The Daily Summit - Instant news and comments from the World Summit on Sustainable Development: Business Archives

David Steven | 06:58 PM | | Comments (1)

September 4, 2002

Oh and by the way, our much vaunted definitive answer on corporate responsibility hasn't proved so definitive after all. The US had a last ace up its sleeve and played it with uncertain effect. We'll try and clarify this tomorrow - and provide a summit retrospective. But for now, we await the South African president who is on his way to speak to us now...

David Steven | 09:15 PM | | Comments (1)

It was strangely restful sitting at the very back of the summit's final plenary.

First, we heard from a long list of countries who wished to express reservations of one kind or another about the proposed agreements. There were three types of list. From some developing countries, passionate cries that the summit could and should have done more. From, the United States a long list of items it didn't really agree with, delivered at breakneck speed, and greeted by more boos. And from a middle group, small, but detailed and technical concerns.

Then a long, long, long adjournment, while horse trading continued to arrive at a political declaration anodyne enough that everyone could agree to it. At last, the meeting was called back to order, and then the plan of implementation was adopted without argument and at great speed.

But still the summit refused to die. For another cruel hour – speakers thanked the South Africans, civil society and each other, while speculating about how happy we will all feel if the summit's fine commitments are somehow achieved.

No-one, of course, thanked the media (why would they?) – and as the delegates celebrate and the NGOs commiserate, we wait for one last press conference with Thabo Mbeki…

David Steven | 09:11 PM | | Comments (5)

At last, Daily Summit has the definitive answer on corporate responsibility. A few moments ago the secretary of the main committee, here at the World Summit, confirmed to us that last night's 'interpretative note' on corporate responsibility has no legal status and will not appear in the notes from what was an action-packed meeting (see here).

This means that the door now seems to be definitively open for new international agreements to regulate the conduct of multi-national businesses.

We read this as an impressive victory for Friends of the Earth and an embarrassing defeat for the US government. The US delegation was only persuaded to make a deal, when it was offered this interpretative note as a sweetener. However, this hard won concession has turned out to be a mirage (we think).

David Steven | 02:56 PM | | Comments (0)

Daily Summit can confirm that there is utter confusion over the state of the corporate accountability text agreed last night.

Full details of what happened are in an earlier post but we have now confirmed with the UN Secretariat that even they are unclear about what happened last night.

Meanwhile, in the story that no-one is covering, the political declaration is in real trouble. As far as we understand, a second draft has still not been produced as promised by Minister Zuma last night. The Secretariat is now considering not having a political declaration at all and instead opting for the much weaker form of a president's declaration.

This would be a humiliation for the South African government and a serious step back for the summit as a whole.

It's not conspiracy here, it's cock-up as the process threatens to fall apart.

David Steven | 01:12 PM | | Comments (0)

September 3, 2002

Newsflash - tonight the negotiations have taken a surprising turn as the text on corporate accountability is thrown into disarray by the US.

The text we all thought was agreed refers to a resolution to "actively promote corporate responsibility and accountability through the full development and effective implementation of intergovernmental agreements and measures."

However, the US has now asked for a chairman’s clarification stating that this refers only to "existing" agreements, neatly blocking the development of new ones.

Without making any statement on the merit of the proposal, Daily Summit believes this is a low blow - as the word "existing" was removed from the text a few days ago and there were no moves to re-introduce it in the negotiations proper.

It is possible that this is a negotiating ploy – as text linking reproductive health to human rights still remains open. The scuttlebutt here is that the US negotiator on this issue used to lobby for the Vatican on Capitol Hill.

Talks are about to open in plenary and Daily Summit – about to head for home until a few minutes ago – will keep you informed.

This morning, when everyone was talking about a great deal done, suddenly seems a long way away...

David Steven | 09:40 PM | | Comments (0)

September 2, 2002

Business is either a dignified loser, or Sir Mark Moody-Stuart, chair of Business Action on Sustainable Development, is genuinely happy with the outcome on corporate responsibility.

"I would put my main effort on local governance," he said. "but I accept there is a role for international agreements. It's going to be a long battle putting these agreements together, though."

Update: Another source tells me there was discord in the business delegation on this issue and while Sir Mark was fairly relaxed about the proposals adopted, other business leaders think they "open up a Pandora's Box."

David Steven | 05:12 PM | | Comments (0)

September 1, 2002

The UK correspondents are wreathed in smiles because they've managed to get wind of a Tony Blair announcement on corporate transparency the day before he makes it (here, here and in the Observer whenever it gets its issue online, for example).

David Steven | 12:39 AM | | Comments (4)

August 30, 2002

Daily Summit is wondering whether it has underestimated Friends of the Earth's corporate accountability campaign (see here and here).

FoE has just told us that the South Africans remain enthusiastic and the G77 is "coming around" (though wording on "human rights, environment and labour standards" will be the price for G77 support).

