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Business News/ Opinion / Online-views/  Tracking ethics, tracking consent
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Tracking ethics, tracking consent

The government of India has taken to hunting, through policy and naked pressure, but watchdog NGOs, in India and globally, are not giving up

Photo: Pradeep Gaur/MintPremium
Photo: Pradeep Gaur/Mint

The government of India—this government, at any rate—has taken to hunting, through policy and naked pressure, even non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that have nothing to do with terrorism, those that merely point out the right to livelihood, consultation with and justice for communities whose lands are in the line of acquisition for businesses.

Businesses would be unwise to be lulled by this windfall. Watchdog NGOs, in India and globally, are not giving up. Their research and dissemination continues on matters that are scarce commodities in India: human rights in general and, in particular, human rights related to business. Free, prior and informed consent (FPIC) is one such, a principle on the National Democratic Alliance government’s search-and-destroy list, if you will, through proposed amendments to the land acquisition law.

The government and its dependant businesses may be surprised to learn that Oxfam GB—Great Britain—on 23 July published on behalf of Oxfam International a document that tracks 38 among the world’s largest extractive businesses in mining and oil and gas, in a swathe from Brazil to China. It managed to interview most of these organizations on FPIC and community engagement. The list is impressive, and includes Anglo American Plc, BHP Billiton Ltd, BP Plc, Eni SpA, Exxon Mobil Corp. (against which a US court in early July cleared local jurisdiction over a suit that seeks justice for the company’s alleged complicity in human rights violations in Indonesia), Glencore Plc, Newmont Mining Corp., Petrobras Brasileiro SA, Repsol SA, Total SA and Vale SA.

Mining and oil and gas businesses headquartered in India, or those promoted by people of Indian origin which have subsequently moved overseas for tax and other business reasons, are absent from the list. (I hope it’s an oversight and not pre-emptive diplomacy to ensure operations of Oxfam India remain unhindered! Or—small mercies—that such organizations haven’t yet made the global worst-offenders’ list even as many run amok in India.)

Available at oxfam.org, the briefing paper breaks corporate interaction into four easy-to-grasp levels of practice in a “community engagement spectrum" that can seamlessly be applied across industries. One is “Inform", a one-way company-controlled state of affairs. The second stage is “Consult", a two-way street of information and dialogue. The third is more intimate, trickier—“Seek support or agreements", described as “community involvement in planning and decision-making". The fourth is the holy grail of the universe of business and human rights—FPIC. This sticks in the craw of governments and businesses because it’s double-edged. Local communities of indigenous and non-indigenous people alike can consent. They can also withhold consent. Oxfam’s paper places its list of 38 companies into these four categories according to their publicly stated intention.

It is worth noting that not a single oil and gas company, unlike several of their mining company counterparts, recorded acceptance for FPIC.

This appalling reality is somewhat mitigated when it comes to a stated commitment to “seeking community support or agreement". That is hardly surprising. Such support or agreement often comes about with coercive tactics in complicity with national and provincial governments, which Oxfam’s report notes in several case studies that detail the relatively good, bad and ugly.

The report also lists 11 companies in the study that have “yet to incorporate either FPIC or community support or agreement into their policy commitments": Areva SA, ConocoPhillips Inc., China National Offshore Oil Corp., Iamgold Corp., Petrobras, Pluspetrol SA, Repsol, Royal Dutch Shell Plc, Total, Tullow Oil Plc, and Vale. Such obtuseness persists, as the report pithily observes, “even as companies recognize significant potential risks to their operations when they fail to engage with communities effectively". This column has in the past detailed a whole slew of case studies, including that of Shell, Vedanta Resources Plc and Lafarge SA (now LafargeHolcim Ltd).

The tide may be turning. The report quotes a 2015 survey by UK-based publication and portal Ethical Corporation (ethicalcorp.com) of about 250 professionals from the global extractives industry, titled Industry Perspectives on Social Responsibility in Extractives. Ethical Corporation’s survey discovered that “95% of experts believe that social performance should move beyond risk mitigation"—corporate-speak for do anything to get your way—“and focus on generating active support from communities". Oxfam paraphrases Ethical Corporation’s survey to underscore that “respondents highlighted this issue as the second greatest challenge for corporate social responsibility in mining, oil, and gas (preceded only by the challenge of embedding social performance in business culture)". This recognition is a good sign.

Oh yes, about Indian companies and those with a decidedly Indian flavour. Maybe I shall aggregate their FPIC and community engagement commitment in this column. Call it community service.

Sudeep Chakravarti’s latest book is Clear.Hold.Build: Hard Lessons of Business and Human Rights in India. His earlier books include Red Sun: Travels in Naxalite Country and Highway 39: Journeys through a Fractured Land. This column, which focuses on conflict situations in South Asia that directly affect business, runs on Fridays.

Respond to this column at rootcause@livemint.com

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Published: 31 Jul 2015, 01:03 AM IST
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