Reported by Consejeros Editorial Team
To mark the 50th anniversary of the OECD Guidelines for Responsible Business Conduct, the organisation has published a report highlighting the level of corporate commitment to human rights, sustainability and governance in each region of the world. According to this document, of the 10,000 largest listed companies, 69 per cent have made commitments to social, environmental and governance standards, although there are significant differences by region.
European companies are, in relative terms, the ones that have most formally adopted these criteria. Europe leads the way in commitments to combating corruption (86%), greenhouse gas emissions (84%) and human rights (84%).
As for China, it is evident that its companies are the ones that make the fewest concrete commitments to corporate responsibility, with barely 16 per cent on human rights and only 10 per cent on freedom of expression.
Finally, the United States and Latin America show mixed progress, with a strong focus on the fight against corruption and human rights.
US companies, as a group, have done the most work on anti-corruption issues (91 per cent), although on all other criteria they lag behind their European and Latin American counterparts.
Among Latin American companies, the most common commitments are also those relating to anti-corruption measures (74 per cent) and human rights (71 per cent).
Furthermore, the report notes that 52 states have adopted regulations to ensure corporate oversight and promote corporate responsibility through financial or legal incentives. This reflects how the OECD’s guiding principles, whilst not binding in all cases, seek to foster a global culture of corporate responsibility and ethics.
