Investing for sustainable development and sustainable impact

INVESTING: For sustainable impact towards 2030’ SDGs

By Enock Were

At a recent meeting with investors in Stockholm, GRI and UN Global

Compact brought the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development to the table. The discussion highlighted current bottlenecks in sustainable investment and what should be done to resolve them. The outcomes of this discussion have been formalized in the Stockholm Declaration.

According to the 2016 Global Sustainable Investment Review, the total assets directed towards sustainable and responsible investment strategies globally amounted to $22.89 trillion in 2016, growing at a remarkable rate of 25% from 2014. The story revealed by this figure is one of the rapidly expanding influence of the investor community on the agenda for sustainable development.

Controlling the flow of vast amounts of capital gives the investment community considerable power in determining the success of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), such as SDG #1: No Poverty.

“By choosing to invest in business models and value chains that enable stable, inclusive and sustainable markets, investors can instigate a systemic impact that decisively improves people’s livelihoods and accelerates the fight against poverty, this being in accordance with the Financing for Development Agenda and Addis Ababa Action Agenda,” highlighted Lennart Båge, acting Director of the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida), at the the conference. To trigger a big impact on the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, GRI and UN Global Compact (UNGC) called on the investor community to engage in the discussion on SDGs.

During a two-day event ‘Investing for sustainable development and sustainable impact towards 2030’, held in Stockholm in May, speakers, panelists and round-table discussions contributed to expanding the conversation around investors’ expectations and vision regarding sustainable investment

and SDG reporting by companies.

To encourage greater investor engagement, the UN-supported Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI) was invited to co-convene these discussions. PRI is an investor initiative, which works to promote responsible investment among its international network of signatories.

The event, hosted by Sida, received an overwhelming response, drawing in 80 participants including senior or CEO level representatives from several Nordic and other pension funds, insurance companies and fund managers, including Alecta and Folksam, co-hosts of the event.

The discussions brimmed with expert insights, described below, which GRI and UNGC aim to concretize in their Reporting on SDGs Action Platform, to better meet the reporting

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Getting investors talking about SDGs

needs of companies and investors.

What investors need to make sustainable decisions

One of the prime outcomes of the meeting was that corporate reporting on SDGs needs to be current, comparable, coherent, and concise. Since investors often rely on data analysis in their decision making, it is vital that companies provide information on environmental, social, and governance (ESG) factors in a uniform manner.

This is currently a bottleneck restricting sustainable investment strategies. An online and standardized reporting tool that helps companies to report using a set framework aligned with the SDGs, would serve as a significant stride towards overcoming this obstacle.

“We need to allocate more capital to sustainable investments; however, it also means that we need to address certain bottlenecks. Quality disclosure of sustainability information is vital for progress in SDG investment.

Standardization and simplification is key for this aim, and an SDG reporting tool that achieves this could serve as a game-changer,” elaborated Magnus Billing, CEO of Alecta.

In addition to formulating practical project proposals for SDG reporting tools, the meeting group also drafted the Stockholm Declaration, emphasizing the commitment of the gathered investment community towards contributing to the 17 SDGs.

Kris Douma, the director of Investment Practices and Reporting at PRI, said, “institutional investors play a key role in financing solutions to global challenges such as poverty, inequality, social justice, and climate change.

The Stockholm Declaration recognizes the work that investors are already doing to drive sustainable development, and takes it forward by emphasizing their commitment to improve corporate reporting on SDGs, and in turn foster sustainable investment decisions.”

The co-conveners of the meeting will follow up on the conclusions derived from the event, and will offer additional opportunities to investors to become part of the conversation on enabling sustainable investment.

The Reporting on SDGs Action Platform is a groundbreaking initiative by GRI and UNGC to offer a clear and simple framework for the private sector to assess and report their SDG contributions. According to the 2016 Global Sustainable Investment Review, the total assets directed towards sustainable and responsible investment strategies globally amounted to $22.89 trillion in 2016, growing at a remarkable rate of 25% from 2014.

To date, best practices for corporate reporting on the UN Sustainable Development Goals have yet to be established. To address this issue, GRI and the UN Global Compact have initiated a ground-breaking initiative, ‘Reporting on the SDGs’. “We believe that business action will determine the success of the ambitious 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda, and the achievement of the SDGs. GRI and the UN Global Compact work with many thousands of businesses, and our partnership will enable them to incorporate SDG reporting into their existing processes, empowering them to act and make the achievement of the SDGs a reality.” says GRI’s Deputy Chief Executive Teresa Fogelberg.

