Breakthrough Regarding Legal Liability of Canadian Mining Corporations for Abuses Overseas

Breakthrough Regarding Legal Liability of Canadian Mining Corporations for Abuses Overseas

A news release today: Mayans' lawsuit against HudBay over shootings and rapes at mine in Guatemala to proceed in Canadian courts

TORONTO, ONTARIO--(Marketwire - Feb. 25, 2013) - In an important precedent-setting development for the accountability of Canadian mining companies for alleged overseas human rights abuses, victims of rape and murder at a Guatemalan mine are now able to sue a Canadian mining company in Canadian courts.

Guatemalan Mayan villagers who are suing Canadian mining company HudBay Minerals for the alleged gang-rapes of eleven women, the killing of community leader Adolfo Ich and the shooting and paralyzing of German Chub at HudBay's former mining project in Guatemala recently learned that HudBay has abruptly abandoned its legal argument that the lawsuit should not be heard in Canada, just before an Ontario court was set to determine the issue. As a result, and for the first time, a lawsuit against a Canadian mining company over alleged human rights abuses abroad will be heard in Canadian courts.

"This is a stunning victory for human rights, and paves the way for future lawsuits against Canadian mining companies" said Murray Klippenstein, lawyer for the Mayan plaintiffs. "Corporations be warned - this case clearly shows that Canadian companies can be sued in Canadian courts for alleged human rights atrocities committed at their foreign operations."

from SRI Monitor
http://srimonitor.blogspot.ca/2013/02/breakthrough-regarding-legal-liability.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed:+blogspot/vEjG+%28SRI+Monitor%29
http://srimonitor.blogspot.ca/2013/02/breakthrough-regarding-legal-liability.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed:+blogspot/vEjG+%28SRI+Monitor%29

Yvon Chouinard Patagonia on sustainabilty

These are some of the best thoughts from a sustainability business leader I have heard in a while. Patagonia's founder Yvon Chouinard talks about authenticity, responsibility, and the power of your wallet to change society as interviewed for GreenBiz "Apple doesn't want you to fix your phone, they want you to buy a new one next year. I can't relate to a company like that."

http://www.greenbiz.com/video/2013/03/01/patagonia-responsible-company?mkt_tok=3RkMMJWWfF9wsRonvajNZKXonjHpfsX56u0rW6exlMI%2F0ER3fOvrPUfGjI4AScpqI%2BSLDwEYGJlv6SgFSLHEMa5qw7gMXRQ%3D

http://www.greenbiz.com/video/2013/03/01/patagonia-responsible-company?mkt_tok=3RkMMJWWfF9wsRonvajNZKXonjHpfsX56u0rW6exlMI%2F0ER3fOvrPUfGjI4AScpqI%2BSLDwEYGJlv6SgFSLHEMa5qw7gMXRQ%3D

Morguard Launches Sustainability Report with FSSD principles

I have been primarily working for Morguard, a large Canadian real estate investment and property management company since 2009, as their lead on sustainability and corporate responsibility, and this week we finally released their inaugural 2010-2011 sustainability report! I need to thank numerous colleagues for their guidance and support over the years, I couldn’t have done this solo. Some of you will be excited to see that it might be the first time a large international public corporation has ever include a version of the FSSD/TNS principles in a GRI report! You will also recognize some of the FSSD language built into their sustainability strategy and 25-year goals. It has been a long road over 4 years, through all the strategic planning and training, to implementation, and finally to be able to report significant change and engagement. It took significant work to get the management to be comfortable with public transparency, but in the end they all seem proud of it and have also agreed to a minimum 3 year budget for continuing the annual sustainability reporting program! The report can be downloaded here: http://www.morguard.com/about_us/Sustainability/Pages/Corporate-Sustainability-Report.aspx

The download page requires you to put a name and e-mail address in, but that information is not shared and is just used by me to show Morguard’s management that stakeholders are interested in ESG transparency. Change is happening. The shared language of sustainability continues to spread. Sincerely, Neil

Green Button paves way for new commercial energy tools

California's largest utilities have launched a "Green Button" feature to let consumers download their own detailed energy usage information. The project, championed by U.S. CTO Aneesh Chopra, standardizes the deliver of household energy data and is seen as a catalyst to create an ecosystem for app developers to produce new services and products. A growing number of utilities and technology vendors have committed to using and extending the program to give residential and commercial energy users secure access to their energy usage data. By downloading energy data in a simple, universal format, the Green Button program is designed to encourage innovation among third-party developers to build energy management applications and platforms. First launched in January the initial list of supporters included mostly California utilities, with a total of more than 12 million energy customers. Last week’s announcement added nine more utilities, including American Electric Power, Austin Energy, Baltimore Gas and Electric, CenterPoint Energy, Commonwealth Edison, NSTAR, PECO, Reliant and Virginia Dominion Power, which together bring an additional 15 million customers.

