Focus on Dirty Legacy Sectors to Achieve Sustainable Development Goals
This type of progress has, understandably, been most evident among companies for which the required changes are relatively “easy,” such as those from the pharmaceutical, water, and food sectors. By contrast, little progress has been made by sectors contributing substantially to poor health and climate change, including companies that profit from tobacco, coal, palm oil, […]
Empowering Women in Toy Factories: Insights from Pilots in India
Ethical Toy Program and BSR collaborated on a women’s empowerment program that was piloted in three toy factories in India with a total population of 824 workers—including 198 women. The program, funded by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands, consisted of in-factory trainings on gender awareness, health, communications, and prevention of gender-based violence delivered to ‘Core […]
Rising to the Challenge: Donors Must Change their Funding Systems to Ensure that Businesses Achieve Social Impact
The current funding system threatens potentially life-changing innovations The world is hungry for new innovations that solve some of our biggest global challenges, such as food insecurity, financial illiteracy or a lack of healthcare and education. Social entrepreneurs in emerging markets are some of the biggest innovators in providing services and products for the world’s […]
Can We Really Take Big Business Seriously When it Comes to the SDGs?
Carol and the organization’s then Programme Director, Raja Jarrah, had hatched a plan and it was to be my fate, attending that July event, to end up playing the role of their main protagonist. Their plan was, and remains, a simple one: create a multi-functional team inside of CARE to work with businesses and markets […]
Systems Leadership Can Change the World – But What Exactly Is It?
Transforming a complex system – such as the energy, health or food system – is a monumental task requiring coordinated action by people with very different viewpoints. Systems-change initiatives often engage hundreds of organizations – governments, companies, civil society organizations, worker associations, research institutions and others – combining their capacities to achieve a shared goal. […]
To Change the World, Business Must Share its Profits and Power
Achieving the SDGs will take more than redefining the role of business in our unequal society. This year’s UN General Assembly is finally here, and pledges to once again achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) have already begun. Much of this activity is focused on the private sector, a key actor in delivering on these ambitious […]
How Companies Can Tackle Gender Based Violence
Gender-based violence affects employees physical and mental health and well-being, leading to stress, anxiety, loss of self-esteem and motivation. Often women are forced to leave their jobs. It contributes to the gender pay gap and seriously affects women’s opportunities for advancement and career progression. Women usually bear the brunt of gender-based violence, although others are […]
There is No ‘I’ in team: How Collaboration and Innovation are Enabling Inclusive Businesses to Achieve Greater Social Impact
The world of inclusive business isn’t any different. We’re seeing more and more inspiring collaborations that are achieving exponential results, demonstrating the value of partnerships, and the opportunities for innovation that these alliances allow. Take a look at the recent partnership between BCtA member Essilor and Chinese commerce giant AliBaba – together they’re providing access […]
Strengthening the MSME Ecosystem to Enable Business Growth and Social impact in Frontier Markets
For large companies operating in emerging and developing countries, Micro, Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises (MSMEs) are key business partners along the value chain – as suppliers, distributors, retailers and customers. MSMEs can create access to untapped low-income markets. As retailers, clinics, pharmacies or service providers, they reach both rural and urban households with goods and […]
A Man’s Place: How Men Can Tackle Everyday Workplace Sexism
Women find it more difficult than men to progress into leadership positions. There is a fall-off in the proportion of women represented in management as the roles get more senior. Much evidence shows that unintentional gender bias is to blame. The spotlight has recently shifted away from ‘fixing the women’ to succeed in the workplace […]
Being Authentic About Purpose: From Words to Action
Recently, a group of 181 CEOs, collectively representing over 15 million employees and more than $7 trillion in annual revenues, declared that they are no longer putting shareholders before everyone else. The “Statement of Purpose of a Corporation”, issued by the Business Roundtable, is a bold re-imagining of the principles of corporate governance that they […]
How Technology Can Help Tackle Modern Slavery Through Worker Engagement
Modern slavery in supply chains: a global challenge Over 40 million people are in modern slavery. It is a crime affecting all countries, yet it is often hidden and difficult to measure. In a new Business Fights Poverty Challenge, we are setting out to explore how technology can help tackle modern slavery through worker engagement. […]
Banking The Unbanked
‘Dreams are too expensive – We cannot afford to dream’ Khalida Bibi, a female home-based worker, expressed her despair during one of our customer surveys to assess the needs of lower- and middle-income individuals in rural Pakistan. Khalida is a 45-year-old, mother of three who runs a small home-based embroidery business, which provides an inconsistent […]
The Role Banks Can Play in Advancing Gender Equality
BFP: Credit Suisse is this year’s host of Business Fights Poverty’s flagship event at UNGA in New York – could you tell us a little more about why a bank like Credit Suisse supports these kinds of initiatives? PD: At Credit Suisse, we believe that it is in the interest of both our organization and […]
Inviting Men to Make a Difference: the #HeForShe movement
The case for gender equality is clear with estimates that £28 trillion could be added to the global economy if women participated equally. Yet according to recent reports, no country is expected to achieve full gender equality by 2030. Our ongoing Business Fights Poverty Challenge with AB InBev, CARE and Stanford University’s VMWare Women’s Leadership […]
How Can We Save Purpose from Purpose-Wash?
The common ground between the critics and champions of purpose is the desire for authenticity. Our Challenge on Purpose asks how we can move beyond rhetoric to embed purpose meaningfully and consistently across business. We initially identified Five Pillars to build authentic purpose within organisations and sought the opinions of the Business Fights Poverty network […]
The New ILO Violence and Harassment Convention: Signalling a Shift in Norms and Expectations
The International Labour Organisation (ILO) celebrated its 100th anniversary this year. In June, representatives from governments, unions and employers’ organisations gathered in Geneva at the annual International Labour Conference to commemorate a century of tripartite engagement at this, the oldest of the United Nations agencies. For those of us working on gender-based violence, sexual harassment […]
Future-Gazing Business Models: How One Company Uses Impact Measurement to Tackle Youth Unemployment
Impact champions such as India’s Empower Pragati are turning the impact measurement field around. Rather than defining impact based on past activities, they are using ongoing business activities to guide how they chart the course for the future Unemployment is a country-wide issue in India, and the nation’s youth are hardest hit. A staggering one […]
Bringing the Lessons of Clean Sanitation Home
Banka BioLoo, which produces environmentally-friendly bio-toilets, looks to the communities where its products are present to measure how they’re improving lives by raising hygiene and sanitation standards in children’s schools Having access to clean toilets is not just a basic human right – it’s also a health necessity. But in India, nearly 50 million people[1] […]
Romero: The Ambivalence of the Sacred
The business people saw a real possibility for their sector to positively impact peace through economic development and the capability of crossing boundaries to get people to work together. However, many (most) of them reacted with a degree of horror that the folks from religion would be there: “They’re the ones that cause intolerance, torture […]