News and comment from the June/July edition of Corporate Citizenship Briefing, issue 106
Report highlights lack of indigenous rights policies by extractive companies
A new report published on 18 June by Ethical Investment Research Services (EIRIS) and the Centre for Australian Ethical Research (CAER), has found that few companies engaged in extractive business activities in indigenous lands have policies that address indigenous rights concerns. According to the report, ‘Indigenous Rights: Risks and Opportunities for Investors’, the quality of corporate reporting on indigenous rights issues is poor, with fewer than 20% companies listed on the FTSE All World Developed Index having policies that require free prior informed consultation for indigenous peoples. The report identifies several key issues for indigenous people, who account for 5% of the world’s population butover 15% of the world’s poor. Contact: EIRIS www.eiris.org
Vedanta Resources shamed with environment award loss
British mining company Vedanta Resources, faced humiliation in June as its ‘Golden Peacock’ award for environmental management was withdrawn at the last minute. The prize was withdrawn the day before it was due to be handed over, after activists revealed details of the company’s highly polluting alumina refinery on the land of Kondh tribes in Orissa, India. Demonstrators at the event in Palampur, India, took over the podium to denounce Vedanta’s appalling environmental record. A subsidiary of the FTSE 100 mining conglomerate had already energetically publicised its receipt of the award for environmental excellence, sponsored by the World Environment Foundation and the UK’s Institute of Directors. Contact: Golden Peacock Awards www.goldenpeacockawards.com
Call for oil companies to withdraw from Peru
On 8 June, Survival International called on all oil companies operating in the Peruvian Amazon to suspend operations as the country comes to terms with the worst political violence since the Shining Path insurgency in the 1980s. The companies include Anglo- French Perenco, Spain’s Repsol and Brazil’s Petrobras. Violent clashes between Amazon Indians blockading roads and rivers, police and army units have left dozens of Indians, and at least 23 policemen, dead. The Indians have been protesting for two months against a series of laws which open up their communal rainforests to oil and gas companies. In the last few years more than 70% of the Amazon has been parcelled out to oil and gas companies for exploration and a series of large-scale finds threaten to
transform much of the Indians’ virgin forests. Contact: Survival International www.survival-international.org
Harvard MBA graduates take anti-greed oath
An oath taken on 3 June by more than 400 students graduating from Harvard Business School pledged to ‘create value responsibly and ethically’. At an unofficial ceremony the day before they received their MBAs, the students promised they would, among other things, ‘serve the greater good’, ‘act with the utmost integrity’ and guard against ‘decisions and behaviour that advance my own narrow ambitions, but harm the enterprise and the societies it serves.’ The initial goal was to get at least 100 graduating Harvard Business School students to sign the oath. The group is now aiming to begin a widespread movement of MBAs who aim to live out the principles articulated in the oath. Their longterm goal is to transform the field of management into a true profession, one in which MBAs are respected for their integrity, professionalism, and leadership. Contact: MBA Oath www.mbaoath.org
Greenpeace says big brands are destroying rainforest
A three-year investigation by Greenpeace into Brazil’s cattle industry, released in June, has shown that the expansion of the cattle sector is driving the deforestation of the Amazon rainforest and threatens to undermine Brazil’s pledge to cut deforestation by 72% by 2018. The environmental group also says the cattle industry is the single largest source of deforestation in the world and Brazil’s main source of CO2 emissions. Brazilian firms that supply Tesco, Asda and Marks & Spencer are among dozens of companies named by prosecutors, who are seeking compensation. Contact: Greenpeace www.greenpeace.org
Comment
What do the Uighurs in north-western deserts of China, the Peruvian Indians in the Amazonian jungle and the Kondh tribes in the northern plains of Orissa, India have in common?
Geographically, you couldn’t get three regions further from each other. But anyone who has read the papers lately will know that it is an unhappy commonality that they share: the curse of living in territory coveted by others for resource exploitation. As an issue this is hardly a new story, but it is one that in recent months, has gained momentum and, tragically, lost lives.
In China, the Uighurs, once an independent Muslim minority living in a mineral and oil-rich province, are now fighting for both their cultural identity as well as their right to share in the economic riches of the province. In Peru, Amazonian Indians are fighting both their government and foreign oil interests for their rights to communal rainforests. In Orissa, the British mining company Vedanta has been stripped of a prestigious WEF-sponsored environmental award after local ethnic groups and campaigners such as British NGO Survival, revealed evidence of contamination from its alumina refinery.
All this points to an unchanged reality: despite the existence of legal rights at both international and national levels for indigenous communities around the world, combined vested interests by state and corporation make for an unstoppable force. A recent report by EIRIS indicates that fewer than 20% of companies in the FTSE All World Developed Index have policies that require free prior informed consultation for indigenous peoples. The battle for the world’s remaining natural resources is gathering pace, and it is clear that indigenous communities living in and among them, still stand to lose the most. It should be the business of any business that benefits, however indirectly, from these vulnerable parts of the world, to address the question of indigenous rights as a fundamental part of enlightened business management.
Liza Lort-Phillips liza.lort-phillips@corporatecitizenship.com
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