The “water challenge” — to secure safe and reliable water and sanitation services for all — is a leading sustainable development priority not only for the OECD and other multilateral agencies, but for companies and NGOs, too. Geographically, some parts of the world have too much water, yet many have too little. 

Multinational companies face water situations every day on two planes: as a global CSR issue as well as a core operational challenge. From finding solutions for clean drinking water to establishing internal sustainability programs that reduce water usage, the water challenge certainly captures the attention of many responsible and responsive businesses.

On February 19th officials from Diageo, Dow Chemical, ITT Corporation, and NGO partner organizations will participate in a global CSR issues forum at at the U.S. Chamber headquarters in Washington, DC. With the spotlight on water, presenters will share their experience working on the water challenge in specific regions of the world and will provide perspectives on the ethical debates that organizations face when working in the development sector.

Visit “ITT Watermark” for an interactive map, stats, and links.

Please join co-hosts BCLC and CHF International for this timely forum. Registration for the forum is low-cost — $25 for Chamber members and $35 for non-members. If you’re a blogger and want to cover the forum, contact me and ask about free registration.

Yesterday was the first day of the OneYoungWorld Leadership Summit in London.  I’m here under sponsorship of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and BCLC as one of the 1,000 delegates at this first-ever conference.

The purpose of the summit is to galvanize the world’s young leaders around issues that are going to affect us and generations to come. Represented here are young professionals and students in global development from over 100 countries!

During today’s forum in New Orleans on Next Steps for Gulf Coast Recovery and Resiliency we were treated to a bus tour of the city. The itinerary involved three important signs that this city continues to move toward long-term Katrina recovery and to build back better.

Broadmoor Neighborhood

LaToya Cantrell, president of the Broadmoor Improvement Association, narrated the history of this New Orleans neighborhood — “social ills” including blight, slum lords, and drugs — as well as its future, which hinges on a community-driven revitalization plan with focus on giving residents a reason to return.

According to Cantrell, at one time post-Katrina, Broadmoor was pegged as a “green dot neighborhood” — a neighborhood that would be demolished unless it could prove that 50% of its residents would return, signifying that it’s a “vital” neighborhood. Today, with 2,400 properties within its 151 blocks, 85% percent of properties are rebuilt and lived in or are under renovation.

Photos: Left – a flood-destroyed Broadmoor home that’s not yet been renovated; right – a sign detailing the planned renonvation of the library, a focal point of Broadmoor’s community revitalization plan. 

  Read more…

This morning, Major George Polarek, who recently returned from Haiti, offered the audience at BCLC’s forum on National Resiliency and Gulf Coast Recovery several on-the-ground insights on earthquake response from the Salvation Army’s perspective.

The Salvation Army has operated in Haiti for 60 years. Its main compound in Haiti is Delmas 2 in Port-au-Prince, “the second-worst area in Haiti,” says Polarek.  The Salvation Army contingent in Haiti is one of the organization’s largest in the hemisphere. 60 officers speak Creole and are ingrained in the Haitian culture.

Pre-earthquake, the compound included a 1,500-student school and a nearby soccer field.

Post-earthquake, 12,000 survivors have set up a camp on or near the soccer field and Delmas 2. The UN has given the Salvation Army management responsibility of the soccer field camp and a nearby camp — the Salvation Army now has 20,000 homeless Haitians under its direct care.

According to Polarek, the Salvation Army is able to distribute 10,000 MREs (meals ready to eat) within 10 minutes in Haiti. It is able to filter 30,000 liters of water every single day to provide survivors clean drinking water. Thousands of people have received medical, nutritional, and security assistance from Salvation Army team members.

The good news today is that the Salvation Army has been able to re-open a makeshift school in Delmas 2. While the road ahead to make people feel secure and safe in Haiti is long and arduous, this small but significant achievement will hopefully bring much-needed comfort to three- to six-year-olds affected by the crisis.

See the Salvation Army’s website for more information.

Today a cadre of  actors, musicians, water advocates, and humanitarians reached the top of Mount Kilimanjaro, a challenge undertaken as part of the Summit on the Summit campaign to raise awareness about the global water crisis.  

The group of climbers is diverse; you might ask, why have they chosen to climb a mountain?  According to the founder of the Summit on the Summit, Grammy-nominated singer Kenna, they are doing something extreme to qualify the extreme nature of the issue.  And this is no short feat – Mount Kilimanjaro is approximately 19, 340 feet high and the tallest point on the continent of Africa.

The climbers at the top of Mount Kilimanjaro today (photo courtesy of Summit on the Summit)

The Summit on the Summit website is very robust, incredibly hip, and most importantly, highly informative. It provides readers with some alarming statistics:

• Every 15 seconds a child dies from a preventable water-related disease  (United Nations Development Program)
• At any one time, half of the world’s hospital beds are occupied with patients suffering from waterborne diseases. (World Health Organisation)
• Currently, over half of the states in the USA are facing  serious drought conditions (U.S. Drought Monitor)

Solving global water issues has been at the forefront of various companies’ core business and CSR agendas over the past decade.  Many BCLC members are leaders in helping to solve the global water crisis.

