Standard Chartered announced recently that it has exceeded its 2010 target to help educate one million people on HIV and AIDS. Working with governments, other businesses, communities and health organisations globally, the Bank educated 1.4 mill people over three years through its HIV and AIDS workplace education programme “Living with HIV”.
In Singapore, Standard Chartered has helped the cause on multiple levels. The Bank educated close to 50,000 people through the programme. Some of its local efforts include its partnership with the Humanitarian Organisation for Migration Economics to raise awareness of HIV and AIDS amongst the migrant community in Singapore; speaking at workshops and seminars; and, as a founding member of the AIDS Business Alliance in Singapore, informing business leaders about the importance of carrying out HIV and AIDS education at the workplace and reducing discrimination and stigmatisation of people with HIV/AIDS. The Bank will share its experiences on implementing a HIV/AIDS workplace programme at the 7th Singapore AIDS conference on 4 December.
First December is World AIDS Day and the Bank has a number of activities to raise awareness and help people living with HIV/AIDS. Its volunteers are at offices selling little crystal angels and beaded red ribbons made by people with HIV to raise funds for the Patient Care Centre. The Bank also placed a Christmas tree at its branches at Marina Bay Financial Centre and Changi Business Park, whereby staff and customers can pledge to educate at least two people on the virus by picking up a World Aids Day bookmark from the tree.
Since 2006, the Bank’s staff volunteers have been distributing food rations to underprivileged people with HIV/AIDS in Singapore every month. This year, Standard Chartered sponsored the “Sewing Circle” project which aims to build up their confidence, and to assist them to return to mainstream employment. The Bank also raised funds and provided opportunities for its staff to interact with people with HIV/AIDS through its employee volunteering programme.
Ray Ferguson, Regional Chief Executive of Singapore and Southeast Asia, Standard Chartered Bank said:
Our approach to building a sustainable business is to ensure that what we do as a business is closely aligned to the needs of the community. The total number of Singaporeans living with HIV has increased to 4,404 as of end 2009 (Source: Ministry of Health). We believe that we could make a greater and direct impact through education, volunteering and fund raising. Education is a key component to prevention. Giving people facts about HIV and AIDS enables them to make safe lifestyle choices, avoid getting infected or passing it on and also dispels the myths that drive stigma.
“Living with HIV” was launched by Standard Chartered in 1999, during a time when HIV and AIDS were having a detrimental impact on many of its employees in key African markets. Through the programme, the Bank provides the information needed to make safe lifestyle choices and prevent HIV and AIDS. As an international organisation with a mobile workforce, the awareness programme has become mandatory for all employees globally.
Standard Chartered works with 80 partners globally to help educate communities from cities to the most rural stretches of the world. In the last year alone, the Bank doubled its impact by partnering with government organisations in countries such as Singapore, Brunei, Nigeria and Taiwan, reaching more than 1 million people since late 2009.
Lessons are conducted face-to-face and can be done anywhere. This cost effective, high impact approach has enabled the programme to reach a massive scale. The programme is based on the train the trainer approach providing learning materials, available in 10 languages, free of charge.
Standard Chartered was one of the first companies to take a proactive approach to fighting HIV and AIDS. The Bank’s policies include HIV and AIDS non-discriminatory and non-disclosure clauses to protect any employee who may be affected by the pandemic. The Bank also provides financial support to employees to help cover the cost of necessary anti-retroviral drugs when they are not freely available in their home country.
Standard Chartered announced recently that it has exceeded its 2010 target to help educate one million people on HIV and AIDS. Working with governments, other businesses, communities and health organisations globally, the Bank educated 1.4 mill people over three years through its HIV and AIDS workplace education programme “Living with HIV”. Read more
Walmart unveiled its global sustainable agriculture goals recently, with which the company seeks to help buy more from small and mid-sized farmers around the world; reduce food waste and sustainably source key agricultural products.
According to Scott Price, CEO of Walmart Asia:
Corporate social responsibility must be an integral part of the business strategy to be successful and sustainable. By stepping up to the right social responsibilities, a company is honoring its commitment to its owners and shareholders. By focusing on social commitments related to the business, the company can have a greater impact economically, socially and environmentally and at the same time prosper.
