Uplift Lifts & Bits - July 2022
July 2022 - In This Issue:
Double Materiality: Make It a First Stop on Your ESG Journey
5 Ways to Redesign Corporate Philanthropy to Advance Equity
How to Respond When Human Rights Abuse Happens in Your Supply Chain
What's Inspiring Us: WeWork & Oatly Partner to Advance Sustainability & Entrepreneurship
Lifts & Bits
Double Materiality: Make it a First Stop on Your ESG Journey
To double or not to double? If you're looking to conduct a materiality assessment, ask yourself this question. Traditional materiality assessments uncover and prioritize environmental and social issues that may affect a company's financial stability (the inward impacts). But increasingly, companies are switching to double materiality assessments to gain a better viewpoint of both their inward and outward impacts (the impacts a business has on social and environmental issues). This dual lens is critical to building credible Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) strategies.
Materiality assessments have been required by ESG reporting frameworks like GRI and SASB for a while, and the European Union has been requiring double materiality from certain companies through its Non-financial Reporting Directive (NRFD), since 2014. Just like FDA nutrition tables on food labels tell us the ingredients and minerals in an item, double materiality assessments give stakeholders insight into the risks a business faces and the impact a business has on the world. And, for stakeholders, it shows that a company is committed to transparency and improvement. If you're conducting a materiality, consider these tips for a more meaningful result:
Start by considering your end goal. Are you assessing materiality in order to meet a disclosure requirement, to inform your strategy, or both? Make sure your team is aligned on the purpose of this work because it will shape how you conduct the assessment.
For objectivity and strong results, bring in a credible external partner whose approach matches your end goal. Outside expertise can ensure you're conducting the assessment correctly, and you're more likely to get high-quality input from your external stakeholders.
Prioritize feedback from stakeholders outside of your business. They have valuable perspectives, and their input often uncovers blind spots that employees can't see.
Leverage your materiality (beyond meeting disclosure requirements) to drive decision-making and an impact focused ESG strategy.
When addressing the top material issues, examine the impact vs. feasibility of potential solutions to prioritize which ones will be most effective.
5 Ways to Redesign Corp. Philanthropy to Advance Equity
Traditional grantmaking practices in corporate philanthropy carry biases and perpetuate the very inequalities that CSR professionals are seeking to address. Recently, Uplift's Jerome Tennille and Ashley Rayment led a conversation focused on how to drive the systems change that so many in our profession want and need to make.
A key takeaway: "Who we fund is as important as what we fund. Corporations can advance equity by examining systems, processes, criteria, and tools for bias and how they can be redesigned to be more inclusive of minority-led and governed nonprofit organizations."
Here are the five ways Jerome and Ashley discussed to redesign corporate philanthropy to advance equity:
Understand that who we fund is as important as what we fund.
Adopt a Trust-Based approach to grantmaking.
Create more accessible grant-application processes.
Consider transition to granting unrestricted funding.
Understand that technology and grant-making platforms can also hinder or advance equity depending on how they've been designed.
Didn't attend? No problem. Follow this link to download our detailed summary so you can have all of this valuable information at your fingertips.
Remember, these changes can't happen overnight, but it is critical to take the first step. If you need help along your journey, we are here to help.
How to Respond When Human Rights
Most companies don't think they have human rights problems...until they do. The lack of visibility and accountability in supply chains, make them ripe for human rights violations such as long workdays without breaks, forced labor, unsafe working conditions, and violence and harassment.
When the worst abuse comes to light - companies may be tempted to quickly sever the supplier relationship. But that isn't usually the best solution. People working in environments that violate human rights do so because they have no better option and depend on the job to meet their basic needs. When a company exits a partnership with a supplier, the people experiencing the abuse lose their jobs and nothing changes to hold the supplier accountable.
Because of that, "being responsible" may actually mean staying to fix the issue.
Recently, H&M had to make this choice after a young garment worker, Jeyasre Kathiravel - a member of the Dalit community in India - was sexually assaulted and murdered by her supervisor in one of H&M's largest suppliers in India. Subsequent investigations showed repeated and long-term harassment against women workers in this facility. Instead of cutting ties, H&M chose to take action.
In a landmark - and legally binding - agreement, H&M committed to ensuring that all workers, supervisors, and executives at the supplier will have to undergo gender-based-violence training and be monitored by a third party for compliance, which establishes a reporting mechanism that is more likely to protect workers from retaliation for reporting grievances.
This agreement is only the second of its kind in the fashion industry, but also marks the first time a brand has signed a legally binding agreement to end gender-based violence in Asia's garment industry, which is notorious for poor labor conditions and a workforce made up mostly of women experiencing poverty.
While the systemic harassment of women and the murder of Jeyasre Kathirael should never have happened in the first place, H&M's enforceable agreement stands as an example for how companies can hold suppliers and themselves to higher standards and most importantly to do it before another tragedy happens.
What’s Inspiring Us:
WeWork & Oatly Partner to Advance Sustainability & Entrepreneurship
Uplift client, WeWork, partnered with Oatly to host a Changemakers Competition Series to support sustainability start-ups that are working to address climate change. The Changemakers pitch night event series was hosted in Boston, Chicago, New York City, San Francisco, and Washington D.C. WeWork is dedicating over $1 million in its flexible space offerings to support the winners of the competition series. While Oatly is providing business mentorship programming and a series of collaborative workshops for winners. We're inspired by two companies from different industries joining forces to advance shared sustainability and entrepreneurship goals.
Uplifting News:
Uplift’s Halle Brown Receives U.S. Fulbright Award
We're proud to recognize our sustainability and social impact graduate intern, Halle Catalina Brown, who has been selected for a 2022-2023 U.S. Fulbright Open Research Award! The U.S. Fulbright program is the largest and most prestigious international exchange program for students pursuing research abroad. Halle will be studying the impact of community-led ecotourism on women's empowerment and sustainable development in Ecuador from September to June. We look forward to following her incredible adventures and know she will return with unique insight on sustainability and empowerment to share with our community and clients.
Want to Join Uplift? We’re Hiring!
Uplift is seeking an early career Sustainability Consultant to join our practice. This position will report to the VP of Sustainability & ESG. The job responsibilities will span sustainability & ESG topics, with a particular focus on the environmental impacts of corporate clients and their supply chains. This is a remote position that can be located anywhere in the U.S. Visit the Uplift Careers page to learn more.