In fact BCLC, in partnership with CHF International, will be hosting a forum on February 19 examining how businesses and their partners are working to solve water challenges around the world. Dow Chemical, ITT, and Diageo will share their perspective on water issues today and how their programs are working towards solving the challenges we face as a global community.

Also, if you want to get involved in raising awareness about the global water crisis, on April 18, 2010, Dow will be hosting the DOW Live Earth Run for Water.  You can find an event located close to you here.

We at BCLC want to help you get a jumpstart on 2010 by letting you know about some great upcoming opportunities related to corporate citizenship, CSR, and sustainability. 

Business Excellence: BCLC offers two awards programs to honor the social and civic efforts of companies and their government and nonprofit partners. The Siemens Sustainable Community Awards program recognizes public-private coalitions for taking on the 21st century challenge of sustainable development.  Be sure to nominate (PDF) your local sustainability efforts by Jan. 29, 2010.

The Corporate Citizenship Awards honor companies for excellence in four categories – U.S. Community Service, International Community Service, Business-Nonprofit Partnerships, and Corporate Stewardship. The 2010 nomination period will begin in March. In the meantime, learn more about the 2009 winners and finalists.

Big Issues, Concrete Action – As an affiliate of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, you can be sure BCLC will always bring the business voice to the table. Some of the issues that remain our strategic focus in 2010 include sustainability, community resiliency, global aid reform, community development, business and society relations. Visit our website’s different program portals for more information.

Thought Leadership – BCLC staff members and strategic advisors are public speakers and writers about leading corporate citizenship and CSR topics. Visit our Articles page and Staff/Advisors page to read recent articles and learn more about BCLC’s network of experts.

Connections and Networking – Whether you attend a conference or a webinar, participate in BCLC’s corporate working groups, or contribute to any one of our communication outlets, BCLC gives you an established platform to amp your corporate citizenship story. Check out — and participate in — this blog, our events, and the Company Library for a sampling of how BCLC connects people and ideas.

Happy New Year, and we can’t wait to work with you more in 2010.

On Dec. 1st, BCLC Corporate Citizenship Awards finalists and sponsors participated in a private tour of the Smithsonian Institution’s “Written in Bone: Forensic Files of the 17th Century Colonial Chesapeake” exhibit. The private tour, made possible by Booz Allen Hamilton and Siemens Corporation, took place at the Museum of Natural History, where the public exhibit continues until February 2011. 

An official from the museum describes the exhibit in this way:

What can we learn from bones? The answers, gathered from the forefront of scientific skeletal analysis, are remarkably detailed and include a person’s age, sex, and stature, as well as clues to their ancestry, diet, health, activity patterns and even physical appearance. This exhibition showcases the latest techniques of forensic anthropology, including forensic facial reconstruction, and how these methods reveal the mysteries “locked” in our own skeletons and those hundreds of years old. In this regard, the phenomenal recent discoveries from 17th century colonial sites in the Chesapeake are featured through a wealth of excavated artifacts and skeletal remains, and video footage of scientists at work in the field and laboratory. Through modern forensic anthropology, archaeology and historical research the stories of the first European and African immigrants come alive. The colonists themselves tell their history – a legacy revealed in bone.

Rarely before have I seen so many other business officials line up to speak with one of the Corporate Citizenship Awards winners. Tonight, Danny Wegman accepted the Corporate Stewardship Award on behalf of Wegmans Food Markets, and the fans from the audience of the upstate New York-based grocery store chain flocked to give their congratulations.

The Corporate Stewardship Award honors overall values, strategies, and operational practices in companies. Congratulations to Wegmans and all of the 2009 finalists!  

Wegmans’ CEO Danny Wegman accepted the award from U.S. Chamber President and CEO Thomas J. Donohue.

Corporate stewardship in action at Wegmans. The grocery retailer was nominated by Food Bank of the Southern Tier, which is among the regional food banks supported every year by the company’s Check Out Hunger campaign.

BCLC always puts the Partnership Award up for public vote online. This year, more than 20,000 people visited the awards portal on the BCLC-Justmeans social media site to vote and/or comment about the five finalists.

Chevron Corporation and the Discovery Channel Global Education Partnership won for the Learning Center initiative, a strategic partnership that began in 2002 in Angola to build educational capacity destroyed by a 27-year-long civil war. Today the initiative is motivating teachers and students and improving educational outcomes in five countries  across two continents.  

Congratulations to Chevron and DCGEP!

Like many countries in Africa, Tanzania faces a significant challenge in providing quality health care for its people.  HIV/AIDS is the leading cause of death among adults, and nearly two million people in the country of 34 million live with the disease. One of the poorest countries in the world, Tanzania’s outdated health infrastructure and lack of trained health care professionals limits its ability to treat HIV/AIDS and other chronic diseases.

In 2002, the Abbott Fund and the Government of Tanzania formed a unique public-private partnership to modernize the country’s health system and expand access to HIV testing and treatment services. For this reason, Abbott takes home the International Community Service Award tonight.

Catherine Babington, president, the Abbott Fund, accepted the award from the U.S. Chamber’s Arthur Rothkopf (left) and Microsoft’s Akhtar Badshah.