Our Work
Click here to learn how to become a participant and access Conflict Risk Network’s research and stakeholder services. Information on our work is also available in this brochure.
Understanding conflict risk and conducting the engagement to address it requires nuance and can be expensive and time consuming. Furthermore, engagement conducted on an ad hoc basis does not rival the outcomes possible when stakeholders engage with a coordinated voice.
CRN aims to address these challenges. First, we provide our network of participants with an answer to the key question of which corporate actors have the greatest exposure to conflict risk. Second, we develop and identify steps companies can take to respect human rights, support stability, and thereby mitigate conflict risk. Third, we coordinate and lead engagement to encourage corporate actors to take these steps. With these focused activities, our work has three major components:
Research Services
CRN produces comprehensive research and compiles financial data on companies exposed to conflict risk in select GI-NET Areas of Concern. Our research examines the elements driving conflicts; the companies associated with them; the details of companies' business activities, relationships and impacts; and steps companies have taken to respect human rights and support peace and stability. This research culminates in quarterly and annual reports including the Sudan Company Report.
Corporate Responsibility Recommendations
CRN leverages established principles and standards and works with companies, organizations on the ground, and leading business, human rights and country experts to develop specific recommendations for respecting human rights and supporting peace and stability.
Our approach is founded on the premise that companies have a responsibility to respect human rights, a charge captured in the Framework for Business and Human Rights developed by John Ruggie, the Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General on Business and Human Rights. In basic terms, the responsibility to respect means acting with due diligence to avoid infringing on the rights of others, and addressing adverse impacts that occur. The Framework has been accepted widely by companies, business associations, governments and multilateral institutions, and represents a global standard of expected conduct acknowledged in virtually every soft-law instrument related to corporate responsibility.
In addition to promoting the corporate responsibility to respect human rights, we call on companies to take steps that, while beyond their basic responsibility to respect, may contribute to a peaceful and stable environment that poses fewer risks to civilians and to companies themselves.
Our recommendations involve a three-step approach:
1) A baseline recommendation that companies conduct due diligence
Due diligence is a four-step process to carry out the responsibility to respect human rights. As articulated by the Framework for Business and Human Rights, due diligence calls on companies to:
- Develop a human rights policy to guide corporate conduct;
- Assess actual and potential impacts on human rights;
- Integrate human rights policies and practices into operating procedures; and
- Track and report performance.
2) Tailored recommendations for respecting human rights
Leveraging our in-depth research on companies' activities, relationships, impacts, and the contexts surrounding them, we develop company-specific recommendations to avoid infringing upon rights and to address harms that have occured.
3) Going beyond the responsibility to respect
Based on our research and consultation with companies and organizations on the ground and leading business, human rights and country experts, we make specific recommendations for proactive steps companies should take to further mitigate conflict risk by supporting peace and stability.
Focused Engagement
CRN coordinates and leads direct engagement with companies exposed to conflict risk. We conduct the research required to develop recommendations for companies, and then encourage (but don't require) our network's participants to join our focused engagement efforts. Our model seeks to leverage a powerful collective of institutions in order to persuade companies to adopt the three sets of recommendations mentioned above.
CRN does not seek to engage every corporate actor in GI-NET's Areas of Concern, but instead focuses on Priority Engagement companies, which we determine by a three-part inquiry:
1) Whart are the conflict drivers?
CRN conducts comprehensive, ongoing research into the factors contributing to conflict in GI-NET's Areas of Concern. This enables us to identify elements, such as a contested border near an oil concession or land and resource disputes involving ethnic tensions, which pose a risk of violent conflict.
2) Which corporate actors are associated with the conflict drivers?
CRN identifies the companies connected to conflict drivers through actual and potential impacts resulting from business activities and relationships.
3) Where can we engage effectively?
Our engagement efforts are strengthened by our large network of participating institutional stakeholders. Upon identifying conflict drivers and associated corporate actors, we examine which present the best opportunities for strategic engagement (i.e. where companies are likely to be responsive to shareholders and CRN, or where key relationships and expertise can be leveraged).
Recent CRN engagement efforts:
Syria
On August 9, 2011, CRN and a group of its institutional investor members called on 11 publicly traded oil firms with operations in Syria to cease their support of the regime. We asked that the companies halt operations or take other steps in response to the government’s ongoing violent crack down on civilian protestors. See the press release and coverage by Pensions & Investments, Responsible Investor.
Libya
On August 1, 2011, CRN sent a final letter to oil refining firm Saras S.p.A. urging it to ensure its products do not reach Qaddafi-controlled Libya after NATO intercepted a tanker with a cargo of Saras gasoline products. See related press release and press coverage.
In February 2011, CRN and its investor partners launched engagement with oil firms in Libya. Please see this press release, fact sheet and coverage by Social Funds. Additional information on CRN's proposal for a joint escrow account to hold payments that firms would otherwise make to Qaddafi or the National Oil Company is available here. Most recently, in response to news of a China-bound tanker leaving Libya with a tanker of crude, we issued a call for transparency by all parties involved.
Sudan
Please see this press release on Sudan-related engagement that CRN launched with its members in November 2010.
For more information on CRN engagement, please contact David Kienzler, CRN's Corporate Engagement Specialist, at kienzler@conflictrisknetwork.org.
Click here to learn how to become a participant and access CRN’s research and stakeholder services.