Action on Climate Resilience is Business Critical
As the impacts of climate change bite, business efforts to reduce emissions must now be matched by action to strengthen climate resilience. Here I set out four action areas where companies can better protect themselves and others, while seizing opportunities to market resilience-enhancing products. Many businesses are acting on climate change: setting net-zero or science-based […]
Tackling Digital and Financial Exclusion: Women Vendors Raising Themselves Out of Poverty with Social Media Marketing
In 2020 Hand in Hand began an innovative project with Visa Inc., providing advanced business and digital training to 1,280 female microbusiness owners living in Nairobi’s informal settlements, described by the UN as “some of the most dense, unsanitary and insecure slums in the world.” But, just months after the project began, Kenya was hit […]
Addressing Vaccination Inequity Among Marginalised Groups in Europe
Listen to this article (audio generated using AI assistance): This year’s Immunisation Week, the annual campaign to expand vaccination globally, is rightly focussed on, “The Big Catch Up,” – getting countries back on track with routine vaccinations after pandemic-related disruptions. According to the CDC, outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases like measles, polio, and diphtheria are rising […]
Six Principles for Businesses to Drive Sustainable Behaviour Change in Low-Income Communities
Six Principles for Businesses to Drive Sustainable Behaviour Change in Low-Income Communities. Creating a more sustainable future for people and planet will require fundamental changes in attitudes and behaviours across society worldwide. This is no easy feat; altering behaviours is a long process, one which requires consistency and encouragement. Business plays an important role in […]
Why the Fashion Industry’s Four Largest Women’s Empowerment Programmes Came Together to Form RISE
This International Women’s Day we are celebrating the launch of RISE: Reimagining Industry to Support Equality. It’s a celebration of collaboration for the greater good, with the four largest women’s empowerment programmes in the garment industry – BSR’s HERproject, Gap Inc. P.A.C.E, CARE and Better Work – coming together to build on their proven approaches […]
Systems change for social and ecological transformation: putting nature at the heart of scaling impact
Increasingly people are recognising that our current economic system and business structures are not delivering a world that is ‘prosperous’ in the way we want to prosper; that the pursuit of more is leaving us all with less. And we are increasingly aware that there is a different path forward: we can build different kinds […]
Four Essential Elements for the “Just” in “Just Transitions”
The concept of “just transition” – a whole-of-society approach to decarbonisation that respects human rights while promoting sustainable development, the eradication of poverty, and the creation of decent work and quality jobs – has come increasingly centre stage in national and international discussions on finance, energy, agriculture, and other key industrial transitions to net-zero. While […]
How Storytelling Can Paint a Full Picture of Impact for Businesses
Across the globe, inclusive businesses are making differences in the lives of the world’s most vulnerable – from empowering rural women to improving access to education. However, plain numbers struggle to capture the breadth of important work they are doing to investors, potential partners, and the people they aim to help the most. To bring […]
Five Lessons from Ten Corporate-Charity Partnerships
In one of my series of articles about progress on eliminating world poverty in the last 25 years, I talked about why it’s not just about official aid. Government policy and the private sector really matter too. At CARE I worked with ten of the UK’s largest FTSE100 companies. And I gave a couple of […]
New Research Reveals the Benefits and Costs of Gender-Smart Technical Assistance to SMEs and Investors
Gender lens investing includes three key entry points for investors: (1) providing capital to women-led/founded companies and/or gender-forward businesses; (2) applying a gender lens to the investment cycle, such as during pipeline development; and (3) funding and supporting the design and implementation of gender-inclusive technical assistance (TA) activities. Investors often focus on the first two […]
Why Investing in Informal Women Workers is Critical to Maintaining Resilient Supply Chains
Over 60% of the world’s employed population make their living through informal work, with no access to formal contracts or protection. Women make up a disproportionate percentage of informal workers, with 740 million women’s livelihoods dependent on the informal economy globally. Lack of secure employment contracts or social protection for these workers means that when […]
Why the Burden on Business Women to ‘do it all’ Must Stop
Glorifying multi-tasking by women entrepreneurs must stop. Women the world over are often celebrated for juggling their business with childcare and household responsibilities. The assumption that a woman should be the primary caregiver and the man should be the breadwinner are norms so entrenched they remain consistently unchallenged. This needs to change. NGOs and businesses […]
Who’s Putting the ‘S’ in ESG?
Lately, ESG is mostly in the news for the wrong reasons. Reading certain articles, it can seem as though some companies are happy to reap the benefits of seeming good, while shifting expenses (e.g., pollution) onto society. However, a lot of the negative coverage references ESG in its role as a guidance for investors (i.e., ESG for Assurance), despite the fact […]
Stronger Together: How the Food Fortification Ecosystem Can Fight Malnutrition
Stronger together – how the food fortification ecosystem can fight malnutrition by supporting small and medium-sized millers What do the World Food Programme, BASF, Royal DSM and Nigeria Flour Mills have in common? They all recognize the key role of small-scale and medium-sized millers to bring food fortification to scale, as part of national strategies […]
It’s Time for Companies to Step Up on Net Zero
As UN Experts Call for an End to Greenwashing, Companies in the richest countries have still not agreed to climate measures that are in line with staying below 1.5 degrees. Danielle Smith and Hilde Stroot welcome new guidance from a UN panel, released at COP27, to push action by firms on corporate net-zero plans – […]
The Paradox of ESG
Can for-profit businesses really aid in preserving the environment? The practice of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) investment has long been plagued by the question. You could have assumed the answer was Yes based on the euphoric increase in everything ESG. According to estimates, a sustainability lens is now being used to oversee more than […]
Three Actions for Business in the Face of the Global Polycrisis
If you’re struggling to wrap your head around the multiple crises facing the world right now, the phrase “global polycrisis” may help you get a sense of just how truly awful things are. The term reared its head at the just-completed World Bank Annual Meetings, and is forebodingly described by the Cascade Institute as happening […]
Why is Sustainability a Concept Closer to JUSTICE than to the ENVIRONMENT?
Environmental protection such as packing, renewable energy, climate action, water, and waste management have dominated the sustainability mindset. Today, many people, including experts, thought leaders, and even some sustainability gurus, use the terms “sustainability” and “environmental protection” as synonyms. And they aren’t. Sustainability is a broader concept, and the level of success in achieving it […]
How the Climate Justice Framework Helps put People at the Heart of Net Zero Ambitions
Climate change and inequality are two of the biggest challenges of our time. Tackling one without the other is increasingly seen as not an option, including for business. The Business and Climate Justice Framework helps businesses identify both the opportunities of putting people at the centre of their climate ambitions and the risks of inaction. […]
Making the Care Economy Everyone’s Business
Take our survey to help us better understand business motivations for addressing the care economy and how entrepreneurs innovating in this space could support your business. Are you an FMCG company, concerned about the double day women in your supply chain are working – at the factory and then at home. What does this do […]