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HRW Pushes for Public Reporting on Jewelry Sourcing
April 09, 2018
The nongovernmental organization Human Rights Watch is encouraging jewelry firms to embrace the global business and human rights agenda in their sourcing of various minerals by mapping their full supply chains, performing broad human rights impact assessments, and increasing public reporting on their efforts to rid their supply chains of human rights abuses.
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GRI: Corporate Reporting Contributes to Gender Equality
March 30, 2018
A press release from the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) explains how companies can use its reporting standards on topics related to the international "sustainability" agenda to demonstrate to the public how their corporate employment and other policies contribute to gender equality.
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GRI Launches Registration System for Corporate Reporting
March 30, 2018
As the organization seeks to further standardize the worldwide use of its corporate reporting standards, the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) has launched a Standards Report Registration System permitting companies to notify GRI of the use of its standards and prove to others that they have issued their reports in compliance with GRI rules.
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EU Ministers Advance Reporting Mandates for Tax Planners
March 30, 2018
EU economic and financial affairs ministers have reached a deal on new rules requiring financial intermediaries, such as accountants and tax planners, to report to tax authorities "complex cross-border financial schemes" they have constructed to help lower their clients' tax bills, and establishing a central EU database containing information on these structures.
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EC Sets out "Sustainable Finance" Action Plan
March 29, 2018
The European Commission (EC) has produced an action plan describing how it will encourage the alignment of the EU finance sector with the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), including by pushing for recognition of a "duty" of investors to take the SDGs into account in their investment decisions and for corporate reporting on "sustainability" issues.
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Shareholders Push Rio Tinto on Coal Lobbying
March 27, 2018
The Guardian reports that shareholders in Australian-British mining group Rio Tinto, including large, institutional investors, are pushing the company to end its membership in various trade groups that lobby for government policies in favor of coal production that they say threaten the global climate-change agenda.
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GRI Presses Companies on Gender Reporting
March 23, 2018
Marking International Women's Day, the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) issued a press release calling on companies to include in reporting on their implementation of the "sustainability" agenda the ways in which they are addressing gender inequality and identifying gender parity in business as a major factor in achieving the global Sustainable Development Goals.
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UN Launches Pilot Project on Climate Reporting in Finance
March 21, 2018
UN Environment has partnered with nine institutional investors to pilot the recommendations of the Financial Stability Board’s (FSB) Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures to pave the way for expansive public reporting on investors' exposure to the catastrophic risks of climate change across the finance industry.
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NGOs Launch BHR Reporting Project for Garment Sector
March 20, 2018
The Sustainable Apparel Coalition and the Partnership for Sustainable Textiles have signed a letter of intent to coordinate their efforts to develop reporting and verification systems for due diligence and reporting of social and environmental impacts by companies in the garment industry in line with the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (BHR).
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Class Action Targets Nestlé over Labor Reporting
March 20, 2018
Highlighting the potentially high costs of laws requiring public corporate disclosure of human rights and environmental risks, Reuters reports that a Massachusetts resident is seeking to open a class-action lawsuit against Nestlé accusing the company of deceptive practices for failing to disclose instances of child and forced labor in its global supply chain.