Addressing the annual council of Australia\'s Council for International Development in Canberra, September 2012

1. Speech to the Australian Council For International Development
Annual Council 2012
Canberra, the Australian Capital Territory 11th October 2012
Matthew Tukaki, Australian Representative to the United Nations Global
Compact
Speech background:
This speech copy is embargoed until 8am on the morning of the 11th of October 2012. The speech is
(was) delivered at the annual conference / council meeting of the Australian Council for
International Development. Mr Tukaki was also a member of a panel convened by Don Henry of the
Conservation Foundation to discuss the outcomes of the United Nations Conference on Sustainable
Development also known as Rio+20.
Matthew Tukaki is the Australian Representative to the United Nations Global Compact (UNGC) with
the UNGC being the world’s largest corporate citizenship initiative. Mr Tukaki is also the current CEO
and Executive Chairman of the Sustain Group in Australia, Director of the Board of the Australian
Indigenous Chamber of Commerce, Suicide Prevention Australian and the Advisory Board of Deakin
Universities Centre for Sustainable and Responsible Organisations. Matthew is previously the
Regional Head of Drake, one of the world’s oldest and most respected employment and human
resources companies. He is also a former Chairman of the Government Policy Advisory Panel, the
CIO Council and the Skills for Schools Program. For information or commentary about this speech
please contact media@sustaingroup.net or call Matthew Tukaki directly on 0415 093 137 in
Australia or from overseas on +61 415 093 137.
Speech begins:
Good morning ladies and gentlemen and thank you very much for that warm welcome. I would like
to begin by acknowledging the local Indigenous people of this Canberra land and pay my respects to
the elders and ancestors both past and present.
Slide one: Opening Slide
Last week when we had a conference call to talk about this session I think we all agreed that the
topic itself is worthy of a full day as opposed to ten minutes and a panel discussion because there is
just so much ground to cover that has relevance and importance to us all and not just a few. So, try
as I will I am going to compact a lot into a few minutes and then be hopeful for a robust discussion
during the panel and question and answer session. Specifically I am going to cover the business
response to the sustainable development challenge and try and unpack why I believe Rio+20 was a
success as opposed to the failure that has been reported out there. Before I do I need to provide
some brief context about the role of the United Nations Global Compact and who we are.
Slide two: About the Global Compact
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2. On the cusp of the new millennium former Secretary General Kofi Annan took a message to the
Davos World Economic Forum where he called on business and industry to embrace, support and
enact a set of core values in the areas of human rights, labour standards and environmental
practices. It was a call to arms by the Secretary General and recognition that business should and
must play a role in a world that is increasingly fragile, in various states of social and economic
development, states of conflict of war, differences of opinion and intolerance. The United Nations
Global Compact was born. Today, under our chief architect, Georg Kell, we have grown to more than
8,500 signatories across 135 countries that make up our planets largest corporations, industry
groups, union movements, micro enterprises and financial institutions. By 2020 we aim to have
more than 20,000 businesses of all sizes and from all geographies involved. It is our planets single
largest corporate citizenship initiative. At our heart sit four fundamental and universal Principles
whereby business must communicate their progress on each annually – Human Rights, Anti-
Corruption, the Environment and Labour. Here in Australia there are more than 300 signatories who
are party to the Compact and a further 300 global organisations with operations in Australia. Over
the course of this last 18 months more than 1200 individuals and organisations have attended one of
our three leadership groups and we have gone to great lengths to enter into dialogue and
partnerships with Government and the Non-Government sector to the point where our Signatories
also include organisations such as the Diversity Council of Australia, World Vision and Fair Trade
Australia and New Zealand.
Slide three: the UNGC Convened the Rio+20 Corporate Sustainability Forum
Before we look forward we need to first look back for a moment. 25 years ago former Norwegian
Prime Minister Gro Brundtland, who later became the Director General of the World Health
Organisation, presided over the World Commission on Environment and Development. In 1987 a
report, widely known as the Brundtland Report was published and entitled “Our Common Future”.
The Commission was one of the key driving factors for the establishment of the first Earth Summit in
1992 and what is known as Agenda 21. The first Earth Summit was held in Rio de Janeiro and for the
first time the linkages between social, economic and environmental development were drawn. In
many ways you cannot alleviate poverty unless you are also able to grow an economy and create
jobs, you cannot address issues dealing with the environment and social justice unless you first
empower the people not to be subservient but to be independent and in order to achieve a
sustainable future you must establish the necessary governance structures to support people and an
economy as they move from poverty to empowerment. In many ways you cannot achieve a lasting
solution unless we properly and consistently address the fundamental societal issues that lie at the
very core of many of the great challenges we face today.
