Resource

Brief

Case Study

Advocating Corporate Policy Change on Women’s Health and Family Planning: Lessons from the Environmental Movement

Policy Brief

This brief presents key lessons from the environmental movement on effective strategies for driving changes in corporate policies and practices and creating new mechanisms for holding business accountable for environmental impacts. Corporate policies and voluntary and ‘soft law’ standards may be unfamiliar to many women’s health advocates, but they are likely to have increasing importance in the years to come. There is much to learn from the experiences of the environmental community. 

Case Study Supplement

This set of case studies provides a more comprehensive look at the three examples featured in the broader analysis  above:

1)  Starbucks and Conservation International

How a sustained NGO-company partnership led to the coffee industry’s first sustainability standard

2) Oxfam’s “Behind the Brands” Campaign

How a scorecard ranking, corporate engagement, and consumer activism catalyzed the largest food and beverage companies to change their ways

3) The Amazon Soy Moratorium

How companies, NGOs and government leveraged market forces to tackle deforestation in the Amazon


Read the accompanying blog post “What’s in a Label? Lessons on Advancing Global Health Goals From Corporate Green Standards” on the Wilson Center’s Environmental Change and Security Program blog, New Security Beat.