The Sustainability Learning Forum

Increased Road Safety – All over the World

Julia Glogowski, Volkswagen
Volkswagen AG

Volkswagen produces vehicles of the highest quality and reliability, resulting in the highest level of safety for customers. But closing a sale is not the end of our responsibilities. On the contrary, whether our customers are in Mumbai, Beijing, or Wolfsburg, we provide them with targeted training to help them feel safe while driving. The worrying figures in international accident statistics, especially from emerging economies, have led us to respond in this manner. The Volkswagen Group is actively engaging with various traffic-training programs tailored to the individual markets – our motto is: “Every traffic-related death is one too many.” The Group includes the German market in these efforts, of course. The Autostadt in Wolfsburg – which offers a world of experience in these matters as well as a communication platform for all things to do with mobility – has a “Learn Park” for children 5 to 11 years old and offers them the chance to obtain a “child driver’s license.” Meanwhile, in the “safety training track,” parents experience first-hand that a cautious driving style not only increases safety but is also good for the environment. more[...]

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Changing The Lives of 10,000 Children

Scott Dille, Novo Nordisk
Camilla Crone Jensen, Novo Nordisk
Novo Nordisk

Living with type 1 diabetes is challenging – even more so for children in developing countries, where having diabetes puts their lives at even greater risk. more[...]

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Mundial del Barrio

Lilines Urriola Herrera, medcom
medcom

In 1997, after his social reinstatement, community leader Hector Brands decided to start a summer soccer league in the small town of San Felipe. The league comprised four teams with 70 kids from that area. The purpose of the league was to try to occupy the participants’ spare time during the summer and to keep them from violence and the use of drugs present in that area of the city. It was through soccer that the children and young adults started learning about peaceful coexistence, tolerance, and the benefits of living without violence. more[...]

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Combating Child Labor in the Supply Chain in India

Steffen Kurzawa, Bayer CropScience
Bayer Group

Child labor cannot simply be eliminated by decree. To this day it remains deeply rooted in many societies. In particular, subsistence farmers still frequently resort to child labor to manage their fields. Implementing the effective abolition of child labor may be laborious and time-consuming for businesses if child labor is the norm. Yet pursuing this approach is worthwhile in every way, as shown by an example from India. more[...]

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Ayeyarwady Bank’s Commitment to the Community

May Myat Thu, Ayeyarwady Bank
Ayeyarwady Bank

Ayeyarwady Bank commits to making the United Nations Global Compact’s Ten Principles part of its strategies and practices, focusing on fulfilling corporate social responsibility toward the communities it serves. more[...]

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Children: A Universal Cause

Corinne Bélière, Air France
AIR FRANCE KLM

Air France KLM’s mission is to connect people around the world. Some 72 million people of all ages, languages, and cultures travel each year on board our aircraft. The attentive service provided to each and every one of our passengers has led the Group toward a better understanding of its customers and their expectations over the years. This approach, which encompasses much more than simple flight services, extends to the destinations and regions where the Group is present and to the people who live there. more[...]

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Children: A Universal Cause

Corinne Bélière, Air France
AIR FRANCE KLM

Air France KLM’s mission is to connect people around the world. Some 72 million people of all ages, languages, and cultures travel each year on board our aircraft. The attentive service provided to each and every one of our passengers has led the Group toward a better understanding of its customers and their expectations over the years. This approach, which encompasses much more than simple flight services, extends to the destinations and regions where the Group is present and to the people who live there. more[...]

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Conflict Minerals

Resource conflict is one of several destabilizing phenomena commonly cited as defining many of the extractive economies of the global south. Our Tutorial discusses all aspects of the issue with a special focus on US laws, SEC and Dodd-Frank Act regulations. more[...]

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African leaders urged to invest in jobs, infrastructure and protecting development gains

African Development Bank (AfDB)

n unprecedented gathering of experts in Kigali, present and former African Heads of State urged business, community and political leaders to help turn the continent’s impressive growth into economic opportunities for ordinary citizens. more[...]

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Taking Conflict Out of Consumer Gadgets: Company Rankings on Conflict Minerals 2012

Sasha Lezhnev, Enough Project

Leading electronics companies are making progress in eliminating conflict minerals from their supply chains, but still cannot label their products as being conflict free. Since Enough’s last corporate rankings report on conflict minerals in December 2010, a majority of leading consumer electronics companies have moved ahead in addressing conflict minerals in their supply chains—spurred by the conflict minerals provision in the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act and growing consumer activism, particularly on college campuses. Most firms have improved their scores from the 2010 rankings, but some laggards still remain. more[...] login_required

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Conflict Minerals and SEC Disclosure Regulation

Prof. Celia Taylor, University of Denver Sturm College of Law

Mention the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (“Dodd-Frank” or the “Act”),[1] and most people think of legislation aimed at “fundamental reform of the financial system”[2] focused on regulation of Wall Street practices and complex financial products. But tucked within the voluminous text of the Act (which consists of 2,300 pages and stipulates the passage of 387 rules by 20 different agencies[3]) is a provision having nothing to do with these issues or anything remotely related to them. Instead the “conflict minerals” provision of the Act requires companies that are subject to the reporting requirement of the federal securities laws to disclose whether they manufacture products using so-called “conflict minerals” sourced from the Democratic Republic of Congo (“DRC”) or contiguous countries.[4] more[...]

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Blood on your mobile phone? Capturing the gains for artisanal miners, poor workers and women

Dr. Dev Nathan, Institute for Human Development

Capturing the Gains research into the global production of mobile phones traces the connections between armed factions, poverty and violence in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and mobile phone users worldwide. The critical link is coltan, or columbite tantalite. It is the raw material for tantalum, an essential mineral in the manufacture of mobile phones, computers and other electronic equipment. more[...] login_required

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Gold is now the Most Lucrative Conflict Mineral from Eastern Congo

Enough Project

Gold smuggled from eastern Congo’s war zone is now the most lucrative conflict mineral and is ending up at jewelry stores and banks, according to a new investigative report by the Enough Project. The study found that following a 65 percent drop in profits from the conflict minerals tin, tungsten, and tantalum, armed groups have increasingly turned to smuggling the fourth conflict mineral, gold, to generate income that finances mass atrocities in eastern Congo. The armed groups use poorly paid miners, who work in dangerous conditions, including thousands of children as young as eight years old. The study maps out how conflict gold makes its way from eastern Congo to consumers worldwide who purchase it in the form of wedding rings and watches, and investment banks that buy gold bars. more[...] login_required

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From Child Miner to Jewelry Store

Enough Project

This is the first of two papers on the illegal conflict-gold trade from eastern Congo that is fueling one of the most violent conflicts in the world. This paper tracks the transnational trade from mines in eastern Congo to consumers. The second paper will map a way to resolve this problem by setting out recommendations to formalize the trade, cut down conflict-gold smuggling, and create jobs to provide living wages to Congolese miners. more[...] login_required

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Friends of Kitui

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