In June this year, 25 years later and again in Rio, the world again came together with a focus on
sustainable development. For many however, there was a belief that Rio+20 was wholly and solely
about the climate change challenge, and as obviously as important as it is climate was not the core
focus of the conference. This time the linkages, discussed by Brundtland, between social, economic
and environmental development were much clearer. In a report entitled “Resilient People, Resilient
Planet” co-authors Jacob Zuma and Tarja Halonen made it clear that in order to achieve a
sustainable world, a future we all want that any recommendation and flow on from Rio+20 would
require commitment and action from citizens across all sectors of society, from Heads of State and
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3. Government and local mayors to business executives, scientists, religious leaders, civil society
activists and not least, the leaders of the next generation, today’s youth. In a world post the global
financial crisis, where a lot of work needs to be done to rebuild the economies of nations states and
regions there was a general view that Rio+20 was not a success. I can tell you from our view that is
far from the truth. One of the key differences between the first Earth Summit in 1992 and Rio+20 in
June of this year is the increasing role business and industry can and must play when it comes to
some of the biggest challenges our planet faces, whether it is climate change, food and water
security, population, education, health, poverty alleviation and the empowerment and
independence of women, girls and indigenous people. As an equal partner at the table business and
industry have, over these last 25 years, accepted more of the responsibility and accountability that
participation brings. It used to be the case that civil society organisations and non-government
operators were the main balancing actors in the debate and discussion, where business and industry
have largely been viewed with suspicion in respect of their motivators for behavioural change. I
should be very clear not every person or organisation in the sector is a good corporate citizen, there
are certainly some out there that are driven more by profit that sound reasoning and there are still
some that believe that climate change is all a bit of a story – but in the main, today, the vast majority
are not of those views or opinions.
another core outcome of Rio+20 was that fundamental and specific recognition that each of us play
an important and equal role as symbiotic links in a chain just as there are links between the three
pillars of social, economic and environmental development. Whether we operate here at home or a
developing country abroad the very need to build and manage the business case for our social
license to operate is fundamental. Governments demand it, communities require it, our
shareholders want it, our employees want to live it and as a CEO and Chairman, Director of any
number of Boards I want to ensure we deliver it. Put simply a social license to operate is where we
engage with the local community to ensure that while there are obvious commercial imperatives
that we provide the very social and economic support programmes such as jobs, education and
health, that will in themselves assist local communities grow. Good business is not about a win for
the company and a loss for the community or the environment – it must be a win win for both, a
partnership of equity and equality.
Business and industry are and must be an owner and first responder when it comes to sustainable
development both at home and abroad whether it be our supply chains in developing countries, or
the very real influence we can bring to bear on nation states to improve their own behaviour – it is
our responsibility and our present and future social license to operate depends on it.
Slide Four: So what of RIO+20?
So what was the business and industry response to the evolving and developing agenda of Rio+20?
In 2010 at the UNGC Leaders Summit in New York and throughout the regional consultations with all
100 Local Networks (NB Burma had not yet been established) and the signatory base a view was
taken that not only should we focus our energies on some core thematic areas, we needed to ensure
we arrived at real outcomes that business and industry could lead, be involved in or partner with.
Under the guise of sustainable development the agenda encompassed:
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4. ≥ Energy & Climate
≥ Water & Ecosystems
≥ Agriculture & Food
≥ Social Development
≥ Urbanization & Cities
≥ Economics & Finance of Sustainable Development
Partnering with other UN Agencies and delivery organisations such as the UNEP, the ILO and the
International Finance Corporation we then bought more than 2,500 business executives and leaders,
organisational and institutional representatives together to begin unpacking what those real and
tangible outcomes could be. One of the most bluntest of statements I myself made at the time is we
need to shift the focus away from competing with each other, being critical of each other in line with
the common cause. As crass as it might sound when a nation state crosses the border of another
nation state we have all sorts of diplomatic problems and issues – yet when a business crosses a
border we call it investment – therefore lets ensure we attach rules of engagement, support
structures and principles once a business does get established offshore – particularly developing
countries
Slide five: The Objectives of Rio+20 from business
We set ourselves some pretty big objectives. The first was to prove to colleauges and the world that
corporate sustainability is an essential element in achieving sustainable development and the vice
versa need for business to engage more with the UN System and for the UN System to recognise the
important role of business. We want to demonstrate that principle based platforms are and do
advance critical issues – that the process of having organisations commit to a series of outcomes and
indicators can make a difference when it comes to everything from women’s empowerment to
children’s rights and sustainable energy. We needed to ensure the message was clear that there can
be no sustainable development without the inherent need to respect human rights – and that
business have an equal and common role in that cause. The UNGC Network in Australia established
our Human Rights Leadership Group more than two years ago to do just that. We needed and
wanted to demonstrate that technological and social innovations could in fact provide the very
solutions we are looking for when it comes to the many challenges we face today and that with
investor and finance support we can actually arrive at those solutions a lot sooner. Hence the rise of
social investment and social impact investing. In Rio the UNGC and the Rockefeller Foundation
launched the new framework for action on social enterprise and impact investing.