Thousands of people across six continents joined massive clean-ups of beaches and parks, countries are protecting 1,600 square kilometres of land, and over 30 iconic landmarks lighted up in green in a powerful demonstration of humanity’s love for nature on World Environment Day. Celebrated on 5 June each year, World Environment Day is the largest global day for positive environmental action. This year, the main celebrations are hosted by Canada under the theme of connecting people with nature. The theme highlights the vast benefits, from food security and improved health to water supply and climatic stability that clean environments provide to humanity. With well documented physical and mental health benefits of being in nature, the day’s theme encourages people to simply get back outdoors. “Our entire modern life, with its skyscrapers and smartphones, stands on a delicate foundation of natural systems,” said UN Environment chief Erik Solheim. “Today, these foundations are shaking, undermined by man-made climate change, deforestation and extinctions. No amount of advanced technology will save us if we destroy and pollute our natural lifeblood.” “Canada is proud to host World Environment Day in 2017, the150th anniversary of our country’s confederation,” said Catherine McKenna, Minister of Environment and Climate Change of Canada. “As Canadians, we cherish our vast and beautiful natural spaces, we celebrate our connection to nature, and we are steadfast in our commitment to address climate change and promote clean growth.” World’s largest clean-up. In Tijuana, volunteers from both sides of the US-Mexico border are teaming up to clean the city beach in a show of solidarity in the face of a common environmental threat.

In Mumbai, India, the thousands joined the world’s largest clean-up on Versova beach celebrating their herculean effort. Over the past 18 months they have removed more than 5.5 million kilograms of trash, transforming the beach from a forsaken dumpsite into a postcard destination. They continue their work by planting 500 palm trees on the beach on World Environment Day. India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi cited the clean-up as inspiration for a massive overhaul of India’s waste management system. Starting 5 June, he said authorities will install colourcoded litter bins in 4,000 towns across India to encourage people to recycle. Volunteers donning rubber gloves also flocked to the beaches of East Africa - from Kenya, which has recently announced a plastic bag-ban, to Tanzania and Mozambique - as well as 150 cleanups across Canada, and more in Spain, the Baltic Sea, Lebanon, the Greek Islands, Egypt, Australia, the United States, Norway, and even the Arctic.

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Around the World as Humanity stands with Nature

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Hossa - a mosaic of dark, primeval forests and fish-filled waters - becomes Finland’s 40th national park. Bosnia and Herzegovina will double the size of its protected areas, with the establishment of eight new sites, totalling 150,000 hectares. It is also one of 10 countries worldwide making it easier to connect with nature by offering free entrance to national parks. Canada is granting free entrance passes for the whole of 2017. Jordan declared over one quarter of its coastline a natural reserve to protect the unique coral reefs and seagrass inhabited by more than 127 types of hard coral and over 450 species of fish. Chile announced over 100,000 square kilometres of new marine protected areas in the Juan Fernandez archipelago and Cape Horn, taking the total of its protected seas to over one million square kilometres. These and other announcements of new protected areas at sea are placing the world on track to preserve a tenth of all its oceans by 2020. Already, for the first time in history, the size of protected areas at sea is larger than that on land. But even that may not be enough. Better governance and enforcement of protected areas is urgently needed with some studies finding serious deficiencies in their management.

Greening up

Niagara Falls, Christ the Redeemer statue in Rio, the world’s tallest building - Dubai’s Burj Khalifa - and some of its oldest - the Egyptian pyramids - are among more than 30 iconic landmarks that lit up green for World Environment Day. The Empire State Building in New York, the City Hall in Venice and Panama’s multifaceted Biomuseo also turned green. Connecting with nature around the world Businesses, civil society organizations and ordinary citizens the world over have found thousands of creative ways to connect with nature and celebrate the environment.

More than twenty thousand schoolchildren, scientists, politicians and celebrities around the globe will attempt the world’s largest BioBlitz between 1 and 12 June, aiming to document more than a quarter of a million fascinating creatures in their backyards, parks and natural reserves through the iNaturalist app. Encouraged by UN Environment Goodwill Ambassadors Gisele Bündchen and Don Cheadle, social media users will be posting photos of their favourite natural places, in a bid to create the World’s Biggest Nature Photo Album.

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UN OCEAN CONFERENCE: wraps up with actions to protect marine life

The first-ever United Nations summit on oceans today wrapped up with a global agreement to reverse the decline of the ocean’s health, and more than 1,300 pledged actions for protecting the blue.

“The bar has been raised on global consciousness and awareness of the problem in the oceans,” the President of the UN General Assembly, Peter Thomson, told journalists in New York.

Mr. Thomson, whose native Fiji cosponsored the event along with Sweden, said the organizers got what they wanted from the conference: “I’m 100 per cent satisfied with the results of this conference. Our aim was high. Our aim was to start the reversal of the cycle.”

