(New York, 7 June 2011) – When it comes to broad implementation of responsible business practices, company size matters most. And while businesses around the world seem to be making tangible progress in addressing environmental concerns, many continue to struggle in the human rights and anti-corruption arena.

These are among the findings of the UN Global Compact’s latest Implementation Survey, one of the most comprehensive global surveys on corporate sustainability performance. Completed anonymously by more than 1,200 companies participating in the UN corporate responsibility initiative, the survey forms the basis of the 2010 Global Compact Annual Review, which was launched at UN Headquarters today.

Among the key findings:

• Large and publicly traded companies are performing at higher levels on all of the Global Compact’s issue areas (human rights, labour, environment and anti-corruption) than small and medium-size enterprises (SMEs), pointing to the availability of greater financial and human resources to support extensive sustainability programs.
• Reflective of the growing relevance of sustainability issues to business performance, more than 70 percent of all respondents indicate the active involvement of their chief executives in policy and strategy development. Nearly 60 percent of all publicly traded companies report active involvement of their boards of directors.
• Companies across the board report having anti-discrimination and equal opportunity policies in place – one of the few issues to transcend size or sector. Yet, less than 20 percent of all respondents report conducting human rights impact assessments and less than 30 percent record instances of corruption, with dramatic differences between SMEs and larger companies.
• Concerning supply chain implementation of sustainability principles, widely seen as critical in order to bring corporate responsibility to true scale, 65 percent of companies report some measure of supplier involvement, with 12 percent requiring their suppliers to be Global Compact participants.
• Likewise, 79 percent of companies spread their commitment to the Global Compact principles to their subsidiaries, with nearly half of those (44 percent) creating separate sustainability functions at the subsidiary level.
• Increasingly, businesses are recognizing the role of the private sector in advancing UN development objectives. Over half (56 percent) of survey respondents are engaged in some form of public-private partnership at the global or local level. Reflecting a broader trend by business to build on the growing sustainability market, 42 percent of all respondents said that they are developing products and services or designing business models that seek to contribute to UN priorities.

“While the sustainability movement has taken great strides in recent years, significant challenges remain,” said Georg Kell, Executive Director of the UN Global Compact. “Helping smaller companies close performance gaps, stimulating collective action on all fronts and making a stronger case for human rights and anti-corruption engagement will be critical if we are to bring corporate responsibility to scale.”

Overall, the Global Compact continued to grow in 2010 and now includes more than 6,000 business participants, as well as more than 3,000 non-business signatories. More than half of all businesses in the initiative are small and medium-size enterprises. The countries with the highest numbers of participants are France, Spain, the US and Brazil.

• Download the UN Global Compact Annual Review 2010
  
• Download Key Findings

WikiLeaks vows to target banks

Posted Sat Dec 18, 2010 7:21am AEDT

• Related Story: WikiLeaks says major bank is its next target

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange said his organisation had come under attack from banks as he vowed to release damaging leaks about them.

"We have been attacked, primarily not by government... although things are heating up now, but by banks, banks from Dubai, banks from Switzerland, banks from the US, banks from the UK, so yes of course we are continuing to release material about banks," he told CNBC television.

In an interview published last month by Forbes magazine, Mr Assange, who has released thousands of confidential diplomatic cables, claimed a fresh "megaleak" will target a major US bank "early next year".

Mr Assange said the bank leak would "give a true and representative insight into how banks behave at the executive level in a way that will stimulate investigations and reforms, I presume".

The controversial Australian said that he was ready to unleash tens of thousands of documents that could "take down a bank or two".

The main target is thought to be Bank of America, based on comments last year from Mr Assange.

At the heart of the problem is an unholy alliance between Russian law enforcement and the criminal world—a combination that over the last decade has created “an alloy of almost unbreakable force,” says lawyer Vladimir Pastukhov. Instead of enforcing the law, a large chunk of Russia’s police, secret police, and government bureaucrats spend their energies on looking out for vulnerable businesses that can be targeted for a corporate raid, Russian style. Unlike the Wall Street version, a Russian hostile takeover almost invariably involves a violent raid by armed and masked police using a warrant issued on flimsy charges, followed by the confiscation of company documents, computers, and archives with a view to stealing the business and intimidating its lawful owners. The pattern was established in 2003 when the Kremlin dismembered Russia’s biggest oil company, Yukos, and jailed its head, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, and a slew of executives and lawyers based on dubious evidence. “Russian bureaucrats figured, if Putin can do it, so can we,” says a lawyer connected to Yukos who is contractually forbidden from speaking to the press.

So if I was going to replace me I would probably look for a grassroots nonprofit type person who is really plugged into the people and not so much plugged in to their MBA textbook that’s collecting dust on the shelf. And I’d look for somebody that has a bunch of unrefined skills that is eager to get out there and do really good, hard work . This is not a 9-5 job, so I need somebody with the work ethic that can dedicate themselves to it but I want somebody with kind of a fresh slate because I don’t want somebody whose ideas I have to undo.

Some principles and dynamics to think about:

• Opening up & loss of control
• The collaborative & organic nature of the medium
• The power and dynamics of network effects
• The importance of constancy and participation vs big grand gestures
• The personal intimate nature of the medium
• The importance of trust and relationship
• The always on - 24/7 nature of the web

Here are some of my quick learning take aways:

• Many of the P&G folks' thought the first task was to figure out the messaging of the campaign, where as the external folks just dived right in in plain English.
• The social web folks jumped on their networks first without necessary realizing the impact and focused on a long tail one-to-one approach figuring that network effects would take over.
• The P&G folks understood the need to identify where to get the biggest bang for their buck.
• The speed nature of the exercise brought out some incredible creativity. I had a sense that this freedom was very liberating for the P&G folks once they got into it. Some of my teammates quickly brainstormed a quick rap [yeah-it's dorky, but they did it without planning or thinking about it too much. We even got the team at Pandora to write a catchy little ditty. [Thanks Tim. It arrived a bit late, but kudos to them for jumping in. Compare that to the month long planning cycles most companies go through.
• The P&G folks were often very process oriented and the invitees where comfortable with more chaos - meeting somewhere in the middle brought out the best.
• Even the "digerati" who understand the principles of the social web stepped over the line a bit in the exuberance of the moment - to me this is a cautionary tale about the future of "influencers" and everyone's personal understanding of their relationships, networks and personal brand. Just as in the real world you are judged by your actions - so too are you judged online. Remember - Google is now the long tail of reputation.
• The need for a different set of skills and expertise - teams needed a human connector to bring it all together and a catalyst to kick it off. I see this as a growing skill set in business as a result of the social web. Think Community Manager meets Senior Executive.

via deborahschultz.com