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Speech to the MGSM and Australia Israel Chamber of Commerce

Leadership Series

Sydney, NSW, November 8th 2012

Matthew Tukaki, Australian Representative to the United Nations Global

Compact

Speech background:

Matthew Tukaki is the Australian Representative to the United Nations Global Compact (UNGC) with

the UNGC being the world’s largest corporate citizenship initiative. Mr Tukaki is also the current CEO

and Executive Chairman of the Sustain Group in Australia, Director of the Board of the Australian

Indigenous Chamber of Commerce, Suicide Prevention Australian and the Advisory Board of Deakin

Universities Centre for Sustainable and Responsible Organisations. Matthew is previously the

Regional Head of Drake, one of the world’s oldest and most respected employment and human

resources companies. He is also a former Chairman of the Government Policy Advisory Panel, the

CIO Council and the Skills for Schools Program. For information or commentary about this speech

please contact media@sustaingroup.net or call Matthew Tukaki directly on 0415 093 137 in

Australia or from overseas on +61 415 093 137.

Speech begins:

Good morning everyone and thank for that warm introduction. Id like to begin by acknowledging the Indigenous owners of this land on which we meet today and pay my respects to the elders both past and present. I would also like to thank Debbie, MGSM and the AICC for having me a long this morning. I tend to spend most, if not all presentations, talking to any number of UN Groups or representatives so it’s a welcome respite being back in front of people who come from such a diverse range of organisations.

Slide one: Opening Slide

Id like to say how easy it is to come along and speak to a group of people about sustainable

development or leadership and peace – but the fact is we could speak days if not weeks trying to

unpack everything. So, this morning I have decided to take you on a journey to provide some more

perspective not only about who the UNGC is, but also, the role we and business play when it comes

to some of the challenges we face. There will also be a little history lesson and a timeline of the

sustainable development journey the links to peace and conflict – im going to talk briefly about the

role that the RIO+20 conference on sustainable development has played and some of those key

outcomes finally interloping back into the peace and conflict elements that Debbie has been

discussing. So, please bear with me im going to read formally from a speech with some slides, which

if you knew me I don’t do often, but I have a lot to say.

Slide two: About the Global Compact

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On the cusp of the new millennium former Secretary General Kofi Annan took a message to the

Davos World Economic Forum where he called on business and industry to embrace, support and

enact a set of core values in the areas of human rights, labour standards and environmental

practices. It was a call to arms by the Secretary General and recognition that business should and

must play a role in a world that is increasingly fragile, in various states of social and economic

development, states of conflict of war, differences of opinion and intolerance. The United Nations

Global Compact was born. Today, under our chief architect, Georg Kell, we have grown to more than

8,500 signatories across 135 countries that make up our planets largest corporations, industry

groups, union movements, micro enterprises and financial institutions. By 2020 we aim to have

more than 20,000 businesses of all sizes and from all geographies involved. It is our planets single

largest corporate citizenship initiative. At our heart sit four fundamental and universal Principles

whereby business must communicate their progress on each annually – Human Rights, Anti-

Corruption, the Environment and Labour. Here in Australia there are more than 300 signatories who

are party to the Compact and a further 300 global organisations with operations in Australia. Over

the course of this last 18 months more than 1200 individuals and organisations have attended one of

our three leadership groups and we have gone to great lengths to enter into dialogue and

partnerships with Government and the Non-Government sector to the point where our Signatories

also include organisations such as the Diversity Council of Australia, World Vision and Fair Trade

Australia and New Zealand.

Slide three: the UNGC Convened the Rio+20 Corporate Sustainability Forum

Before we look forward we need to first look back for a moment. 25 years ago former Norwegian

Prime Minister Gro Brundtland, who later became the Director General of the World Health

Organisation, presided over the World Commission on Environment and Development. In 1987 a

report, widely known as the Brundtland Report was published and entitled “Our Common Future”.

