Bangladesh – Seventh Generation Interfaith Coalition for Responsible Investing

Climate Refugees: Rising Waters and Rising Concern

December 12, 2019July 8, 2020Chris Cox

A new report from the Othering & Belonging Institute at the University of California – Berkeley sheds light on an emerging problem. The new report, “Climate Refugees: The Climate Crisis and Rights Denied,” by Elsadig Elsheikh and Hossein Ayazi, makes a compelling case to the international community for the adoption of a legally-binding convention that protects climate refugees.

In a chapter that I wrote concerning resilience and refugees, I raised similar concerns as those which underlie this report. When referring to those born in another land, definitions and distinctions abound, be they legal definitions, social science terminology, or one’s self-description. At home and abroad, the political and legal framework continues to evolve. Attempts to reform U.S. immigration processes have occasioned increasingly sharp political conflict over the past 20 years. Some politicians capitalize on this polarization. Domestically, racial tension and anti-immigrant sentiment have both grown. Internationally, the member states of the UN finalized a Global Compact on Refugees in 2018, augmenting the 1951 Refugee Convention. None the less, legal vacuums exist. The international standards do not provide for “climate refugees.” While the July 2018 Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration recognized climate change as a growing factor, the December 2018 Global Compact on Refugees eschewed the subject, using the term “climate” only twice, and, in one instance, in the context of a “business climate.” The World Bank estimates there will be as many as 143 million climate refugees, with a minimum of 92 million, by 2050. It is a growing crisis for which the world remains woefully unprepared.

This new report from UC – Berkeley profiles 10 countries that are among those most vulnerable under the climate crisis. For instance, Bangladesh, projected to lose 17 percent of its total land to sea level rise by 2050, would see displaced an estimated 20 million people, and the Maldives could lose all 1,200 of its islands to sea level rise. The release date of the report coincided with the U.N.’s annual Human Rights Day observance on December 10th.

The report also details specific vulnerabilities suffered by these refugees in U.S. and international law. The report argues that a new understanding of “persecution,” a longstanding requirement for receiving refugee status, could be broadened to include “petro-persecution.” In that event, a new agreement for climate refugees is made necessary, and such a framework should be undertaken as a revision to the 1951 Refugee Convention, or the establishment of a wholly new international convention.

Member statement at Kohl’s AGM

May 17, 2018Chris Cox

Yesterday, Frank Sherman, Chris Cox, and Tim Dewane attended the annual shareholder meeting at Kohl’s. For Kohl’s, the shareholder meeting was the closing of a significant chapter in the company’s history and the beginning of a new chapter. Having begun his career with the company in 1982, Kohl’s CEO Kevin Mansell retired, a post he has held since 2008. With the retirement, Michelle Gass is the company’s new CEO.

ICCR and SGI have a long history of engagement with Kohl’s. At the shareholder meeting, Tim Dewane, the JPIC director for the School Sisters of Notre Dame of the Central Pacific Province offered a statement:

Good morning Mr. Chairman and Kohl’s Board members. My name is Tim Dewane, I am the JPIC Director for the School Sisters of Notre Dame of the Central Pacific Province. The School Sisters of Notre Dame CPP are a long time shareholder of Kohl’s and a member of Seventh Generation Interfaith, an ICCR-affiliated coalition of faith-based institutional investors that has engaged in positive dialogue with Kohl’s for nearly 20 years. Our members first sat down with Kevin Mansell and Rick Schepp in 2000 to provide input into the language of Kohl’s Terms of Engagement, a set of standards on worker rights and working conditions for its suppliers throughout the world. Since 2000, faith-based shareholders have met with the company annually and have seen improvements its supplier’s performance on workplace human rights as well as significant improvement in its’ environmental sustainability of your operations through a variety of programs that are described in its 2017 CSR report.

We welcome Michelle Gass as Kohl’s new Chief Executive Officer, the first woman to occupy this important position at the company. We look forward to working with you and your staff. As you build on the legacy of Kevin Mansell we encourage you to expand and deepen the integration of Kohl’s commitment to corporate social responsibility throughout the company’s business strategy and messaging to customers, investors and to society. In the current environment, stakeholders and rating agencies, who have incorporated social and environmental criteria into their valuation of companies, are expecting more transparency of Kohl’s and other companies. Kohl’s has a good story to tell, one that we are working on to improve with every meeting we have with you.

We encourage you to apply ‘human rights due diligence,’ based on the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, the new global norm, to identify potential risks to people and communities, especially where your business partners operate in high risk countries where rule of law is weak. In addition, we encourage Kohl’s to join a number of companies in aligning its CSR strategies to the realization of the UN Sustainable Development Goals adopted in 2015 to eradicate poverty, gender inequity, child and forced labor, adverse impacts of climate change, among others, by 2030.

