Richard Howitt - European Parliament

(speaker - Block 2: Taking CSR Seriously: What Should CSR Really Look Like?)

biography

Richard Howitt is a Labour Member of the European Parliament for the East of England, first elected in 1994. He is Vice Chair of the Human Rights Sub Committee, a member of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy and is the Labour European Spokesperson on Foreign Affairs. Richard is a member of the EU-Turkey Joint Parliamentary Committee, and was recently a member of the Parliament mission to the UN Human Rights Commission in Geneva, and to monitor the Palestinian Presidential elections.

He is also a member of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, and is European Parliament Spokesperson on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). He successfully led the preparation of the Parliamentary report on CSR, which represented a major step towards establishing international regulation for multinational companies. Richard has also been European Parliament representative at the EU Multistakeholder Forum on CSR,and has organised annual hearings in the European Parliament on the impact of European enterprises on developing countries.

He was a member of the EU-ACP Joint Parliamentary Assembly and Parliament's Development Committee for nine years, regularly campaigns to raise awareness of Fair Trade issues, and has written a number of parliamentary reports on Europe's relations with developing countries.

for full biography visit www.richardhowittmep.com

personal statement on big businesses and corporate responsibility

I have been appointed as the European Parliament´s spokesperson on Corporate Social Responsibility and have used this position to secure a very important personal goal; to ensure that big businesses are made to act in a responsible way.

The way multinationals operate right across the world, but particularly in developing countries can have a devastating effect on our environment and on local communities. I drove legislation through the European Parliament that will ensure businesses have to report annually on the impacts of their work and have to meet a set of common standards.

I agree wholeheartedly with the concerns that many of my constituents have expressed about the big companies who shut down overnight, frustrate legitimate efforts to organise trade unions, or who profit from notorious cases of abuse overseas.

It´s important though to praise businesses that have set good examples, not least because this enables consumers to vote with their wallets, encouraging the more ruthless corporate bodies to mend their ways.

When it comes to business ethics I try extremely hard to practice what I preach. You will never find a jar of Nescafe coffee on my kitchen shelf because I abhor the way Nestle promotes baby milk to mothers in developing countries.