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Blog | Wednesday March 1, 2023

Building Responsibly: Raising Ambition for over One Million Workers

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Philippe Fonta discusses his new role as Director of Building Responsibly, unique challenges facing industry workers, and how he plans to accelerate impact in the year ahead.

Could you tell us about “Building Responsibly”? What is your mission and strategy for impact?

Building Responsibly (BR) is a collaborative initiative led by BSR that gathers a group of leading engineering and construction companies. We promote the rights and welfare of workers in the sector across the entire supply chain.

The initiative enables members to protect worker rights across the industry—even in contexts where the rule of law is limited. By creating and adopting common principles, developing tools to support implementation, and engaging workers, clients, governments, civil society, and international organizations, BR can really make a significant impact as a collective group rather than working alone.

Representing over one million workers across more than 100 countries, BR members have committed to implementing ten Worker Welfare Principles—a global standard to advance the safety, security, and welfare of construction and engineering workers. This requires the participation and collaboration of a wide set of stakeholders (including companies, NGOs, and industry associations).

What’s your role at BR?

BSR provides executive leadership and secretariat support for BR. Having joined BSR in 2022 as Director for Industries and Transport, I have now taken up a new role as Director of BR.

Primarily, I ensure that innovation and leadership remain key drivers in our collaborative approach, while utilizing the best available resources to advance the work program and raise ambition. I check that the quality of our work really makes a difference and effectively delivers impact. It all comes down to teamwork, members are different, even if the sector’s objectives are the same for every stakeholder. I also promote BR’s mission, work program, and achievements in various meetings in order to solicit the interest of potential new members and partners.

Tell us about your previous industry experience.

I have 25 years of experience in sustainability management, both within multinational industrial companies and non-profit organizations. I understand the constraints, challenges, and opportunities for industrial conglomerates as well as the expectations of their various stakeholders and society at large.

I spent eight years leading the Cement Sustainability Initiative (CSI), one of the flagship collaborative projects of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD). Gathering 25 global members from the cement manufacturing sector, CSI developed and implemented commonly agreed principles on sustainable issues such as climate, health and safety, and supply chain management, implementing them, and reporting on key indicators to deliver impact. Advocacy at major international forums was also a part of my role. I promoted the work of CSI and made our work accessible to a wider community of cement manufacturers.

What are the key challenges members face when protecting workers’ rights? How can BR help?

The engineering and construction industry relies on a massive number of workers and is a major provider of employment opportunities worldwide. Large real estate and infrastructure projects have fueled a construction boom, attracting millions of migrant workers, especially when there are not enough local workers or the local workforce doesn’t have the required skills.

This rapid growth has given rise to challenges around the rights and welfare of workers, which has been further highlighted by media and civil society organizations. Many companies in the engineering and construction industry have longstanding commitments to the health, safety, and welfare of workers. They are keen to expand on their existing programs, policies, and standards to further promote the rights and welfare of workers in their operations and subcontracting chains—even in contexts where the rule of law is limited.

BR enables business to collaborate around these shared values, advance their programs by sharing best practices, agree on common approaches and standards, develop tools, and engage clients, civil society, and international organizations. As a pre-competitive initiative, BR will ensure that companies can engage in mutually beneficial measures and policies in a safe space.

So, what’s going to be keeping you busy in the coming months?

As the new Director of BR, my first task is to ensure a smooth and efficient onboarding, gain trust from BR members and build on the excellent work led by the current secretariat. I plan to bring BR to the next level, and for that, we need to ensure the effective implementation of the Welfare Workers Principles. At the same time, we will need to bring these issues (and upcoming ones) at a speed and scale that will deliver real impact. This can be achieved by enhancing outreach and communication on the work, commitments, and achievements of BR (via publications, presentations, and conferences), attract the attention of potential new members, including in Asia and Latin America, expand the type of issues managed collectively at BR while ensuring that all the legal requirements associated to sharing information within companies of a same sector are respected. This is certainly challenging, but exciting and my previous experience at CSI should be helpful!

To learn more about Building Responsibly, please contact us.

Blog | Tuesday February 28, 2023

How Can Private Equity Invest Responsibly in Public Services?

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“Hospices have become big business for private equity firms.”

“Childcare is in chaos. Private equity is swooping in.”

“Private equity eyes youth treatment centers as a takeover target.”