Larry Fink, Chair and CEO of Blackrock, stated in his Letter to CEOs entitled, A Sense of Purpose, “Society is demanding that companies, both public and private, serve a social purpose. To prosper over time, every company must not only deliver financial performance, but also show how it makes a positive contribution to society.” Pope Francis has echoed the understanding of many our own Kohl’s customers when he said that purchasing is not simply an economic act, but also a moral one. We are called to love and care for our neighbors as our selves and in today’s world our neighbor includes not only the folks in this room, or those here in Menominee Falls, but all those whose lives touch ours – including the garment workers in Bangladesh and elsewhere.

We look forward to working with you to build on Kohl’s solid commitment to quality and community – with profits we can all live with. Thank you!

A PDF version of Tim’s statement can be found here.

SGI joins investors to call on companies to stay the course on Bangladesh Accord

January 25, 2018Chris Cox

Statement endorsed by 147 investors representing $3.7 trillion appeals to global brands to recommit to three-year extension to fulfill Accord’s mandate to remediate fire and safety violations in apparel sector.

Members of the Bangladesh Investor Initiative issued a statement today calling on companies sourcing from the Bangladesh apparel sector to renew their commitment to protect worker health and safety by endorsing the three-year extension of the Accord on Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh (Accord).

The investors, including Seventh Generation Interfaith Coalition for Responsible Investment and its members, say additional time is needed to complete the remediation plans and worker training indicated by audits at the over 1,600 factories covered by the Accord. The statement will accompany letters being sent to the 160 companies that have not yet become signatories to the three-year extension of the Accord, urging them to participate.

The investors are part of the Bangladesh Investor Initiative organized by the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility to press brands and retailers sourcing in Bangladesh to join the Accord and remediate human rights risks in their supply chains. The statement was endorsed by 147 institutional investors that collectively represent $3.7 trillion in managed assets.

Said Henrike Kulmann of Allianz Global Investors GmbH, “The new agreement between global trade unions and companies ensures that the industry continues to remediate safety issues found in garment factories and build effective worker safety committees. They are an important component to mitigating risks to workers and supply chain disruption as well as reputational risks to global brands sourcing in Bangladesh. We call on all companies sourcing from Bangladesh to become Accord signatories to mitigate these serious human rights and business risks.”

For the 1,600 factories have been inspected under the Accord, 82 percent of the identified safety issues have been fixed, the majority of them electrical. “Investors have been particularly pleased to see that, in addition to fixing specific problems, the Accord has worked to address the systemic issues that led to disasters like Rana Plaza,” said Lauren Compere of Boston Common Asset Management, “It is critical to ensure that future safety problems are detected before they become life-threatening events. The detailed comprehensive work achieved by the Accord is a positive signal to investors that safety risks are being carefully and sustainably managed.”

The investor statement recommends brands undertake the following:

Accord companies, who have yet to sign the 2018 Accord, do so during the first Quarter of this year.
Companies that were part of the Alliance, which is disbanding in 2018, join the Accord and therefore maximize collective leverage to complete safety reforms and strengthen action to build the capacity of the Bangladesh government’s oversight of worker safety by 2021.
Brands and retailers sourcing in the garment sector expand safety inspections to knitting, spinning & weaving; washing, dyeing & printing facilities; embroidery & accessories; home textiles; leather and footwear.
Brands, retailers and other stakeholders strengthen the National Tripartite Plan of Action on Fire Safety and Structural Integrity in Bangladesh’s garment sector to ensure an integrated approach to promoting fire safety and building integrity, and to provide a platform for stakeholders engaged in fire safety initiatives.

“To date, only 60 of the 220 signatories of the Accord have signed the new agreement to extend the program until May 2021,” stated David Schilling, senior program director of ICCR. “While much has been achieved in making garment factories in Bangladesh safer, there is more to be done, including the establishment of worker safety committees in each factory. The success of the Accord to date is built on the unprecedented collective action of brands and trade unions. Continued solidarity is needed to finish the job and prevent hard-earned gains from disappearing.”

ICCR Statement of Support for new Accord for Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh

July 9, 2017July 28, 2017Chris Cox

As investors shareholders engaged in dialogues with retailers, we are heartened by last week’s announcement that global unions and companies signed an agreement to extend the Accord for Fire and Building Safety for an additional three year period in force after May 2018. This is great news! Investors, including those from SGI, have played an important role in supporting the Accord, assessing its progress and recommending areas to be strengthened going forward.

ICCR’s statement applauding the agreement is found here.

SGI members signed onto the April 2017 investor statement on the 4^th Anniversary of the Rana Plaza Tragedy. Our recommendations included:

Accord companies and trade union representatives agree to extend the Accord for the period of time needed to remediate systemic issues that still threaten worker safety and livelihood.
Broaden the current scope of the Accord to include; i) a focus on freedom of association and collective bargaining and integrate this into the Complaints Mechanism process and ii) additional parts of the supply chain where similar risks exist such as washing, dying, fabrics, leather and home textiles.

The new agreement responds positively to these recommendations. Over the past four years, investor activism has made a difference in providing support and urging further action to make sure that garment factories are made safer now and in the future.