The Commission was one of the key driving factors for the establishment of the first Earth Summit in

1992 and what is known as Agenda 21. The first Earth Summit was held in Rio de Janeiro and for the

first time the linkages between social, economic and environmental development were drawn. In

many ways you cannot alleviate poverty unless you are also able to grow an economy and create

jobs, you cannot address issues dealing with the environment and social justice unless you first

empower the people not to be subservient but to be independent and in order to achieve a

sustainable future you must establish the necessary governance structures to support people and an

economy as they move from poverty to empowerment. In many ways you cannot achieve a lasting

solution unless we properly and consistently address the fundamental societal issues that lie at the

very core of many of the great challenges we face today.

In June this year, 25 years later and again in Rio, the world again came together with a focus on

sustainable development. For many however, there was a belief that Rio+20 was wholly and solely

about the climate change challenge, and as obviously as important as it is climate was not the core

focus of the conference. This time the linkages, discussed by Brundtland, between social, economic

and environmental development were much clearer. In a report entitled “Resilient People, Resilient

Planet” co-authors Jacob Zuma and Tarja Halonen made it clear that in order to achieve a

sustainable world, a future we all want that any recommendation and flow on from Rio+20 would

require commitment and action from citizens across all sectors of society, from Heads of State and

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Government and local mayors to business executives, scientists, religious leaders, civil society

activists and not least, the leaders of the next generation, today’s youth. In a world post the global

financial crisis, where a lot of work needs to be done to rebuild the economies of nations states and

regions there was a general view that Rio+20 was not a success. I can tell you from our view that is

far from the truth. One of the key differences between the first Earth Summit in 1992 and Rio+20 in

June of this year is the increasing role business and industry can and must play when it comes to

some of the biggest challenges our planet faces, whether it is climate change, food and water

security, population, education, health, poverty alleviation and the empowerment and

independence of women, girls and indigenous people. As an equal partner at the table business and

industry have, over these last 25 years, accepted more of the responsibility and accountability that

participation brings. It used to be the case that civil society organisations and non-government

operators were the main balancing actors in the debate and discussion, where business and industry

have largely been viewed with suspicion in respect of their motivators for behavioural change. I

should be very clear not every person or organisation in the sector is a good corporate citizen, there

are certainly some out there that are driven more by profit that sound reasoning and there are still

some that believe that climate change is all a bit of a story – but in the main, today, the vast majority

are not of those views or opinions.

another core outcome of Rio+20 was that fundamental and specific recognition that each of us play

an important and equal role as symbiotic links in a chain just as there are links between the three

pillars of social, economic and environmental development. Whether we operate here at home or a

developing country abroad the very need to build and manage the business case for our social

license to operate is fundamental. Governments demand it, communities require it, our

shareholders want it, our employees want to live it and as a CEO and Chairman, Director of any

number of Boards I want to ensure we deliver it. Put simply a social license to operate is where we

engage with the local community to ensure that while there are obvious commercial imperatives

that we provide the very social and economic support programmes such as jobs, education and

health, that will in themselves assist local communities grow. Good business is not about a win for

the company and a loss for the community or the environment – it must be a win win for both, a

partnership of equity and equality.

Business and industry are and must be an owner and first responder when it comes to sustainable

development both at home and abroad whether it be our supply chains in developing countries, or

the very real influence we can bring to bear on nation states to improve their own behaviour – it is

our responsibility and our present and future social license to operate depends on it.

Slide Four: So what of RIO+20?

So what was the business and industry response to the evolving and developing agenda of Rio+20?

In 2010 at the UNGC Leaders Summit in New York and throughout the regional consultations with all

100 Local Networks (NB Burma had not yet been established) and the signatory base a view was

taken that not only should we focus our energies on some core thematic areas, we needed to ensure

we arrived at real outcomes that business and industry could lead, be involved in or partner with.