These are just a few of the recent headlines showing the rise of private equity (PE) investing in public services, such as childcare, at-risk care, and senior care. These services, once only—or most commonly—offered by the government, nonprofit providers, or through a public-private partnership, are now increasingly in the hands of PE. While there can be benefits to private investment, it comes with significant societal, reputational, and regulatory risks with which PE needs to contend.  

How Did We Get Here in the First Place?

One could argue that PE was filling an important void. Government and non-profit providers did not necessarily have the resources to manage these services on their own, so PE could theoretically create economies of scale, innovate broken systems, and achieve good for both society and investors.

In the last decade, however, evidence has shown that private investment is causing more harm than good. Let’s take hospice care. Data shows that for-profit hospices have higher rates of complaints and deficiencies, provide fewer community benefits, and higher rates of ER use. Patients in for-profit hospices were less likely to have received any hospice visits in the last three days of life. The impacts are pervasive—there has been an increase of 286 percent in PE-owned hospice agencies from 2011 to 2019.

Now let’s look at foster care centers. PE-owned centers have records of an increased rate of abuse, forced isolation, and suicide. PE-owned centers often fail to hire employees with adequate licensing, increase workloads of case workers, and underpay employees. This is all while certain PE firms record profit margins of up to 44 percent, a staggering rate for a public service.

And finally, childcare. For-profit childcare is less likely to deliver accessible and equitable services, pay decent wages to staff, or offer affordable parent fees. Furthermore, for-profit centers often carry significant debt, diverting money from operations to debt repayment.

Why should PE care? There are significant evolving risks for PE firms that do not integrate responsible investment in this space:

• Reputational risk: There is an onslaught of attention on PE’s rapid rise of investments in public services, including from the Wall Street Journal, The Guardian, Reuters, and advocacy groups such as the Private Equity Stakeholder Project.
• Regulatory risk: There is an increasing regulatory focus, including efforts to set wage floors for service workers and spending caps for individuals.  In February 2023, the Biden-Harris administration issued a proposed rule that would increase the transparency of nursing home ownership and management.
• Limited partner (LP) risk: Irresponsible investment is directly at odds with ESG and human rights goals and policies that PE firms set, at a time when responsibly minded LPs and other stakeholders are more attuned than ever to social-washing and green-washing.
• Financial risk: There is the risk of financing drying up for PE firms, who often turn to big banks to fund a takeover. In a two-year campaign, faith-based investors advocated against investment in the private prison industry, leading a major US investment bank to announce in March 2019 that it “will no longer bank the private prison industry.”
• Business continuity risk: There is the risk of government contract stoppages. In 2017, the Australian government closed its main offshore immigration detention processing center on Manus Island following allegations of inhumane conditions at the center, operated by a private company.
• Personal risk: PE employees are also individuals living within this system. The rampant rise of private investment affects us all on a personal level when dealing with our own children in PE-owned childcare centers, our own families and communities in at-risk care, and our own parents in PE-owned nursing homes.

Despite the challenges and risks, there is a world where private equity can make a positive impact with its investments, especially in sectors where government and non-profit providers cannot do it alone.

By investing responsibly, PE firms can increase access to care for people that are currently left behind or ignored in the current system, offer reasonably priced care that still allows room for returns, and aligns incentives for both investors and the community.

Here are five ways PE firms can responsibly invest in public services:

1. Establish policies for investment in public services, including consideration for human rights
2. Facilitate engagement with stakeholders and impacted populations
3. Identify and understand impacts on people from current/potential investments
4. Engage with portfolio companies (individually or en masse) to improve policies, practices, etc.
5. Support transparency and credible disclosure

BSR invites PE firms to partner with us when considering responsible private investments. Please contact us to learn more.  

Blog | Thursday February 23, 2023

Inside BSR: Q&A with Renata Greenberg (née Frolova-Hammer)

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Tell us a bit about your background. Where are you from, and where are you based?

I live in Copenhagen with my husband Lars and daughter Sóphia, but I was born in Brest, Belarus, with Siberian Greek and Ukrainian Jewish heritage.

Growing up, I spent most of my time with my grandparents. My Siberian grandma, Claudia, taught me to bake Chinese dumplings and Russian pierogi (traditional baked bread with filling), and my Ukrainian-Jewish grandpa, Semyon, taught me to sing. My other grandpa, Ivan, a Kossak from Volga, was a navy officer and he taught me to fight, and from my maternal grandma, Nadya, I learned to laugh, no matter what happens.