Slide six: continued
Another key objective following on from or announcements around social enterprise and impact
investing was to ensure that we included the roles played by stock exchanges, business schools and
cities in stimulating the need by business to act upon sustainability. Of course, was the increasing
need to ensure we also encouraged more companies and organisations to sign on to programs with
actual reporting components as we have advanced through the global compact. I can tell you that by
2020 it is our goal and aspiration to more than double the signatory base to 20,000. In a few weeks-
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5. time I will travel to Sri Lanka as part of our global strategic leadership review group to begin ensuring
we ourselves have the capacity to meet that number.
Finally, and to me personally as Australia’s Representative to the UNGC was the need to ensure we
mobilized a large and significant number of commitments to action by business and industry – that
these commitments would arrive at real outcome..
Slide seven: Australian business involvement
To help achieve these objectives Australian business and our own local signatory group played a
significant role in Rio. We convened the panel known as the business response to the sustainability
challenge where we took some of our best practice from corporates with operations in Papua New
Guinea, Indonesia, Africa and South America and engaged with dialogue with our counterparts in the
same industries and other countries. Joining with Indonesia and Japan we looked at common
responses in returning an economy to production post a major natural disaster and the role business
can play in the aftermath of events such as the Japan Earthquake or Boxing Day Tsunami. Together
with Germany and Indonesia we took on the issue of Human Rights, Childrens Rights and the
Empowerment of Women in society – all important to the broader task of sustainable development.
Slide eight: water and ecosystems and natural capital
More broadly 45 CEO’s of some of the planets major corporations involved in the UNGC Water
Mandate took things further by agreeing to deepen and broaden their development of corporate
water sustainability policies and practices. 37 banks, investment funds and insurance companies
submitted a far reaching natural capital declaration whereby it becomes part of our business to
ensure we integrate natural capital considerations into products and services.
Slide nine: sustainable agriculture
Together with a group of 16 leading companies in the food and agriculture sector we have
recognised the need for food security across the planet and as a result need to ensure we commit to
the development of principles on good practice and policy for sustainable agriculture.
Slide ten: Involving stock exchanges – responsible
Finally and as mentioned before the role that the finance sector can play when it comes to
supporting the transition to a low carbon and green economy. So far 5 stock exchanges with more
than 4.600 listed companies between them have now committed to promote long-term, sustainable
investment in their markets while more than 70 businesses, national Governments and international
organisations have endorsed the green industry platform.
Slide Eleven: New guides and toolkits
And, in support of these and all of our other initiatives both pre and post the Rio world we have
moved to ensure we have toolkits and guides in place to work with business to implement and
execute. But, be under no illusion while the appearance is that a lot of work has been done and I
have the inherent belief that Rio+20 was a success the reality is there is still a lot more work to be
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6. done. For those who went to Rio expecting an answer and solution to the climate change challenge
the fact is it will take time for global agreements to be put into place. It took us decades to formulate
frameworks, rules, regulations and processes to develop our global trade framework that ultimately
saw the establishment of the world trade organisation – it took that long because when you are
dealing with more than 190 countries the process of negotiation is long and arduous. Anyone who
tells you any differently themselves needs a reality check. My hope is that it doesn’t take as long.
Where we can in fact begin to make a difference is by rethinking what aid means and who provides
it. Is it just a Government or a nation state or should business also be called upon not through
philanthropy but through the very thing I mentioned before, our social license to operate. Because
under that license it is our role and requirement to provide jobs, assist with the development of local
economies, empower women and the disadvantaged and to make a real difference so the
investment itself makes a return – but a social return. On the environment the same is true. For as I
said before unless we more clearly understand the fundamental links between social, economic and
environmental development then we cannot adequately begin to solve the challenges we face.
I trust that gives you a good but very brief snapshot and certainly wish you all well for the rest of
your gathering.
Speech ends
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