UN-ESG

Article: Counsel Must Play Role in "Corporate Citizenship"

July 21, 2017

An article from former General Electric Vice President and General Counsel Ben Heineman paints a broad picture of the need for general counsel to steer their corporations toward a concept of "corporate citizenship" resembling the "environmental, social, and governance" responsibilities recommended for businesses by UN agencies and activist groups.
Paper: Business-led Reporting Schemes Are Ineffective

July 21, 2017

A group of academics has published a paper warning that the growing activist movement, beginning to take hold in the form of government regulation, toward business audits of their global supply chains to monitor and report environmental and human rights impacts is ineffective and merely serves as an "industry-led privatization of global governance."
UN, GRI Develop Guidance for Corporate SDG Reporting

July 20, 2017

As part of their Action Platform called "Reporting on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)," representatives from the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) and the UN Global Compact convened in March in The Hague to collaborate on the formation of guidance for companies on how to publicly report their compliance with and contributions to the SDGs.
NGOs, UN Partner to Benchmark SDG Contributions

July 19, 2017

The WWF project Gold Standard and the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change are launching a "Gold Standard for the Global Goals" that will measure contributions from the public and private sectors toward the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and pressure businesses to help fulfill the UN's social and environmental agenda.
Business Leader: G20 Should Set Collective Climate Regulations

July 19, 2017

BASF’s Kurt Bock, Chairman of the Business-20 (B20) Taskforce on Energy, Climate & Resource Efficiency, argues that the Group of 20 (G20) nations must set collective climate policies to avoid creating competitive disadvantages for businesses.
Human Rights Leaders Call for “Transformative” Policy Changes

July 19, 2017

Speakers at a recent event on human rights and the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) hosted by the Danish Institute for Human Rights called for the public and private sectors to incorporate human rights goals into their policies, including through corporate human rights impact assessments, “to unleash the transformative potential of the 2030 Agenda.”
Australian Network Hosts Forum on Labor Reporting

July 17, 2017

The Global Compact Network Australia, a local entity affiliated with the UN Global Compact corporate responsibility initiative, recently hosted a forum in Sydney exploring the potential adoption of an Australian Modern Slavery Act that would require businesses to report on their efforts to end forced labor in their complex, global supply chains.
NGOs Push Garment Supply Chain Transparency

July 14, 2017

A group of nongovernmental organizations has published a report calling on businesses in the garment and footwear industries to publicly disclose comprehensive information regarding their suppliers, which would permit civil society groups to place greater pressure on companies to call out alleged labor rights violations in their supply chains.
Shell CEO Calls for Transparency on Climate Risk

July 14, 2017

Showing the growing acceptance of the "climate disclosure" movement among energy companies, the CEO of Dutch oil giant Shell has stated that such companies should be more transparent about internal climate change risk assessments and how future government regulations cutting carbon emissions could jeopardize their oil and gas investments.
US Pulls Back from Extractive Disclosure Rules

July 13, 2017

Zorka Milin of the nongovernmental organization Global Witness reviews the decisions by the Trump Administration and allies in Congress to pull back from rules requiring the reporting of payments to governments made by oil, gas, and mining companies.