This week, a groundbreaking new religious freedom & business resource highlights four ways that businesses are supporting interfaith understanding and peace today. The findings will be introduced during the 2014 Global Forum of the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations (UNAOC) held in Bali, Indonesia, August 29-30. 

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon received the report at a side event organized by the Indonesia Global Compact Network. (See Brian Grim's remarks at the event.)

"BUSINESS: A Powerful Force for Supporting Interfaith Understanding and Peace" is co-published by the UN Global Compact Business for Peace platform and the Religious Freedom & Business Foundation. It discusses a variety of case studies from around the world that demonstrate the different ways businesses are making an impact. These include: 

1) Using Marketing Expertise to Bridge Borders: Companies are making positive contributions to peace in society by mobilizing advertising campaigns that bring people of various faiths and backgrounds together, as seen in the case study, "Coke Serves Up Understanding Across Borders." 

2) Incentivizing Innovation: Because cross-cultural dialogue and cooperation is an essential part of daily work for multinational companies, one company for instance, the BMW Group, incentivizes other organizations to create innovative approaches to interfaith understanding through an award organized in collaboration with the UN Alliance of Civilizations. Organizations that have won this award include a tour company in the Middle East, which offers new paths to build bridges and bring cultures together, as seen in Promoting Understanding Through Tourism in the Holy Lands. Another recognized intercultural innovator uses job placements agencies to help contribute to the religious diversity of workforces, as seen in Helping Muslim Youth in the Philippines.
 
3) Incubating and Catalyzing Social Entrepreneurship: Business can also provide common ground where religious differences give way to shared concern and enterprise. The case study "Opportunity and Entrepreneurship in Nigeria" describes an approach modeled by a peace-building organization showing how supporting companies and new entrepreneurs in conflict-affected areas can reduce extremism. In Brazil, where religious freedom is generally well respected, the Petrobras company supports a business incubation for Afro-Brazilians, showing how company support for new small enterprises can have a significant impact in developing and empowering marginalized communities. 

4) Supporting Workforce Diversity: When businesses are sensitive to the religious and cultural issues around them, they can not only increase employee morale and productivity, but also address unmet difficult social needs, as seen in Indonesia,  where businesses open their doors to faith, such as prayer rooms for various faiths, and actions including helping interfaith couples have easier access to marriage. 

Indeed, interfaith understanding – and its contribution to peace – is in the interest of business.

• Recent research shows that economic growth and global competitiveness are stronger when social hostilities involving religion are low and Government respect for, and protection of, the universally recognized human right of freedom is high. 
  
• Interfaith understanding also strengthens business by reducing corruption and encouraging broader freedoms while also increasing trust and fostering respect. Research shows that laws and practices stifling religion are related to higher levels of corruption. Similarly, religious freedom highly correlates with the presence of other freedoms and a range of social and economic goods, such as better health care and higher incomes for women. 
  
• Positively engaging around the issue of interfaith understanding also helps business to advance trust and respect with consumers, employees and possible partner organizations, which can give companies a competitive advantage as sustainability and ethics come to the forefront of corporate engagement with society. 
  
• With the shared vision of a more sustainable and inclusive global economy that delivers lasting benefits to people, communities and markets, it is clear that companies can make significant contributions to advancing interfaith understanding and peace through both core business and outreach activities. The examples in this publication offer an important step forward in providing companies with guidance on why and how they can make practical contributions in this area – in ways benefitting both their business and the societies where they operate. 
  

Commenting on the report, Georg Kell, Executive Director, United Nations Global Compact, observes, "Given its role in building economies, mobilizing people around a shared purpose and pioneering cross-cultural management styles, business has an important stake in promoting intercultural and interreligious understanding. Successfully managing diversity and fostering tolerance and understanding – among employees, consumers and other stakeholders – is increasingly essential for long-term business success." 

And Brian Grim, President, Religious Freedom and Business Foundation, noted that “Business is at the crossroads of culture, commerce and creativity. This means businesses have the resources to make the world more peaceful as well as the incentive to do so. Indeed, as these case studies show, business is good for interfaith understanding, religious freedom and peace.” 

Through this new collaborative publication, the UN Global Compact’s Business for Peace platform and the Religious Freedom & Business Foundation seek to raise awareness among business, Governments and other stakeholders of the ways in which business can and are contributing to interfaith understanding and peace. 

Innovation is more than twice as likely among countries with low religious restrictions and hostilities finds a new global study.* Where stability exists, there is more opportunity to invest and conduct normal and predictable business operations, especially in emerging and new markets. 

Conversely the study observes that religious hostilities and restrictions create climates that can drive away local and foreign investment, undermine sustainable development, and disrupt huge sectors of economies - making innovation much more difficult. High restrictions have a significant impact for future economic growth, the study notes as young entrepreneurs are pushed to take their talents elsewhere due to the instability associated with high and rising religious restrictions and hostilities.

The study examines and finds a positive relationship between religious freedom and ten of the twelve pillars of global competitiveness, as measured by the World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness Index (see example in chart). The study goes beyond simple correlations by empirically testing and finding the tandem effects of government restrictions on religion and social hostilities involving religion (as measured by the Pew Research Center) to be detrimental to economic growth while controlling for 23 other theoretical, economic, political, social, and demographic factors.

On a global level, the ongoing cycle of religious regulation and hostilities in Egypt demonstrates the harm that is done when they are restricted, where its tourism industry has been adversely affected, among other sectors, and entrepreneurship by its youth has been stunted. 

The study's findings are timely given the rising tide of restrictions on religious freedom documented by Pew Research, showing that 76% of the world's people currently live with high religious restrictions or hostilities. And the findings are especially relevant because the research shows that the largest markets for potential growth are in countries where religious freedom is highly restricted.

Given that religious freedom contributes to better economic and business outcomes, advances in religious freedom are in the self-interest of businesses, governments and societies. While this observation does not suggest that religious freedom is the sole or even main anecdote to poor economic performance, it does suggest that religious freedom is related to economic success and innovation. Certainly, businesses would benefit from taking religious freedom considerations into account in their strategic planning, labor management and community interactions. 

* The full report, “Is Religious Freedom Good for Business?: A Conceptual and Empirical Analysis,” is available on the website of theInterdisciplinary Journal of Research on Religion (IJRR). The authors of the study are Brian J. Grim, Georgetown University's Religious Liberty Project, and Greg Clark and Robert Edward Snyder, Brigham Young University's International Center for Law and Religion Studies.