Navigating Supply Chain Multiverses: The colliding worlds of ESG and Product Compliance Reporting, implications for reporting across global supply chains

Companies that place products onto the marketplace, whether they are internally manufactured or sourced from a supply chain face ever increasing requirements to provision data, wherever the products are sourced and transported from, manufactured, and distributed at applicable local, regional, and global levels. The Product Compliance world considers product safety and regulatory compliance activities. The Environmental, Social, and corporate Governance (ESG) world considers a much broader range of sustainability and social development related activities, performed at a corporate level. ESG reporting was originally developed within the financial sector by investors to aggregate a given organization reporting against ESG related topics. The European Union (EU) has been implementing additional EU ESG reporting requirements, in the form of several directives and regulations flowing down from the EU Green Deal (EC, 2019), which aligns all it’s actions against the EU 2030 Climate Target Plan (EC, 2021a), this includes EU Capital Markets Action Plan (EC, 2020a), which includes direct intervention in the financial sector, requiring EU financial sector to adhere to the new EU ESG reporting requirements when providing financial services to industry. As a result, companies within the EU will need to adhere to these new EU ESG reporting requirements, which include reporting at economic activity and product level, to obtain investment from the EU financial sector, hence a significant additional burden of reporting will be placed against global supply chains in a significantly different manner to traditional ESG reporting, resulting in the collection of data and reporting linked to economic activities and at the product level, fusing the worlds of Product Compliance and ESG reporting. Existing systems and standards will need to be updated to reflect the granularity and accuracy of data to be reported. This paper contributes to existing literature by identifying a research gap in understanding the emerging ESG reporting requirements globally, and their resulting implications in terms of supply chain data collection and ESG reporting requirements. The outcomes of this paper support the development of organisational action plans to implement systems and solutions to enable adherence to the new requirements

Recommendations for a New Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) Program In Illinois

The Chicago Jobs Council has prepared this "tool" to guide our Governor-Elect, transition team members, legislators, and a new Department of Human Services administration in the transformation of the TANF program in Illinois. The tool articulates six goals with specific recommendations to develop a TANF program focused on poverty reduction and workforce development that will benefit both low-income families as well as employers and the Illinois economy. It also identifies actions required to achieve each recommendation to help prioritize work for a short-term and long-term plan. Actions include: 1) implement current policy, where proper implementation is lacking, 2) sub-regulatory change, 3) regulatory change, and 4) legislative change

"The global telecommunications infrastructure: European Community (Union) telecommunications developments"

[From the Introduction]. Information, electronics, and telecommunication technologies promise to create communications networks of greatly expanded capacity capable of moving messages across interconnected wired and wireless systems almost anywhere in the world. Such global systems will profoundly affect the economic and social life of all countries. For those countries and economic sectors with a history of significant involvement in electronics, computers, multimedia, and telecommunications, early and timely deployment of state-of-the-art infrastructure may be a matter of prime importance. Many individual countries have made or are making changes intended to accelerate movement toward an information society, in large part because they recognize that a strategic competitive edge in the world economy will likely depend increasingly upon the availability, use, and exploitation of information. A major participant in the information race is the European Union (EU), formerly the European Community. The Commission of the European Union (Commission) has launched a strong push to adopt a common strategy for the creation of a European information society driven by a European information infrastructure. This strategy is aimed at bridging individual initiatives being pursued by EU Member States. [1. Member States now in the Union include the following: Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, and the United Kingdom, Austria, Finland and Sweden joined the Union on January 1, 1995.1

Medicaid: Overview and Impact of New Regulations

Focuses on six new rules aimed at cutting federal spending that could reduce services for vulnerable beneficiaries, slash reimbursement for safety-net providers, and affect states' budgets. Explains current policy, the proposed changes, and their impact

Financial Market Supervision: European Perspectives

[Excerpt] The global financial crisis has sparked a debate over the cause and impact of the crisis. Academics and policymakers are searching for changes in the financial system that can correct any perceived weaknesses in the structure of regulation, the content of regulations, and the coverage of financial instruments and activities. Since the onset of the crisis, numerous proposals have been advanced to reform or amend the current financial system to help restore economic growth. In the United States, the Obama Administration has proposed a plan to overhaul supervision of the U.S. financial services sector. The proposal would give new authority to the Federal Reserve, create a new Financial Services Oversight Council, create a Consumer Financial Protection Agency, and create a new National Bank Supervisor to replace the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the Office of Thrift Supervision. In contrast, Senator Collins introduced S. 664, the Financial System Stabilization and Reform Act of 2009, with a companion measure, H.R. 1754, that was introduced by Representative Castle in the House of Representatives. The measures would create a Financial Stability Council and grant the Federal Reserve the authority to examine the soundness and safety of the financial system posed by bank holding companies. Other measures include: S. 1682 (Senator Cantwell), the Derivatives Market Manipulation Prevention Act of 2009; S. 1803 (Senator Merkley), the Federal Reserve Accountability Act of 2009; S. 2756 (Senator Warner) the Financial Services Systemic Risk Oversight Council Act of 2009; H.R. 3795 (Representative Frank), the Over-the-Counter Derivatives Markets Acts of 2009; H.R. 3968 (Representative Ellison), to amend the Bank Holding Company Act; and H.R. 3996 (Frank), to improve financial stability. The crisis has underscored the fact that national and international financial markets have become highly integrated, and problems in one market can trigger contagion that can spread both among countries and into economic sectors to affect businesses, employment, and household well being. Similarly, governments in Europe are considering what, if any, changes they should make to their national financial systems. Along with the United States and other countries, European countries also are considering changes to the international systems of financial supervision and regulation in order to ensure prosperity through the smooth operation of domestic and international financial systems. This process may include reconsidering the roles and responsibility of the central banks in the post-financial crisis era. Various organizations and groups are advancing a large number of recommendations and prescriptions. Some goals for any such adjustments may include providing an institutional structure for oversight and regulation that is robust, comprehensive, flexible, and politically feasible while providing appropriate incentive structures to preclude excessive risk-taking. Of course, there are no guarantees that amending the current system or employing a different regulatory and supervisory structure will preclude a repeat of the most recent financial crisis given that financial markets and institutions are continually growing, innovating, and responding to government- and market-imposed constraints. This report addresses the European perspectives on a number of proposals that are being advanced for financial oversight and regulation in Europe. The European experience may be instructive because financial markets in Europe are well developed, European firms often are competitors of U.S. firms, and European governments have faced severe problems of integration and consistency across the various financial structures that exist in Europe

The trajectory of regulatory reform in the UK in the wake of the financial crisis

There has been much talk about regulatory reform around the world in the wake of the financial crisis but relatively little action. As a major international financial centre, the UK is very much at the heart of the debate and has a particular interest in the ultimate outcome. The financial crisis has exposed the weaknesses of ‘light touch’ regulation and ‘principles-based’ regulation, which characterised the UK system in the pre-crisis phase. Changes to the institutional structure of regulation recently announced by the new coalition government, combined with changes to regulatory style, are likely to have far-reaching consequences for the practice and intensity of regulation in the UK. This article reviews and assesses recent and proposed regulatory changes and considers the relationship between corporate governance and regulation. It evaluates the impact on the UK system of initiatives undertaken at international and EC levels as well as various interests and incentives within the UK that are likely to be influential in shaping the regulatory regime in years to come