Globalisation:IBLF & Sustainable development

IBLF

IBLF puts business at the heart of sustainable development

The International Business Leaders Forum works with business, governments and civil society to enhance the contribution that companies can make to sustainable development.

Founded by HRH The Prince of Wales we are an independent, not-for-profit organisation currently supported by over 100 of the world’s leading businesses.

IBLF provides strategic counsel to companies to enable them to understand and respond to the development challenges that they face, particularly when operating in transition and emerging economies.

As well as managing a number of programmes that provide businesses with opportunities to directly enhance their impact on society, IBLF helps businesses connect with other organisations and develop successful cross-sector partnerships.

Since 1990, we have worked in over 90 countries. Our work benefits from long-term relationships with regional networks across the world, many of which IBLF has helped to establish or strengthen.

Our current areas of work include raising sustainable business standards, improving prospects for enterprise and employment, and enabling companies to contribute to health and human development issues.

What is sustainable development?

Sustainable development was defined in 1983 by the Brundtland report as "development which meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs."

Sustainable development encompasses three areas: economic development, social development and environmental protection.

The Bruntland report aka The Global Compact

The "business community," in this case, does not mean the small and medium sized companies that still maintain some loyalty to the local community. It is made up of the giant transnational corporations-companies that have deepened their enormous power through the process of economic globalization .

1.The Secretary General and various agency heads have shown poor judgement by allowing known human rights, labor and environmental violators to join in UN partnerships. Specific partners of the Compact include Nike, Shell, Rio Tinto, Novartis, BP, Aracruz, BASF, Daimler Chrysler,Bayer and DuPont.

2.Public-private partnerships are common for specific projects with specific goals. The UN's use of the term is more general, but still one assumes that a partnership is entered only when the partners share the same goals. The UN has not adequately explained why it must partner with organizations that have completely different goals from its own

3. Corporations attempt to project certain values and images.

4. The Global Compact has no monitoring or enforcement mechanism.

The Compact allows companies to improve their reputation through association with the UN, without committing to concrete changes in corporate behavior. It allows these corporations, and the private sector as a whole, to block substantial measures for sustainability and accountability – even to oppose agreements under the framework of the United Nations itself – while offering only token changes when convenient.

In addition to fundamental design problems, several contradictions have come out in the first 18 months of the Compact’s operation. First, while the Global Compact website claims "transparency" as one of the tools of the Compact, the corporate membership remains largely secret. Second, despite repeated avowals that the UN logo would not be misused by corporations under the Global Compact, at least one company, DaimlerChrysler, has appropriated the Global Compact logo in its own publication. Third, the Compact claims learning from case studies as a fundamental tenet, yet at the first Global Compact Learning Forum last October, not a single case study was deemed worthy of publication by the Global Compact Office. Finally, we have documented violations of one or more Global Compact principles by five companies that have endorsed the Compact, as well as one major business lobby group.