Under the guise of sustainable development the agenda encompassed:

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≥ Energy & Climate ≥ Water & Ecosystems ≥ Agriculture & Food ≥ Social Development ≥ Urbanization & Cities ≥ Economics & Finance of Sustainable Development

Partnering with other UN Agencies and delivery organisations such as the UNEP, the ILO and the

International Finance Corporation we then bought more than 2,500 business executives and leaders,

organisational and institutional representatives together to begin unpacking what those real and

tangible outcomes could be. One of the most bluntest of statements I myself made at the time is we

need to shift the focus away from competing with each other, being critical of each other in line with

the common cause. As crass as it might sound when a nation state crosses the border of another

nation state we have all sorts of diplomatic problems and issues – yet when a business crosses a

border we call it investment – therefore lets ensure we attach rules of engagement, support

structures and principles once a business does get established offshore – particularly developing

countries

Slide five: The Objectives of Rio+20 from business

We set ourselves some pretty big objectives. The first was to prove to colleauges and the world that

corporate sustainability is an essential element in achieving sustainable development and the vice

versa need for business to engage more with the UN System and for the UN System to recognise the

important role of business. We want to demonstrate that principle based platforms are and do

advance critical issues – that the process of having organisations commit to a series of outcomes and

indicators can make a difference when it comes to everything from women’s empowerment to

children’s rights and sustainable energy. We needed to ensure the message was clear that there can

be no sustainable development without the inherent need to respect human rights – and that

business have an equal and common role in that cause. The UNGC Network in Australia established

our Human Rights Leadership Group more than two years ago to do just that. We needed and

wanted to demonstrate that technological and social innovations could in fact provide the very

solutions we are looking for when it comes to the many challenges we face today and that with

investor and finance support we can actually arrive at those solutions a lot sooner. Hence the rise of

social investment and social impact investing. In Rio the UNGC and the Rockefeller Foundation

launched the new framework for action on social enterprise and impact investing.

Slide six: continued

Another key objective following on from or announcements around social enterprise and impact

investing was to ensure that we included the roles played by stock exchanges, business schools and

cities in stimulating the need by business to act upon sustainability. Of course, was the increasing

need to ensure we also encouraged more companies and organisations to sign on to programs with

actual reporting components as we have advanced through the global compact. I can tell you that by

2020 it is our goal and aspiration to more than double the signatory base to 20,000. In a few weeks-

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time I will travel to Sri Lanka as part of our global strategic leadership review group to begin ensuring

we ourselves have the capacity to meet that number.

Finally, and to me personally as Australia’s Representative to the UNGC was the need to ensure we

mobilized a large and significant number of commitments to action by business and industry – that

these commitments would arrive at real outcome..

Slide seven: Australian business involvement

To help achieve these objectives Australian business and our own local signatory group played a

significant role in Rio. We convened the panel known as the business response to the sustainability

challenge where we took some of our best practice from corporates with operations in Papua New

Guinea, Indonesia, Africa and South America and engaged with dialogue with our counterparts in the

same industries and other countries. Joining with Indonesia and Japan we looked at common

responses in returning an economy to production post a major natural disaster and the role business

can play in the aftermath of events such as the Japan Earthquake or Boxing Day Tsunami. Together

with Germany and Indonesia we took on the issue of Human Rights, Childrens Rights and the

Empowerment of Women in society – all important to the broader task of sustainable development.

Slide eight: water and ecosystems and natural capital

More broadly 45 CEO’s of some of the planets major corporations involved in the UNGC Water

Mandate took things further by agreeing to deepen and broaden their development of corporate

water sustainability policies and practices. 37 banks, investment funds and insurance companies

submitted a far reaching natural capital declaration whereby it becomes part of our business to

ensure we integrate natural capital considerations into products and services.

Slide nine: sustainable agriculture

Together with a group of 16 leading companies in the food and agriculture sector we have

recognised the need for food security across the planet and as a result need to ensure we commit to

the development of principles on good practice and policy for sustainable agriculture.

