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Blog | Tuesday June 12, 2018

The US$660 Billion Sustainable Supply Chain Finance Opportunity

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Today, businesses have an opportunity to shift how they are implementing their sustainability commitments in their supply chains. Global buyers—major international companies—are increasingly looking for ways to not just to enforce compliance and punish poor performers, but to reward and incentivize their suppliers to adopt sustainable and responsible behaviors.

Our new report, Win-Win-Win: The Sustainable Supply Chain Finance Opportunity, shows how supply chain and trade finance mechanisms can be leveraged to create tangible cash incentives for suppliers, drive sustainable behaviors, and transform global supply chains. This is a significant opportunity for buyers, suppliers, and financial service providers.

There are currently only a handful of public examples of global buyers and finance providers that have implemented sustainable supply chain finance programs; see the description of efforts by Puma and Levi Strauss & Co. in our report to learn more about these. Our research and interviews, however, demonstrate that there is a strong will to do more and show that some key trends, such as the digitalization of trade and the growing availability of supplier sustainability performance data, are converging to create an environment where sustainable supply chain finance can thrive.

We invite leading companies across sectors to explore this untapped opportunity to scale and advance successful models. In particular, we have identified three promising mechanisms to do so:

• Through a sustainable payables finance program, buyers can provide fair payment terms to suppliers while rewarding and providing tangible benefits, such as better discount rates, to suppliers who demonstrate strong environmental, social, and governance (ESG) performance or commit to improve.
• Sustainable trade loans can be used to support and incentivize the trade of goods that have clear environmental and social benefits, for example Rainforest Alliance or Fairtrade certified crops.
• Applying smart contract solutions, based on blockchain technology, can make transactions traceable, transparent, and irreversible—key tenets of a sustainable supply chain.

With US$2 trillion in financeable highly secure payables globally, supply chain finance is a US$20 billion revenue opportunity for banks according to McKinsey, offering an unrealized opportunity to improve supply chains while also achieving sustainability goals. Specifically, incorporating sustainability into supply chain finance can provide both business and sustainability benefits to buyers, suppliers, and banks.

• For buyers, sustainable supply chain finance offers a unique solution to achieve sustainable sourcing goals, increase security of supply, and improve relationships with suppliers by rewarding and incentivizing sustainable behaviors in the supply chain, at reasonable direct cost to the company, if any.
• For suppliers, sustainable supply chain finance can provide access to working capital, stronger relationships with customers, and the ability to quantify the value of sustainability efforts.
• For banks, BSR estimates that, in time, the sustainable supply finance market will reach one third of the market, or US$660 billion, representing a US$6 billion revenue opportunity for financial service providers.

At BSR, we want companies and their finance partners to leverage supply chain finance in support of responsible and sustainable supply chains, and we’re excited to launch a conversation and action in this direction.

Join us on June 21 in New York City at our report launch event, where we will demystify supply chain finance mechanisms, explore sustainable supply chain finance solutions, and catalyze action together with global buyers, trade finance providers, and other relevant actors.

The report Win-Win-Win: The Sustainable Supply Chain Finance Opportunity was funded by Humanity United.

Reports | Tuesday June 12, 2018

Win-Win-Win: The Sustainable Supply Chain Finance Opportunity

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Why Read This?

Leveraging supply chain finance mechanisms to incentivize sustainable behaviors in global supply chains is an opportunity for businesses and for sustainability. Embedding sustainability factors into the widespread and growing practice of supply chain finance assigns value to supply chain sustainability programs, provides tangible incentives to suppliers and their buyers, and has the potential to open new markets to banks and transform supply chains.

Companies around the world have recognized that the sustainability challenges within their supply chains are a risk and an opportunity to be managed. As such, it has become normal practice for companies to have programs in place to manage the environmental, social, and governance (ESG) risks in their supply chains. Most reputable global companies have supply chain sustainability programs in place to assess and manage the human rights, labor, governance, environmental, and other risks of their suppliers. These programs are largely based on risk management activities such as supplier assessments and audits.

However, after more than 25 years of corporate supply chain sustainability programs in action, environmental, human rights, and governance issues are still pervasive in global supply chains. There is an opportunity to do more to drive better performance among suppliers, not only at the first tier, but also at tiers deeper in the supply chain.

Why Now?

Sustainable supply chain finance is defined as supply chain finance practices and techniques that support trade transactions, in a manner that minimizes negative impacts and creates environmental, social, and economic benefits for all stakeholders involved in bringing products and services to markets.

