Responsible business practice

This article was published in Living Ethics: issue 82 summer 2010

St James Ethics Centre is continuing its work to transition the Responsible Business Practice (RBP) initiative to sustainability, as part of a final round of funding from Federal Treasury to 30 June 2011. The transition encompasses the UN Global Compact, Global Reporting Initiative, Corporate Responsibility Index, Good Business Register and other SME projects.

Subscribe to our quarterly Hub e-newsletter to keep up to date with our progress by visiting the Hub of Responsible Business Practice in Australia website thehub.ethics.org.au.

Good Business Register

The purpose of the GBR is to engage Australian small to medium businesses (SMEs) in identifying and adopting more responsible business practices. It was developed in partnership with Australian corporate responsibility leaders and other Australian stakeholders from business, government and civil society. Recently all GBR clients were asked to respond to the annual online survey. The Centre thanks those people who took the time in their busy schedules to respond. Key findings available at thehub.ethics.org.au.

Corporate Responsibility Index transition update

As announced in the Government’s May 2010 budget, St James Ethics Centre was granted an additional year of funding from Federal Treasury to enable the transitioning of the Centre’s Responsible Business Practice (RBP) initiative to sustainability. This transition encompasses the UN Global Compact, Global Reporting Initiative, Corporate Responsibility Index, Good Business Register and other SME projects.

As this is the final year of Federal Treasury funding for the RBP initiative, it has prompted the Centre to review each project element in terms of sustainability, both strategically and financially. Following this review, the Centre decided not to renew its Corporate Responsibility Index (CRI) licence held for the past seven years in Australia and New Zealand.

The UK based CRI developer Business in the Community (BITC) is supportive of this decision and has also welcomed the Centre’s proposal to seek expressions of interest in the Australian/New Zealand CRI licence from agreed organisations within Australia.

In September 2010 BITC launched the 2011 Corporate Responsibility Index, in cooperation with the Centre, as a Global Index run by BITC directly from the UK for all participating UK, Australian and New Zealand companies.

New roles for CRI Manager and Head Responsible Business Practice

Following this transition, the Centre’s CRI Manager, Sarah Davidson takes on a new role as Planning & Development Manager, Responsible Business Practice. The focus of this new position will be to assist in evolving the Centre’s RBP role beyond the fixed term of the Federal Treasury funded project to provide a more sustainable and valuable long-term proposition for our stakeholders. We look forward to continuing to work with Sarah in this new capacity during the coming year.

Rosemary Sainty, who held the position of Head, Responsible Business Practice, also moves into a new role as Head of the Secretariat of the Global Compact Network Australia. As a consultant, Rosemary will be temporarily based at the Centre as she moves to establish bases in Brisbane and Melbourne and Sydney’s CBD. We thank Rosemary for her hard work on the RBP over the past three years and wish her well in this exciting new role.