Since the SDGs were adopted in 2015, business action on meeting them has been voluntary with mostly no consequences for those that took little or no action. While the UN doesn’t have the power to police corporations and mandate their contribution towards the SDGs, it can articulate the specific responsibilities of companies. This is a proven way of driving change and, where needed, creating the right environment for regulatory enforcement. That’s what happened with human rights.

Human rights were put on the international agenda in 1948, when the UN proclaimed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. However, only in 2011 did we begin to see real corporate action on human rights, because the UN published its Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights – spelling out companies’ responsibilities towards workers linked to their operations and supply chains.

Spurred on by the public’s desire for the protection of human rights and investor engagement, corporate action showed regulators what was possible and drove them to act. This has led to the introduction of the European Union’s Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive, which will require large companies to conduct environmental and human rights due diligence across their operations, subsidiaries and value chains.

At the World Benchmarking Alliance, we measure corporate progress towards the SDGs. Our new Social Benchmark measures how some of the world’s most powerful companies are doing in terms of key human rights issues, like paying workers a living wage and carrying out appropriate due diligence. We found that companies based in countries with human rights regulations score nearly 60 per cent higher on average than those in countries without such regulations. Meanwhile, companies in high-impact sectors such as construction that have been held accountable for respecting human rights by different stakeholders score over 80 per cent higher than those in other sectors.

Now we need the UN to spell out the responsibility of business in all other areas related to sustainable development – including climate, biodiversity, digital rights and inequality. Without such clarity and certainty, business behaviour cannot and will not change.

Gerbrand Haverkamp, executive director, World Benchmarking Alliance

Hats off to China’s women for their calm persistence

I write with reference to two reports on the suffering endured by China’s women, one on domestic violence in rural areas (“China artist rails against domestic violence recreates shocking scenes with rural women”, July 7) and the other on the lifelong disfigurement and pain from foot binding (“She escaped bound feet, was the first Chinese divorcee, Hong Kong people were constantly thanking her – why?”, April 1).

My family history resonated with a chill as I read how China’s women have been wronged by the adverse winds of cultural discrimination.

The boy I was in the early 1970s recoiled from the cold touch of my Fujianese grandmother’s marbly hand. She had been hosted in a freezing morgue to slow physical decay in the Bornean heat.

My grandmother arrived at the household of a prosperous businessman as an eight-year-old live-in servant with bound feet from an impoverished family that needed her earnings. Trust between families was solemnised by her betrothal to the son of the businessman.

Gran grew into marriageable maturity as a servant to the family of the boy she was obliged to marry. Having never been taught to read or write, she memorised Bible passages read to her as a girl. Her declaration that a life that deviates from the scriptures condemns one’s prospects went unheard by the bored little boy that was me.

Now facing my own midlife challenges, I take strength from grandma living out the fate life dealt her. The message: stay calm and carry on in spite of the ill-fated cards you are dealt in the gamble of life.

Hats off to China’s women, who choose to get on as best as they can under the prohibitions and constraints of yesteryear, and indeed, today.

Joseph Ting, Brisbane

ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7tK%2FMqWWcp51kvLG1zaKmp2ecmsG1sdGsZpqqpJ6wrbGObGlwaWFpfXC0zrBkrqZdmK6vedKpmKujXZi8s7zOq5itnV2WsLW1zqdkrK2jqa6qusCbo55llJrDprjOqaSepqRitLCty6w%3D