There are five main reasons why sustainable supply chain finance is a strong opportunity today:

1. Supply chain finance is a fast-growing market, with about 20 percent expansion annually.
2. Supply chain finance is becoming digital; moving away from a traditionally paper-based process offers potential for innovation.
3. Companies need working capital, and cash optimization is a tangible incentive for both buyers and suppliers.
4. While supplier sustainability performance data is still not perfect, it is getting more and more quantifiable and readily available.
5. Financial service providers offer solutions that can integrate sustainability data.

The Opportunity

Most companies are not yet putting in place sustainable supply chain finance programs, and banks are not yet readily offering these services. However, buying companies, supplying companies, and financial services can explore and maximize this opportunity in different ways.

Blog | Monday June 11, 2018

A New Tool to Assess the Impact of Your Healthy Business Journey

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What do flu vaccination rates, greenhouse gas emissions, and crime and homicide statistics have in common? These are but a few examples of the metrics that companies are monitoring to assess the health of their employees, their customers, and the communities where they live.

The Healthy Business Coalition is a collaborative initiative among BSR, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and leading companies that are dedicated to realizing the promise of the private sector’s ability to improve population health. The Coalition was founded on the principle that health is not just for healthcare companies; all companies, regardless of industry, have the potential to become healthy businesses. Today, we are excited to announce that we have created a new addition to our suite of tools to help companies transform their organizations into healthy businesses: the Healthy Business Metrics Guide.

For us, a “healthy business” is one with a management approach that seeks to create value and optimize performance by improving the health of consumers, employees, and communities. Our current set of tools helps companies chart the path for their healthy business journeys. Specifically, these tools help business leaders:

• Make the business case for establishing healthy business programs and initiatives;
• Prioritize the health issues that their companies should address;
• Design innovative solutions, including products and services, that support health outcomes; and
• Engage internal and external stakeholders who may be able to positively influence and enhance the success of their companies’ healthy business missions.

In the immortal words of Peter Drucker, “What gets measured gets managed.” Our new addition to the Healthy Business Toolkit is designed to help companies measure the impact of their healthy business programs. Our Healthy Business Metrics Guide can be leveraged by business leaders to pick and choose relevant outcome and impact metrics (and associated key performance indicators) that will help them assess how effectively their company is executing on its healthy business strategy.

When it comes to healthy business programs, trying to measure both business-related and public-health-related outcomes can be a challenge. We sought to harmonize prominent public health measurement frameworks, sustainability reporting frameworks, and other corporate reporting frameworks.

After reviewing 14 frameworks and more than 850 metrics and engaging several business and public health experts, we have developed a user-friendly measurement framework that seeks to help corporate practitioners monitor not only the direct health impacts of healthy business initiatives, but also the upstream social determinants of health that have indirect impacts on employees, customers, and communities. The framework takes a broad and holistic approach to health, while also attempting to focus on a core set of metrics that are relevant to the widest swath of industries and geographies in the U.S.

This is only the beginning. As a coalition of business leaders, we understand the power of iterative innovation and collaboration. We invite you to join us on the next BSR Sustainability Matters webinar on June 13, where we will present the Guide and facilitate a discussion on how it can be used and implemented within a company.

We would also love for you to join us in the Healthy Business Coalition, where we grapple with these issues as a group of practitioners and internal champions who endeavor to make our companies healthier and more sustainable. Thanks to the generosity of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, membership to the Coalition is free of charge, as is access to the downloadable toolkit.

Once you download the tool, please reach out to us to tell us about your experience and share your thoughts about how it can be enhanced. It is our sincere hope that this expanded toolkit will be your map, compass, and pedometer on your way to achieving your healthy business vision.

We are excited to hear from you and join you on your healthy business journey.

Blog | Thursday June 7, 2018

The Global Climate Action Summit: How Business Can Turn Up Climate Ambition

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The Global Climate Action Summit is taking place September 12-14, 2018, in San Francisco, California. The theme? "Taking Ambition to the Next Level." This will be a moment to celebrate the extraordinary achievements of states, regions, cities, companies, investors, and citizens with respect to climate action and to ensure that we don’t stop here, but instead commit to continued effort and ambition in this space.