Mr. Price made the comments during the annual Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) CEO Summit held in Yokohama, Japan 11-14 Nov 2010. He said:
Walmart’s CSR activities have become so entwined in our business strategy that you rarely hear the term “CSR” at Walmart.
To highlight his point Price cited an example of how Walmart will help small farmers around the world by selling $ I billion in food sourced from one million small and medium farmers by end of 2015. Walmart, which celebrates its 50th anniversary next year, has a legacy of giving back to the communities in which it does business.
To be effective, Price said he believes social responsibility efforts must be focused, impact the most people, be long-term, address causes (not symptoms) and relate to the business. He said:
There’s an abundance of legitimate opportunity to give back, to do right, and you want to be able to help anyone and everyone who calls. But over the last several years, we've built a model for making a big difference on big issues.
At Walmart, we’ve narrowed our focus to a few global platforms: education, sustainability, economic development and empowerment, and health and nutrition. Around the world, we want our operations to align around our global business/CSR platforms, and they are.
Tackling big issues and establishing global platforms does not mean taking a “one size fits all” approach to CSR, Price explained. He commented:
There’s plenty of latitude to act locally within those global platforms. It's a matter of meeting the unique needs of your local country, business and communities.
Each country has its own culture, its own needs, its own challenges, and within each there are dramatic differences in how the social safety net is managed, Price said.
The challenge is to develop a global platform that is flexible enough to be relevant locally. Price cited Walmart’s recently announced sustainable agriculture program as an example of innovation, global focus and flexibility. It’s long-term and it ties directly into the business, he said. It also tackles a huge social issue. Price explained:
More than one billion people around the world rely on farming and hundreds of millions of them live on less than $2 a day. Globally, with a booming population, food production must increase roughly 70 percent to feed 9 billion people by 2050.
Through sustainable agriculture, Walmart, as the world’s largest grocer is uniquely positioned to make a big difference in food production -- for local communities, local economies and families everywhere. Price observed that this bid was was an opportunity to lead.
Walmart’s sustainable agriculture strategy is divided into three broad areas each containing specific supporting goals to help the company track and report its progress as part of our overall business goals:
In emerging markets, Walmart will help many small- and mid-sized farmers through training, by gaining access to markets and by increasing their income through sourcing.
Walmart has one of the world’s largest food supply chains, but almost nothing is known about the resources required to produce that food, Price said. In order to produce food with fewer resources and less waste, the global strategy will drive transparency into the supply chain
Farming practices are having unintended side effects, from deforestation of the world’s rainforests to increasing greenhouse gas emissions.
Walmart will focus on two of the major contributors: palm oil and beef production. Price said:
We’re truly excited about our sustainable agriculture platform. We believe we can make a huge difference, that we can feed more people, healthier food, that we can empower farmers, build local economies, protect the environment, while at the same time strengthen our business.
He concluded:
We want to be a part of the solution to a better, more sustainable future for our customers, our children, our stakeholders. We want to be part of the much needed social innovation. We believe that irrespective of East or West what is most important is that corporations working in close collaboration with governments attempt to make life better for the communities in which they operate. And we believe that this is fundamental to doing business. Given the challenging times we face it is not just common sense. It is also good business sense.
Walmart unveiled its global sustainable agriculture goals recently, with which the company seeks to help buy more from small and mid-sized farmers around the world; reduce food waste and sustainably source key agricultural products. Read more
The Story of Stuff project released its newest movie, "The Story of Electronics", a look at the 'design for the dump' mentality so prevalent in the electronics industry.
This movie couldn't come at a better time: this November, Americans are expected to spend over US$8.5 billion on consumer electronics, motivated by enticements to buy gizmos consumers don't really need or to replace gadgets that are still working with slightly newer versions.
According to the project, making all these devices takes an enormous environmental and public health toll: mining the metals trashes communities from Congo to Indonesia; assembling them uses huge amounts of water and energy and exposes workers to a host of toxic chemicals; and getting rid of them when consumers are on to the next, newer, better model creates mountains of e-waste.