All four of them taught me to value life—three out of four of my grandparents relocated to Belarus after the Second World War, having lost many people they loved to the war and famine. My childhood was very much colored not only by their love but also by their sad memories of the loved people lost, which made me aware of the importance of peace. Today, I am reminded about the importance of peace, democracy, and respect for human rights once again, too close to home and too close to the people I have known and loved throughout my life. The Russian invasion of Ukraine and its effect on the world cut a very deep wound, which shows once again the fragility of sustainable progress and its dependence on a just society, and so I decided to join BSR, and to live my passion 100 percent.

How did you first get involved in sustainable business? How long have you been at BSR? What is your current role, and what does that entail?

I have been working in sustainability since 2010 and started leading BSR’s Nordics practice in August 2022. In my mind, people in BSR have always been associated with some kind of magic—bringing people together around important issues, openly and honestly in a way that sparks collaboration. I think it has always been a love at first sight, but it took me years to summon up the courage and join in! I deeply share the passion for our vision of a just, sustainable and peaceful world.

My current role entails connecting large Nordic companies with their peers around the world by providing access to cross-sector collaborations as well as the latest social and environmental practices and expertise. It is safe to say that my colleagues are an incredible source of inspiration. It’s hard work, because the world is in dire straits and knowing you can help make things better makes it hard to say I have done enough for today, and we are all united by a burning desire to make a lasting, positive difference by working with our members.

What are some interesting projects that you get to work on as part of your role at BSR? What do you enjoy about them? 

I enjoy finding answers to important questions, such as: “How can this company benefit the world through its services and products? Who can they collaborate with? What does a just future for this industry look like? What transformation is called for?” The members we work with are very knowledgeable and discerning, but the challenges are many and often systemic. There is no tunnel vision in sustainability work, and so I love bringing our members together for a good conversation.

We just celebrated BSR’s 30th anniversary with events in New York, Paris, Tokyo, and London. It is a truly rewarding experience to know that some of our members have worked with us for thirty years! At the London BSR event a young poet, Awa Ndiaye, asked us about what it is that each of us “pours into the fire.” It’s a very personal question, but this is what this work is about, and I think that’s what makes it so right for me. 

Blog | Wednesday February 22, 2023

Tech-Driven Insight to Address Labor Exploitation: TAT Launches Third Accelerator

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This month, Tech Against Trafficking (TAT) launched the third iteration of its flagship Accelerator program, partnering with Issara Institute and Polaris Project’s Nonechka program. TAT aims to exponentially accelerate the impact of the promising technology platforms that these organizations have built to address labor exploitation and trafficking.

Launched in 2019, the Tech Against Trafficking Accelerator Program identifies promising uses of technology in the anti-trafficking field and harnesses the expertise and resources of TAT members and advisors to advance and scale these technology solutions that assist victims, law enforcement, business, and civil society.

With rates of forced labor rising around the world, and with a multitude of regulations aimed at addressing these issues, companies are increasingly exploring the use of technology to identify and address forced labor in their supply chains. Along those lines, the thematic focus for this year’s Accelerator will be forced labor, as both Issara Institute and Polaris Project’s Nonechka program aim to eliminate labor exploitation and end labor trafficking through their work.

For the next nine months, the two organizations will work with member companies—Amazon, Google, Meta, Microsoft, and Salesforce—to solve existing challenges and identify new ways to scale their technology platforms.

Building on the Success of TAT’s Previous Work

The 2023 Accelerator builds on the momentum and outcomes of the first two cycles.

• The inaugural Accelerator in 2019 supported the Counter Trafficking Data Collaborative (CTDC) to develop privacy-preserving mechanisms and best practices related to data standardization.
• TAT’s second Accelerator supported the Lantern Project (previously Seattle Against Slavery) and Unseen UK in generating stronger insights from the human trafficking data that they collect, in turn helping the organizations improve operational efficiency and provide more effective services.

Introducing the 2023 Accelerator Cohort

The TAT selection process for the 2023 cohort sought to build on TAT’s prior investment in privacy-preserving mechanisms and pattern recognition methods by identifying anti-trafficking organizations that can leverage these advancements in pursuit of their unique objectives.