To keep warming well below 2 degrees C, and ideally below 1.5 degrees C—temperatures that could lead to catastrophic consequences—worldwide greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions must start trending down by 2020. The Summit will showcase climate action around the world, along with bold new commitments, to give world leaders confidence they can go even further by 2020 in support of the Paris Climate Agreement.

Our President and CEO Aron Cramer serves on the Summit Advisory Committee and is working closely with the We Mean Business coalition to galvanize new climate commitments from business and highlight the most ambitious of announcements on a plenary stage that will reach an in-person audience of 4,500. We are working closely with our partners to support Summit program development around five headline challenges: 1) Healthy Energy Systems; 2) Inclusive Economic Growth; 3) Sustainable Communities; 4) Land and Ocean Stewardship; and 5) Transformative Climate Investments.

The private sector has a significant role to play in ratcheting up ambition, which can lead directly to reduced risk of climate disruption, as well as more resilient enterprises. In addition, this sends a powerful signal to peers and national governments that emissions reductions can be achieved with innovative and replicable solutions, and that policy frameworks can create the right incentives for action.

So how can your company get involved, contributing to the both the Summit this fall and the greater goal of preserving our earth and a promoting a thriving economy?

Here are the main ways businesses can engage:

1. Announce a public commitment

All companies can contribute to demonstrating the private sector’s combined impact by making a commitment to any of the following campaigns:

• Commit to set a science-based target to reduce your GHG emissions in line with limiting the global temperature increase to below 2 degrees C.
• Commit to source 100 percent renewable power for your operations through RE100.
• Commit to build zero emissions vehicle fleets to promote electric transport through EV100.
• Commit to achieve greater energy productivity through EP100.
• Commit to own, manage, rent, or develop buildings that are net-zero carbon in operation through the Towards Zero Emissions Building Initiative.
• Commit to establish a climate-resilient supply chain.
• Commit to mobilize funds for climate action.
• Commit to support a just transition to a clean energy economy that protects human rights.
• Commit to disclose climate performance on an annual basis.

Do you have a commitment that goes beyond any of these existing campaigns? Let us know!

2. Speak at the Summit

The formal Summit program will feature plenaries and a range of high-level sessions focusing on the five challenges and complementary themes, such as gender and equity. Speaker invitations will be issued by the Summit Co-Chairs, and CEOs of companies making high-ambition climate action commitments may be invited to speak.

3. Organize or join a side event

Beyond the formal Summit program, hundreds of affiliated events will take place during the week of September 10 throughout the San Francisco Bay Area. Organized by a range of companies, NGOs, and governments, these events create additional arenas for exploring climate challenges and solutions that complement Summit activities.

4. Spread the word

Help spread the word about the Summit, the need for increased climate ambition, and your commitment to address climate change. Follow the Summit @GCAS2018 on Twitter and promote climate action and solutions using the #GCAS2018 and #StepUp2018 hashtags.

5. Sponsor the Summit

Sponsorship opportunities offer a range of benefits, including the opportunity to lift up sustainability commitments and to attend invitation-only Summit and affinity events.

BSR is working closely with the Summit team, and we will be conveying invitations to our members this month. We hope you join us in San Francisco this September, as our collective efforts must lead to a turning point by 2020 in order to prevent the worst effects of climate change.

For more information on the Summit, visit the Frequently Asked Questions page. If you have any questions about how to work with BSR to make sure your climate commitments are included in the business contribution to climate action, please contact us.

Blog | Wednesday June 6, 2018

Two Ways Responsible Investors Can Promote Inclusive Growth

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A 2015 survey of millennials around the world found that growing economic and social inequalities were their top concern. And it isn’t only millennials: The JUST Capital Roadmap for Corporate America has found for three years in a row that the number one public concern of corporate behavior of persons of all ages, income levels, and political parties is worker treatment, including fair wages and non-discrimination.

Rising social and economic inequalities have consistently been ranked among the top systemic global risks in the annual WEF Global Risk Index. In fact, growing inequalities have been linked to social issues from higher rates of cancer to higher rates of joining terrorist groups.

Inclusive growth is growth that reduces, rather than exacerbates, these inequalities. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) defines it as, “economic growth that creates opportunity for all segments of the population and distributes the dividends of increased prosperity, both in monetary and non-monetary terms, fairly across society.” The degree to which growth is inclusive has direct effects on a business, including by increasing the purchasing power of its consumers, increasing its potential employee base, and providing a stable operating environment for its operations.

