B4IG Newsletter #2
In this issue:
Hello, World: The B4IG’s new website is live
The B4IG Board Meeting on Nov. 12
The Incubator’s peer mentoring sessions
The Inclusive Growth Financing Forum’s meetings on Nov. 10-11
And more!
B4IG Updates
We’re proud to announce that the B4IG website is now live! It is designed to showcase what B4IG stands for as well as the individual and collective actions being taken by coalition members. Have a look at www.b4ig.org, and as always, don’t forget to follow B4IG on Twitter and LinkedIn.
In new membership news, Salesforce joined the B4IG in September - and so we’d like to extend a warm welcome to their teams and to Marc Benioff, Salesforce Chairman and CEO, as a new member of the B4IG Board!
As you know, the B4IG Board Meeting will take place on November 12th. The meeting will be hybrid, taking place at the OECD and virtually, with multiple moments dedicated to discussion between CEOs.
The roadmap for an inclusive recovery will be at the top of our agenda, including 3 sessions: The Future of Work (introduced by Jean-Marc Ollagnier, CEO of Accenture), Inclusive Restructuring (Florent Menegaux, CEO of Michelin, and Alan Jope, CEO of Unilever) and Bridging Digital Divides (Paul Hermelin, President of Capgemini, and (TBC) Brad Smith, President of Microsoft).
The Board meeting will also address the foundations of inclusive growth. In a section called Setting the New Normal, opened by Ronald Cohen, we’ll talk about Impact Measurement (introduced by Saori Dubourg, member of the BASF Board of Executive Directors), Inclusive Growth Financing (positioning of the financing forum and the roadmap for 2021), and Innovative Business Models (assessment of the incubator’s first year and the roadmap for the second year).
The board meeting will then address the fundamentals of our pledge. This discussion will be opened by Sharan Burrow, General Secretary of the ITUC, and will focus on Human Rights and Due Diligence Processes (introduced by Denis Machuel, CEO of Sodexo, and Jean-Pascal Tricoire, CEO of Schneider Electric), and Inclusive Sourcing and Living Wages (Jean-Paul Agon, CEO of L’Oréal).
The Actions
Source: Schneider Electric’s Clean Energy Entrepreneurs Network
Working Group 3 (Supply Chains & Ecosystems) is dedicated to ensuring that workers from vulnerable populations across the whole of a company’s supply chain have equal opportunities to compete in the labor market. The group is developing an “Inclusive Sourcing Journey” assessment to understand where coalition members currently stand in their Inclusive Sourcing practices. They’re also developing the B4IG Inclusive Sourcing Toolkit with input from member companies. By using these tools, companies will take a holistic approach to assessing their standing in inclusive sourcing, benchmarking those results against peers, and engaging in pilots to test the impact of inclusive sourcing on supply chains, measuring the outputs and outcomes of those programs.
Working Group 2 (Inclusive Workplaces) focuses on building an inclusive recovery through workplace initiatives. Recently the group has curated a set of 80 examples of inclusive initiatives that WG2 member companies have implemented in their working environments. These initiatives generally center on 3 areas: ensuring equal opportunities for all in the future of work, stepping up commitments regarding inclusion and diversity, and ensuring adequate protections for the most vulnerable. When possible, the examples provide KPIs, metrics and targets to help inspire action from other firms!
In Incubator news, we continue touring the projects of the first cohort. This month, we’re presenting the Clean Energy Entrepreneurs Network, Schneider Electric’s project to reduce energy poverty by training unemployed rural youth to become clean energy entrepreneurs. These entrepreneurs provide energy solutions such as solar lighting in remote areas where they reduce energy poverty. At the same time, the program allows the entrepreneurs to earn a livelihood in their villages and to create jobs for additional people who deliver products & services. Schneider Electric has piloted the program in India and created a network of 300 clean energy entrepreneurs. During its participation in the B4IG Incubator, Schneider Electric aims to design a social enterprise model to make the program scalable and sustainable, with a vision to support thousands of clean energy micro-enterprises impacting 100 million lives globally by 2030.
