Sustainable Procurement News

Over 152 million children are involved in child labour worldwide, with 72 million working in conditions that are seriously hazardous to their health and wellbeing. It is a violation of children’s rights to force them to sacrifice their health, their education and their future to work. To combat this, Terre des Hommes is working with companies to check their commercial supply chains are completely free of child labour.

The common perception in Asia is that investors don’t care whether companies are socially and environmentally responsible—emerging markets, after all, offer high-risk, high-reward opportunities that are tough enough to realize without having to meet other goals. Of the $21 trillion worldwide, Asia is thought to manage less than 5% with an eye toward sustainability.

THAT IS CHANGING in demonstrable ways, according to new analysis from Morgan Stanley, which examines how investors are making distinctions.

A recent study issued by the United Nations University’s Sustainable Cycles programme (UNU) indicates that the amount of e-waste in Asia has risen by 63 percent in the last five years. In China, the generation of e-waste more than doubled between 2010 and 2015, with Hebei, Hunan, Guangdong and Jiangxi Provinces being the most prominent.