Deloitte found in a recent survey that a majority of business leaders are supportive of changing their corporate practices to foster more inclusive growth. They believe this can feed innovation, strengthen resilience, and contribute overall to their competitiveness. However, the largest barrier business leaders say they face is a perceived lack of support from investors.

The investment community is interested in being part of the solution. We’ll be discussing what this can look like at the RI Europe 2018 conference in London this week.

How can responsible investors help foster inclusive growth?

1. Create and Collect Metrics on Inequality 

One of the most challenging aspects of this for investors is a lack of clear definitions and metrics on which business actions contribute to inclusive growth. To date, responsible investors have focused on rising inequalities by measuring CEO-average worker pay ratios. While they are an important indicator, they are only one aspect of this multidimensional problem.

The Morgan Stanley Institute for Sustainable Investing, together with BSR, developed a comprehensive framework to map business actions that drive inclusive growth. In our research, we found that nearly every department inside a company makes choices that can impact inclusive growth. These include decisions in human resources like whether internships are paid; whether or not to pay contingent workers living wages with benefits, job security, and paid training; and how to remove bias in hiring and promotion algorithms. Yet how companies price their products and how companies engage more broadly with society through advertising, tax practices, and lobbying efforts on issues like the minimum wage, paid leave, tax, and immigration are also a part of the picture that needs to be assessed.

Investors can leverage this framework, and they can also advocate for more comprehensive collection of inclusive growth metrics and universal data collection approaches, such as the Social and Human Capital Protocol. They can encourage their portfolio companies to disclose their human capital activities through signing the Workforce Disclosure Initiative and supporting broader disclosure of public policy advocacy efforts.

2. Participate in Building a Global Action Agenda on Inclusive Growth

Meaningful progress on a global challenge like inclusive growth will require collaboration by stakeholders across society, including investors.

The climate change movement in the run-up to the adoption of the Paris Agreement serves as a successful model for how this coordinated action can be achieved. Specifically, the international climate consensus was possible thanks to the articulation of leaders to inspire coordinated action and commitment. Investors played a role not only in encouraging action in the run-up to the negotiations, but also in encouraging countries to continue to drive implementation since adoption.

Discussions are beginning to take place at the multilateral level on how to tackle the challenges of growing inequalities, and the investor voice will be important in these conversations. One way that investors can participate is through the OECD Business Leaders for Inclusive Growth project, which aims to align private and public sector efforts to achieve inclusive growth.

Achieving and sustaining inclusive growth is both a significant challenge and an opportunity for all of us, and investors can play a huge role in our collective solution. If you’re interested in learning more about how to collaborate with BSR on this topic, please contact us.

Blog | Friday June 1, 2018

Where BSR Will Be in June 2018

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BSR staff are on the move at sustainability-related events around the world this month. From our own “Redefining Sustainable Business” event series to Sustainable Brands, the BBB Forum, and Devex World, here are the events we’ll host, attend, and speak at this June.

What We’ll Host

• June 6: BSR will hold a members-only webinar on how artificial intelligence is delivering new insight and foresight on trends, stakeholders, and issues that can help companies enhance decision-making and build trust. Sustainability Management Managing Director Alison Taylor will speak.
• June 7: The HERproject team will host the second Brand Convening of 2018 in Hong Kong. HERproject Director Christine Svarer, Manager Cherry Lin, and Manager Marat Yu will speak.
• June 13: The Healthy Business Coalition will host a Sustainability Matters webinar on how companies can track and scale healthy business programs. Senior Vice President Laura Gitman will speak.
• June 21: BSR will host the first event of our invitation-only “Redefining Sustainable Business” series on business and the 21st-century social contract in New York. President and CEO Aron Cramer and Sustainable Futures Lab Director Jacob Park will speak.
• June 21: Managing Director Tara Norton and Manager Charlotte Bancilhon will host a half-day convening in New York about how embedding environmental, labor, and human rights considerations into supply chain finance mechanisms can help achieve business and sustainability goals.
• June 28: Information and Communications Technology Associate Director Michael Rohwer and Manager Kelly Gallo will host our San Francisco “Redefining Sustainable Business” event on the future of sustainable business in the Bay Area.

