EO’s Soledad Mills at BSR Conference 2014

The BSR Conference 2014 brought together industry experts and leaders at the forefront of business and sustainability.

Equitable Origin’s VP of Standards and Stakeholder Engagement Soledad Mills attended the BSR ’14 Conference last week to present on the panel “Changing the Conversation: Addressing Tough Issues through Proactive Transparency” along with Libby Annat, Ethical Trade and Sustainability Controller at Primark, and Daniel T. Bross, Senior Director of Global Citizenship at Microsoft. BSR is a global nonprofit dedicated working with companies through research, consulting and collaboration to develop sustainable business solutions for the future. BSR holds a yearly conference to bring together thought leaders at the intersections of business and sustainability to discuss their work and collaborate across a variety of issues.

The theme of this year’s conference was Transparency & Transformation, a fitting topic for Equitable Origin given its focus on improving transparency and accountability in the international oil and gas industry. Dunstan Allison-Hope, Managing Director of Advisory Services at BSR and the moderator of Soledad’s panel emphasized that their session would not just be about traditional sustainability reporting and standards mechanisms, but rather about how companies can proactively use transparency in all its various forms to improve the public dialogue and actively engage with stakeholders on tough issues. Libby Annat has helped develop Primark’s communication and policy response to the Rana Plaza tragedy in Bangladesh and has used transparency to combat child labor and other labor issues within Primark’s supply chain. Dan Bross has been a part of Microsoft’s response to the Edward Snowden revelations and has helped lead the company’s radical approach to disclosure and human rights transparency for its customers. Soledad focused on EO’s mission to create more transparency within the oil and gas value chain to fill the governance gap between companies and regulators. Soledad talked about how Equitable Origin addresses the negative impacts of global energy development by empowering end users of petroleum products to encourage responsible production practices through EO’s market mechanism and site-level certification scheme.

For more information on BSR ’14 and highlights from the conference visit: bsr14.org