Enbridge Centre for Corporate Sustainability?

An open letter to Leonard Waverman the Dean of the Haskayne School of Business at the University of Calgary who recently announced that the primary funding partner of their Centre for Corporate Sustainability is Enbridge, one of Canada's largest oil and gas companies who is currently attempting to build the northern gateway pipeline. From: Neil Pegram Sent: Wednesday, May 09, 2012 4:52 PM To: 'leonard.waverman@haskayne.ucalgary.ca' Subject: Enbridge Centre for Corporate Sustainability (ECCS) Mr. Waverman, I am writing to express my deep concern over your partnership between Enbridge and your CCS. I am a sustainability professional currently leading a CSR program for one of Canada’s largest corporations. I understand the needs of business and economic development. I also understand the sustainability challenge facing our country and planet. The paring of an extractive energy company and a “Centre for Corporate Sustainability” is a dichotomy in my mind. By definition sustainability is a theoretical point in the future when human society is in balance with the natural flows and systems of this planet. Therefore the corporate strategy of an extractive energy company is fundamentally unsustainable by definition. It’s business model cannot continue indefinitely, so it can never strive for “Corporate Sustainability”. I am well aware that companies I have in the past and currently work with are not perfect, and are at best doing continuous improvement, however only organizations that strive to meet a fundamental human need with their products and services, while not systematically degrading our natural systems, have the ability to become sustainable in the long term. It reads like a partnership between a military weapons manufacture and a centre for peace studies. It is true that military tools are used by peacekeepers, however their fundamental business relies on conflict, just as Enbridge’s valuable energy production relies on unsustainable extraction and degradation of natural resources. The irony of your partnership has not been overlooked by your external stakeholders and likely has had a detrimental effect on your schools credibility. The financial windfall for your school will likely paid by your graduates, as the logic of hiring or retaining a graduate of your program for professional sustainability services (outside of oil and gas) is beyond me. Sincerely, Neil Pegram

Chevron Used Secret Lab to Hide Dirty Soil Samples from Ecuador Court

Situations like this erode public confidence in corporate ethics. I hope that in 20 years cover ups like this will be considered unacceptable and criminal. At the end of the day organizations are made up of humans, and someone in there made conscious decisions to falsify documentation and perjure judicial procedures. It is cases like this that will hopefully lead to a shift in corporate transparency and ethics:

“In an ever more stunning expose of Chevron's fraud before the Ecuador court, a U.S. federal judge has ordered the disclosure of documents that demonstrate Chevron used a secret lab in the United States to hide the existence of dirty soil samples taken from the company's contaminated former well sites in the Amazon. The documents also show that Chevron's scientific experts in the Ecuador trial -- one of whom is a respected professor at the University of California -- executed a scheme that guaranteed the company would find only "clean" soil samples from contaminated well sites while all "dirty" samples would be sent to a lab called NewFields, where they would not be disclosed to the court.”


http://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/33536-Chevron-Used-Secret-Lab-to-Hide-Dirty-Soil-Samples-from-Ecuador-Court-Say-Company-Documents-

Cultural Mind Control - The Greatest Lie

The below article is one of the simplist outlines of the the core issue of cultural control that is actually damaging our society. I would really like to see David rewrite this to be the story of a sustainability and supportive society.

"Professional propagandists and advertisers control our minds and behavior through use mass media and other instruments of cultural reproduction to displace authentic cultural stories with fabricated stories that support the interests of their clients. Most commonly the goal is to get us to vote for a particular political candidate or buy a particular product. By recognizing the nature and function of culture in shaping our understanding of ourselves and our world, we can develop substantial immunity to their mind control techniques...."
see rest of the great post:
http://www.csrwire.com/blog/posts/47-cultural-mind-control