Where We’ll Be

• June 1: Managing Director Elisa Niemtzow will attend the 1.618 Sustainable Luxury Biennale in Paris.
• June 4: Rohwer, Manager Nate Springer, and Manager Berkley Rothmeier will attend Sustainable Brands 2018 in Vancouver. Springer will speak in the session "Science-Based Targets: Lessons from Retailers for Retailers."
• June 4-5: Cramer will attend the BSR board meeting in Paris.
• June 5: Maritime Anti-Corruption Network (MACN) Program Director Cecilia Müller Torbrand will present a paper on maritime corruption to the International Maritime Organisation in London.
• June 5-6: Taylor will attend RI Europe 2018 in London.  
• June 6: Associate Director Giulio Berruti will attend the launch event of the RE-Source platform and IRENA's Global Reference Index for Corporate Sourcing of Renewable Energy in Brussels.
• June 7: Manager Margaux Yost will moderate the panel “Gender and Workplace Safety in the Supply Chain” at IDH4Gender in Nairobi.
• June 11: Norton will be the keynote speaker at the Austrian Federal Ministry for Digital and Economic Affairs discussion forum, “Digitization and Responsibility in Global Supply Chains” in Vienna.
• June 12: Gitman will moderate a panel of sustainability leaders at the BBB Forum on Corporate Responsibility in New York.
• June 12: Director Angie Farrag-Thibault will facilitate an Airlines, Shippers, and Forwarders meeting organized by BSR in Düsseldorf. Berruti, Springer, and Associate Gareth Scheerder will participate in the event.
• June 12: Associate Director Cecile Oger and Manager Byron Austin will host the Healthcare Working Group in-person spring meeting in our Paris office. 
• June 12-13: Associate Léa Farnier will attend the ADEME Climate meeting in Paris. 
• June 12-13: Manager Magali Barraja will speak on the panel “Bridging the Gap—Getting the Business Benefits of Gender Equality” at the amfori Unleash Opportunity annual conference in Amsterdam. Manager Cliodhnagh Conlon will attend.
• June 13: Manager Mark Williams will join as a special guest panelist in an online stakeholder forum focused on SDG 8 hosted by GlobeScan.
• June 13-15: Farrag-Thibault, Berruti, Springer, and Scheerder will facilitate the Clean Cargo Working Group (CCWG) members meeting in Bonn, Germany. 
• June 14-15: Cramer will attend a meeting of the Global Climate Action Summit Advisory Committee in New York.
• June 18-23: Director David Wei and Manager Samantha Harris will attend the Adaptation Futures Conference in Cape Town, South Africa. Harris will present BSR’s research on private-sector climate risk and resilience.
• June 19-20: Berruti will attend the event “How Business Can Measure the Impact—and ROI—of Corporate Sustainability” in London.
• June 20-21: Farrag-Thibault, Human Rights Director Peter Nestor, and Associate Michaela Lee will facilitate the Building Responsibly members meeting and stakeholder convening in London.
• June 21: Associate Director Karlyn Adams will speak on behalf of Green Freight Asia on sustainable logistics as competitive advantage at the International Smart Logistics and Supply Chain Congress in Singapore.
• June 21: Director Jeffrey Crawford will attend Devex World 2018 in Washington, D.C.
• June 25: Farrag-Thibault will participate in the Transforming Heavy Transport workshop at WBCSD in Geneva.
• June 26-27: Manager Ouida Chichester will speak on a panel on “Solutions to Women’s Employment in Extractives” at the World Bank’s Gender and Oil, Gas and Mining: New Frontiers of Progress, Challenges and Solutions conference in Washington, D.C.
• June 29: Müller Torbrand will attend the SeaTrade Awards ceremony in London; both MACN and CCWG have been nominated for the CSR award.

Blog | Thursday May 31, 2018

Scaling a Renewable Future for Internet Power

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Almost every business today—from tech to financial services and media to retail and healthcare—relies on online services and data. As more and more companies look to cloud services to support their digital needs, the internet’s energy demands will likely only continue to grow.  

This means internet use could jeopardize the planet if we do not take action. We cannot hope to create a climate-compatible internet without addressing its overall footprint, which includes data centers as well as the transmission, equipment, and code that make them work. Moreover, we cannot reach the ambitious objectives of the Paris Agreement without bringing the leading companies whose data use drives this energy demand into this conversation. That is one reason we founded the Future of Internet Power collaborative initiative in 2012—because in order to create an internet powered 100 percent by renewable energy, we need to work together.

In 2014, it was estimated that data centers consumed two to three percent of global energy use. While breakthroughs in efficiency and cloud technology have the potential to limit energy demand associated with data centers to a moderate increase by 2020, global estimates of data center demand in 2030 anticipate an increase of three to 10 times current levels, including projections that global data center electricity demand alone could reach 13 percent of global electricity consumption.

