December 2014

Lima Climate Change Conference – December 2014

The 20th session of the Conference of the Parties and the 10th session of the Conference of the Parties serving as the Meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol took place from 1 to 14 December in Lima, Peru.

The whistle has blown on the road to Paris as the COP 20 opened in Lima on December 1. A new pledge from Spain means there is now 9.7 billion USD equivalent promised to capitalise the Green Climate Fund for developing countries. These unprecedented funding pledges added to other recent announcements, including the momentum generated at the UN Climate Summit, the EU 2030 targets and the US/China deal, should provide a positive backdrop to the complex negotiations in Lima. Business needs a text with the elements of a new agreement, a format for countries to provide their national contributions and a fair, defined and robust process to allow tracking against a 2 degree scenario and to encourage further ambition.

WBCSD was very active in Lima ensuring that the voice of progressive business increases the confidence of negotiators. They were partnering with others on a number of key events including the first ‘Energy day’ at a COP, the Caring for Climate business forum, two forward thinking events on carbon pricing and the launch of the new technology roundtables initiative with SDSN and IDDRI.

Download the program of WBCSD collaborative events at COP 20

Source: http://unfccc.int/meetings/lima_dec_2014/meeting/8141.php

http://www.wbcsd.org/roadtoparis.aspx

19.12.2014

New WBCSD issue brief identifies solutions to scaling up business action on human rights

News

In its latest issue brief, the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) identifies a series of barriers and solutions to operationalizing the UN Guiding Principles for Business and Human Rights (UNGPs). The latter establish an authoritative global standard on the respective roles of businesses and governments in helping ensure that companies respect human rights in their own operations and through their business relationships.

The brief, titled Scaling up Action on Human Rights: Operationalizing the UN Guiding Principles for Business and Human Rights, builds on the hands-on experiences of several WBCSD member companies in their efforts to implement the UNGPs, including: ABB, Anglo American, ArcelorMittal, Coca-Cola, DSM, Eni, HEINEKEN, Hitachi, Holcim, JPMorgan Chase, Michelin, Nestlé, Novartis, RWE, Total, Unilever, and Vale. It also draws from the results of the survey of WBCSD members on the implementation of the UNGPs as well as the broader experience of experts that have worked with companies on these issues across the globe.

Specifically, the brief intends to:

Create a better understanding of the current state of play amongst corporations
Highlight some of the most common barriers faced by companies in their efforts to implement the UNGPs
Share solutions tried and tested by WBCSD members to overcome these barriers

These insights are useful for companies at all stages of their human rights journey. For companies that are kick-starting their human rights activities – and trying to determine how best to ‘dive in’ – the brief provides a menu of practical steps that might help them get started, which their peers have found to be most important and effective. For companies with more experience, the brief identifies additional strategies that may help them to overcome persistent challenges.

The Council has been pleased to partner with Shift on this topic. Shift, an independent, non-profit center for business and human rights practice, led a series of interviews and a workshop across the summer of 2014 with WBCSD member companies and partners, which contributed to the shaping of this brief.

The brief is being launched today in conjunction with the 2014 United Nations Forum on Business and Human Rights in Geneva, where WBCSD and its members are participating in a series of cross-sectoral discussions and debates to raise awareness, build understanding, and tackle challenges in the field of business and human rights.

Human rights: An essential pillar of the WBCSD’s Action2020 platform

“Meeting basic needs and respecting human rights” has been identified as one of nine key priority areas within the WBCSD’s Action2020 platform, a science-based action plan that seeks to engage companies to implement innovative and scalable business solutions and improve the business case for sustainability. WBCSD members have highlighted the operationalization of the UNGPs as an essential business solution to contribute to achieving this priority.

However, global experience has demonstrated that this can be a lot more challenging in practice than it sounds. Despite extensive guidance material, companies, and those responsible for human rights issues within those companies, face a number of barriers to operationalizing respect for human rights across their businesses. In this context, companies have been cautious entering this space, and the voice of business has been relatively quiet when it comes to sharing corporate efforts.

The objective of this issue brief is to turn the tide, and encourage more companies to take action on operationalizing the UNGPs.

