Collective Action Commitments The Corporate Sustainability Forum featured the announcement of a number of major commitments involving collective action. Such actions present arguably the greatest opportunities with respect to bringing about scalable impact. Collective action efforts benefit from the multiplier effect of having numerous like-minded companies and other stakeholders working together to achieve a common objective. Perhaps the most important of these collective action efforts involves Issue Platforms – that is, specialized initiatives and programmes that focus on achieving results in relation to a key sustainability issue – e.g. water, energy, food, anti-corruption, gender equality. Through initiatives such as the UN Global Compact, numerous Issue Platforms have emerged in recent years. The most successful and promising often share the following characteristics. They are: i) rooted in a set of common principles or tenets; ii) designed as multi-stakeholder endeavours; iii) incorporate accountability and reporting mechanisms; and iv) employ innovations to deepen impact and achieve greater scale, including hubs to match-make among partners, and incubators to foment new ideas and concepts. During the Rio+20 Corporate Sustainability Forum, the following collective action commitments were announced: •
In a special Communique titled “Make Water Sustainability a Priority”, 45 CEOs of major corporations from the CEO Water Mandate commit to broadening and deepening their development of corporate water sustainability policies and practices in areas such as: i) wateruse efficiency in facilities and factories; ii) working with suppliers to improve their watermanagement practices; iii) developing public-private partnerships at the river basin and watershed level with Governments, civil society organizations, and other stakeholders. To demonstrate their commitment, the companies include examples of initiative and projects they will be pursuing in the coming years and decades. In addition, the Communique includes recommendations by business leaders to Governments attending Rio+20. More specifically, the endorsing CEOs ask that Governments commit to developing and implementing more comprehensive and long-term water planning; commit to working at the international level to coordinate strategies and actions; and commit to collaborating more actively with the business community, private finance, and civil society. More: http://www.unglobalcompact.org/docs/Water_COMMUNIQUE_en.pdf
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25 Caring for Climate companies commit to calculate their greenhouse gas emissions according to widely accepted accounting standards, set targets and report on absolute and intensity metrics on an annual basis, and submit the results for independent third-party review on a periodic basis. The companies also commit to calculate and report greenhouse gas emissions along their value chains, and work collaboratively on initiatives that reduce climate impacts to the shared benefit of all stakeholders. Finally, these companies commit to integrate the above greenhouse gas emissions data and their climate change initiatives within their annual financial reports and other appropriate corporate and investor communications platforms. More: http://business.un.org/en/commitments/1332
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37 banks, investment funds, and insurance companies submitted a far-reaching Natural Capital Declaration aimed towards integrating natural capital considerations into their products and services. The financiers commit their companies to help build an understanding of their impacts and dependencies on natural capital; embed natural capital into their products and services; report or disclose on the theme of natural capital; and account for natural capital in accounting frameworks. The Declaration signed by CEOs calls for policy-makers gathering at Rio+20 to make headway in 41