The next target is the Europeans, where there are two points of resistance - the European Commission and the Germans. The Commission is taking instructions from Brussels, but it can be overruled by national ministers. Even the German delegation may be split - with the Economic Affairs Ministry thought to be the main sticking point.

So what are they promoting? Two paragraphs. The first envisages the "development" of international initiatives on corporate responsibility and accountability"; the second, a mechanism for formally reviewing public/private partnerships.

Daily Summit still thinks there's zero chance of the US and Japan budging, and we'll still be pretty surprised to see the EU come out in favour…

David Steven | 09:03 PM | | Comments (3)

August 29, 2002

Friends of the Earth is preparing a list of Type II partnerships it regards as "iffy" or suspect, and Daily Summit has obtained a draft copy.

For those new to the site, these partnerships aim to bring together government, business and civil society to deliver sustainable development, and especially to solve the problems of the poor.

The list (saved electronically as iffypartnerships.doc) will undoubtedly be released to great fanfare - but Daily Summit reckons FoE has so far failed to dig up anything too damaging.

Some objections are against corporations or industries the NGO doesn’t like, rather than against the substance of the partnership. Exxon Mobil's work combating malaria among its workforce in 30 countries is "iffy" because the company is believed to have lobbied George Bush on climate change. TotalFinaElf's involvement in micro-credit in Indonesia is suspect because of its presence in Burma.

An innocuous project getting the advertising industry involved in communicating sustainable development fails to find favour because "the marketing industry has done more than anyone [sic] else to drive consumerism in the Global North." A mining initiative and a project to prevent oil spillages in the Mediterranean are seen as ways of protecting fossil fuel industries.

Other objections are substantive - but a bit thin. Methane cars shouldn't be promoted in Italy by Fiat, because fuel cell vehicles cause less pollution. A UK commitment to tackle illegal logging is problematic because the partnership doesn't have strong enough targets. Likewise, a chemical industry initiative doesn’t go far enough.

FoE's best story is probably the CropLife Partnership, which may well be a cover for the promotion of biotechnology.

However, Daily Summit thought the idea that stank the most was for a "comparative matrix of forest certification schemes." The FSC scheme, initiated by WWF, is well known and well respected - a proliferation of rival standards can only confuse consumers.

FoE are still working on the list - so we'll see how it plays when they release it to the rest of the press...

David Steven | 07:07 PM | | Comments (0)

Very few people at the summit have a bad word to say for sustainable development.

It's impossible, for example, to find a business person here in Sandton who doesn't believe the triple bottom line is the most important thing since double entry book-keeping.

BMW has a little encampment in Sandton Square for example. "Human value for sustainable partnerships" "Sustainability - it can be done." "Innovative technology for sustainable mobility." "Intelligent systems for sustainable manufacturing." It gets a little wearing after a while.

It's been left to the Informal Business Forum, a free market outfit representing hawkers, farmers, home workers and the like, to break the consensus.

Today they marched (legally) on Sandton, bearing banners calling not for sustainable development, but development now.

"We call on our government and governments around the world to deregulate our industry and to decentralise control over our lives and economic activity," their declaration read. "We can live a better life, and afford better housing, food and insurance, only if the government leaves us alone and allows us to trade."

The hawkers are particularly irked at being quietly moved away from Sandton before the summit started.

Taxi drivers, hoteliers, restauranteurs and the phone company (we've already spent a fortune on painfully slow dial-up connections) are all making good money this month - but the hawkers have missed out.

"We form an integral part of the South African economy, but we are the constant victims of the authorities taking punitive measures against us," says Edmund Elias, liaison officer for the Gauteng Hawkers Association.

David Steven | 02:37 AM | | Comments (1)

August 28, 2002

The evils of business weigh heavily on the minds of campaigners here in Johannesburg, with dark muttering about "corporate takeover" at many fringe meetings.

The backdrop to all this is the enormous success of the anti-globalisation movement (they prefer "global justice").

But what do NGOs want done to stem the tide of corporate sin? The brief answer is binding rules, at a global level, on corporate responsibility - preferably enforced by the International Criminal Court.

In advance of today's NGO press conference on this issue, we explore proposals made by Friends of the Earth - get a slightly testy response from business, and reveal that the South African government is now getting involved.

The bottom line, however, is that - whatever the NGOs say in public - in private, most admit there is no chance of the summit recommending a binding corporate accountability framework in its final declaration.

US, Europe - and a host of other countries - may not have said 'no' yet. But there can be no doubt they will.

Read the full article here and then hit the comments button below...

David Steven | 01:37 PM | | Comments (0)

August 23, 2002

Today's Financial Times offers the business community a pretty comprehensive guide in its latest Survey (subscription needed), to what it should be saying about sustainable development and the Summit over the next couple of weeks.