Issara Institute and Polaris were chosen in part for their ability to meet this criterion, in addition to bringing new opportunities related to the use of technology to combat trafficking. The rigorous selection process evaluated the impact, scalability, sustainability, interoperability, and effectiveness of the participants’ platforms.

Over the course of the Accelerator, TAT members and advisors will work with Issara Institute and Polaris on several different challenges, ranging from improving long-term technology architecture to improving worker engagement, and leveraging data insights to better understand the experience of those in situations of labor exploitation.

Issara Institute was founded in 2014 with a mission to eliminate labor abuses and exploitation in global supply chains through worker voice, partnership, and innovation. Issara's technology platforms are developed and managed in-house: the Inclusive Labour Monitoring (ILM) system, an online dashboard for business to have ongoing visibility of worker-reported feedback, risk and labor issues, worker validated remediation, and impact, and the Golden Dreams smartphone app, a Yelp-like platform developed in collaboration with jobseekers and foreign migrant workers to empower, reduce vulnerability, and support responsible recruitment. During the Accelerator, Issara Institute will focus on improving its technology architecture and scaling these two solutions to be able to serve more workers, NGOs, and businesses across a wider geography.  

"The Issara team is thrilled to have been selected as a 2023 Tech Against Trafficking Accelerator awardee and to be able to collaborate with leading technology companies. Our organization is entering a pivotal stage of growth and expansion, and being able to have access to the resources, experiences, expertise of this group is truly unparalleled. Together we are going to connect more businesses, governments, conscientious consumers, advocates, academics, and others directly to worker insights, experiences, and needs—at scale and in real-time. And we will be helping so many amazing grassroots NGOs and trade unions in using this tech, being heard, and achieving their own goals as well."

- Lisa Rende Taylor, Executive Director at Issara Institute

Polaris, who runs the US National Human Trafficking hotline, was established in 2002 with a mission to end sex and labor trafficking and to help survivors reclaim their freedom. In partnership with Ulula, Polaris has created a mobile technology platform called Nonechka, a two-way communication tool that connects isolated migrant workers with crucial support networks, and collects information about dynamics of exploitation. Nonechka is primarily used by agricultural workers in the US and Mexico. Over the course of the Accelerator, Polaris will focus on analyzing the data gathered through Nonechka. This analysis will inform prevention efforts and increase accountability.

“We are grateful for the selection of Nonechka for the Accelerator Program. The collaboration with the Tech Against Trafficking team will allow us to unlock the full potential of this tool. This worker-centered technology provides isolated workers with information, and connects them with networks of support. The Accelerator program team will help us to scale our data analysis capacity and break isolation for workers who are at high risk of exploitation.”

- Andrea Rojas, Director of Strategic Initiatives at Polaris

TAT looks forward to sharing the outcomes of this Accelerator with the broader anti-trafficking community in Fall 2023. If you are interested in supporting the program as a volunteer, please fill out the contributor interest form. To discuss other future opportunities with TAT, contact us.

Case Studies | Tuesday February 21, 2023

Developing a Climate Justice Framework

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Introduction

BSR worked with Unilever over six months to provide the company with a deeper understanding of the concept of climate justice and its implications across different communities throughout the value chain, which has served to further ensure people and equity are at the heart of the company’s climate strategy.

The Story of Unilever

With over 400 brands available in over 190 countries across categories like beauty and well-being, personal care, home care, nutrition, and ice cream, Unilever is one of the largest consumer goods companies in the world. Driven by its ambition to be a global leader in sustainable business and the recognition that climate change poses an imminent threat to the environment, society, and businesses worldwide, the company developed a Climate Transition Action Plan. The plan, which sets out Unilever’s targets and actions to reduce emissions across its own operations and supply chains, was backed by over 99 percent of shareholder votes at the company’s May 2021 Annual General Meeting. With a clear mandate and roadmap—including significant brand investments through Unilever’s €1 billion Climate and Nature Fund— the company looked to ensure interconnectivity with its social sustainability programs by understanding how to promote and advance climate justice. Unilever is also a founding member of BSR’s Transform to Net Zero, a cross-sector initiative to accelerate the transition to an inclusive, net-zero global economy.

