BLUEPRINT FOR CORPORATE SUSTAINABILITY LEADERSHIP

Fondation Guilé collaborated with the UN Global Compact in designing the “Blueprint for Corporate Sustainability Leadership”.

Blueprint for Corporate Sustainability Leadership

The project was initiated at a private event which took place during the World Economic Forum
(WEF) Annual Meeting on 29 January 2010. The event was hosted by Fondation Guilé in cooperation with the Swiss Government (represented by SDC), KPMG and Novo Nordisk.

The proposal for a “Blueprint for Corporate Sustainability Leadership in the Context of the
UN Global Compact” was presented by Thomas Streiff, Head of the Guilé Engagement Team. Important inputs for the design and development of the Blueprint were collected through discussions with high-level representatives from the private and public sector as well as the UN.

These findings informed Fondation Guilé’s work on the Blueprint and defined leadership within the Global Compact in three distinct dimensions:

• integrating the 10 principles into strategies and operations
• taking action in support of broader UN goals and issues
• engaging with the UN Global Compact.

In the following, the rationale, structure and in particular the key components of the identified leadership dimensions were discussed and further developed together with the core team of the Global Compact Office. The Blueprint was launched at the UN Global Compact Leaders’ Summit 2010 in New York. Endorsement of the Blueprint has become since then one of the membership criteria for the new UN Global Compact platform: Global Compact LEAD .

UN PRI SUSTAINABLE STOCK EXCHANGES INITIATIVE

Fondation Guilé is also a signatory and promoter of the UN PRI and is involved in the Sustainable Stock Exchanges initiative (SSE). This initiative aims to explore how exchanges can work together with investors, regulators, and companies to enhance corporate transparency, and ultimately performance, on ESG issues and encourage responsible long-term approaches to investment.

→ SSE Global Dialogue
(October 2014, United Nations Office, Geneva, Switzerland)

The initiative was co-convened by the Principles for Responsible Investment, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, the United Nations Environment Programme Finance Initiative, and the UN Global Compact.

In support of the wider Sustainable Stock Exchange initiative, a group of PRI signatories sent letters to the top 30 stock exchanges, beginning in 2011, asking that they address inadequate sustainability reporting by companies. Fondation Guilé was one of the four service provider signatories of this letter.

Specifically, signatories were asked to support a call to global stock market listing authorities to consider possible actions that exchanges can take, including, but not limited to, the following suggestions:

• encourage better internal corporate governance
• consult with companies on how they should be integrating sustainability into long-term strategic decision-making
• provide guidance for companies on material sustainability issues, global initiatives, and other opportunities that encourage ESG disclosure
• consider mandating that listed companies have a nonbinding shareholder vote on the sustainability report or sustainability strategy.

Fondation Guilé developed in 2013 the GuiléSipAssessment™ to map companies’ philanthropy strategies and to facilitate implementation of strategic social investments by multinationals.

EMBEDDING SOCIAL IMPACT INTO CORE BUSINESS

Indeed we see entrepreneurship as a basis of future business opportunities for companies demonstrating CSR leadership. As corporate responsibility gets integral and mature, there is a global trend towards more strategic focus and implementation of Social investment & philanthropy (Sip) projects. It is also one of the key dimensions and components of leadership in the Global Compact Blueprint for Corporate Sustainability Leadership  

Fondation Guilé aims to act as an incubator of these projects with these actions:

• facilitate access between compatible businesses and social entrepreneurs
• assure best practices in selecting, coaching, and monitoring social business entrepreneurs.

Companies may be very efficient accelerators of societal change by integrating in their core business social entrepreneurs’ innovative solutions, and by taking action through their operational capacity far beyond their philanthropic goals.

European competition in social investment

In 2014, Fondation Guilé will partner with Ashoka to organize a social entrepreneurship competition in Europe: Social & Business Co-Creation – collaboration for impact

Press release January 29^th, 2014 – competition launch
Eligibility criteria for Social & Business Co-creation competition

ASSESSMENT AND DIALOGUE WITH INVESTEES

This service is not designed to “judge,” but to have a dialogue with companies and to promote corporate responsibility in managing the challenges they face with regard to human rights, labor standards, the environment, corporate governance, and fighting corruption.

The costs for this engagement are covered by Cadmos Funds’ socially responsible investors through their fees. The results of the GuiléReportingAssessment™  are sent to the CEO, the chairman of the Board of directors, the head of CSR and the Investor Relations for each Cadmos Funds’ company.

Each company we assess is entitled to a briefing on the analysis results identifying the strengths and weaknesses of their CSR reporting. This service offers valuable perspectives for a company to further improve its implementation of and reporting on sustainability activities. Our first meeting lasts an hour and a half, and we also send additional information upon request.

We provide the Socially Responsible Investors of the Cadmos Funds with an exhaustive, private report on these dialogues held on their behalf. Only aggregate data on the impact of this engagement is made available to the public.

→  Activity Report of engagement Cadmos European Engagement Fund 2014-2015

→  Activity Report of engagement Cadmos Swiss Engagement Fund 2014-2015

→  Activity Report of engagement Cadmos Emerging Markets Engagement Fund 2014-15

ASSESSMENT OF CSR REPORTING

Fondation Guilé is convinced that corporate extra-financial reporting is a driver of change, externally as well as internally. It has the potential to enhance stakeholders’ perception of a company, and to build trust. It is now acknowledged that CSR reporting acts as a stimulus for internal development and has a positive impact on business decisions and outcomes.

