UN-ESG

NGOs: French Companies Failed to Comply with “Duty of Vigilance”

June 19, 2019

A coalition of nongovernmental organizations has published a report criticizing French companies for their failure to fully comply with the country’s new “duty of vigilance” law and calling for the introduction of a binding global business and human rights (BHR) treaty to remedy shortcomings in BHR enforcement.
EC Introduces Guidelines for Corporate Climate Reporting

June 19, 2019

The European Commission (EC) has published guidelines on how businesses should publicly report their climate impacts as well as the impacts of the climate on their operations under the bloc’s Non-Financial Reporting Directive and welcomed the publication of three reports from an expert EU group on ramping up “sustainable finance.”
NGO Organizes Investor Call for Climate Reporting

June 18, 2019

Bloomberg reports that the Carbon Disclosure Project, a nongovernmental initiative that provides a framework for companies to report on their greenhouse gas emissions levels, has corralled a group of investors managing a combined $10 trillion in assets to pressure businesses to provide more information on their climate impacts.
UK Body Seeks Enforcement Mechanism for Labor Reporting Act

June 03, 2019

Lawmakers appointed by the UK government to provide an independent review of the country’s Modern Slavery Act have published a report calling, among other proposals, for a mandatory structure regarding corporate reporting on their efforts against forced labor and the enforcement of sanctions against companies that fail to comply.
French Officials Propose Audits for Online “Hate Speech” Removal

June 03, 2019

Politico reports that the French government has released a proposal to install regulators who could perform regular audits of social media companies’ removal of “hate speech” from their platforms and to force such businesses to publicize their internal processes for dealing with such content.
NGOs Push for Bolstered Rights Reporting by ASEAN Companies

June 03, 2019

A group of nongovernmental organizations recently published a report finding that human rights reporting by major companies listed on stock exchanges in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) “falls substantially short” of UN standards and urges such companies to prepare for a legally binding treaty on business and human rights.
Activists Release “Transparency Index” for Fashion Industry

May 31, 2019

The “global movement” Fashion Revolution has published a 2019 Fashion Transparency Index targeting companies it says do not share sufficient information with nongovernmental organizations that wish to scrutinize the human rights and environmental impacts of their supply chains.
ISO Highlights Standards’ Pressure for Climate Action

May 30, 2019

The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) recently published a press release on how two of its standards contribute to the fulfillment of the UN’s Paris climate agenda by seeking to harmonize how businesses and other organizations track and report their reduction of greenhouse gas emissions.
EU Lawmakers Pass Rules for “Sustainable” Finance

May 30, 2019

In April, the European Parliament adopted legislation aiming to establish an EU Capital Markets Union that includes disclosure requirements for financial institutions and advisers on “sustainable investments” and thus helps “channel investment to environmentally-friendly projects.”
WHO Forum Puts Pressure on Drug Companies over Pricing

May 30, 2019

At the World Health Organization’s (WHO) Forum on Medicines in April, governments and nongovernmental organizations called for policies forcing pharmaceutical companies to reveal more information about their pricing decisions, while a WHO official referred to drug pricing a human rights issue.