British businesses should copy Jaguar Land Rover supply chain approach
British industry should follow Jaguar Land Rover’s example of investing in the supply chain to strengthen domestic capability to boost exports, according to the CBI, the business lobbying organisation. The Only Way is Exports, published yesterday, called for sectors across British business to identify skills, quality and performance gaps in their specific supply chains and invest to improve them. It held up Jaguar Land Rover and Rolls-Royce as examples of businesses that put time and money into developing suppliers, through offering supply chain finance, providing funding and building strong relationships with their supply chains. (Supply Management)
Sustainable Harvest Coffee Importers, the US based coffee importers, announced a disaster relief effort called the ‘Roya Recovery Project’ to help Latin American coffee farmers who are facing staggering losses as a result of a widespread outbreak of coffee leaf rust disease. This parasitic fungus, known as Roya, will cause coffee harvests to drop by an expected 30- 70 percent in the region and the loss of approximately 500,000 coffee-related jobs. The Roya Recovery Project focuses on tools and training that bring best-practices instruction to the rural coffee sector. Early donors to the Roya Recovery Project include Cafe Moto, Cafe Mystique, Green Mountain CoffeeRoasters and Progreso. (CSR Wire)
Policy & Research
Climate change policy is ‘economic opportunity’
Nike, Starbucks, Ikea and 30 other companies have signed a statement urging US federal policymakers to take action on climate change by promoting clean energy, boosting efficiency and limiting carbon emissions. Climate change policy is an economic opportunity, says Anne Kelly, director of Ceres’ Business for Innovative Climate & Energy Policy (BICEP) coalition, which organised the campaign. The companies involved say they’re taking steps to reduce CO2 emissions and these sustainability measures are helping their businesses. Extreme weather events like Hurricane Sandy have exposed the United States’ economic vulnerability to climate change. Together, the Declaration signatories provide approximately 475,000 U.S. jobs and generate a combined annual revenue of approximately $450bn. (Environmental Leader)
UK government in private sector push to tackle deforestation
The UK government has officially joined an innovative new public-private initiative designed to harness the power of private sector companies to tackle deforestation around the world. Climate Change Minister Greg Barker confirmed yesterday the UK would join the recently launched Tropical Forests Alliance 2020 group, which has been set up by the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Consumer Goods Forum (CGF). The CGF represents over 400 retailers and manufacturers, including Unilever, Tesco and Nestle, and has committed to eliminating all deforestation from palm oil, soya, beef, and paper supply chains by the end of the decade. (Business Green)
Reporting
Sustainability reporting rising but external assurance lags
A report released recently by the Global Reporting Initiative’s (GRI) Focal Point USA, Trends in External Assurance of Sustainability Reports: Spotlight on the USA, found that while sustainability reporting in the United States continues to grow, corporate reporters in the U.S. are less likely to obtain third party assurance as their global peers. In the United States, 10 percent of GRI framework sustainability reports obtained external assurance in 2011. The international percentage is much higher at 38 percent. The analysis examines the external assurance practices of U.S. companies that use the GRI Guidelines and was conducted in collaboration with GRI’s US data partner and organisational stakeholder Governance & Accountability Institute. (CSR Wire)
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