19.12.2014

To improve company sustainability, a more stable and predictable external environment is required

News

According to 96% of Hungarian companies, a more stable and predictable external environment is a pre-requisite for them to improve their sustainability, and, what is more, nearly all of them agree that the business sector will have a significant influence on the future evolution of sustainability. This data is derived from the annual, statistically-non-representative survey conducted by the Business Council of Sustainable Development in Hungary (BCSDH). The survey provides information about the opinions, experiences and expectations of respondents about the current situation of and trends in sustainable development in Hungary, and gives details about respondents’ performance and targets.

The survey was based on the ’Recommendations for Business leaders: The Complex Interpretation of

Corporate Sustainability’. To continue the tradition (the survey was conducted for the first time in 2013), this is the second year that the BCSDH has examined the Signatories’ experience and performance. This year, beyond collecting information about general trends and accomplishments, the survey had a special focus on the strategic integration of sustainability.

At an event for publicising the findings of the survey, a further 26 companies and business organizations joined the initiative, which already has 102 Signatories.

The most important conclusion that can be drawn from the findings of the survey was that “Sustainable development is clearly occurring, but at the same time the number and difficulty of the challenges that are arising is increasing, and overcoming some of the barriers seems to be more difficult than expected.”- summarised István Salgó, President of the BCSDH.

According to the survey, both globally and locally advances in sustainable development have occurred, but the tendency seems to be for Hungary to be lagging behind. Last year most Respondents articulated a pessimistic view about Hungarian trends, while this year they seem to agree on the fact that positive local trends are similar to global ones, only they are behind schedule and are affecting Hungary more slowly than expected, mostly because of the internal and external barriers to sustainability that exist.

The majority of respondents think that political decision makers, governmental regulation and incentives will have the biggest influence on the future evolution of sustainability. The results may be surprising, but the challenging obstacles that exist might explain these attitudes – we have already seen that the unpredictable and intransparent economic and regulatory environment in Hungary forces companies to engage in short term decision making.

After stressing the role of the government, respondents emphasize the importance of their own (and in general, the influence of the power of all) multinational companies in Hungary. Survey respondents clearly recognize their own role, responsibility and opportunities for hastening the evolution of sustainability, which may of course may be further influenced by shareholders, investors and parent companies.

According to the survey, 81% of the local business sector find executive commitment to be the most important driver of their achievements that are related to taking a strategic approach, followed by shareholder expectations (at 65%). To summarise the survey respondents’ plans for the next 1-3 years, partnerships (92%), responsible management (90%) and taking a strategic approach (85%) are the fields in which respondents believe that they need to improve the most.

“More flexible companies and new business models are indisputably needed. These will be better able to deal with the radical, ongoing changes. But the transformation is a difficult and complex process and CEO commitment, support from shareholders and successful dialogue and partnerships with stakeholders are of key importance.” – emphasized István Salgó.

04.12.2014

“Future leaders” talent program participants got certificates

News

20 young professionals got certificates on the November 25^th’s yearly event, organized for leaders of companies.

On Tuesday, 20 successful, young professionals, who successfully completed the „Future Leaders” talent program had received a certificate. With this, they have proven that they poses all which is needed to become that kind of leaders who will be able to give solutions and answers to the social and environmental challenges taking into consideration sustainability approach to start positive changes into the world.

The aim of the “Future Leaders” talent program is to help potential business leaders who are currently talented professionals to understand the complexity of corporate sustainability and to enable them to incorporate sustainability elements into their future decision making processes.

This program is unique in Hungary as a diverse group of practicing business leaders will mentor participants and share their experiences about sustainability, strategy and ethical operations. Furthermore, future leaders will have the opportunity to thoroughly get to know their mentoring companies.

23 young talents from 13 member companies started the program in January 2013. 20 of them successfully finished the nearly one year long program with the presentations of a team project.

The program lasted for nine months during which participants had been led through the seven principles of the BCSDH’s Recommendation for Business Leaders: “The Complex Interpretation of Corporate Sustainability” with support from their mentors.

These topics are tackling Sustainability, Strategic Approach and Responsible Management, Ethical and Transparent operations, Respect for basic values, Environmental responsibility and Partnership with stakeholders.

Member companies showed their commitment to the program, not only by financial support, but also with allocating other kind of resources.

Each topic was mentored by two companies. Mentors from these companies did not only coordinate the professional program but also were available to participants during the program to share personal and professional experiences.