Telecommunications and wireless networks consume tremendous amounts of energy, although many of these companies have made ambitious commitments to reduce their emissions. To put the energy demand of these networks into context, the annual total reported energy use of AT&T in 2017 was more than twice that of Google.

The manufacturing of the equipment that makes the internet work, like servers, is also a major source of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions that some companies are looking to reduce. Hewlett Packard Enterprise, for example, has responded to this by committing to set science-based targets for its suppliers that will avoid 100 million tons of GHGs by 2025.

We know that code and software engineering could do much more to reduce environmental impact, too. Studies suggest that as much as 60 percent of code is written without green or energy efficiency principles in mind.

The Future of Internet Power has made great progress over the past five years:

• We have grown to include more than 20 companies in our community, which has made great strides in building common values, goals, and tools to realize those values and achieve our goals. These companies include not only ICT companies, but also data centers, financial institutions, and online retailers.
• We launched the Corporate Colocation and Cloud Buyers’ Principles, which set out six criteria that customers of data center colocation and cloud services expect of their data center service providers.
  • To put these principles into action, we created a toolkit to give companies a step-by-step guide to engaging with their cloud and colo providers on each principle.
• We have worked closely with the World Resources Institute (WRI) to produce a white paper addressing the issue of GHG emissions accounting, renewable energy procurement, and reporting in the data center sector
  • This work led to the creation of a template for customers and providers to use to guide them on the documentation that could support verification of zero carbon claims, which marks a step toward greater consistency in this sector.
• We continue work closely with our co-founders of the Renewable Energy Buyers’ Alliance (REBA): Rocky Mountain Institute’s Business Renewables Center, the World Wildlife Fund, and WRI.
  • Last year, REBA was awarded the Corporate Eco Forum’s C.K. Prahalad Award for demonstrating how collaboration is critical to widespread adoption of renewable energy.

While we are excited about the work we have done to equip companies to leverage renewable energy to power their data and internet use, this is a complex and complicated industry. Over the next month, we will be determining what comes next. We are excited to create a new and ambitious mission that drives us closer to a new definition of a sustainable internet. We see a real need to ratchet up our impact, enable greater transparency, and integrate climate considerations into companies’ data plans.

One thing is clear: The current group of companies tacking this problem needs your help. Almost every company will need a new blueprint to increase the climate-compatibility of its internet use. Our next step for the Future of Internet Power is to create that blueprint.

Now is the time for more of you to join us at this table—because changing how tech and data are powered not only helps individual companies in the space reach their environmental goals; it also lays a foundation for the organizations that use their products and services to be a part of the solution.

If you’d like to learn more about the Future of Internet Power and our efforts to create a more sustainable internet, I’ll be at Sustainable Brands in Vancouver next week and would love to continue the conversation.

Blog | Monday May 28, 2018

How Health Training Changed Social Norms in Himalayan Villages

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Today, May 28, is Menstrual Hygiene Day. BSR recently visited Himalayan villages in Uttarakhand, Northern India, where a community-based version of HERproject has helped women take charge of their health by addressing the social stigmas surrounding menstruation.

Menstrual Hygiene Day was first celebrated in 2014 to raise awareness of the challenges women and girls face due to menstruation. In the villages we visited in Northern India, women face a monthly struggle to stay healthy and maintain personal hygiene during menstruation, as well as to access affordable and readily available menstrual hygiene products. Amplifying that struggle, menstruation remains surrounded by strong social norms, taboos, and stigmas.

Menstrual hygiene is one of the key components of HERhealth, the health pillar of BSR’s flagship workplace program HERproject. In partnership with VillageWays Charitable Trust, and with the support of ANN INC. and later Good Earth, we adapted HERhealth to the community context to serve villages in Northern India during 2015 and 2016.

When we visited, representatives from the local NGO VillageWays Charitable Trust explained that social norm structures that consider menstruation as unclean and impure are especially strong in Himalayan mountain regions. A custom called alag hona (translated as “to separate”) is still widely practiced. Under this custom, women are separated from their communities and families during their menstruation, and they are expected to refrain from cooking and bathing in the same areas as the rest of their families. Adolescent girls must stay home from school. It common practice for women to stay in outhouses with the cows, buffalo, and other farm animals for two to three days when they are bleeding, instead of staying in the house with their families.