Slide ten: Involving stock exchanges – responsible

Finally and as mentioned before the role that the finance sector can play when it comes to

supporting the transition to a low carbon and green economy. So far 5 stock exchanges with more

than 4.600 listed companies between them have now committed to promote long-term, sustainable

investment in their markets while more than 70 businesses, national Governments and international

organisations have endorsed the green industry platform.

Slide eleven: the role of business and peace

It is important to recognise that after everything I have said on all of the points I have made about

the outcomes of Rio+20 the main point should be that business and industry plays a significant role

and so do we when it comes to peace. More to the point both the pre-emption and aftermath of a

significant event, and we have to categorise them correctly and re-think what we can do and how

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we can do it. Firstly when it comes to disaster and a natural event, that on any given day is

increasing significantly in terms of risk. We have seen the aftermath of the Japanese Tsunami that

took more than 20,000 lives, in the Boxing day Tsunami we saw an event that took hundreds of

thousands of lives from Indonesia alone. In New Zealand the Christchurch earthquake didn’t just

take lives it destroyed a significant amount of the CBD of a mainland city. The tropical storms in

Burma a few years ago, the earthquakes in China and the disaster that is Haiti and, of course, most

recently, Hurricane Sandy and the devastation that has been brought to bear on the East Coast of

the United States – more to the point the continued suffering of the Haitian People in that same

storm system. In the horn of Africa we have significant challenges and problems not only with

ongoing conflict and war, but the flow on effects such as famon. Conflict doesn’t just put pressure on

people who become refugees in another country, it also puts significant pressure on the food and

water systems and infrastructure of the country where the camps are being hosted. Not

withstanding there are some people who are not third and fourth generation refugees in camps right

here in Asia. I spent yesterday afternoon with Baroness Valerie Amos, UN Under-Secretary General

for Emergency Relief and Humanitarian Affairs where we talked about all of these pressing issues

and how business can be more engaged. Of course, as you can imagine the daily struggle that Valerie

and her team need to confront is immense. Not only are they dealing with the influx of refugees

from Syria into neighbouring countries there are still the challenges associated with ensuring

emergency relief and support for those who are still trapped.

Slide Twelve: Horn of Africa

In the Horn of Africa more than 10.7 million people need help. Not only is it facing the driest period

in the last sixty years, there are multiple interlinked conflicts, population growth is increasing,

poverty is entrenched and education and health are basic if not non-existent. Dadaab refugee camp

is already at capacity. In fact a year ago there were 350,000 refugees with 23,000 facing backlogs.

Kenya established a new camp to house 80,000 people and in Ethiopia, 2000 people a day were

arriving at the Dolo camp. 2.6 million people in Somalia need assistance as well. As you can see the

challenge seems to be significant.

Slide Thirteen/ fourteen / fifteen / sixteen: War and Conflicts

The fact is war and conflict is nothing more than a contributor to the human challenges we face

bought on my drought, lack of water and therefore lack of food. It forces people to migrate, to run,

to move to walk and to suffer. For all of the human challenges we face, those bought on by disaster

and war remain the biggest.

Slide 17 and 18: what can business do and what is the UN doing

So, we recognise that business and industry must be involved because without sustainable

development you cannot have sustainable peace. Unless we assist in growing an economy, making

investments that matter, ensure that we provide ope, aspiration and opportunity then the very

conflicts that we are trying to find common ground around to achieve peace cannot be achieved.

Sierra Leonne is an example of where that is beginning to happen (Sekai Holland story). The UN is

doing its part and you can to.

Slides seventeen and eighteen: UN Business

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Slide Nineteen: New guides and toolkits

And, in support of these and all of our other initiatives both pre and post the Rio world we have

moved to ensure we have toolkits and guides in place to work with business to implement and

execute. I trust that gives you a good but very brief snapshot and certainly wish you all well for the

rest of your gathering.

Speech ends