Beauty industry leaders launch the Responsible Beauty Initiative
In an effort to accelerate improvements in sustainability performance throughout the beauty supply chain, Clarins, Coty, Groupe Rocher, L’Oréal and EcoVadis have launched the Responsible Beauty Initiative (RBI). The initiative brings together the global beauty industry in a collaborative effort to strengthen sustainable practices, improve environmental footprint and social impacts and maximise shared value across its collective supply chain. The RBI aims to drive a common understanding of sustainability performance across the industry, sharing best practices and processes and leveraging common tools to create efficiencies and benefits for suppliers. The initiative is built on a Corporate Social Responsibility rating platform operated by EcoVadis and functions as a common foundation for supplier assessment and interaction. (Sustainable Brands)
Corporate Reputation
HSBC to pay €300m to settle tax investigation
HSBC has agreed to pay €300m to French authorities to settle a long-running investigation into tax evasion by French clients. The French financial prosecutor’s office claimed HSBC’s Swiss private banking unit helped clients evade tax, involving more than €1.6bn of assets. Payment of the fine will close the case against HSBC but two former directors could yet face legal action. The investigation started in 2014 after a former IT employee leaked data involving thousands of French customers. Europe’s largest bank has acknowledged “control weaknesses” and said it had taken firm steps to address them. (BBC)
StubHub and Viagogo offices raided in ticket touting investigation
Investigators have raided the offices of ticket resale companies StubHub and Viagogo as part of a probe into suspected breaches of consumer law in the “secondary ticketing” industry. Officials from the UK Competition and Markets Authority seized information about the companies’ relationship with prominent ticket touts, who harvest tickets for in-demand events and sell them via the two sites. The raids are key to an investigation launched last year into whether ticketing companies are giving fans enough information about their tickets, such as who the seller is and whether buyers could be denied entry due to undisclosed restrictions on resale. StubHub has previously come under fire from a parliamentary committee for allowing touts to sell tickets without complying with UK laws that demand sellers provide information such as the row and seat number. (Guardian)
Competition
Fears of Amazon drug push rattle US healthcare industry
The US healthcare industry has become gripped by the possibility that Amazon will start selling prescription drugs, creating a powerful new competitor in a sector worth $450bn a year. Amazon has not said anything about its intentions, but analysts cite the competitive threat as the primary motivation for a mooted tie-up between CVS Health, one of the largest drugstore operators, and Aetna, the health insurer. Recent moves by pharmacy chains to offer next-day home delivery for medicines have also been linked to the possibility of Amazon entering the market. Amazon’s potential move into the industry threatens to lower prices and disrupt an opaque industry that is torn on who is responsible for the soaring cost of drugs, whether it be pharmaceutical companies, wholesalers or pharmacy benefit managers. Amazon’s potential entry into the market may “put pressure on the pharmacies to do more with less” although investors have already wiped more than $40bn from US drugstore chains in 2017. (Financial Times)*
Human Rights
Amnesty warns on use of child labour in cobalt mining
The world’s largest electronics and electric vehicle companies are not doing enough to ensure the cobalt in batteries they make or supply is not mined by child labour in the Democratic Republic of Congo, according to Amnesty International. The human rights group said almost half of the 28 largest companies that use cobalt, including Microsoft, Renault and Huawei, were failing to demonstrate even “minimal” compliance with international due diligence standards. Electric carmakers such as Tesla and BMW also need to do more to disclose the sources of their cobalt, it said. Demand for cobalt is rising rapidly as the world’s largest carmakers launch mass market electric vehicles that use the metal in their batteries. More than half of the world’s supplies of cobalt come from the DRC and as much as 20 per cent is mined by hand. Most of the metal mined by hand ends up with the Chinese company Zhejiang Huayou Cobalt, supplying battery components to some of the largest battery and electronics companies, including Apple. (Financial Times)*
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Image Source: Makeup by Free Photos atPixabay. CC0
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