The Guilé Engagement Team has developed the GuiléReportingAssessment™ methodology since 2006, to provide an external view of the quality and comprehensiveness of a company’s CSR reporting. This analysis produces immediate benefits by identifying the strengths and weaknesses of the CSR disclosure and implementation, in particular:
– identification of information gaps with regard to the universal Global Compact principles
– exploration of areas for improvement to further develop CSR practices.

Evaluation

TWO DIMENSIONS: COMPREHENSIVENESS & QUALITY

The first dimension deals with COMPREHENSIVENESS: how well the reporting describes a company’s status of implementation of the four issue areas of the Global Compact (human rights; ILO core labour standards; the environment; anti-corruption).

Depending on the information found, a company’s performance is rated as ‘basic’, ’emerging’, ‘advancing’, or ‘outstanding’ on each of the ten principles.

The QUALITY dimension focuses on applied reporting practices that are crucial for ensuring a credible and accurate disclosure.

BENCHMARKING – A GLOBAL PICTURE

The assessment results may be benchmarked against peer companies, sectors, companies within the same country or region.

IMPROVING THE IMPLEMENTATION OF SUSTAINABILITY OVER TIME

The Guilé assessment is aimed at identifying strengths and weaknesses and offers valuable perspectives for further improving a company’s implementation of and reporting on sustainability.

No matter its size or its countries of operation, every company has room for improvement in achieving its Corporate Responsibility goals. For this reason, Fondation Guilé offers its GuiléReportingAssessment™ system to all companies interested in receiving our analysis which is:
a) completely neutral and extremely exhaustive
b) based exclusively on public information disclosure
c) a mirror of a company’s current capacity to report on its extra-financial challenges management strategy
d) proposed at cost price because we are a nonprofit foundation.

FLYER about the GuiléReportingAssessment^TM

EVENTS TO FOSTER CORPORATE SUSTAINABILITY

The events of Fondation Guilé are designed for entrepreneurs, companies, shareholders, business and political leaders, social actors, academic researchers and media.

The goal is to help these actors confront the current challenges of globalization and become responsible players in today’s international markets.

PRIVATE EVENTS AT THE WORLD ECONOMIC FORUM, DAVOS – SINCE 2008

Since 2008, Fondation Guilé co-hosts and organizes Private Events at the World Economic Forum in Davos. These meetings bring together high-level representatives of international corporations, of the Swiss government and of the United Nations.

The event topics focus on the ten principles of the United Nations Global Compact, and these discussions aim to exchange thoughts how to further develop the largest corporate citizenship initiative of the world. 

WORKSHOP ON POLICY AND STRATEGY DEVELOPMENT TO IMPLEMENT UN GLOBAL COMPACT PRINCIPLES – 2013

On 6 March 2013, Fondation Guilé, together with the Business Council for Sustainable Development (BCSD) Taiwan and the Cadmos Funds managers de Pury Pictet Turrettini and Comgest, organized a dialogue for the portfolio companies of the Guilé Emerging Markets Engagement Fund and other companies headquartered in Taiwan.

The 78 participants in this dialogue in Taipei discussed the benefits as well as the experiences and expectations of corporate sustainability in general and the 10 principles of the UN Global Compact in particular.

Summary Report Taiwan_Report_2013

EXECUTIVE SESSION FOR EXTRACTIVE INDUSTRIES – 2011

At the 5th Global Conference of the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI), which took place in Paris 2-3 March 2011, Fondation Guilé and the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva (IHEID) organized a two-hour workshop as part of the official program. Participants were extractive companies and Guilé Funds investees.

GLOBAL AND LOCAL GOVERNANCE IN THE ENERGY SECTOR – 2010

On 4-5 February 2010, the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva (IHEID) hosted a closed, two-day expert workshop on “Global and Local Governance in the Energy Sector: the Case of Oil and Mining” with the participation of scholars from China, Europe, and North and South America. The Centre on Conflict, Development, and Peacebuilding (CCDP) at IHEID organized the event in collaboration with Fondation Guilé.

Report of the International Expert Workshop

PROMOTING THE GLOBAL COMPACT PRINCIPLES

Since 2005, Fondation Guilé has been actively encouraging compliance with the universal principles of the United Nations Global Compact. These 10 principles, covering human rights, the right to work, environmental protection, and the fight against corruption, are universally applicable to varying extents, regardless of the size of a company or the region it operates in.

Begun by former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, the idea for the Global Compact was first unveiled in Switzerland in 1999 during the World Economic Forum in Davos. One year later, the initiative was implemented in order to attract the attention of business leaders and have them commit to following these civic principles voluntarily with self-regulation.

The United Nations Global Compact is not a binding regulation but a process that calls for companies throughout the world to exhibit full transparency to their many stakeholders in all nonfinancial aspects related to ESG challenges (environmental, social, governance). Consequently, this initiative supports the foundation’s vision of creating value for shareholders while at the same time contributing to the common good in a manner that goes beyond the dispassionate rules of governance.

In 2006, Fondation Guile had signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Global Compact office to act as a booster for these 10 principles.

Memorandum of Understanding – 2006

Fondation Guile also collaborated with the UN Global Compact in designing the “Blueprint for Corporate Sustainability Leadership”: read more