Category Archives: GoodBlog

The latest GoodCorporation debate at the House of Lords revealed that few organisations have a specific Human Rights Policy in place or a nominated individual responsible for monitoring their Human Rights impact. In addition, only a handful of organisations admitted to conducting fact finding exercises to see what was happening on the ground or carrying…

The most recent GoodCorporation debate at the House of Lords contemplated the roles of ethics and compliance in today’s corporations. Our guest speaker began by suggesting that there is a tendency to separate the two into distinct business areas; with ethics leaning towards corporate responsibility, while compliance focuses on legal obligations. Albert Camus once said;…

Comment on executive pay tends to put the cat amongst the pigeons. Those at the top refer to criticism as sour grapes: the resentment of the unrealistic who simply don’t understand how business works. Those lower down the food chain see high paid executives as greedy and out of touch. All this polarisation does is…

Last week Ed Miliband unveiled Labour’s new policy thrust to reward good companies and penalize bad ones. The idea provoked generally negative business comment, much of it with a ‘hot air’ theme. As a company keen to promote responsible business, we’re inclined to pause before dismissing it as another short-lived Big Idea. The two key…

With economic forecasts bearing an uncanny similarity to our dismal UK weather, business attention, not surprisingly, is being focused on surviving the recession. Budgets are being squeezed, growth is slow and jobs are in the balance. At times like these, businesses tend to focus on the ‘must haves’ rather than the ‘nice to have’ and…

Our high street banks have hit the headlines again. While George Osborne has laid out plans to ring fence the essential operations of our large High Street banks, Panorama has revealed that consumer trust in our banks is still at an all time low. The purpose of ring fencing is to insulate the essential operations…

Now that the Ministry of Justice has published its guidance on the Bribery Act, the new legislation will be coming into force at the beginning of July. GoodCorporation invited business leaders to debate the impact of the new Act at the House of Lords. The debate began with a reminder of the existing legislation of…

The debate about whether or not Vodafone should have allowed the Egyptian government to take over its mobile network because of fears of human rights abuses, shows just how complex these issues have become. The revolution sweeping the Arab world is also prompting a new debate about what companies are doing working in countries with…

Another story of slave labour in Britain hit the headlines this week with the trial of yet another gang exploiting migrant workers for vast profit. This would be shocking if we hadn’t heard it all before. While many large companies do audit their supply chain, including Tesco and Waitrose who had purchased the produce harvested…

You wouldn’t expect large numbers at a public lecture, on the evening of a World Cup semi-final. So I was astonished to find myself in the company of 1,200 people at St Paul’s Cathedral on Tuesday 6 July to hear Niall Ferguson’s lecture on Men, Money and Morality: How Can Trust in Banking be Restored?…