioritized, and mitigated.

“All human rights” can be understood as, at a minimum, those enshrined in the International Bill of Rights and the International Labour Organization (ILO) Core Conventions, but this can also include other international instruments that can guide companies on specific challenges in relation to child rights, migrants' or indigenous people’s rights, privacy rights, and more. While guidance would be welcome, the EU mHRDD should not be prescriptive in terms of the human rights conventions, standards, and principles within scope since this will always be an evolving field, and such a step would not be in line with the approach articulated by the UNGPs.

Addressing all types of human rights also means focusing beyond just the most severe impacts.

Addressing all types of human rights also means focusing beyond just the most severe impacts. The French Law aims at preventing the most severe adverse impacts on human rights, but a broader scope is important to effectively prevent human rights abuses. Restricting the scope of human rights risks to be covered by the law prevents broader company engagement and structural changes in the approaches implemented based on adequate prioritization.

Cover All Aspects of the Value Chain—Upstream and Downstream

In our experience working with French companies trying to meet the French Law, we have observed that too many focus their due diligence energies exclusively on their supply chains given the law’s requirements. This means that many miss identifying or addressing important human rights impacts, such as those caused by products, services, or other business relationships. As outlined by the UNGPs, proper human rights due diligence should cover all business activities up and down the value chain, including companies’ own operations and supply and subcontracting chains but also products and services and their impacts downstream—from end use to decommissioning and recycling. We have seen companies build robust human rights due diligence programs to tackle supply chain risks while neglecting to assess the impacts of their products and services, thereby missing significant impacts caused by those other aspects of their operations.

Require Stakeholder, and Specifically Rightsholder, Engagement

Stakeholder involvement and consultation is a fundamental component of effective due diligence. It is necessary to ensure that the identification of risk as well as the subsequent mitigation and remediation measures are sound and effective and address the needs of rightsholders and vulnerable populations. This approach helps ensure that companies’ overall approaches are credible and adequately communicated and that those most impacted can weigh in during the assessment process. The first cases brought to the French courts reflect, to some extent, the failure of those companies to adequately involve rightsholders—in particular the most vulnerable and relevant stakeholders—in their mapping exercises and the development of their mitigation and remediation plans. Requiring such engagement will go a long way in ensuring that rightsholder voices are part of the due diligence process.

Stakeholder involvement and consultation is a fundamental component of effective due diligence. 

Apply a “Reasonable” Approach to Liability

As European Commissioner of Justice Didier Reynders put it, “a regulation without sanctions is not a regulation.” We believe that expecting companies to conduct HRDD that meets a “reasonableness” threshold is the right approach to liability, though a transition period to develop an understanding of what “reasonableness” entails is warranted. Under this middle-of-the road approach to liability, companies can be held liable for not meeting reasonable due diligence obligations—which will be established over time through binding case law and other guidance—should their due diligence programs and processes not meet basic expectations. This would prevent companies from hiding behind a claim of being unaware of certain human rights impacts of which they should have been aware or avoid liability altogether by simply not conducting any diligence.

Conclusion

While the EU mHRDD law has been proposed during a very challenging year, it is an extremely promising development that can positively build on the lessons learned from the French Law to harness the strength of the private sector to contribute to (re)building a more just and sustainable world. By requiring companies to perform robust, comprehensive, and inclusive human rights due diligence programs that carry some liability for companies that either fail to perform these exercises altogether or fail to meet a minimum threshold of diligence, we can anticipate greater attention, identification, and efforts to mitigate human rights impacts wherever they may take place.