2 Nobel Prize winners on Responsible Business Conduct: Tirole and Satyarthi, CSR theory and CSR action.

What do have Nobel Prize Winners Tirole and Satyarthi in common? Their interest in Responsible Business Conduct !

Tirole wrote on CSR theory, and dissected the incentives. Essential CSR reading: Individual and corporate social responsibility (2010)   Tirole on CSR IandCsocialRespons2

Satyarthi focuses on action to eradicate Child Labor. He recently said at the OECD ILO Roundtable on Responsible Supply Chains in the Textiles and Garment Industry in Paris (29 and 30 sept 2014):

“Corporations must realize child labor and denial of education are the biggest impediments in sustainable economic growth & Industrial development.”

“Build genuine multistakeholder partnerships, engage multiple layer actors of the supply chain, besides decent work for adults to end child labor.”

“Mere philanthropy in response to CSR is no answer. Transparency in production/ supply chains and business accountability are important” Twittter: @k_satyarthi

EU & Singapore promote Responsible Business Conduct and the OECD Guidelines in Free Trade Agreement

Reference to responsible business conduct is becoming increasingly common within investment treaty law, including within bilateral trade agreements.[1]

This trend is reflected within the latest EU-Singapore Free Trade Agreement which makes explicit reference to social responsibility practices and the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises:

”When promoting trade and investment, the Parties should make special efforts to
promote corporate social responsibility practices which are adopted on a voluntary
basis. In this regard, each Party shall refer to relevant internationally accepted
principles, standards or guidelines that it has agreed or acceded to, such as the
Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development Guidelines for
Multinational Enterprises, the UN Global Compact, and the ILO Tripartite Declaration
of Principles concerning Multinational Enterprises and Social Policy. The Parties
commit to exchanging information and cooperating on promoting corporate social
responsibility.”

Full text of the agreement can be found here.

[1]  For more information see Investment treaty law: sustainable development and responsible business conduct: A fact finding survey OECD, 2014; Information on OECD work on international investment law generally is available here.

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Responsible Business Conduct: companies need ‘business diplomats’ to implement OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises

This article by  Raymond Saner and Lichia Yiu discusses the challenges of implementing the OECD Guidelines and proposes that MNEs consider appointing business diplomats, who the authors consider are best qualified to meet these complex but also increasingly important business challenges.

The full text of the article can be accessed here:

HJD_Saner Business Dipolmacy Competence

Responsible Business Conduct in Central Asia and South Caucasus

Check out the latest OECD publication on RBC in Georgia!
‘’As part of its work to implement the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises, the OECD is examining the role of responsible business conduct in building healthy business environments in Central Asia and South Caucasus.

Kazakhstan and Georgia are the first countries to be reviewed in this series of reports focused on responsible business conduct and sustainable development throughout the region. This work contributes to the OECD-Eurasia Competitiveness Programme and is supported by the Government of Austria. It was launched in May 2014 at the Astana Economic Forum in Kazakhstan.’’

Conflict translates environmental and social risk into business costs

Excellent article published by the National Academy of Sciences of the United States  investigates the business costs of company–community conflict and its role in the regulation of sustainability performance in the extractive industries. Read the full article here! 

OECD MNE Guidelines Featured in US Global Anti-Corruption Agenda

A fact sheet  on the US Global Anti-corruption Agenda was released on September 24th stating that:

”The United States will develop a National Action Plan to promote and incentivize responsible business conduct, including with respect to transparency and anticorruption, consistent with the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights and the OECD Guidelines on Multinational Enterprises”