Principles of Business Environmental reports

[Yakub02]

The UN Global Compact states that companies should be encouraged by their shareholders to provide disclosures on environmental, social and corporate governance issues – in other words, to report on these issues.

The ten principles are that businesses should:

 support and respect the protection of international proclaimed human rights within their sphere of influence;

 make sure that they are not compliant in human rights abuses;

 uphold the freedom of association and the effective recognition to the right of collective bargaining;

 uphold the elimination of all forms of forced and compulsory labour;

 uphold the effective abolition of child labour;

 eliminate discrimination in respect of employment and occupation;

 support a precautionary approach to environmental challenges;

 undertake initiatives to promote greater environmental responsibility;

 encourage the development and diffusion of environmentally-friendly technologies;  work against all forms of corruption, including extortion and bribery

It is important to understand how a company might suffer financially from a poor track record on CSR issues:

 Bad publicity about social and environmental issues could damage the public image of the company and its brands (‘brand reputation risk’); and

 Companies may be affected by preferences of stakeholders, for companies with positive policy objectives on social and environmental issues. There are some investment organisations that focus on these issues.

More significantly, perhaps, high-quality employees may prefer to work for ‘ethical’ companies..