Global Compact International Yearbook Ausgabe 2010
A profound retrospective of the first decade of the UN Global Compact, challenges in the light of the year of biodiversity, and instruments for an adequate Corporate Citizenship are some of the issues highlighted in the new 2010 edition of the “Global Compact International Yearbook”. Among this years prominent authors are Ban Ki-moon, Bill Clinton, Joschka Fischer and Achim Steiner. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said: “As the Global Compact enters its second decade, it is my hope that this Yearbook will be an inspiration to bring responsible business to true scale.” Formally presented during the UN Global Compact Leaders Summit in New York, the yearbook is now for sale. Looking back at the past ten years, the United Nations Global Compact has left its mark in a variety of ways, helping shape the conservation about corporate responsibility and diffusing the concept of a principle-based approach to doing business across the globe. Chapter two deals with Biodiversity: UNEP Executive Director Achim Steiner emphasizes the importance of protecting the nature: “Climate change has been described as the biggest market failure of all time – the loss of biodiversity and nature’s economically-important services must surely be running a close second, if not an equal first. Year in and year out, the world economy may be losing services from forests to freshwaters and from soils to coral reefs, with resulting costs of up to $4.5 trillion or more. Decisive action needs to be taken to reverse these declines or the bill will continue to climb – and with it any hopes of achieving the poverty-related Millennium Development Goals and a sustainable 21st century for six billion people, rising to nine billion by 2050.” Dr. Ahmed Djoghlaf, Executive Secretary of the Convention on Biological Diversity, adds: “Now is the time for concrete action from the business community to save life on earth. The alternative is an impoverished planet that can no longer support a healthy, vibrant global economy. The stakes in this fight could not be higher. As the slogan of the International Year reminds us, ‘Biodiversity is life. Biodiversity is our life.’”
A profound retrospective of the first decade of the UN Global Compact, challenges in the light of the year of biodiversity, and instruments for an adequate Corporate Citizenship are some of the issues highlighted in the new 2010 edition of the “Global Compact International Yearbook”. Among this years prominent authors are Ban Ki-moon, Bill Clinton, Joschka Fischer and Achim Steiner. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said: “As the Global Compact enters its second decade, it is my hope that this Yearbook will be an inspiration to bring responsible business to true scale.” Formally presented during the UN Global Compact Leaders Summit in New York, the yearbook is now for sale. Looking back at the past ten years, the United Nations Global Compact has left its mark in a variety of ways, helping shape the conservation about corporate responsibility and diffusing the concept of a principle-based approach to doing business across the globe.
Chapter two deals with Biodiversity: UNEP Executive Director Achim Steiner emphasizes the importance of protecting the nature: “Climate change has been described as the biggest market failure of all time – the loss of biodiversity and nature’s economically-important services must surely be running a close second, if not an equal first. Year in and year out, the world economy may be losing services from forests to freshwaters and from soils to coral reefs, with resulting costs of up to $4.5 trillion or more. Decisive action needs to be taken to reverse these declines or the bill will continue to climb – and with it any hopes of achieving the poverty-related Millennium Development Goals and a sustainable 21st century for six billion people, rising to nine billion by 2050.” Dr. Ahmed Djoghlaf, Executive Secretary of the Convention on Biological Diversity, adds: “Now is the time for concrete action from the business community to save life on earth. The alternative is an impoverished planet that can no longer support a healthy, vibrant global economy. The stakes in this fight could not be higher. As the slogan of the International Year reminds us, ‘Biodiversity is life. Biodiversity is our life.’”
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Volkswagen<br />
Re-Greening<br />
Popocatépetl<br />
Volkswagen plants 300,000 trees around the source<br />
region of the Rio Atoyac, thereby helping to secure<br />
water supplies in the region.<br />
By Hans-Günther Dymek and Michael Scholing-Darby<br />
Water is a scarce resource in Mexico.<br />
Even when there is enough rainfall, the<br />
huge rise in communal and industrial<br />
demand for water in many regions is<br />
leading to permanent overexploitation<br />
of groundwater deposits. To make matters<br />
worse, the quality of those reserves<br />
is at risk of being compromised through<br />
exposure to untreated wastewater, which<br />
may contaminate it. Not even the populous<br />
cities of Mexico have so far been<br />
Clear-felled volcano massif base:<br />
“The replenishment of groundwater<br />
reserves depends on a functioning<br />
ecosystem.”<br />
outfitted with a sufficient number of<br />
purification plants.<br />
The water-supply situation is particularly<br />
critical in the Puebla Tlaxcala<br />
valley, which lies nestled amidst mighty<br />
volcanoes. As significant expanses of<br />
forest have been destroyed through logging<br />
or fires, plenty of rainwater coming<br />
down to the valley does not actually<br />
seep into the ground. Even meltwater<br />
quantities have been dwindling since<br />
global warming has caused the glaciers<br />
situated along the slopes of the volcanoes<br />
to be diminished. The result is insufficient<br />
replenishment of groundwater<br />
reserves.<br />
Through this picturesque landscape<br />
meanders the Rio Atoyac, one of the<br />
most highly polluted rivers anywhere in<br />
Latin America. Petrochemicals, detergent<br />
residues, and grease turn sections of this<br />
river into a particularly turbid-looking<br />
sludge.<br />
With its two million inhabitants,<br />
the city of Puebla alone requires vast<br />
amounts of water. That demand is further<br />
increased by the many commercial<br />
facilities operated by international companies<br />
that have settled in this industrial<br />
region some 150 kilometres from the<br />
country’s capital, Mexico City. One such<br />
industrial facility is the automobile factory<br />
run by Volkswagen de México.<br />
The people and the economy of<br />
the region depend to a large degree on<br />
the groundwater resources available<br />
at the foot of the volcanoes and in the<br />
lowlands of the Rio Atoyac. Galleries<br />
of wells provide drinking and service<br />
water to private households and businesses.<br />
At these wells, water already has<br />
to be mined from depths of up to 130<br />
meters. And, in many cases, these wells<br />
bring forth nothing but salty water that<br />
requires thorough treatment, even if only<br />
used for industrial purposes.<br />
These wells often had to be closed<br />
down (including some that have served<br />
the VW plant) because the water they<br />
contain has been found to be highly<br />
polluted.<br />
For a company like Volkswagen,<br />
which abides by a self-imposed obligation<br />
to sustainability and protection of<br />
the environment, this state of chronic<br />
water shortage was unacceptable over the<br />
long run. “All of us – the governments,<br />
civil society, and private enterprise,” in-<br />
176<br />
<strong>Global</strong> <strong>Compact</strong> <strong>International</strong> <strong>Yearbook</strong> <strong>2010</strong>
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