How Good ESG Standards Boost Business Competitiveness
Madagascar Lychee Export (MLE) is a lychee export station based in the port of Toamasina, Madagascar. The company buys fruits from collectors and local producers, and then processes, packages, and exports the fruit to European markets. Prior to 2010, MLE was a small, family-run business operating in a changing industry with rising standards and demands. […]
From Responsible Investment Standards to Implementation
Over the past ten years, environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues have moved from the fringe to the centre stage – both amongst emerging market focused private equity investors and amongst businesses themselves. These issues have emerged as a material concern as result of various factors – including the need to manage reputational risks associated […]
SDGs: Will Business Take up the Baton?
I remember quite clearly when the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) were being launched, a set of 8 goals with targets on key development indicators such as absolute poverty, maternal health and primary education. I was at that time based in India and felt that this was just another UN top-down initiative that would be a […]
SDG #1 on Poverty: Big, Bold and Very Challenging
End poverty in all its forms everywhere. Wow! Let’s say that again: SDG #1: End poverty in all its forms everywhere. And in just 15 years; by 2030 like the other proposed Sustainable Development Goals being debated, and hopefully agreed by the United Nations in New York this coming September. Dig into the details of […]
Advancing Business Leadership for an Inclusive Economy
Global progress today reflects a tale of two economies: one in which great leaps forward in human development and poverty reduction coexist with the struggle that many, from the very poor to the middle class, face to participate in and benefit from global economic activity. In its “Outlook on the Global Agenda 2015,” the World […]
Access to Sustainable Technology Through Microfinance
Pollinate Energy improved the lives of India’s urban poor by providing access to sustainable technology through microfinance, using a network of local distributors, termed ‘Pollinators’. Social impacts Children were able to study at night and adults able to do household work later, saving the daylight hours for productive income-generating work. Customers improved their health by […]
Affirmative Action Employment Training in India
TCS Affirmative Action Employment Training has increased the employment prospects of women and young people in India’s most marginalised communities, the Scheduled Castes/Scheduled Tribes (SC/ST). Social impacts Over 42,000 people were trained over five years, 16,800 of whom came from underprivileged SC/ST communities. 50% of the total numbers trained were women (21,042 out of 42,000) […]
Sustainable Organic Integrated Livelihoods
SOIL provides affordable, ecologically sustainable household sanitation services to Haiti’s most impoverished urban neighbourhoods. Social impacts SOIL provided 2,220 people in Haiti with a safe place to use the toilet, reducing the incidence of waterborne diseases such as cholera. The compost created as a by-product supported ecological restoration and agricultural livelihoods, improving food security. The […]
Solar Lights: An Economic and Environmental Solution
T The largest distributor of solar lights in Africa is working to cultivate a sustainable market so that other players will enter the game, with the long-term aim of eradicating the kerosene lamp from Africa by 2020. Social impacts £190 million was saved by the world’s poorest families. Customers gained a total of 1.8 billion […]
Financial Inclusion for the 'Base of the Pyramid'
Barclays has formed partnerships with international NGOs CARE International and Plan UK to give poor people, especially the young, in Africa and Asia access to basic financial services for the first time, and the skills to save and manage their money effectively. Social impacts 369,000 women and men, including 245,000 youths, were given access to […]
Financial Inclusion for the ‘Base of the Pyramid’
Barclays has formed partnerships with international NGOs CARE International and Plan UK to give poor people, especially the young, in Africa and Asia access to basic financial services for the first time, and the skills to save and manage their money effectively. Social impacts 369,000 women and men, including 245,000 youths, were given access to […]
Essential Insurance Coverage for HIV+ Community
The Unilever Global Development Award, supported by Business Fights Poverty, Finalist, 2015 AllLife, a South African provider of insurance to people with HIV, has pioneered an approach that proves it is possible to insure the “uninsurable”, and to do so in a financially and socially sustainable way. Social impacts AllLife improved the health and mortality […]
Could THIS be the Solution to Global Poverty?
Recently an organization named FXB published a full-page ad in The New York Timesunder the headline “We know how to end global poverty.” The piece reported that “the journal Science just published a study proving what works to raise people permanently out of global poverty.” Because Science is unquestionably a credible source of information, this […]
A Safer Workplace For All: Business Takes the Lead
WBCSD Pledge inspires a global movement towards water, sanitation and hygiene Imagine that you are a coal miner working 100m underground in East India. You are on the sixth hour of your shift, covered in rocks and soot, and you need to go to the bathroom. Finding a safe and sustainable solution to meet the […]
The Business Case for Sharing the Global Water Bill
By 2030, the world will look back on the past 15 years with a sense of achievement, or lament a missed opportunity. The ambitious and transformational development agenda[1] due to be approved at the UN Summit in September[2] is setting the bar high, and there are similarly high expectations for the Financing for Development meeting […]
Water for All through Partnerships with Business
This week WSUP and Business Fights Poverty are co-hosting an online discussion on the vital role that business has to play in increasing access to safe and clean water. The discussion will look specifically at the theme of multi-stakeholder ‘partnerships’ – what are the most promising partnership models designed to tackle shared water risks? What […]
The Role of Water Stewardship in Supporting the SDGs
There is a strong level of ambition for the post 2015 Development Agenda. It’s recognised that the challenges affecting people, the planet and prosperity are interrelated and call for integrated solutions. Bold, transformative steps and collective action are needed to deliver the SDGs and shift the world to a sustainable path. Water provides a perfect […]
Partnering for Access to Safe, Clean Water for All
In many countries both the availability and quality of water are in decline as populations – and associated demand from agriculture, energy generation, industry and households – grow. The Water Resources Group (WRG), of which SABMiller is a member, estimates that the shortfall between freshwater supply and global demand could reach 40% by 2030, an […]
Water and Prosperity
Water and prosperity go hand in hand for SABMiller and the communities in which we operate. Without water, we can’t, of course, brew beer or make our other drinks. It is simply essential for the success of our business. But without water, farmers can’t produce the raw materials we need. And water scarcity and stress […]
Fighting Poverty One Toilet at a Time
A floating latrine at Chamakpur Haati, Bangladesh. Poverty is defined in many ways, but ultimately it remains a complex social problem. It has resulted in 2.5 billion people or one in three of the world’s population being left without access to adequate sanitation. Although safe water and sanitation forms just a single facet of this […]