Biz leaders commit to sustainable development

Friday, July 06, 2007 Vincent Lingga, The Jakarta Post, Geneva

The overarching message of the Global Compact business leaders summit here is loud and clear: It is no longer sufficient for companies to make profits and comply with the laws if they are really serious about sustainable development in the long term.

The world is now undergoing a period of unprecedented change and it is becoming clear that the current market mechanism and the political system cannot by itself resolve such major issues as climate change, persistent poverty and abuse of human rights.

"For markets to expand in a sustainable way, we must provide those currently excluded with better and more opportunities to improve their livelihoods," United Nations Secretary General Ban-Ki-moon said Thursday when opening the two-summit.

The UN chief called the meeting, which is being attended by more than 800 business leaders and representatives of civil society organizations and academic communities, the largest event the UN has ever convened on the topic of corporate citizenship.

Indeed, the survival and success of companies, notably big multinational groups, depends on the complex global system of three interdependent sub-systems -- the natural environment, the social and political system, and the global economy.

Formed in 2000 in response to major anti-globalization protests at a WTO meeting in Seattle, the Global Compact brings companies together with UN agencies and civil society groups to promote universal human rights, labor, environment and anticorruption principles.

The Global Compact's ten principles cover the areas of human rights, labor, the environment and anticorruption.

The Global Compact, which now has around 4,000 members, asks companies to embrace, support and enact, within their sphere of influence, a set of core values in the areas of human rights, labor standards, the environment, and anticorruption.

"You can be a good company simply by making profits and obeying the law, but you never become a great corporation without strong corporate social responsibility," noted Neville Isdell, chairman of the Coca-Cola Company, at a news conference on the sidelines of the conference.

Rudy Fajar, president of PT Riau Andalan Pulp and Paper (RAPP), who is also attending the conference, concurred, saying that there had been increasing pressures for companies to invest in a way that was socially responsible, ethically right and environment-friendly.

RAPP, which is developing almost 160,000 hectares of pulp plantations in Riau province to support its giant pulp plant with an annual capacity of two million tons, is a unit of the Singapore-registered Asia Pacific Resources International Holdings Ltd. (APRIL).

APRIL joined the Global Compact during the summit meeting, pledging a strong commitment to implementing its ten principles.

The summit is due Friday to issue the Geneva Declaration on the commitment of companies to sustainable development, including stronger cooperation in coping with climate change and corruption, which Huguette Labelle, chair of the Berlin-based Transparency International, called a very serious problem.

"The World Bank estimates that 5 percent of global gross domestic product is lost to corruption. This means a waste of almost S$2.5 trillion a year which could have been used to lift tens of millions of people out of absolute poverty," Labelle noted at a news conference.