Social Bridges presents the weekly rundown of the best posts on corporate social responsibility, sustainability and greener options.

1. Climate change poses a major road block to MDGs

Rapid climatic changes, especially those in the poor countries, are proving to be a major bottleneck in the achievement of millennium development goals but we’ve got the solutions.

2. What is thoughtless environmentalism?

Are we heading towards a customer-friendly environmentalism where we don’t have to go through the ordeal of sorting green products out or is it just a fantasy? Quinn McKew elaborates.

3. How to be socially responsible during economic recession?

The economic downturn has become a source of major debate all over the world. Companies can maintain their social activities by acting on these tips.

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Google has come up with an excellent idea titled Project 10¹⁰⁰ which is actually an open invitation for every citizen of this planet to put forward his/her ideas for change in the form of 30-seconds videos or proposals or both. The basic theme of the project is to help people achieving their goals. This help can be in the field of environment, education, health, community or any other sector.

Google has already committed $10 million for the implementation of the proposed projects. That’s what we call social responsibility and we hope that Google will increase its commitment in future.Do participate if you want to bring your ideas to life!

Here is the official video of the project.

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Combating climate change has never been an easy task. Also it was never considered as a profession and volunteers were often looked down upon by the corporate folks. They were partially right in their approach as climate change had very little employment opportunities to offer with very low success rates.

Fortunately that’s not the case anymore. Recently ILO, UNEP, the International Trade Union Confederation and the International Organization of Employers joined hands to examine the job opportunities in the climate change sector. They have come up with a detailed report titled Green Jobs: Towards Decent Work in a Sustainable, Low-Carbon World which can prove to be a landmark for a green road map for jobs creation.

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In one of my earlier posts, I discussed India’s leap forward in microfinancing medical treatments as a pilot microcredit scheme has started disbursing loans for heart surgery. Although the CSR scene in India is not very different from that of other developing countries, at least one of their state governments is ready to adopt CSR in a more viable manner.

The Government of Karnataka is about to take a landmark decision as it’s drafting a law, which if promulgated, will result in mandatory CSR activities by companies working in the state. This is the same state which started the aforementioned microcredit scheme. The state government has rightfully sensed the double standards of these companies where they were out boasting about their CSR efforts while their employees were working in pathetic conditions.

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Andrew from Good Honest Dollar continues his discussion on socially responsible investing. This time writing from a company’s point of view.

This article is the sixth in a series on Socially Responsible Investing (SRI), otherwise known as ethical investing.

In this post, I would like to discuss the consequences, from a company’s point of view, of being successful or otherwise in attracting ethical investment.

Some commentators argue that attraction of the ethical investment dollar provides an incentive for firms to adopt positive ethical behavior. But is attracting ethical investment really important to a firm? Does attracting SRI really matter?

In order to understand the consequences for a company of attracting socially responsible investment, we first need to examine two issues - the nature of these consequences and the magnitude of such consequences.

In this post, I will examine the nature of the consequences for a firm in attracting ethical investment – the question of why it matters.

The following post will deal with the magnitude of such consequences – the question of how much it matters.

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There is a lot of discussion on the vulnerability of environmental laws and the loopholes which makes it easier for the companies to deceive the authorities about their environmental footprint. Recycling of the electronic waste is a major headache as it involves a lot of bucks. The easiest way of getting rid of the e-waste is to dump it in the developing countries and this practice has been in place for many years.

A recent research by the Government Accountability Office revealed that many companies are exporting e-waste materials, including CRT monitors, to the third world countries instead of recycling at home due to relaxed regulations. In environmental reports, however, they claim that they have recycled it by themselves and in full compliance with the international standards.

What these companies have failed to comprehend is that their negligence is killing people in those countries where these parts are ‘recycled’. Pakistan along with India and China are major importers of e-waste. The recycling of these materials is done under extremely dangerous procedures without any safety measures. As a result, the workers involved in the recycling industry become victims of debilitating diseases.

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CDF Software, parent of Social Bridges, and Telenor recently issued a press release in major dailies of Pakistan announcing the launch of our blog. The PR was aimed at creating awareness about our efforts and to engage with more and more people.

Here is the statement as it appeared in The News:

By our correspondent
9/20/2008 ISLAMABAD: CDF Software and Telenor Pakistan on Thursday announced the launch of Social Bridges (socialbridges.org), a corporate social responsibility (CSR) blog on the internet.

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Safeguarding of employees’ rights and implementation of labour laws is now a deep rooted phenomenon in the developed countries and increasingly in many developing countries as well. It’s inconceivable for a western employee now to think about any cruel labour practices of the past. But for employees and labourers in many developing countries, it is actually an everyday fact.

I’ll focus my attention on the labour practices and employees persecution in Pakistan here. We do have ample labour laws and employees protection acts but often times they are not implemented in the true sense of the word. Many employers, including the global giants, usually come down like a ton of bricks when it comes to labour laws and fair trade practices. Take the case of Unilever for example. The company has dismissed scores of workers as they were demanding their basic right to join a trade union. As discussed before, this FMCG has some really dubious practices when it comes to the protection of employees rights.

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It’s quite sometime that companies have started printing corporate responsibility and sustainability reports. While this trend has also got some supporters in the developing world but many are still not coming up to the standards. The procedures used for environmental reporting, among other things, are quite dubious according to the experts.

Many also opine that these reports are a mere eyewash and a source of image building and an easy way of boosting PR. Another very important aspect, which is often overlooked at least in developing countries, is the transparency factor. Do the researchers dissect the environmental and social claims put forward in these reports? A recent research study found that 80% of the Fortune 50 report environmental sustainability information online, mostly in dedicated sub-domains.

The study also found that accountability is way lower in these reports as no third-party verification has been used nor the readers can access the actual data sets. Some other very startling facts have been revealed in the study.

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As the globalization is becoming the order of the day and decent labour practices are the norm, researchers are analyzing the perspectives of fair trade and more importantly, fair labour practices in all corners of our planet. A recent research paper found that global trends, especially in developing countries, about labour laws and ‘humane’ labour practices are changing but not at a very encouraging rate.

The researchers focused on these basic standards:

Discussion is based on four core labour standards; the freedom of association and the effective recognition of the right to collective bargaining, the elimination of all forms of forced or compulsory labour, the effective abolition of child labour, and the elimination of discrimination for employment and occupation.

The authors have identified three basic developmental paths for decent labour practices.

• Borderless Laissez Faire - Market driven liberalization and trade liberalization.
• Supernational institution building - Governing globalized markets through political integration.
• Multilevel governance - Embedding markets by new variable patterns of governance.

The authors have also reached some basic conclusions about the future course we can adopt.

You can read the full report here.

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