In addition, in many villages women do not have access to sanitary pads or other forms of modern menstrual hygiene products. Instead, they will go without any menstrual protection. These practices are socially enforced during a time when it is critical for women to stay clean, eat healthy, and be able to rest properly.

Over a period of 18 months, women from the villages were trained in nutrition, as well as personal and menstrual hygiene, as part of the health trainings. These women were in turn responsible for reaching and educating 10 families each. They walked for hours a day to teach others in the remote villages of their valleys.

The program has subsequently been scaled up to 12 villages, and it is currently being expanded to 25 villages in another neighboring valley, aiming to reach over 7,000 people total. Recently, BSR visited Supi, which is one of the villages where health training was provided—and also one of the villages where the practice of alag hona used to be an everyday reality for women.

Geeta, a peer health educator, told us, “Before the training, I had no idea that during the menstrual period, one should use a sanitary pad or take a bath. Previously I didn’t use anything and didn’t have anything to use either.”

She went on to say, “During my period, I used to stay in the outhouse with the cows for two to three days while I was bleeding.” Geeta is married and has two children, a boy and a girl. She gets shy when asked questions about the reaction of others to the information about menstrual practices. But she is determined to tell her story, and she walked up from her village to meet with us.

“After the training, there has been a lot of change. Now I use a sanitary pad, which I can buy in the store. I stay in the house with my family during my menstruation period. Girls can go to school now, during their periods. It has been a big change,” she said. Geeta’s story is reinforced by those of dozens of women that we met during our stay.

Over only a few years, the social norms around alag hona have changed, thanks to the dissemination of health knowledge, paired with close collaboration with village leaders, communities, and schools, as well as targeted activities to enhance access to menstrual hygiene products. The peer health educators we met attribute the success of the program not only to the persistent work of VillageWays Charitable Trust, but also the strength of the peer education model. When you receive health information from a woman from your own community, they told us, you know that she understands you, your family, and your daily struggles. That is why you will trust her, and you will be open to change.

Blog | Tuesday May 22, 2018

A Map to Help Business Collaborate with Anti-Slavery Organizations

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The 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that "no one should be held in slavery or servitude” and “slavery in all its forms should be eliminated." Yet unfortunately modern slavery—most clearly embodied in forced labor and sex trafficking—remains both widespread and difficult to combat today. In 2016 alone, more than 40 million people were victims of these crimes.

For business, there is both a moral and legal imperative to tackle modern slavery. As the number of legislative initiatives around this issue have increased, initiatives and collaborations to help business address human trafficking and modern slavery have multiplied. While the recent proliferation of organizations addressing this problem is encouraging, it also poses a problem for companies: How should you find the most relevant partners to work with or collaborations to join?

To answer this question, the Global Business Coalition Against Human Trafficking (GBCAT) partnered with the United Nations Global Compact and the RESPECT Initiative (comprised of the Global Initiative, Babson College's Initiative on Human Trafficking and Modern Slavery, and IOM) to develop an online, interactive mapping of organizations and initiatives tackling modern slavery. Today, we are pleased to launch this major new platform, supported by the ILO Global Business Network on Forced Labour and Human Trafficking and Alliance 8.7.

This interactive map of anti-human trafficking organizations responds to frequent requests from companies for help navigating the constellation of modern slavery initiatives. Drawing from a database of over 100 organizations, the map allows the user to filter organizations by type (initiative, NGO, foundation); issue (e.g. child labor, forced labor, recruitment); geography; and industry. These filters can be combined to help the user narrow down the list of organizations even further. The database will be updated on an ongoing basis and will remain open to all as a free resource.

Recent legislative developments, such as the passage of the U.K. Modern Slavery Act in 2015, mean that it is no longer enough for companies to respond reactively or to isolated reports of slavery or forced labor in supply chains. Businesses must have processes in place to proactively identify and address modern slavery across their operations. 

We encourage companies to make use of this map from the earliest stages of your efforts to tackle modern slavery. By working with the organizations most clearly focused on specific crimes, industries, and geographies of relevance to your business, you can focus your efforts on the most relevant topics where you can have the greatest potential impact. Previously, many hours of manual research would have been required to narrow down the list of potential groups to work with; now, verified information about the most relevant partners can be found with a few simple clicks.