Further, the Incubator’s peer mentoring sessions have begun. These sessions serve as a platform for project teams and coalition members to learn from each other’s experiences, gain insights from experts and discuss common challenges and solutions. So far, they’ve addressed topics like behavior change, sustainable sourcing, and professional inclusion; if you’re interested in participating in upcoming sessions, sign up using the links below 👇
Managing multi stakeholder groups and advocating for better policies around apprenticeships programs - Henkel (Equality in vocational training): Oct. 28, 3:00-5:00 pm CEST
Defining a common industrial vocational pattern for long term unemployed people (focus Europe and France) - L’Oréal (The Industry Academy): Oct. 29, 3:00-5:00 pm CEST
The Inclusive Growth Financing Forum (IGFF) will hold a roundtable on November 10 (2:00-5:00 pm CEST), focusing on the latest developments in inclusive growth and helping investors, policymakers, and project implementers move to a common definition of inclusive growth, its metrics & reporting, scaling up project outcomes, and the financing of inclusive growth initiatives. After an introduction by Ulrik Knudsen, OECD Deputy Secretary General, and Emmanuel Faber, Danone CEO, three sessions will take place: “What Gap is the Inclusive Growth Financing Forum Filling”, “Measurement, Transparency and Reporting for Inclusive Growth”, and “Financing Inclusive Growth”. Then the IGFF Marketplace will launch on November 11 (2:00-5:15 pm CEST), allowing companies belonging to the B4IG coalition to showcase projects and programs aligned with the B4IG Pledge to public and private investors. To join this series of (online) events, contact Niels.Planel@oecd.org.
From the OECD
On September 30th, an informal briefing on B4IG was held for OECD Ambassadors. This was an opportunity to hear how companies have been harnessing their B4IG membership to advance the Pledge to Fight against Inequalities and align their initiatives with OECD standards. Angel Gurría led the meeting (you can read the Secretary-General’s speech here) and was joined by Emmanuel Faber, Chairman and CEO of Danone, and Camille Putois, CEO of B4IG, as well as senior representatives from multiple B4IG companies representing different geographies, including BASF, Legal & General, UniCredit, and Accenture. We were also delighted to receive pre-recorded videos from Accenture CEO Julie Sweet and Microsoft President Brad Smith. One clear takeaway from the meeting was having impact measurement be a key focus of future work.
Additionally, the Global Deal Flagship Report, prepared by the ILO and OECD, shows how social dialogue promotes investment in workers, lifelong learning & skills development. It's key to a human-centred approach to covid-19 crisis recovery & ensuring that all are equipped for a better future of work.
From the B4IG Members & Partners
Source: BASF Value to Society results
BASF, a leader in Working Group 4 (Impact Measurement), recently published the 2019 Value to Society quantitative results. These results measure the company’s impact and value contribution on economy, society and environment, and have been published annually since 2013. As impact valuation enables comparison of the societal and ecological contributions of companies across industries and value chains, BASF supports its standardization and has also co-founded the Value Balancing Alliance in which 13 companies work on a harmonized, standardized and scalable methodology for impact measurement and valuation with support from the OECD and the European Commission. The VBA’s next online event will focus on how global businesses are working to standardize ESG measurement and expert discussions on integrating financial and ESG performances. It’s being held on Oct. 28 (8:00-10:00 am GMT+1) and you can register right here.
Danone and Unilever are both launching pilot programs on conducting due diligence on human rights within the European road transport industry, a sector at high risk of forced labor and unacceptable working conditions, especially for migrant workers. But as these issues are very hard to monitor, the companies are teaming up with the union federations of the ITF/IUF to better collect information throughout the supply chain, including from providers and subcontractors. The pilots launched in Benelux at the end of August, and will continue for one year. For an overview of how the EU is approaching the need for a level playing field regarding human rights in global supply chains, this recent discussion paper is a good place to start.
Around the Globe
Source: World Bank
As time goes on, we’re getting a clearer picture on how covid-19 is impacting inequality around the globe. Unfortunately, much of the latest news is quite negative, and the World Bank’s new report suggests 150 million more people could be pushed into extreme poverty.
But many are coming forward to respond, putting B4IG in good company. Ian Goldin and Robert Muggah recently published an article detailing ways to combat the multiple kinds of inequality being exacerbated by the crisis.
In the area of job training, an article from The Brookings Institution highlights why we need to stop thinking in terms of a skills gap, and focus instead on the opportunity gap.
UN Women has a clear explainer out on the issue of equal pay, including definitions, data, and some of the latest developments from around the world.
Thanks for reading - we’re excited to keep moving down the path to inclusive growth with you!
B4IG Team