Facing up to water risks, combating domestic violence in Hungary and Moroccan child labour action
Water problem
A new study by non-profit group the Carbon Disclosure Project and financial services giant Deloitte provides investors with insight into how companies on the FTSE Global Equity Index Series are addressing pressing global water-related risks.
The report, Collective Responses to Rising Water Challenges, was assembled for 470 financial institutions with assets of about $50tn. The survey was disseminated to 318 companies on the Global 500 and received 185 responses.
The results show that water risk is a growing corporate concern, with 53% experiencing detrimental water-related business impacts from natural phenomena such as flooding and drought (up from 38% in 2011), and costing some companies as much as $200m.
Correspondingly, companies are better equipped year-on-year to analyse their water-related supply chain risks, with 71% analysing their value chains, up from 62% in 2011. More companies (39%) are also mandating that their suppliers report on current water challenges, up 13 percentage points from 2011.
However, while 71% of those surveyed reported new water-related business opportunities – with some noting sales potential of over $1bn by 2020 – water risk has not taken a more prominent role in the boardroom, with the percentage of board-level oversight of companies’ water strategies remaining at 58% since 2011. Additionally, the proportion of companies setting concrete water-related goals and targets has remained flat at 55%.
On a more positive note, 74% of respondents are working collaboratively to combat today’s water challenges. For example, Adidas, Gap, H&M, Wal-Mart and DuPont, among others have come together through the Sustainable Apparel Coalition and developed the Higg Index, a tool to help standardise how the apparel industry quantifies and evaluates the environmental performance of apparel products across the supply chain, including water usage. (For more on Nike’s role, see p35.)
“Companies that transform their business and work to safeguard valuable water resources have the potential for both short- and long-term cost savings, sustainable revenue generation and a more resilient future,” says Paul Simpson, chief executive of the Carbon Disclosure Project.
Avon calls time on Hungarian domestic violence
After 25 years of fighting for a domestic violence law in Hungary, a recent campaign led by Avon and partner NGOs was finally able to move the needle.
In Hungary, one in five women is a victim of domestic violence. But the issue remained taboo, and many women were left without legal respite. As a result, only a fraction of perpetrators were punished for their acts, explains Avon’s Veronika Toth.
Given Avon’s global resources and expertise in mobilising women, the company helped spearhead a campaign to institute Hungary’s first law against domestic violence. Specifically, Avon worked with non-profit groups Nane, a women’s association, Our Fate and Future Foundation, which helps those in crisis, and the Patent Legal Defence Association, which works to combat domestic violence.
Together, they sought to obtain the 50,000 signatures required for a petition initiated by the chairman of the Life-Value Foundation, which would thus put domestic violence on the Hungarian parliament’s agenda, and potentially get a law passed.
Avon launched a full-force communications strategy, including two press conferences and social media campaigns, and rallied 28 celebrities to garner further attention. The company also educated its employees on the issue and trained them to gather signatures, arranged meetings with government leaders, and organised a domestic violence forum with stakeholders including police, doctors, teachers, NGOs, women’s shelters and politicians.
In just three months, the team collected 103,000 signatures. A few months later, the Hungarian parliament unanimously passed its first law against domestic violence.
Domestic servitude in Morocco
Child domestic labour – predominantly involving young girls – is still a major issue in Morocco that needs further government attention, according to a new report by Human Rights Watch (HRW).
The report, Lonely Servitude: Child Domestic Labour in Morocco, follows a similar study from HRW in 2005. While the Moroccan government has made concerted efforts to reduce child labour rates (which have decreased from 517,000 in 1999 to 123,000 in 2011), and more children are completing primary school, kids under the age of 15 are still being employed against both national and international law, and many are working in dire conditions.
HRW interviewed 20 former child domestic labourers who were employed between the ages of eight and 15, and found a common thread of exploitation throughout their stories, including rape, other physical and verbal abuse, lack of education, poor food and low wages.
On average, the girls interviewed earned 545 dirhams per month (roughly $61), far below Morocco’s minimum monthly wage of 2,333 dirhams ($261). There were also extreme cases of girls as young as five working as domestic labourers for $0.40 an hour.
To continue reducing child labour in Morocco, the report recommends a host of government actions, such as establishing a system to identify and remove illegal young workers, and provide them with mental and physical assistance, as well as education; amending the proposed domestic worker law to ensure compliance with the 2011 ILO Convention 189 on Decent Work for Domestic Workers, and presenting the law for adoption in parliament; and prosecuting anyone who commits violence against child domestic workers.