PRESS RELEASES...
[Click the title to view a PDF or the image to download as an MS Word doc]
Welcome to the Bench Marks Foundation's website...
Bench Marks Foundation is a non-profit, faith-based organisation owned by the churches in South Africa. It is a unique organisation in the area of corporate social responsibility (CSR) and monitors corporate performance against an international measuring instrument, the Principles for Global Corporate Responsibility; Bench Marks for Measuring Business Performance. Also known as the Bench Marks Principles, this document is shared by a number of churches and church agencies across four continents.
Bench Marks Foundation is part of an international faith-based coalition that also has partners in Australia, Hong Kong, Canada, the USA, Colombia and the United Kingdom. Our partners in South Africa are the South African Council of Churches (SACC), the Ecumenical Service for Socio-Economic Transformation (ESSET), Industrial Mission of South Africa, and the Justice and Peace Department of the South African Catholic Bishops Conference.
Consisting of community blogs and an activists school, the project is a part of the larger Bench Marks Foundation's aim which is to get communities and church leaders actively involved in the monitoring of private corporations (and government) to ensure that they are acting in an accountable and socially responsible way.
BENCH MARKS CENTRE FOR CSR
RECENTLY ADDED...
To View Action Voices 2013:
Click Here
Click Here
Visit the site at:
http://communitymonitors.net
http://communitymonitors.net
The Bench Marks Centre for CSR (BMC) at the North-West University was one of the collaborative research partners of the Bench Marks Foundation's research programme. Following the death of Prof Freek Cronje, and it's recent closure, we are exploring alternative arrangements.
CALLS TO ACTION...
Endorse the CLC
Church Leaders Call for Responsible Investment
The Church Leaders Call is a set of ethical considerations for responsible investment in Africa. The CLC serves as a tool to forge a broad-based campaign of religious leaders and civil society organisations for investment by big corporations that serves not only the bottom line of profits for a few shareholders but addresses the needs of communities and the environment
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Communities around mines have become epicentres of the Covid-19 disease, in spite of the warning by the Bench Marks Foundation in May that the opening of mines was premature.... |
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The approach of the South African government in dealing with Covid-19 has been nothing short of a disaster, in spite of the warm applause it has received by the World Health Organisation... |
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It is with great pleasure that I address all of you today on the work and achievements of Bench Marks over the past year. As we meet here today, we are faced with one of the worse pandemics affecting our people across the region... |
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We have gathered at this meeting, for the first time through electronic medium. I need not explain the obvious but just a reminder and for the record, it suffices to say, indeed we now live in a mindboggling time of great uncertainty... |
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The multiple challenges posed by the Covid-19 pandemic have resulted in deeper recession and ongoing systemic repression of the poor and working classes... |
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The Covid-19 crisis is no excuse for the lack of progress to date on prosecutions of police officers who were responsible for the deaths of 34 miners during the Marikana massacre... |
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Never before have we had to deal with something like Covid-19. That is why it is important to know as much as we can about this illness - what it is, how one gets infected, how to prevent infection and what to do if you think you are infected... |
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Provisions in the lockdown regulations need to be improved to enable this important work. The Coalition has written to the government calling for appropriate amendments... (weblink) |
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Bench Marks Foundation is increasingly worried that Mineral Resources and Energy Minister along with the mining industry, have entered into some kind of agreement whereby mines will become 50 percent operational... (weblink) |
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Mining-affected communities are especially vulnerable due to a number of factors such as their limited, and sometimes non-existent, access to piped water and the prevalence of underlying respiratory illnesses... |
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The COVID-19 pandemic and the South African lockdown has revealed not only the best of our human emotions but also persistent cases of the war against the poor and working people... (weblink) |
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