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Maintaining strong relationships with suppliers is an important way to ensure corporate citizenship is integrated throughout a company’s operations. Corporations can be held accountable for their supply chains, and thus, should select and manage suppliers carefully. Sanofi, a diversified health care provider, is dedicated to developing a diverse supplier base that brings value to the business as well as the communities in which it operates. This priority led to the development of the Supplier Diversity Initiative at Sanofi. Kathleen Castore, Head of Supplier Diversity & Sustainability, recently shared some concrete advice and insights into Sanofi’s Supplier Diversity Initiative. 
Microsoft steps up to help Russia NGOs in software squeeze
By Tim Wilson, Editor & Writer, Center for Corporate Citizenship at Boston College
Microsoft is ramping up efforts already under way to support NGOs in Russia and other countries after a New York Times report on Russian officials using a pretext of anti-piracy enforcement to harass environmental advocates and other opposition groups.
To protect NGOs from questionable anti-piracy enforcement actions, Microsoft is creating a new unilateral software license to ensure NGOs have free, legal copies of products. The unilateral license will automatically cover software already installed on NGOs’ computers, whatever its legal status and with no action required.
Microsoft already makes free software available to NGOs in Russia and other countries through its Infodonor program. In fact, in fiscal 2010 Microsoft donated $504 million in software to almost 43,700 organizations worldwide.
To learn more about how Microsoft has taken responsibility in addressing this difficult situation, see the blog by Brad Smith, senior vice president and Microsoft general counsel, Anti-Piracy Enforcement and NGOs, on The Official Microsoft Blog.