The Opportunity to Act on Climate Justice  

Climate justice is the recognition that climate change disproportionately impacts some communities over others and exacerbates underlying systemic inequalities. The concept originally emerged as an important nexus between climate change and social justice and has become a key priority for businesses across multiple sectors. This has been a point of focus for discussions at global climate events like COP26 and for the collective work of companies, as seen in business-led collaborations such as Transform to Net Zero.

For Unilever, acting on climate justice helps the company decarbonize its business while creating a fairer, more socially inclusive world, in line with the Unilever Compass Strategy. While the company already had targets in place in these areas, Unilever saw a broader opportunity and imperative to advance climate justice across the business and value chain.

BSR’s Response

To help Unilever understand how to act on climate justice, BSR developed a twofold project approach focused on internal listening and engagement across Unilever’s global operations. First, BSR facilitated an interactive workshop with Unilever employees across functions such as sustainability, supply chain, and responsible sourcing to increase awareness of climate justice and to explore how the concept could be integrated across the company and existing initiatives.

Second, BSR conducted focus group interviews with over 30 Unilever employees across 10 markets (Australia, Brazil, Costa Rica, Ethiopia, India, Indonesia, Nepal, Turkey, United States, and Vietnam). The objective of the focus group discussions was to garner firsthand accounts from colleagues directly affected by the adverse impacts of climate change and to understand how some communities are affected more than others due to underlying systemic inequities and inequalities, such as limited access to healthcare, clean energy, or opportunity to influence local policies. Across the different markets, discussion participants explored how Unilever and its brands can advance climate justice with others by expanding or amplifying existing programs or developing new approaches. The focus groups were supplemented with a short survey to capture additional insights in writing and ensure cultural sensitivity and differing communication preference.

After completing the internal engagement, BSR synthesized key findings and insights, both globally and by country. In addition, BSR developed tailored recommendations to Unilever recognizing the importance of treating climate justice as a context-based issue. Finally, BSR proposed further areas for action including an identification of critical areas, e.g., how Unilever’s supplier engagement, energy procurement, or programs on reforestation and circularity can contribute to reducing or exacerbating existing climate injustices. BSR also recommended engaging and listening to external stakeholders, such as suppliers, communities, and grassroots organizations at the local level, since authentic relationship building on climate justice is based on meaningful social dialogue. Solutions to address climate justice must be led by or co-created with communities most affected to address unique local needs and barriers to climate justice, while leveraging local solutions, context, and competencies.

Impact

Upon completion of the project, Unilever had a strong grasp of how climate justice relates to different sectors and countries, as well as how it connects to Unilever and affects its people. In addition, the project provided the company with a clear understanding of the perspectives, impacts, key issues, and real-life stories of climate change and climate justice—from both a personal and value chain perspective—from people working at Unilever. Finally, the project built the foundation of Unilever’s further work on climate justice. The company now understands how to build on existing efforts, and what overarching issues Unilever is best positioned to address across its value chain, at the company-level, with civil society organizations, and through collaborations such as Transform to Net Zero.

Conclusion

BSR strongly believes that climate justice must be central to any corporate climate commitment or action plan. Unilever’s efforts to understand, integrate, and advance climate justice through internal listening and awareness raising are a critical first step to ensuring full integration into its programs, operations, and supply chains and making a positive impact on stakeholders that are disproportionately affected by climate change.

Get in Touch

To learn more about how BSR works with companies to advance climate justice, contact our Climate team.

Blog | Thursday February 16, 2023

Financing the Net-Zero Transition: Four Ways to Accelerate SME, Supplier, and Customer Action

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Delivering a just and inclusive net-zero economy is one of the major challenges of our times. According to the latest IPCC report, the 1.5°C goal is slipping out of reach, and we know that climate action must accelerate drastically across all sectors and economies.

To date, government action is not sufficient, and as COP27 has shown, business has a major role to play in achieving a net-zero economy. Several major companies have already set targets following a 1.5°C trajectory, which are approved by the Science-Based Target initiative. Achieving these targets requires action, not only within company operations but across value chains globally.

Addressing Barriers to SME Net-Zero Action

SMEs are a key part of global value chains: they account for 99 percent of businesses worldwide and are responsible for a large part of industrial emissions in the OECD area. A typical supply chain depends on thousands of suppliers—both large and small companies are dependent on their suppliers to achieve their Scope 3 goals. SMEs also make up a large portion of client portfolios for financial institutions, particularly commercial banks.