In 2014’s program mentor companies were: Alteo, Ben&Loch Lomond, Budapest Airport, Budapesti Erőmű, Coca-Cola HBC, E.ON, Grundfos, Holcim, KPMG, MOL, Nestlé, Siemens, Telenor and Zwack.

“Future Leaders” talent program continues in 2015 as well. Member companies are now selecting among young professionals who have professional experience between 5 and 10 years, who have been observed to have the potential to become business leaders and can successfully apply for this talent program.

In 2015’s program there will be one novelty that next to the professionals coming from companies, one university masters studies student will have the opportunity to participate in the program, thanks to the scholarship of our organization. The “Future Leaders” Scholarship is sponsored by E.ON.

You can find the photo gallery on the following link.

01.12.2014

BCSDH presents: Action 2020 Hungary

News

Can business be a positive force to solve global environmental and social issues? We say: “YES”! – said István Salgó, President of our organization, on the event where BCSDH (Business Council for Sustainable Development in Hungary) launched the Action 2020 Hungary.

With this sentence the business lunch started for local business leaders, where we introduced the unique Action 2020 Hungary program. The program was developed by BCSDH with the strong involvement of the CEO’s of our member companies, who contribute to a significant part of GDP in Hungary, and more than 100 Hungarian scientific and civil experts.

„The level of unemployment among young people has almost reached 20%, 1.8 million tons of food are thrown away on an annual basis, global warming (which may reach 2°C by 2050) is already impacting Hungary, only 9% of surface water is of good quality and sustainable consumers make up only 10% of the population. These are just some of the reasons that companies thinking on a long are being called to action.” – announced István Salgó, President of BCSDH.

Representing the government, Antal Nikoletti, responsible for International Economic Affairs at Ministry of National Economy of Hungary, appraised the program and underlined that priorities and goals of Action 2020 Hungary are aligned to the government’s national strategic goals. He also appraised the work of BCSDH, as the cooperation of the members – who account for more than 25% of the Hungarian GDP – and the scientific and civil sector’s experts to improve sustainable development, resulted in a really unique program.

This Action 2020 program is unique because more than 60 scientific and civil experts were involved and engaged in identifying challenges and goals. Following this step, we discussed the experts’ proposals with CEOs whose companies will have a key role to the success of the program.

The end result of the process was goal setting for the Action 2020 initiative. In the first phase with the involvement of stakeholders the most important social, environmental and economic facts, trends were identified, where the business sector will play a key role, over the next 6 years.

Based on these BCSDH will be able to continue the work by identifying, developing and disseminating business solutions which contribute to the realization of Action 2020 Hungary goals.

During the localization phase of the program and while setting the targets for Hungary we mainly considered the following factors:

the need to align targets with pre-existing national strategic goals, and/or
common scientific agreements that have identified problems or goals, and

• ensuring that the contribution of business sectors to these areas will be potentially significant.

Food and Feed, Employment, Sustainable Lifestyles, Climate Change and Water are the five focal areas for Action 2020 Hungary.

Based on a non-representative survey which was also published on this event, among the five selected priorities more than 60% of respondents identify Climate Change as the most important business risk. Most important business opportunity may be Sustainable Lifestyles according to the majority of respondents.

Critical phase of the program will just start by identifying and disseminating business solutions.

Company leaders, who played an active role during the program development within the dedicated working group participated in a roundtable discussion during the event:

Andrea Bujdosó, Shell Hungary Zrt., András Gyenes, Unilever Magyarország Kft, Ágnes Horváth, McDonald’s Magyarországi Étterem Hálózat Kft., Zsolt Jamniczky, E.ON Hungária Zrt., Michael Nixon, Nestlé Hungária Kft.

They agreed, that participating in this Action 2020 Hungary program brought not only on a personal level, but for their company interesting experiences and benefits. The participation of a CEO in such a program already illustrates the commitment of the whole company not only for the external stakeholders but also for employees. They learned a lot of things through different roles: as parents, as socially and environmentally sensitive citizens and as company leaders. They were also confronted with shocking data and trends, but this strengthened their commitment to sustainable development, which is not only inevitable but also a business opportunity.

You can find the photo gallery on the following link.

More information about the Action 2020 you can find here.

01.12.2014