The good news is that while the production, consumption and disposal of short-lived, toxics laden electronics are a really big problem, the solution is pretty simple: Make 'em Safe, Make 'em Last, and Take 'em Back.
The Story of Electronics sends a clear message to the electronics industry: it's time to send that design for the dump mentality to the dump where it belongs and start making less toxic, longer lasting and more easily recyclable products.
The Story of Stuff project released its newest movie, “The Story of Electronics”, a look at the ‘design for the dump’ mentality so prevalent in the electronics industry. Read more
New analysis shows populations of tropical species are plummeting and humanity’s demands on natural resources are sky-rocketing to 50 per cent more than the earth can sustain, reveals the 2010 edition of WWF’s Living Planet Report – the leading survey of the planet’s health. The biennial report, produced in collaboration with the Zoological Society of London and the Global Footprint Network, uses the global Living Planet Index as a measure of the health of almost 8,000 populations of more than 2,500 species. The global Index shows a decrease by 30 per cent since 1970, with the tropics hardest hit showing a 60 per cent decline in less than 40 years. Jim Leape, Director General of WWF International, said:
There is an alarming rate of biodiversity loss in low-income, often tropical countries while the developed world is living in a false paradise, fuelled by excessive consumption and high carbon emissions.
While the report shows some promising recovery by species’ populations in temperate areas, thanks in part to greater conservation efforts and improvements in pollution and waste control, tracked populations of freshwater tropical species have fallen by nearly 70 per cent – greater than any species’ decline measured on land or in our oceans. Conservation Programme Director with the Zoological Society of London, said:
Species are the foundation of ecosystems. Healthy ecosystems form the basis of all we have – lose them and we destroy our life support system.
The Ecological Footprint, one of the indicators used in the report, shows that our demand on natural resources has doubled since 1966 and we’re using the equivalent of 1.5 planets to support our activities. If we continue living beyond the Earth’s limits, by 2030 we’ll need the equivalent of two planets’ productive capacity to meet our annual demands. Leape added:
The report shows that continuing of the current consumption trends would lead us to the point of no return. 4.5 Earths would be required to support a global population living like an average resident of the UAE or the US.
The 31 OECD countries, which include the world’s richest economies, account for nearly 40 per cent of the global footprint. While there are twice as many people living in BRIC countries – Brazil, Russia, India and China – as there are in OECD countries, the report shows the current rate of perperson footprint of the BRIC countries puts them on a trajectory to overtake the OECD bloc if they follow same development path. Mathis Wackernagel, President of the Global Footprint Network, said:
Countries that maintain high levels of resource dependence are putting their own economies at risk. Those countries that are able to provide the highest quality of life on the lowest amount of ecological demand will not only serve the global interest, they will be the leaders in a resource-constrained world.
New analysis in the report also shows that the steepest decline in biodiversity falls in low-income countries, with a nearly 60 per cent decline in less than 40 years. The biggest footprint is found in high-income countries, on average five times that of low-income countries, which suggests unsustainable consumption in wealthier nations rests largely on depleting the natural resources of poorer, often still resource rich tropical countries. The Living Planet Report also shows that a high footprint and high level of consumption, which often comes at the cost of others, is not reflected in a higher level of development. The UN Human Development Index, which looks at life expectancy, income and educational attainment, can be high in countries with moderate footprint. The Report outlines solutions needed to ensure the Earth can sustain a global population projected to pass nine billion in 2050, and points to choices in diet and energy consumption as critical to reducing footprint, as well as improved efforts to value and invest in our natural capital. Leape said:
The challenge posed by the Living Planet Report is clear. Somehow we need to find a way to meet the needs of a growing and increasingly prosperous population within the resources of this one planet. All of us have to find a way to make better choices in what we consume and how we produce and use energy.
For more, see below:
WWF Lpr Backgrounder
New analysis shows populations of tropical species are plummeting and humanity’s demands on natural resources are sky-rocketing to 50 per cent more than the earth can sustain, reveals the 2010 edition of WWF’s Living Planet Report – the leading survey of the planet’s health. Read more
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