KI’s Second Year of UNGC (A participant since Jan 2020)

During the second year of being a participant of United Nations Global Compact (UNGC), Kaizen Institute (KI) continued to make progress towards fulfilling our duty and responsibility to create a sustainable and thriving world. All efforts are managed under KI’s Environmental, Social and Corporate Governance (ESG) initiative at the corporate level that reaches throughout the KI Organization. In Year 2, we worked on improved responsibilities, education/awareness creation, targets improvement, implementations and preparation of the organization to support our efforts with the aim to achieve our mission of improving the world with everyone, everywhere and every day, the KAIZEN™ way.

We remain committed to contribute to the United Nations’ 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and its 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by asking ourselves:
- whether our services impact negatively on people and the environment; and
- whether our products, services, and investments are benefitting people and/or the environment.

We will do so by consciously keep working to fulfill our duties by improving:
- our KI actions and contribution to society; and
- our clients’ actions and contribution to society.

Strengthening KI’s Global Initiative and Alignment throughout the Organization

Based on the past survey and the desire of our members, KI will keep focusing on, but not limited to, the below areas:

Goal 3: Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages;
Goal 4: Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all;
Goal 5: Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls;
Goal 8: Promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment, and decent work for all; and
Goal 12: Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns.

Various projects are running concurrently and making progress, such as improving Diversity and Inclusion, launching an educational program, incorporation of SDGs into our products, internal and external advocacy, and more. Although progress varies based on the complexity of the project, the ESG initiative is gaining increased consciousness, knowledge and champions internally to enlarge the roots and effectiveness of our ESG efforts. We expect stronger integration of this effort in our KAIZENTM Business System in coming years to make the real impact on SDGs through our clients’ actions.

Summary and Commitment

KI recently announced the new organization at the Global Operations level with the appointment of the CEO and the Director of Consulting Governance. It is our commitment to fulfil our duties to ensure our and our clients’ actions are contributing to society and govern our own actions to ensure we are succeeding. We continue to improve all we do under KI’s ESG initiative that is managed properly and effectively at the highest level of the organization.

Antonio Costa
CEO
Global Operations, Kaizen Institute

John Verhees
Director
Consulting Governance
Global Operations, Kaizen Institute

James Rawson
Director
Corporate Administration, ESG Initiative Lead
Global Operations, Kaizen Institute

Risa Cox
Managing Director
Kaizen Global Group of Companies

In Year 2, we continued to enforce UNGC 10 Business Principles within Kaizen Institute (KI)'s Code of Conduct (COC) to safeguard KI’s values. In addition, towards the end of Year 2, the new global governance structure was launched and more robust processes to protect COC will be installed. Our main actions continue to have two folds, internal and external impact.

In 2022, we will further improve the COC by strengthening a behavioural section. It will emphasize the behaviour of the management and employees alike to ensure the collect behaviours expected by KI and by UNGC, governed by the set processes.

Under KI’s ESG initiative, the D&I (Diversity and Inclusion) team has been operating to create regular D&I events to achieve improved culture, respect, innovation, gender equality, HR practice and such.

Internal:
In Year 2, the D&I survey was conducted within KI to gather the current status globally, identify what specific areas are working well or need improvement, and create awareness of the necessary improved business practice in HR. The D&I Survey summary results were shared internally.

The kick-off event planned in Year 2 for internal women empowerment within KI has been strategically postponed to March 2022. Women in business will share their own professional journeys, inspiring and motivating everyone to take further action. The improvement points taken from the survey shall be also incorporated to achieve D&I goals.

The D&I team also initiated to promote UN-recognized Human Rights and Health Awareness days, encouraging the local BUs to take actions towards Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 3 (Good Health and Well-Being), 4 (Quality Education), and 5 (Gender Equality).

Further, we are creating safe-to-report messaging service for the organisation.

External:

UN-recognized Human Rights and Health Awareness days and other efforts have been communicated and promoted also externally with various social media.
In addition, following the survey in Year 1 regarding the negative behaviours that could be improved observed at the client Human Rights practice (4% in Year 1, target 0%), ESG and D&I team will further improve the governance and consulting processes.

Based on Year 2 survey results, annual progress of the D&I program will be reset.

In 2022, we plan to improve Gender Equality in the following factors:
-Overall females in KI: 27% in 2021 to increase this percentage in 2022
-Overall females in leadership positions: (with the more accurate data analysis)

In Year 2, we continued to enforce UNGC 10 Business Principles within Kaizen Institute (KI)'s Code of Conduct (COC) to safeguard KI’s values. In addition, towards the end of Year 2, the new global governance structure was launched and more robust processes to protect COC will be installed. Our main actions continue to have two folds, internal and external impact.

In 2022, we will further improve the COC by strengthening a behavioural section. It will emphasize the behaviour of the management and employees alike to ensure the collect behaviours expected by KI and by UNGC, governed by the set processes.

Some of the efforts in the Labour area overlap with Human Rights; hence, they may be already included in the ‘Human Rights’ section.

Internal:
See Human Rights section.
Further, we are creating safe-to-report messaging service for the organisation.

External:
One of the ESG initiatives in Year 2 included a launch of an education program, KAIZEN™ Foundations, for those who are disadvantaged. This program is designed to educate disadvantaged people, such as vulnerable adults and indigenous people and youth, who otherwise wouldn’t be able to enter the workforce. The KAIZEN™ Foundations program has been released and is open for BUs to deliver.

The ESG and D&I team will further improve the governance and consulting processes.

In 2022, our goal is to train 100 people with the KAIZEN™ Foundations program

In Year 2, we continued to enforce UNGC 10 Business Principles within Kaizen Institute (KI)'s Code of Conduct (COC) to safeguard KI’s values. In addition, towards the end of Year 2, the new global governance structure was launched and more robust processes to protect COC will be installed. Our main actions continue to have two folds, internal and external impact.

In 2022, we will further improve the COC by strengthening a behavioural section. It will emphasize the behaviour of the management and employees alike to ensure the collect behaviours expected by KI and by UNGC, governed by the set processes.

Internal:
With COC and the improved governance processes, the improved processes to be developed while we continue to create the awareness for internal actions.

External:
In Year 2, we started to review (and continue to do so in 2022) client projects where we contributed to SDGs in the environment area such as reduction of CO2 emissions or circular economy implementation.

We also will continue to educate and raise awareness through KAIZEN™ Foundations education program.

We continued to improve KI’s own proprietary methodology, KAIZENTM Business System, to ensure we have a notable impact on the environment in the results of our consulting projects.

With data measured, we will create a mechanism to improve the outcome while increase the number of the projects that achieve the results.

In Year 2, we continued to enforce UNGC 10 Business Principles within Kaizen Institute (KI)'s Code of Conduct (COC) to safeguard KI’s values. In addition, towards the end of Year 2, the new global governance structure was launched and more robust processes to protect COC will be installed. Our main actions continue to have two folds, internal and external impact.

In 2022, we will further improve the COC by strengthening a behavioural section. It will emphasize the behaviour of the management and employees alike to ensure the collect behaviours expected by KI and by UNGC, governed by the set processes.

Internal:
Creating safe-to-report messaging service for the organisation.
Further, we continue to enforce known politically exposed persons and sanctioned countries and keep updating the list.
Setting up the improved COC and the governance processes to safeguard our values.

External:
We will further improve the governance and consulting processes to include, but not limited to, the client selection, project implementation and such, to eliminate anti-corruption as we deal with the clients.

Our target anti-corruptions is 0 (reported / found, internal / external).