The Ocean Conference ended with the adoption by consensus of a 14-point Call for Action where the participating Heads of State and Government and senior representatives “affirmed our strong commitment to conserve and sustainably use our oceans, seas and marine resources tor sustainable development.”

Speaking alongside Mr. Thomson, the Secretary-General of The Ocean Conference, Wu Hongbo, said the negotiated document lists specific measures “to galvanize global commitment and partnerships” for the oceans.

The main points from the political document of the discussions will be part of the UN High-level Political Forum on Sustainable Development (HLPF), the UN’s central body for follow-up and review of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) adopted in September 2015. The HLPF is scheduled for a meeting in July in New York.

In addition to the political Call for Action, participants – who also included thousands of civil society representatives, academics, artists, financial institutions and other practitioners and activists – pledged actions to conserve and sustainable use the oceans, seas and marine resources. This is the goal of SDG14.

More than 1,300 voluntary commitments had already been registered.

Calling the figure “truly impressive,” Mr. Wu, who is also UN Under-SecretaryGeneral for Economic and Social Affairs, underscored that the commitments now comprise “an ocean solution registry.” ‘It’s all of us or nothing’

The week-long conference, where some 6,000 people participated, was the first time that the UN brought everyone together to discuss the challenges facing the world’s oceans.

“When it comes to the ocean, it’s the common heritage of humankind. There’s no North-South, East-West when it comes to the ocean,” Mr. Thomson said. “If the ocean is dying, it’s dying on all of us.” “getting the wheels turning” on SDG 14, the conference helped push forward action on all 17 SDGs. finance ocean science, but much more is required to fill the capacity gaps,” he explained.

Topics that were discussed ranged from plastic pollution in the oceans and seas to ocean acidification and illegal fishing – which tie in with topics of alleviating poverty, ending hunger, promoting health, ensuring access to water and sanitation, and so on.

Mr. Thomson attributed the success of the conference to the “wonderful way” in which all the different participants came together to discuss and work together.

He lauded the “openness to civil society, to the science sector, to private society” in breaking down the typical divisions between governments and other sectors. “There’s no them and us. It’s all of us or nothing.”

In addition to eight plenary meetings and seven partnership dialogues, The Ocean Conference included 150 side events, 41 exhibitions and interviews at the SDG Media Zone.

The mix of personalities and strong support for action brought “creativity and a sense of unity” to the action for oceans, said conference co-chairwoman, Deputy Prime Minister of Sweden Isabelle Lovin.

TORORO CEMENT LIMITED: PROMOTING ENVIRONMENTAL SUSTAINABILITY AND DEVELOPMENT THROUGH CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY

Tororo Cement; Environmental, Community Health, and Education Social Development Projects

Press Release By Tororo Cement

Far-sighted organizational leaders recognize that lasting success must be built on credible business practices and the prevention of such actions as labour exploitation. In contrast, today’s competitive business organizations are finding it necessary to operate in a socially responsible manner to meet the needs of customers, consumers, governments, associations and the general public. This is to signify that, sustainable business and/ or lasting success for organizations means not only providing products and services that satisfy the customer, and doing so without jeopardizing labour practices and the environment, but also operating in a socially responsible manner.

Corporate Social Responsibility and Sustainable Development have now emerged as strategic elements of overall firm management extending the role of environmental responsibility well beyond the traditional scope of the Environmental Manager alone. In recent times, corporate environmental responsibility has evolved and expanded to cover substantially more than pollution prevention, waste minimization and legal compliance. Consequently, environmental management, once considered a sunken-cost, driven by legal compliance and liability, is now integrated as a survival as well as a competitive strategy. As a result, business enterprises of all sizes and types are now increasingly able to achieve a wide range of benefits from their efforts to design or re-design their products, services and operations while taking environmental concernsand Social Responsibility into consideration.

Tororo Cement Limited (TCL),the largest Cement Manufacturing Company in Uganda with a Cement Production Capacity of 1,800,000 metric tons per year (MTY) is cognizant that innovation is required to meet society’s demands, and that efficiency, market share, risk management, brand value and other core business functions are as critical to good environmental performance as they are to sustainable competition.

Subsequently, we have refined our approach to various elements of our environmental programmes including setting in-house goals that focus on environment, organizational governance, community involvement and development, labour practices and human rights, managing supplier/consumer relationsand reporting our commitments and environmental performance in relation tocorporate social responsibility.

Our Company has been able to move from good intentions to good actions through the following agenda:-.

BIOGAS PROGRANMME

In partnership with Uganda Manufacturers Association (UMA) and the Germany Agency for International Co-operation (GIZ) and Heifer Project International, Tororo Cement Limited designed and launched an energy efficiency programme focusing on biogas production.