Talking points spring from every page, from Vanessa Houlder's opening overview of the role business will play at WSSD, to Sarah Murray's examination of what makes the average consumer buy green products. And most of the burning issues are covered too - from water and agriculture to energy and transport.

Jane Frewer | 02:39 PM | | Comments (0)

August 22, 2002

"The kudos we get from being with Greepeace is huge," says npower's head of renewables, Matt Thomas.

In an interview with Daily Summit, he talks about the green energy product, Juice, that npower runs with Greenpeace - and also gives his opinion on the future of renewables in the UK.

Read the full interview here...

David Steven | 12:07 PM | |

August 20, 2002

George Monbiot believes natural disasters are the only way to give the world's leaders a wake-up call (reported below).

And the summit is not going to help, he says. Worse, it will itself become a major cause of environmental destruction.

Why?

Because of the wickedness of business, which has captured not just "not just the results of the negotiations, but also the negotiating process itself."

If Monbiot is to be believed, the next fortnight will see corporations "moving into the vacuum left by the heads of state, and asserting their claim to global governance."

Daily Summit hadn't realised it would be reporting from a global coup.

It should make interesting reading, so… stay tuned!

David Steven | 11:47 AM | |

August 14, 2002

Poverty leads to terrorism, is likely to emerge as a summit axiom (see this Daily Summit report, for example).

Not everyone shares the assumption, however.

Shortly after September 11, Daniel Pipes popped up in foreign affairs journal, The National Interest, to ask "does poverty cause militant islam?"

Pipes quotes Shimon Peres as asserting that fundamentalism "a way of protesting against poverty, corruption, ignorance, and discrimination" - but then proceeds to argue he's wrong.

Economic trends fail to predict countries where militant Islam will be strong and where not, he argues. The fairly well-off are more likely to join militant groups - not the poor, the alienated and the marginal. It is "highly competent, motivated and ambitious individuals" who lead radical movements, while "a disproportionate number of terrorists and suicide bombers have higher education, often in engineering and the sciences."

"Could it be, quite contrarily, that militant Islam results from wealth rather than poverty?" he asks. "It is possible. There is, after all, the universal phenomenon that people become more engaged ideologically and active politically only when they have reached a fairly high standard of living. Revolutions take place, it has often been noted, only when a substantial middle class exists."

David Steven | 05:01 PM | |

August 12, 2002

Daily Summit had never expected to see Coca-Cola in anything other than its trademark red – but at the Eden Project – Cornwall’s “green Disney” – the company’s drinks machines sport a striking green.

“Cola nuts have been part of the indigenous landscape for centuries and the indigenous people found many uses for every part of the tree,” they tell us. “In 1886 John Styth Permberton, an Atlanta pharmacist included extracts in his secret formula to produce the refreshing flavour that is coca cola, loved and enjoyed throughout the world.”

The message: “The Coca-Cola company aims to protect, preserve and enhance the environment by making environmental excellence and sustainable development a priority in the daily operation of our business.”

Same old red cans, of course.

David Steven | 05:26 PM | |

August 11, 2002

Rio, Anglo and the Observer - Following Daily Summit's earlier post, a reader gets in touch to say, sure Anglo-American have done well on AIDS, but Rio Tinto are very cavalier operators.

He cites their enthusiasm to pursue what MiningWeb describes as "one of the world's most controversial mining projects - a titanium mine in south east Madagascar."

Friends of the Earth reckons that Rio severly "underestimates the likely impacts of the dredging project on bio-diversity and forest loss; of the port construction and operation on marine life; of the proposed weir on both human and saltwater species; and of the new roads on local people," while failing to evaluate the impact a horde of incoming mostly single, mostly male, mostly young miners could have on the area.

Daily Summit, however, is still AGHAST that the Observer could give a story a swathe of its front page, serve Anglo-American some harsh criticism, and not even mention the AIDS connection - when it was a big story ONLY LAST WEEK!

I've read the piece again and again just to make sure I haven't missed something - but there's simply nothing there...

David Steven | 05:18 PM | |

Today's Observer front page criticises the news that corporate bosses will be joining environment and development campaigners in the UK delegation, quoting an unnamed Friends of the Earth spokesman as saying "this is further evidence that Blair is determined to cosy up to big business."

Delegation members under attack include the head of Thames Water (guilty of polluting UK waterways and operating in Indonesia), Rio Tinto (accused of disregarding human rights and devastating unique environments), and Anglo American (under attack for its operations in Peru and Zambia).

Disappointingly, the Observer neglects to mention the main reason Anglo-American has hit the news in the run-up to the summit: its decision to give anti-retrovirals to HIV-positive employees.

Update: Of course, there are alternatives to Anglo-American's generosity. For example, this prosperous driving-instructor turned preacher who, according to the New York Times, claims that "his healing hands have pulled the rains from cloudless skies, exorcised wayward spirits and, most important, cured dozens of people suffering from AIDS."

