Business Briefing on Unpaid Care and Domestic Work
There is growing evidence that business leaders and managers understand that the unequal and heavy share of unpaid care and domestic work done by women and girls is an issue which matters for the effective (ongoing) operations of their firms. Some companies have already taken practical steps to address the issue by supporting employees along […]
How Can Businesses Foster an Enabling Environment that Unlocks the Potential of Social Intrapreneurs to Drive Commercial and Social Innovation?
Pakistani Businesses Need to Hire and Retain More Women to Flourish
Pakistan has made progress in boosting women’s education levels over the past several years—yet less than 8 percent of the country’s workforce are women. Closing that gap will represent a huge economic opportunity for our country. I’m excited that the private sector is taking steps to address the problem. At the Pakistan Stock Exchange on […]
Gender Equality: Closing the Gap in the Private Sector Around the World
Let’s be honest, in the world of development, the private sector has not always been our partner of choice in the race to achieve gender equality. There has been a perception that business actions in this area are merely front-line measures or meagre efforts that simply impose quotas on boards of directors. These assumptions are […]
How is Cross-Sector Collaboration Driving Transformative Social Impact in the Luxury Industry?
BFP: How can cross-sector collaboration be harnessed to deliver change in the luxury industry? AL: At Oxfam we look to drive transformative change across the programmes that we run and our focus is on long-term systems change as opposed to short-term “project” work. Our work with the private sector is rooted in this principle because […]
Forests, Farmers and Cococa: Getting the Balance Right
The world needs forests. They are vital to maintain biodiversity and to help combat climate change. At the same time, forests have suffered since the invention of the plough, as people have cut them down to plant crops for food and cash. The bulldozer just made things worse. Over 70% of the world’s cocoa comes […]
Why Addressing Gender-Based Violence is an Imperative for Business Today
As part of our latest Challenge project, we are asking our network, and beyond, to contribute important insight into how businesses are, can or should be tackling gender-based violence – whether in the workplace, or supporting employees who are victims and survivors of domestic violence. Your insights will help in the creation of a toolkit, […]
How Can We Address the Global Sanitation Challenge? Insights from “Make a Splash! Toilets for All”
Japan’s maker of water and housing products, LIXIL, has invested in a sustainable social business – SATO – to help bring affordable toilets to those that need them. In 2018, their work on SATO led them to a new partnership, “Make a Splash! Toilets for All.” with UNICEF to tackle the global sanitation challenge. How […]
Welcome to the Business Fights Poverty Magazine Issue One
The ways in which business can and should be addressing social issues are many and complex. This magazine helps you to navigate the challenges and find out about some of the leading edge thinking and topics across the space. Brought to you by a team that share a common belief in business as a force […]
Can Microfinance Solve the Finance Woes of Facebook Entrepreneurs in Bangladesh?
Research estimates the presence of over 300,000 merchant pages and 28 million Facebook users in Bangladesh today. Large companies are increasing their promotional focus in the platform, to target the right clients and benefit from the large customer base. The most promising factor, however, are not the big players, but the multitude of small businesses […]
Large Companies Have a Key Role in Strengthening Small Supplier Integrity
The project, run by Business Fights Poverty, has sought to find out how to encourage small and medium-sized enterprises to take business integrity issues more seriously and adopt meaningful anticorruption compliance. They conducted an extensive literature review and complemented it with an online survey, 24 interviews, and two business roundtables in which we gathered […]
As Countries Turn Inward, Companies Stand Up for Humanity. Let’s Applaud and Encourage Them.
Skyrocketing numbers of people fleeing conflict. Increasing frequency and severity of natural disasters. Decreased diplomatic efforts. Slashed foreign aid budgets. A West that is increasingly embracing narrow nationalism and isolation. It all leaves us in the humanitarian community concerned for the future of our interconnected world. The inclination of political leaders to withdraw more than […]
On Purpose
Larry Fink’s annual open letter to corporate CEOs is fast-becoming a fixture at the start of the year. Fink’s views matter. They carry weight. He is, after all, the co-founder and now Chairman and CEO of BlackRock – the biggest money-management firm in the world with more than $6 trillion in assets under management. His […]
BCtA at 10: Inclusivity for All in an Ambitious New Call to Action
A decade ago, Business Call to Action (BCtA) was launched with just 18 companies at the helm. During our inauguration, then-prime minister of the UK Gordon Brown said: “Business Call to Action is a landmark opportunity for global business leaders to come together to develop new and innovative ways to spread growth, prosperity and opportunity […]
‘Total Stakeholder Value’: Is This a New Purpose that Can Drive Necessary, Systemic Change?
‘Total Stakeholder Value’: is this a new purpose that can drive necessary, systemic change? A new book, The Mature Corporation – a Model of Responsible Capitalism explains how Back in 2011, I wrote a piece for the Guardian, and argued that the sustainability agenda had largely ignored people; the human systems that are fundamental to […]
Making Supply Chains Work for Women
BSR is pleased to launch a new video that sets out why and how companies should work to drive gender equality in global supply chains. We invite you to take a moment to watch it below. There are many opportunities for companies to promote gender equality in supply chains—through their own actions, by enabling business partners, and by influencing industry peers […]
Finance for All: Wedded to Fintech for Better or for Worse
The marriage metaphor appropriately captures the link between technology and financial inclusion as we launch “Finance for All 2018: Wedded to Fintech, for Better or Worse,” a new report on what financial inclusion stakeholders see as crucial risks facing financial service providers in emerging markets who work with those with little or no access to […]
17 Business Models to Build Refugee Resilience
Turning a crisis into an opportunity is a bold idea. But, difficult to do in practice. This week world leaders have gathered in New York where they are expected to agree on a landmark commitment to strengthen the international refugee response under the Global Compact on Refugees. A commitment that hinges on the ability to […]
Galvanizing Businesses to Generate Positive Social Impact Through Impact Sourcing
Three months on from the launch of the Global Impact Sourcing Challenge, we are delighted by the outpouring of support from GISC members, over half of which have already responded. The Global Impact Sourcing Coalition (GISC), a business network creating jobs for those most in need through Impact Sourcing, challenged its members to hire 100,000 […]
The Road of Change: Circular Economy in the Automotive Industry
To tell you the story of Kaiho Sangyo, I must first give you a short introduction to the circumstances in the very beginning. In 1969, before returning to Kanazawa, my beloved hometown in Japan, I worked at a dismantling company in Tokyo for three years. Since the beginning of the 20th century, Japan has been a world […]