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Best practice & ethics
Briefs .....
The Global Reporting Initiative
(GRI) gained 180 new GRI-reporters in 2006, bringing the total to 950 worldwide.
The GRI said that the launch in October of the G3 guidelines should spur
continued growth in reporting, in both quantity and quality. The GRI also
announced that it had had a near doubling of the membership of its
organisational stakeholder (OS)
group to 392. The OS membership help in the governance of the GRI and gain
benefits to the services provided by the organisation.
US retailers, such as Target
and Best Buy, have improved their record
in respect of controlling sales of violent video games to children, according to
a
report from the Interfaith Center on Corporate
Responsibility, a coalition of 275 faith-based institutional investors. All
the retailers featured in the report had policies to restrict access by
young-teenagers to games rated for older players. However, the investors are
demanding better disclosure of the results and implementation of their policies.
There is low public opinion of the action of governments' actions against
corruption, according to the annual international
poll by
Transparency
International. The group, which campaigns against corruption, found that half of
Americans and 42% of Europeans thought their government's actions were
ineffective. It was found that bribery for access to services is most common in
Africa - with bribes to utility companies often putting the cost of services
like electricity out of the reach of many people. Among Africans, 70% said their
personal lives were effected to a large extent by corruption. Countries where
people felt most effected included Kenya, Nigeria, Philippines, South Korea and
Turkey.
HBOS criticised those
which blamed the bank for having responsibility for the collapse of
Farepak, the subsidiary of its client
European Home Retail which was also forced into administration last year. A
group, Unfairpak, set up after the
demise of the gift voucher company, staged a protest outside the bank's
headquarters in Edinburgh and presented a
petition to HBOS
which accused the bank of taking the money from savers. HBOS denied these
allegations and said they were inaccurate and misleading and said that it had
provided the largest single contribution to the
Farepak response fund,
which was set up by the Family Fund
charity. The fund raised £6.8m and was able to distribute vouchers to agents to
supply customers prior to Christmas which amounted to a return of about 17p for
every £1 saved. Other corporate givers included
Marks & Spencer and
Tesco.
January, 2007 |