David Steven | 02:00 PM | |

August 9, 2002

Business is taking over the summit, according to Christian Aid, a development NGO.

"Business has greater access and influence than any other group and we are concerned that the agenda is being unduly skewed towards the wishlists of companies and away from those of the poor," says the charity.

According to the Guardian, Christian Aid is blaming the lobbying power of Business Action for Sustainable Development (BASD), a network of business organisations formed to ensure the voice of business is heard at the summit.

BASD sees it differently.

According to its vice-chair Lord Holme, "the Johannesburg summit is certain to show that it is possible for business, governments and NGOs to work together. Also fortunate is the fact that in the debate over corporate accountability, the majority view is held by people who maintain that job and wealth creation are essential and who want to ensure it is done more responsibly and equitably."

The business community does not oppose regulation on principle, he argues, but wants a form of regulation that does not stifle innovation and enterprise. "While some want to bind Gulliver hand and foot, so that he cannot move an inch," he concludes, "most want to ensure that he treads carefully - and that his giant footprint doesn't leave people squashed."

David Steven | 12:17 PM | |

August 4, 2002

Inevitable holocaust? Finally, from Radio Earth Summit, an interview with novelist and activist Arundhati Roy and a message from Radiohead frontman Thom Yorke.

Arundhati is most worried by big companies building infrastructure. Corporations such as Siemens and Enron are "more invisible and more dangerous" than consumer-facing companies like Nike and McDonalds. Rules are needed to prevent companies owning "the rivers and the mountains and the roads and the skies, just to make money."

Although Arundhati praises the protest movement ("so much more fun than the other side"), her vision is ultimately apocalyptical.

"I see corporate globalisation, religious fundamentalism and nuclear nationalism marching arm in arm through the next century. So the sound I hear in my head is the sound of a nuclear bomb, which will surely drown us all."

Thom, meanwhile, describes the summit as "the only opportunity we have left to address the hijacked free trade agenda of the WTO, to make the environment inextricably linked to poverty and the global divide of 1st and 3rd world, to make corporations accountable for the environmental effects of their business, wherever they choose to hide, and to make wealthy countries take responsibility for the impact their over-consumption has on the rest of the world."

"It is not good enough to preach about the trickle down effect of economic growth," he says, "if your house is being washed away, your child has skin cancer, you can't get clean water and the weather is changing beyond recognition, forever."

David Steven | 04:23 PM | |

August 1, 2002

GM Goes Green General Motors is pushing clean cars ahead of the World Summit.

"We all agree that the road ahead is long and difficult," says their head of engineering. "Obviously, GM can't solve everything. But one way we can help is to remove cars from the environmental debate altogether. By introducing new measures to reduce harmful emissions and improve fuel efficiency, we will help create a healthier environment for automotive mobility, a necessary function that we can't and don't want to do without."

Beth Lowery, GM Vice President of Environment and Energy, will be attending the summit. "We want to go to Johannesburg to educate leaders about fuel efficiency leading to global sustainable mobility," she says.

David Steven | 03:08 PM | |

July 31, 2002

Space for mavericks The Daily Summit today dropped in on The Southern Business Challenge, which will be bringing the voice of progressive entrepreneurs from developing countries to the World Summit.

Founder Malini Mehra, from the Centre for Social Markets, is challenging governments to create space for the mavericks that drive economic growth. But she is also challenging Southern businesses to be at the forefront of creating sustainable societies.

“We need to steer a path between ‘business as usual’ on one side and anti-globalisation protest on the other,” she says. Southern business is the "missing link" that can push policy-makers to undertake the reforms needed to deliver sustainable development.

The Daily Summit will be talking to some of the Challenge’s entrepreneurs as they argue their case in Joburg…

David Steven | 07:54 PM | |

July 27, 2002

Business matrix The role of business will certainly be one of the controversies of WSSD, with Oxfam already dismissing the summit as little more than a chance to admire “the transnational companies lining up to parade their green credentials on the Johannesburg catwalk.”

For sustainable development consultancy, SustainAbility, however, business involvement in sustainable development offers significant win wins – even in developing countries and emerging markets.

According to a report published in time for the summit (read the exec summary or buy the report), ordinary businesses are achieving “higher sales, reduced costs and lower risks from better corporate governance, improved environmental practices, and investments in social and economic development.”

“There are compelling commercial reasons to take action,” the report argues “despite a common assumption that sustainability is a luxury which emerging markets cannot afford.”

According to Rafael Wong, executive vice president of Reybancorp in Ecuador, "in five years, there will be no access to international markets for companies that do not show respect for the environment. It is becoming fundamental to international trade."

SustainAbility provides a matrix, which claims to help businesses build a compelling case for investment in sustainable business practices.

David Steven | 10:08 AM | |