Britain will lead the fight against modern slavery, new Prime Minister Theresa May has said, calling it “the great human rights issue of our time”. She said a new UK cabinet taskforce would tackle the “sickening and inhuman crimes”, while £33 million from the aid budget would fund initiatives overseas. Mrs May said a review to mark the first anniversary of the Modern Slavery Act, which she drew up as home secretary, found there had been 289 modern slavery offences prosecuted in 2015 – and a 40% rise in the number of victims identified. The most recent Home Office estimates suggest there are between 10,000 and 13,000 victims of modern slavery in the UK, with 45 million estimated victims across the world. Victims are said to include women forced into prostitution, “imprisoned” domestic staff and workers in fields, factories and fishing boats. (BBC)
India’s child labour bill passed, Unicef voices concern
India’s controversial Child Labour Amendment Bill has passed in Parliament, allowing children to help out in family enterprises after school hours. Unicef said the provision will impact children from poorer families and legitimise family work. “The more invisible forms of child labour and exploitation may go unseen and the most vulnerable and marginalised children may end up with irregular school attendance, lower levels of learning,” said Euphrates Gobina, Unicef chief of education in India. The bill makes employing a child below 14 years of age in any occupation or process, except where the child helps his or her family, punishable by a jail term of up to two years and even provides for a penalty for parents. (Times of India)
Strategy
Shell aiming for net-zero emissions
A new report by Shell unveils pathways to transforming the company’s power, industry, transportation and buildings sectors to reduce carbon emissions. The report states that Shell’s drive to achieve net-zero emissions is likely to be accelerated due to the “global reality” of limiting global rise in temperatures to well below 2°C – a target set at the Paris Agreement in December 2015. But it does not provide a time period for achieving its net-zero emissions target. Shell’s analysis says that by 2035 to 2050, the world could be brought to the halfway point of this transition, through actions such as redoubling energy efficiency and accelerating the switch from coal to gas. The report also emphasises the importance of significant improvements to city infrastructure in order to create low-energy service demand. (Eco-Business)
SolarCity accepts $2.6 billion bid from Tesla
Elon Musk, chief executive of Tesla Motors, has unveiled an agreement to pay $2.6 billion in stock for SolarCity, the solar power company where he is also chairman. The attempt to create what Mr Musk described as the first vertically-integrated sustainable energy conglomerate has drawn widespread scepticism. The offer also raised questions about whether Musk was using Tesla to bail out the struggling power company, whose shares had fallen by nearly two-thirds. Tesla executives made a renewed effort to sell the deal to Wall Street, laying out in more detail how they expected to slice $150 million from SolarCity’s annual costs and sell its solar panels in Tesla’s retail stores alongside its own electricity storage systems and cars. (Financial Times*)
Corporate Reputation
Plan to wipe UK company records could boost fraud
Millions of public records are set to be erased in a move that would hamper investigations into major fraud, money laundering and corruption among UK companies. Companies House is discussing proposals to wipe all record of companies that went out of business more than six years ago. Currently, details of dissolved companies are held for 20 years. The proposed purge of public records comes in response to a rise in requests from business people demanding the “right to be forgotten”. But campaigners have warned that the plan threatens to hinder inquiries into white-collar crime and due diligence by banks, lawyers, credit agencies and investigative journalists. They said that the move ran contrary to Theresa May’s plan to reform capitalism, which stresses the importance of greater corporate transparency in the wake of the BHS scandal. (The Times*)
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