However, SMEs often lack the tools and resources needed to reduce their GHG footprint, and few have long-term emissions reduction or resilience plans in place. A recent survey identifies typical barriers as lack of knowledge, limited time, lack of funds, and conflicting priorities. For example, SMEs are disadvantaged in accessing finance compared to large companies, in part due to high transaction costs. Faced with these barriers, SMEs are at risk of remaining left out of ambitious climate action plans, which impedes progress on achieving a just transition.

Collaborative Innovation Sprint Process

At BSR, we see an untapped opportunity for corporates to leverage their learnings, provide resources and connections to, and reward ambitious action from their SME suppliers. We also see an equally untapped opportunity for banks to raise awareness among SME clients and to reward them, while also innovating financial products toward SME net-zero action.

Support for SMEs is starting to emerge. BSR has partnered with the SME Climate Hub, a free one-stop shop of resources to support climate action. A key feature includes Climate Fit, a training course developed by BSR and CISL for SMEs to get started in taking climate action and building business resilience. BSR members can learn more about the course at this upcoming webinar.

In 2022, BSR and CISL also co-authored a report exploring the role of corporate and banks in supporting SME transition. Developed through an innovative process with a group of banks, companies, experts, and SMEs, it presents four key levers and suggests four possible solutions.

The four levers are as follows:

• Knowledge: collaborating with SME suppliers and customers by facilitating access to resources and learning
• Technology: leveraging technology solutions to ease the SME journey toward action
• Behavior: making decarbonization intuitive and attractive, thus nudging SME suppliers and customers to act
• Business model shift: rethink business process with climate action in mind

Proposed Solutions

Our research suggests that four key solutions would dramatically accelerate SME action if pushed by corporate buyers and banks.

1. A climate readiness classification process: A scalable self-assessment and maturity model would tailor the solution and support the diversity of SME needs. This is fundamental given the varying size, sector, and geography of each SME.
2. A shared repository of data: An independently led repository of Scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions jointly accessible to banks, corporates, and SMEs is a long-shot solution, but it would avoid duplication of reporting efforts and allow SMEs to focus on climate action.
3. Behaviorally informed roadmap: Providing visibility of peer approaches and solutions is an initial way to encourage action.
4. A marketplace to provide service offers, which is thematically clustered: Providing visibility on available services and offerings, in one place, supports faster action.

We see a lot of potential for collaboration on delivering such solutions, including leveraging existing infrastructure such as the SME Climate Hub.

SME action is key to delivering on an inclusive net-zero transition and achieving company Scope 3 goals. We encourage our members to use these findings to support your SME suppliers or customers on their journey to net zero. Learn more about our insights by joining our event on February 21, and contact us if you’re interested in more information on taking collaborative action.

Blog | Wednesday February 8, 2023

Family Medical and Leave Act Turns 30: Five Actions Business Can Take in 2023

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This month, on February 5, 2023, the Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993 (FMLA) turns 30. The FMLA—which guarantees job-protected, unpaid leave to certain workers—was always intended as a first step toward a country that honors and supports all working people, families, and businesses. But decades later, its promise has not yet been fulfilled.

Since 1993, the law has been used more than 460 million times to help working people welcome a new child, care for a spouse or for parental and sick leave. Yet despite its benefits, many—including those in disproportionately low-wage jobs, hourly workers, workers of color, rural workers, immigrants, and others who make our workplaces thrive—are unprotected. Even among workers covered, the fact that the law only guarantees unpaid leave means millions of working adults cannot use the FMLA due to financial risks.

Among the 44 percent of the workforce excluded are people who work for smaller businesses, part-time workers, and any workers with less than 12 months’ tenure. This translates into workers trying to fit healthcare appointments, both routine and significant, on their breaks; children being placed in daycare settings where quality is second to coverage of hours; and frontline workers worrying about ailing loved ones in hospital rooms alone. These gaps can also impact job stability: nearly one in four parents reported last year being fired from their jobs due to the continuing breakdown of child care for their kids.

Access to paid family leave, and expansions of the FMLA, are social justice issues that companies can address internally as well as champion externally.

The US is an outlier when it comes to paid family leave and paid sick or medical leave relative to our economic peers. While most other countries’ laws guarantee paid leave to workers—and multinational companies outside the US are used to doing business within these regulatory landscapes—there is no US equivalent.

Despite the lack of federal requirements for paid family and medical leave, two programs have helped fill the FMLA’s gaps and paved the way for future progress.

