The Sustainability Learning Forum

The Human Rights and Business Dilemma

Verisk Maplecroft
United Nations Global Compact (UNGC)

Human rights have traditionally been the concern of states, and international human rights law has generally been addressed to them only. As more companies come to realize their legal, moral, and/or commercial need to address human rights issues within their own operations and activities, they are confronted with a number of challenges. Businesses will have to come to grips with the human rights framework and assess how their activities may relate to it. Moreover, companies are often uncertain how to avoid complicity in human rights abuses and where, in practical terms, the boundaries of their human rights responsibility lie. more[...] login_required

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Sustainability 2.0 – Looking Beyond the Factory Gates

Volker Hasenberg, PE INTERNATIONAL
Celine Furnanz, PE INTERNATIONAL
Thinkstep

PE INTERNATIONAL is a leading sustainability consulting service and software solution provider. PE embraces sustainability as a strategic issue that will influence future competiveness of business and will enable a business transformation in long-term. PE supported for example PUMA in developping a new sustainable packaging with the help of a Life Cycle Analysis. It also helped NiroSan Multifit to build an eco-efficient production facility. more[...] login_required

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Sustainability 2.0 – Looking Beyond the Factory Gates

Volker Hasenberg, PE INTERNATIONAL
Celine Furnanz, PE INTERNATIONAL

PE INTERNATIONAL is a leading sustainability consulting service and software solution provider. PE embraces sustainability as a strategic issue that will influence future competiveness of business and will enable a business transformation in long-term. As a globally operating software and consulting company, PE also intends to help companies worldwide, through its products and services, to become sustainability leaders themselves. more[...]

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Work towards “Zero Deforestation”

Editorial Team

Engaged since 1997 in an approach to control the sourcing of its wood supplies, Carrefour has been working with WWF since 1998 to privilege FSC (Forest Stewardship Council) -certified wood. The Group is now stepping up these efforts to positively influence all concerned supply chains through appropriate purchasing practices in order to preserve biodiversity, to reduce associated greenhouse gas emissions, and to ensure the respect of human rights. more[...] login_required

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Carrefour`s Commitment for 2020: Work towards “Zero Deforestation”

Sevda Latapie-Bayro, Carrefour
Carrefour Group

Engaged since 1997 in an approach to control the sourcing of its wood supplies, Carrefour has been working with WWF since 1998 to privilege FSC (Forest Stewardship Council) -certified wood. The Group is now stepping up these efforts to positively influence all concerned supply chains through appropriate purchasing practices in order to preserve biodiversity, to reduce associated greenhouse gas emissions, and to ensure the respect of human rights. more[...]

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Nagi, Walid

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Social Entrepreneurship in Times of Crisis

Mirjam Schöning, Schwaab Foundation

"At the end of the day, corporations are citizens too, and they should commit themselves in the same way good citizens would. It's important to emphasize here that other social forces must be involved: there's always at least one organization that is already implementing an idea, someone who has found a better approach to a certain segment of the population or an innovative solution to the same problem." more[...] login_required

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On the Eve of the MDG Review Summit

Anita Sharma, UN Millennium Campaign

When they signed the Millennium Declaration in 2000, world leaders made an historic promise to work together to improve the lives of the world’s poorest people. With its clear goals and deadlines, the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) created the first-ever global compact in which rich and developing countries acknowledged shared responsibility to end extreme poverty and its root causes. more[...] login_required

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Global Core Labor Standards Are More Important Than Ever

Dr. Thomas Palley, New America Foundation

For much of the last decade, globalization was a leading issue of public policy debate, and global core labor standards (CLS) were the lead demand of critics of globalization. Now, with the world economy stuck in the deepest economic recession since the 1930s, attention to globalization and the need for labor standards has waned as people have become more concerned about jobs and economic recovery. more[...] login_required

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Ethics and Business: Ensuring Credibility

Prof. Andreas Suchanek, Leipzig Graduate School of Management (HHL)

"Ethics, in the form of a shared basic understanding of “right” values, such as dignity, freedom, justice, etc., are the foundation of the social market economy. Competition and legal foundations, both of which are essential for a market economy, lose their ability to function when people lose trust, and maintaining trust is always (also) a matter of the responsibility – or more generally: practiced values – of those active in the market economy." more[...] login_required

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Do we need a new economic system?

Dr. Elmer Lenzen

In 1933, representatives from 66 countries met in London to find a common solution to that era's global economic crisis. The idea: to have London send a signal for a new global financial system. The conference was a flop. On BBC Radio, economist John Maynard Keynes called it a complete yawn, and went on to say that conferences of this type usually ended in empty platitudes and ambiguous phras es. more[...] login_required

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Quilligan, James Bernhard

Editorial Team

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We’re All Global Commoners Now

James Bernhard Quilligan

Economic analysts often look at the world’s monetary and financial asymmetries without understanding their historical causes. Yet the international community -- including the private sector -- must address the origins of these structural imbalances if there is to be a meaningful adjustment of the economic system. more[...] login_required

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Kell, Georg

Editorial Team

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Corporate Responsibility in Times of Crisis

Georg Kell, United Nations Global Compact

2008 will be remembered as the year of crises. The breakdown of financial institutions and markets and the subsequent worldwide economic downturn have put the spotlight on issues that the United Nations Global Compact has long advocated as essential responsibilities for modern business and today’s global markets: comprehensive risk management, long-term performance, and ethics. more[...] login_required

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