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Sea Change Host Francesca Rheannon brings us the Sea Change News Analysis examining the sustainability of water as a business proposition. The News Analysis draws on content from the CSRwire.com News Alert by Sea Change Host Bill Baue. For information not included in this version, check out the post on CSRwire.com.
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BuildingGreen.com founder Alex Wilson discusses the history, current state, and future of the green building movement. Erin Gorman, CEO of Divine Chocolate USA, welcomes the move by Cadbury to source Fairtrade cocoa from the Kuapa Kokoo cooperative in Ghana that owns Divine, and Bama Athreya of the International Labor Rights Forum also applauds Cadbury’s move. And Karl Frisch of Media Matters brings us the ViewPoint on how the mainstream media is dropping the ball on covering climate change.
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Cadbury, the popular British chocolate maker, just agreed to source Fairtrade cocoa for Cadbury Dairy Milk, the top-selling chocolate bar in the UK. The move effectively triples sales of Fairtrade cocoa for farmers in Ghana, where Cadbury sources from Kuapa Kokoo. It was one of the first cooperatives there to be Fairtrade certified in the ’90s. In the late ’90s, Kuapa Kokoo also started its own brand, Divine Chocolate, to keep more of the value that typically gets skimmed by middle-men and big chocolate companies. Erin Gorman, CEO of the Divine Chocolate USA, welcomes the move, which validates its model of Fairtrade sourcing. Bama Athreya, executive director of the activist NGO International Labor Rights Forum (ILRF), also supports the development.
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Sea Change Radio looks at the trend of corporate social responsibility using Web 2.0 tools. In this case, a wiki — BASESwiki, specifically (BASES stands for Business and Society Exploring Solutions.) The project was spearheaded by Caroline Rees of the Harvard Kennedy School Corporate Social Responsibility Initiative. She collaborates there with Professor John Ruggie, who is also the United Nations Special Representative on Business and Human Rights. Working on BASESwiki as part of Ruggie’s team, Rees seeks to leverage the democratic, interactive power of a wiki to gather information on non-judicial dispute resolution at the intersection of business and human rights.
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In January 2009, Human Rights Watch issued a briefing paper entitled Employee Free Choice Act: A Human Rights Imperative. The paper details some of the glaring deficiencies in current US labor law that significantly impair the right of workers to freely choose whether to form a union. It recommends that the US Congress pass the Employee Free Choice Act to help remedy these shortcomings and bring US law closer to international standards. Arvind Ganesan, Director of Business and Human Rights at Human Rights Watch, brings us this week’s ViewPoint.Read the show transcript
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The Social Investment Forum (SIF) submitted a letter to President Obama listing a series of policy proposals, from proxy access allowing shareholders to nominate board candidates to “say on pay” giving investors a vote on executive compensation. SIF also urges the Obama Administration to establish an Office for Innovation in Corporate Social Responsibility or CSR. This idea dates back to the early 2000s, propounded first by Susan Aaronson at the Kenan Institute of Private Enterprise, and supported by a Government Accountability Office report finding major lack of coordination on federal CSR initiatives. SIF CEO Lisa Woll explains the rationale behind the recommendations, and how they will promote advancement toward sustainability.
Each January for the past several years, Bill has surveyed the top Corporate Social Responsibility news stories of the past year for CSRwire.com, where he is a contributing writer. Here’s this year’s edition:
A “green” recovery from economic and environmental meltdowns; the advent of Shareholder Activism 2.0 with binding resolutions at TARP banks; CSR adopts Web 2.0 strategies for sustainability reporting; is Wal-Mart really green?; and much more…
The economic meltdown of 2008 mirrors the simultaneous environmental meltdown fueled by the climate calamity – both share common roots, and many in the Corporate Sustainability and Responsibility (CSR) community believe they share a common salvation.Read the show transcript
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Today, Sea Change Radio talks with Nick Robins of HSBC and Cary Krosinsky of Trucost about their book, Sustainable Investing. We also visit the Responsible Investing Forum, produced in association with the Social Investment Forum, where we speak with Tim Smith of Walden Asset Management about shareowner activism and hear the excerpts from the keynote of John Ruggie, the UN Special Representative on Business and Human Rights.
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The mandate of John Ruggie as the United Nations Special Representative on Business and Human Rights, first extended by the UN Human Rights Council in 2005, was recently extended another three years. We hear excerpts today from Ruggie’s keynote address earlier this week at the Responsible Investing Forum, which will post the complete talk on its website in the near future.
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On December 10, 1948, the United Nations adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, calling on member country governments to promote the UDHR. Now, on the Declaration’s 60th anniversary, responsibility for promoting human rights protections has expanded to include the business community. The UN codified this link in 2005 when it issued a mandate for a Special Representative on Business and Human Rights, and this year it extended the appointment of Harvard Professor John Ruggie to the post for another three years.
The year 2005 also saw the launch of the Business and Human Rights Resource Centre as a web platform covering both positive and negative news on corporate conduct around human rights. Today, we speak with Annabel Short, Head of Programme at the Resource Centre, about its innovative work promoting improvements in companies’ policies and practices on human rights.
Annabel Short of the Business and Human Rights Resource Centre
Universal Declaration of Human Rights
In October, the Business and Human Rights Resource Centre launched the world’s first online portal profiling human rights lawsuits against companies. We caught up with the Resource Centre’s Head of Research Greg Regaignon from its California offices to describe the Corporate Legal Accountability Portal.
Listen to the complete interview with Greg Regaignon
Corporate Legal Accountability Portal
CWR News Analysis — Labor Rights are Human Rights
—Wall Street Journal: “When Will That Bailout Money Trickle Down Exactly?”
—Jobs with Justice: People’s Bailout Week
—Coalition of Immokalee Workers Press Release: “Subway Signs Agreement with CIW to Improve Tomato Harvester Wages, Working Conditions in Florida”
—International Labor Rights Forum Press Release: “Working for Scrooge — 5 Worst Companies for the Right to Associate”
—Listen to the complete interview with Jon Weissman of Jobs with Justice
CWR ViewPoint — Mandatory Human Rights Regulations for Companies
We’re excited about our new commentary partnership with Human Rights Watch. We inaugurate this collaboration today with the opinion of HRW’s director of the Business and Human Rights Program Arvind Ganesan.