The collaboration between four major organizations to develop this resource stems from a desire to prevent overlap and duplication. We recognize and commend the surge in efforts to help business address this horrific crime. However, as with other issues, there is a risk of fragmentation leading to confusion. This is a first step to greater coordination and cooperation across a constellation of partners. We also hope that this mapping may serve as a model for other areas of the human rights or sustainability landscapes that may contend with similar proliferations of initiatives.

Finally, while we are proud to be launching this resource, we recognize that this is a small step on the road to eliminating human trafficking and modern slavery. Behind this high-level map is a huge, on-the-ground network of extraordinary and committed individuals who spend their days fighting modern slavery. We would like to acknowledge their courage and pledge to support them in their efforts.

For more information, please reach out or visit the GBCAT website.

Blog | Thursday May 17, 2018

How Business Can Help Close the Financial Inclusion Gender Gap: 2017 Global Findex Takeaways

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In April 2018, the World Bank released the latest results of the Global Findex database, the most comprehensive resource to understand how adults use financial services to save, borrow, and protect themselves against economic shocks. The report showed a remarkable progress toward financial inclusion: Today, 69 percent of the global adult population has a formal account—whether with a bank or a mobile money provider—compared to only 51 percent in 2014. The data also points to an increase in the number of women who own an account: from 58 percent in 2014 to 65 percent in 2017, which means more women can make day-to-day transactions, invest in a business, safeguard their savings, and plan for their futures.

However, despite these achievements, the global financial inclusion gender gap in developing countries remains. Our key takeaway of the 2017 Global Findex is that the private sector can play a key role in helping close the financial inclusion gender gap by supporting greater account ownership and usage among the women who make up the majority of workers in their supply chains.

On average, the financial inclusion gender gap today is 9 percentage points in developing countries, which is the same as seven years ago. In some countries, such as Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Turkey, the gap is even higher—close to 30 percentage points. Overall, in developing economies, only 59 percent of women own an account and only 18 percent of them are saving at formal financial institutions, compared to 67 percent and 24 percent of men, respectively.  

This gap persists because women are more likely to have lower literacy and digital literacy rates, lack the required documentation to open accounts, and are less likely than men to own a mobile phone or have internet access. In addition, pervasive gender norms still discourage women from accessing and using financial products and services.

It’s time for the private sector to step up to help address this. One key lever is for companies that source from developing countries to invest in women workers in their supply chains by providing financial literacy training, connecting them with available services, and focusing on confidence-building to encourage women to take control of their finances. In addition, global brands can support their suppliers to make the switch from cash to electronic payroll.

Brands can use their influence and relationships with their suppliers to improve the financial inclusion of women workers. There are 230 million unbanked workers in the private sector who are still being paid in cash. Moreover, 20 percent of account owners reported having an inactive account. This data points to the need for providing not only access to bank accounts but also for supporting active usage. Digitizing wages in industries that primarily employ women, such as the footwear, textile, and garment industries, and using the workplace to provide women with the tools to take control of their finances can significantly contribute to addressing this.

In 2013, BSR launched HERfinance, an initiative to ensure that the poor—particularly women—have the proper knowledge, skills, and attitudes toward financial services, enabling them to participate in the formal financial sector. HERfinance’s workplace-based programs focus on building the financial capability of workers and promoting greater uptake of financial products and services. In addition, in 2015 we launched the Digital Wages program with the support of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to drive financial inclusion by digitizing salary payments in global supply chains in industries where women make up the majority of the workforce. 

In Bangladesh, we are working directly with more than 50 garment factories to support their transition from cash to digital payroll, allowing workers to receive their wages instantly and transparently in formal bank accounts. As of today, the program has contributed to new accounts and training for 150,000 workers, 65 percent of whom are women. After going through the HERfinance training, women in India were 23 percent more likely to say they decided what to do with their salaries and 36 percent more likely to save a portion of their salaries in a formal bank account.

Here are some of the actions leading companies can take to promote financial inclusion:

• Provide financial capability training for women and men workers to have the knowledge, skills, and attitudes to fully participate in the formal financial sector;
• Encourage suppliers to improve financial inclusion of workers, such as by enabling access to financial products and services or digitizing wage payments; and
• Collaborate with suppliers and other brands to advocate for broader financial inclusion of workers.

At our current pace, it will take another 18 years for all women to be financially included, according to our calculations. We believe that women should not have to wait this long to fully participate in the formal financial sector. Now is the time for brands to help close the gender gap by ensuring that the women workers in their supply chains can reap the fruits of financial inclusion.

For more information on how to get involved, contact us.