4 March 2010
House of Commons, London

Alex MacGillivray, Senior Partner at AccountAbility was on the panel of judges for the 5th annual All-Parliamentary Rugby Citizenship Awards.

Bristol Rugby were crowned the winners of the Community Initiative of the Year 2010. The panel of judges unanimously crowned their Phoenix Project: Bright Sparks Programme as the winner. 

'Bright Sparks' is a social inclusion programme that utilises the highest quality rugby union skills, drills and games with team building and leadership workshops. The aim is to attain rapport with and re-engage designated young people from schools in high risk areas back into the educational process. Learn more here.

The panel of judges included Derek Wyatt MP, Chairman of the All Party Parliamentary Group, Robert Walter MP, Treasurer of the All Party Parliamentary Group, Mark McCafferty, Chief Executive of Premier Rugby, Kevin Roberts, Editorial Director of SportBusiness Magazine and Alex MacGillivray, Senior Partner at AccountAbility.

For more information visit: http://www.guinnesspremiership.com/news/13195.php 

'The Power of Green', Q1 2010
by Paul Rogers

Paul Rogers' latest article for the New York Stock Exchange magazine (www.nysemagazine.com) looks at how sustainable practices can boost the bottom line of companies. The article provides examples of the sustainability practices implemented by some of the world's largest companies such as Unilever PLC, Caterpillar Inc, and Kraft Foods among others.

AccountAbility's Chairman, Sunil A. Misser shares his thoughts on how to measure success and boost companies' green ROI.

“Companies now face new economic challenges, social pressures and environmental threats. There is a new normal — and it’s not business as usual,” says Sunil Misser, chairman of AccountAbility, a global research and advisory firm that promotes sustainable development. “Businesses typically experience three stages in the sustainability life cycle: committing to compliance, integrating sustainability into the business DNA and changing the game. The performance leaders of tomorrow will have to do all three successfully.”

Read the full article 'The Power of Green'.

14 February 2010
Carlye Murphy, The National

An article written by Caryle Murphy published by The National, an english newspaper launched by the Abu Dhabi Media Company, looks at the success of the Global Competitiveness Forum recently held in Riyadh in January, which attracted numerous business leaders, most of whom are not involved in the oil industry. Caryle Murphy writes that the Forum proves Saudi Arabia's on-going 'determination to diversify its oil dependent economy, not only by bringing in foreign expertise and capital, but also by creating Saudi companies that can be successful players in the competitive global market.' 

According to AccountAbility Senior Partner, Alex MacGillivray, one reason for the increased interest is a more outward-looking business community. Quoted in the article, Alex MacGillivray says: “A lot of family-held [Saudi] companies are beginning to look to scale up and get more ambitious,” he says. “To do that, they have to have a stronger brand and part of that is to be a responsible player.”

The former UK prime minister Tony Blair was among the prominent personalities addressing the three-day conference. Others included: Michael Dell, the founder of Dell; Jeffrey Immelt, the chief executive of General Electric; James Wolfensohn, the former World Bank president.

Read the full article here.

Alex MacGillivray, Senior Partner and Paul Begley, Senior Principal at AccountAbility attended the forum to launch the Saudi Responsible Competitiveness Index 2010, an initiative of the Saudi Arabian General Investment Authority (SAGIA), the King Khalid Foundation (KKF) and AccountAbility. The Saudi Responsible Competitiveness Index is the Arab world's premier responsible business initiative. Learn more about the 2010 Index here: www.rci.org.sa.

Today nearly 50 individuals deeply involved in agricultural research for development initiatives – from Africa, Asia, North America, Europe, and Latin America – arrived in Nairobi to participate in a two day discussion on Inclusive Agricultural Partnerships for Development.

The participants represent academia, research centers, development NGOs, small farmers, and private business. They are drawn together by the growing priority to utilize partnerships to deliver breakthrough research innovations that translate into high impact development outcomes.

Agricultural Research for Development (R4D) Partnerships promise to perform by connecting those with good ideas, with those with specific needs and knowledge on the ground, with those that can apply innovations, with those that can bring them to scale. They promise, in theory, to be accountable to farmers, countries, and other beneficiaries: much more accountable than alternative approaches to agricultural development.

Evidence on partnership performance is mixed. As money flows to them, there’s a window of opportunity to get them right. The workshop will try to build a common view among participants for the expectations we should have for the way Agricultural R4D Partnerships should perform.

This is the first of what we plan will be several posts sharing major ideas, findings, and agreements from the Workshop. Stay tuned! – Steve Rochlin, AccountAbility

I’m still en route home from the workshop on Inclusive Partnerships for Agriculture for Development. My head is still spinning from the two days. Adequately summing up the depth, passion, insights, complexities and paradoxes raised by the participants will take some doing. But it will be a joy. Here’s one brief observation to start.

