CORE Internship

Since starting this blog, I have become aware and knowledgeable about climate change, nuclear arms, women's rights and UN reform. However, I have yet to learn and research on corporate accountability, which is one of my key interests since university. While the United Nations Global Compact has made great initiative for business' to adopt sustainable and socially responsible policies, only 6700 corporations are participating.

In a grave effort to learn more about corporate social responsibility, I have been awarded the opportunity to intern as a Corporate Research Assistant with CORE (Corporate Responsibility Coalition). By partnering with NGOs such as Friends of the Earth, CORE works to make changes in UK law to minimise companies negative impacts on people and the environment. There is still a governance gap in terms of ensuring that UK companies are held to account if they cause harm abroad, and CORE is exploring the best way to fill this gap.

As part of an ongoing project, we are reading the Annual Report Business Review of companies who feature in the FTSE 100. While using the CSR guidelines researched by the Global Reporting Initiative, the FTSE 100 business' will be judged upon whether they are indeed meeting legislative criteria for social responsibility. Once the results have been collated, CORE will then assess whether the law under the Companies Act 2006 will need to be amended so that business's are legally obliged to contain certain information such as its environmental impact or labour rights for the sake of public transparency.

So far, the level of transparency from the reports I have read are thin, however some are better than others. This is a field I would greatly like to specialise in, and hope that once this current FTSE 100 project is completed, I can begin to look at the UN Global Compact and the impact it is having on participating signatories.