First, 11 states and the District of Columbia (DC) have created public programs that guarantee access to paid family and medical leave to all workers. More state programs are on the horizon in 2023 and beyond—and they will help to build additional momentum for a national paid leave program, which a range of communities, including smaller and larger employers, has endorsed. 

Second, private sector innovation has shown the value of paid leave in helping to create healthier and more diverse workforces, with benefits for productivity, retention, and profits. For companies that articulate equity, inclusion, and justice and set goals to achieve gender and racial equity, paid leave is a policy that can help drive positive outcomes.

Despite important business and economic benefits, paid leave leadership is still the exception rather than standard business practice—only 24 percent of private sector workers have dedicated paid family leave at their jobs.

Business can become paid leave leaders by taking the following five actions in 2023:

1. Adopt comprehensive paid family and medical leave programs. Make programs meaningful in terms of duration. Offer a flexible process for returning to work. Make the program reflective of new parents and all workers with caregiving responsibilities. There are examples of great corporate leadership to draw from.
2. Ensure paid leave are provided to all workers, regardless of job, and with minimal tenure requirements. Take a proactive approach to closing the gaps between professional and hourly workers, full-time and part-time workers, and new employees. If a substantial part of your business includes contractors, ensure they have the same policies as your own.
3. Encourage workers to use the policy. Manager training is an essential precondition to the success and utility of your policy, but so is storytelling—from workers and managers, from your employees’ family members, and from company leadership. When leaders can set an example by taking leave of their own, they should do it and talk about it.
4. Measure and report publicly on the impact of your policy. Add to the data about effective paid leave programs, and help answer the questions of other companies looking at new policies, by measuring the relationship between paid leave and retention, advancement, employee health, healthcare costs, and more. Help other companies and policymakers understand the costs and benefits of paid leave by tracking and reporting on the costs and multiple measures of value you see with your newly implemented policy.
5. Advocate for public policies. Officeholders take business leaders’ views with great weight. Help them understand the value, lead on paid leave for everyone, and help dispel preconceptions they might have about business opposition to national paid leave programs.

In addition, be a leader for change within the trade associations you belong to. Don’t let them talk about the value of gender and racial equity and the importance of a strong and diverse workforce while opposing public policies that would help to achieve these goals.

By becoming a paid leave leader, you’ll join other corporate and business leaders on advocating for social justice issues, setting the country on a better path for all.

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

Resources to Help Your Company Become a Paid Leave Leader:

Paid Family Leave: Why It’s Essential and How to Design An Effective Policy (ADP)

Designing Equitable and Effective Workplaces for A "Corona-normal" Future of Work (Better Life Lab at New America)

Partnership in Action: An Employer Guide to Building Gender Equity in the Workplace (National Partnership for Women & Families)

9to5 Newsline (9to5 National Membership Organization)

People

Leng Leng Chancey

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People

Vicki Shabo

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Vicki Shabo is a gender equity expert, policy advocate and coalition builder, who has helped to win paid leave, paid sick time, equal pay and pregnancy fairness policies affecting tens of millions of people. For more than a decade, she has been at the forefront of the campaign to win a national paid family and medical leave program.

Learn more about Vicki here.

People

Celine Suarez

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Celine M. Suarez is a Managing Director and Head of Sustainable Finance for the Morgan Stanley Institutional Securities Group (ISG). She brings 20+ years’ experience in sustainability and sustainable finance to the ISG management team. In this role she partners with the investment banking, capital markets, equities and fixed income businesses to drive a cohesive, strategic effort to support clients on ESG themes and sustainable finance activities. She joined the Firm in 2015 and prior to her current role, Celine spent seven years in the Global Sustainable Finance Group, most recently as the Head of Corporate Sustainability and Reporting for the Firm.

Before Morgan Stanley, Celine was a senior consultant at leading boutique sustainability and CSR advisory firms, where she advised major global companies on sustainability strategies. In the first decade of her career, Celine was a buy-side ESG analyst. Formerly, Celine was an adjunct professor and taught a Master’s level Corporate Sustainability course at NYU. She currently is on the Board of Directors for the nonprofit Living Cities, focused on closing racial income and wealth gaps in American cities. She holds an MS in Sustainable Environmental Systems from the Pratt Institute and a BS in Earth System Science from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.