Mission

Corporate investment in the Global South can drive economic growth and has the potential to bring better lives to billions of people. However, without the same corporate accountability infrastructure in complement to the robust legal systems that generally exist in the Global North, corporations are incentivized to profit by ignoring the environmental and social externalities of their actions abroad. This leads to a misallocation of capital towards activities that cause direct harm to communities instead of sustainable economic growth. This is particularly acute in manufacturing and extractives, but it is not unique to these industries.

When corporations operate in ways that would be unspeakable within the borders of their origin countries, True Costs Initiative seeks to increase corporate accountability and to strengthen legal systems by driving collaboration among communities, funders, and creative leaders so that corporations internalize the true environmental and human costs of their actions.

Vision

Our vision for the world is one where:

  • Human and environmental rights are paramount and are grounded in collaboration & strategy-sharing
  • New paradigms are embraced and robust legal tools are being used effectively by advocates to solve complex problems
  • There is an international movement for corporate accountability

True Costs Initiative aspires to be a leader in the field, defining goals and strategies that will help guide and enhance the often disjointed environmental and human rights efforts towards an international movement for corporate accountability.

True Costs Initiative will achieve this vision through:

1)       creating and fostering strategic collaborations & partnerships

2)       recommending support from a donor advised fund (DAF) to non-profit partners who advance this work

3)       supporting the use of media to drive transparency in corporate accountability

4)       fostering the generation and implementation of ideas by creative leaders

5)      engaging funders to embrace and support the advancement of corporate accountability and efforts that strengthen legal systems in the Global South