Are companies contributing to social transformation?

El First report on the Social Transformation of companies necessary to achieve the sustainable development goals carried out by the World Benchmarking Alliance (WBA) reveals the enormous road that still remains to be traveled.

The Study Evaluate the most influential companies in the world in terms of the social impact they generate in particular in three areas: human rights, decent work and ethical conduct.

After analyzing the first 1000 companies out of a total of 2000 out of 70 countries on five continents and which account for a quarter of the world's Gross Domestic Product, the main conclusion is clear: the efforts of companies are, in most cases, scarce.

Between the Findings Most outstanding it should be noted:

• Only one company out of the 1000 companies evaluated meets the 18 requirements defined by the WBA.
• Only 1% get a score higher than 15 points out of 20. Half of the companies scored disappointingly (between 0 and 5 points).
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Human Rights and Decent Work, Pending Subjects

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In the matter of Human Rights 3 out of 4 companies 78% of the 1,000 companies evaluated obtained a “zero” score on the three monitoring indicators in the field of human rights (HRDD-Human Resources Due Diligence criteria). While 55% of companies publish a serious commitment to respect human rights, less than half of them demonstrate this through real evidence. It is one thing to express a commitment and another thing to fulfill that commitment with data and demonstrable evidence.

With regard to Decent Work, only the 4% of companies they published specific objectives or claimed that they were already paying workers a Living Wage. Only 4% of companies say they have control over the number of hours worked and only 4% show that they identify wage inequalities, revealing wage differences between men and women by categories of employees.

Regarding the Ethical Conduct only 20% of companies publish a high-level approach to pressure groups and 8% disclose their spending on pressure and influence groups (lobbying policies). In the same way, data on their tax strategies were not published for 75% of companies, while only 9% of companies disclose the amount of taxes paid by each jurisdiction in which the company is resident for tax purposes.

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Lack of social public information about companies

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Regarding the information published by companies, the absence of significant information on social issues is surprising. The most common score in the entire sample is 0 points out of 20, with 116 companies out of 1000 that do not meet any requirements in any of the 18 indicators.

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About World Benchmarking Alliance

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World Benchmarking Alliance (WBA) is an organization Nonprofit based in the Netherlands founded in 2018 Under the conviction that the contribution of The private sector is critical to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the United Nations.

For the purpose of evaluating the Contribution of major companies worldwide in order to achieve the SDGs, the first consultation of the WBA was launched in September 2017, coinciding with the 72nd United Nations General Assembly.

Over the past 5 years, WBA has positioned itself as an organization internationally recognized; And, as of today, it has the support of several funding partners including governments, private foundations and other corporations, more than 250 Allied Entities And a template of 85 employees.

You can access the full report Hither.