The programme was designed for the local communities in Tororo District, Eastern Ugandawhere the factory is situated. Forty four (44) biogas plants worthy UGX 70,000,000 have been set up in four subcounties of Tororo.

This social investment has enabledthe local communitiesto access modern cooking facilities in their homesteads.

In addition, it has provided lighting for common purpose in homes and generation of bio-slurry, an excellent organic fertilizer. Lighting through biogas energy has reduced household expenditure on hydro electricity power (HEP) and Kerosene, resulting in increased household incomes. This has further enabled the beneficiaries to afford better healthcare, better education for their children and providing light for reading thereby increasing the literacy levels in these local communities.

Tororo Cement; Environmental, Community Health, and Education Social Development Projects

Biogas-slurry, a rich organic fertilizer, has promoted modern organic farming resulting in improvedcropand animal yields. This has led to improved food security in the area. Importantly, this programme has reduced the communities’ over dependence on wood fuel resulting in improved forest cover, rainfall patterns, reduced atmospheric air pollution and eventual protection of the ozone layer.

TREE AND BANANA PLANTATION PROGRAMME

Tororo Cement has designed a tree planting programme in Tororo, Kapchorwa and Moroto where it obtains its raw materials. About 26,562 trees seedlings have been planted in the three Districts. Specifically, Tororo has taken a share of 16,562 while the 10,000 has been shared between Kapchorwa and Moroto. On the other hand, over 120 acres of Matooke have been established around the factory premises.This programme has promoted increased food security for local communities and environmental conservation in these areas.

TRANSPORT AND ECONOMIC EMPOWERMENT PROGRAMME

Transport is a key factor in socio-economic development.Conscious of this, TCL has extended support to the community in the North by constructing 3 bridges in Moroto District facilitating an easy inter-connection between the East and North of the Country. This programme has boosted the region’s economic activities including better transport, agriculture and education services due to easy accessibility.

The company also assists in maintaining the roads in Amudat by fueling and providing a wheel loader to the district when carrying out road repairs in addition to contributing fuel for the Ministry of Works and Transport grader during road works. In terms of labour practices, we have since 2009 given the onus of excavating marble to the local community while giving minimum oversight. This has provided employment opportunities and increased household income to the local community.

EDUCATION AND HEALTH PROGRAMME

Education is the single most powerful tool that can be used to change the world while Health is Wealth. For us to be able to realize any change we need people who understand the circumstances that surround our environment and, to be able to create more wealth, we need healthy people. Tororo Cement is keen on this. We have supported the education sector in our areas of operation by constructing primary and secondary schools. Specifically, a two-classroom block was constructed at Kawowo Secondary School in Kapchorwa, and a four-classroom block put up in Moroto.

In addition, three students from Moroto have been supported from primary six upto University level through the office of the Prime Minister. Two have already completed and one is soon completing. In terms of health, we have constructed a community Health Centre III in Opedede Village in Osukuru Sub-County, Tororo District which now serves over 5,000 people around the local community.

The company has also distributed mosquito nets to the local communities in Amudat, Kapchorwa and Tororo including providing a Mobile Clinic Van in Moroto and Mattresses to Tororo Government Hospital. This has boosted education and health service provision in these areas.

Our approach and effort to operate in a socially responsible manner that society increasingly demands, has yielded us immense benefits. There is now a high sense of identity and belonging between the community and the company, importantly, we enjoy increased market share in the East African region and beyond.Tororo Cement Limited will continue to make a positive contribution to the world we live in ■

Marking WORLD ENVIRONMENT DAY with a difference ... ...Our future depends on RECYCLING

The use of plastics in industrial and consumer applications has grown significantly, increasing the amount of solid waste in our environment but also presenting an opportunity for adding new life to waste, hence the need for consumer awareness about solid waste recycling. This has led to an increased demand for recycled plastic resins and products. One of the fastest growing types of plastic materials for recycling is polyethylene terephthalate (“PET”) beverage and water bottles, and PE Film material from post-consumer waste.

Quality Plastics Uganda Ltd took deliberate steps to clean our environment through recycling plastic waste to produce various environment-friendly products from plastic waste. The company has a facility for cleaning, sorting and recycling PE films and plans to establish a PET bottles recycling facility in future. The company recycles an average of 1200 tons of PE film every year.

Quality Plastics Uganda Ltd is proud to be associated with National Environment Management Authority (NEMA) and all stakeholders on the occasion of 2017 WORD ENVIRONMENT DAY. Quality Plastics (U) Limited provides quality and environmentally friendly packaging solutions using appropriate technology and competent staff for the well- being of all stakeholders.

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