The most powerful and passionate discussion rests along the view of what partnerships should achieve. In my own interpretation, some see partnerships as a tool to level agricultural investment and planning – putting more decision-making power in the hands of farmers, local NGOs, communities, and National Agricultural Research Systems (NARS). The assumption is that this would change the priority of investments away from new discoveries, to partnerships that seek to fully achieve innovations for development. This means putting equal weight on efforts to adopt new discoveries with efforts to ensure new discoveries connect with or even create market opportunities. This in turn means puting the power of farmer voice at the core of driving research.

This in my view caused a mix of excitement and cohesion among many in the group, while causing some discomfort among others. A collection of voices made the point that research focused on delivering new discoveries is vital. It is not easy, and partnerships should increase the probability that new discoveries will emerge. There was no dispute that innovation for development is valuable. Participants tentatively debated whether agricultural research systems should focus primarily on (what I’m calling) discovery-based partnerships vs. (again, my term, for better or worse), innovation for development partnerships. We didn’t reach consensus on this. But I’d say that the conversation helped create a lot of clarity and build new bridges of understanding among the diverse voices in the room.

There are pages, and pages, more to share. The next step for us is to distill the most salient points and implications into a readable summary. A challenge, but keep watching this space.

-- Steve Rochlin, AccountAbility

Learn more about the workshop hosted by the Global Forum on Agricultural Research (GFAR) and the Institutional Learning and Change Initiative (ILAC), and facilitated by AccountAbility here: http://www.cgiar-ilac.org/workshop/wip 

AccountAbility is pleased to announce that as of Monday 18^th January 2010, Laura Brooks will be joining the team as our Standards Partner based in the London office.

Laura is a Corporate Responsibility expert with extensive experience working with global and diversified businesses across Europe, Africa and Asia to integrate CR into core business processes. Most recently, Laura worked for Corporate Integrity UK and prior to that, KPMG Global Sustainability Services, gaining over 15 years experience in consulting, industry and NGO sectors.

In addition to her professional experience, Laura completed her PhD on inclusive governance and multi-sector partnerships at the London School of Economics in 2004.

Laura’s focus at AccountAbility will be on Standards governance, working with the AA1000 Assurance Standard and related work including guidance, licensing and outreach. She will also be working on the AA1000 AccountAbility Principals Standard and outreach with a view of developing practical guidance relating to this piece.

Laura will be working closely with Alan Knight and Christina Enotiades of the standards team.

To contact Laura, please email laura@accountability21.net or telephone on +44 (0) 20 7549 0400

AccountAbility, the German Development Agency (GTZ) and the Indian Institute of Corporate Affairs (IICA) will be conducting a one year engagement process to empower government, business and civil society stakeholders to progress the responsible competitiveness agenda in India.

The project will focus on one sector of importance to India's growth and sustainability futures, and a theme of importance to the sector.

Through engagement via workshops and interviews, micro-, small and medium sized enterprises (MSMEs), as primary beneficiaries of the project, will identify challenges for their sector and develop actionable recommendations for themselves and other stakeholders including business associations.

Competitiveness and sustainability experts will be brought together; high level industry and thought leaders will contribute essays on the topic of responsible competitiveness, the sector's performance, and key development challenges facing India. The outcomes of the engagement will be published in a report that will be presented at a well profiled event in late 2010.

For further information or any queries please contact Kate Ives or visit www.responsiblecompetitiveness.org to learn more about AccountAbility's Responsible Competitiveness work.

AccountAbility Going Forwards....

After seven years of distinguished service, Simon Zadek will be leaving his role as Managing Partner at AccountAbility. On behalf of the staff and fellow Directors at AccountAbility, we are hugely appreciative of the contributions Simon has made to AccountAbility as well as to the field overall. We wish him well in his future endeavours.

Claire Head, Alex MacGillivray, and Steve Rochlin continue to serve as the Senior Leadership Team at AccountAbility. Alex MacGillivray will serve as acting Managing Director. Under this leadership, the team of AccountAbility will remain committed to the highest standards of quality, integrity and impact, and to supporting our members, clients, partners, staff and broader networks.

Every effort is being made to ensure that this transition in leadership runs as smoothly as possible. The AccountAbility team is determined that the transition will ensure AccountAbility’s ongoing success and the strength of its world-leading research, standards, and advisory services.

Download the letter from the Senior Partners and Directors at AccountAbility: Alex MacGillivray, Steve Rochlin, and Claire Head.