Job losses at Anglo American Platinum and Rio Tinto, as well as the possible liquidation of UK Coal, are just three incidents from recent weeks that highlight the headwinds facing the mining industry, with commodity prices remaining depressed. GlobeScan’s polling shows that the industry faces similar challenges connecting with the general public. In most of the countries surveyed in our Radar global public attitudes tracking, majorities cannot name a single mining company they respect. To some degree this low public profile...

Across the world both human and animal rights movements remain popular, with millions around the world joining advocacy and campaigning groups. Activists may sometimes find themselves on the wrong side of public opinion, such as when animal rights activists target the life sciences industry, or when the legal battles of criminals and terrorists are protracted, alienating the general population. But public support for the rights agenda nonetheless remains high. In our most recent global polling, 76% of those polled across 18...

One of the biggest trends in corporate social responsibility at the moment is the partnering of large corporate players with charities and NGOs. Initiatives such as Swiss Re’s work with Oxfam, CARE’s work with Unilever and Save the Children’s collaboration with Procter and Gamble have variously been cited as models for this sort of association.  Yet while such partnerships meet approval among CSR professionals, GlobeScan’s research suggests that the public themselves take a more sceptical view. When asked as part of...

Recent weeks have seen a flaring of tensions on the Korean Peninsula—and while deciphering the intentions of the secretive North is notoriously difficult, analysts have variously painted Kim Jong Un’s bellicose rhetoric as an attempt to boost his standing among influential military players, a reaction to joint US-South Korean military exercises, or a continuation of previous attempts to garner aid or legitimacy through forcing regional partners back to the negotiating table. GlobeScan’s polling shows that well before the most recent...

There was a string of good news on the US economy this week, with unemployment dropping to its lowest level in four years, a significant rise in consumer spending, and a new high for the S&P 500 stock-market index. But GlobeScan’s most recent public tracking data shows that a major turnaround will be needed if Americans are to rediscover their traditional optimism about their country’s future. The proportion of Americans who feel that their country is headed in the right direction...

Earlier this month, the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) predicted that on current trends 39 percent of the world would be connected to the Internet by the end of the 2013. Penetration in developing countries is expected to reach 31 percent by the end of 2013. And, in a sign of the growing centrality of the Internet to modern life, our global tracking reveals that majorities in most countries consider Internet access to be a fundamental right. When we polled the public...

A report by Oxford University last week predicted that poverty in many of the fastest-developing countries could be wiped out within the next two decades if current trends continue. This report followed a similar assessment from the UN, which concluded that poverty eradication programmes had had far greater impact than expected, and that hundreds of millions of people were in the process of being lifted into the global middle class. Citizens of developing world nations broadly share this upbeat assessment, and...

At GlobeScan, a significant amount of our work is carried out with sustainability practitioners. In our conversations with clients and respondents alike, we see many companies cited as examples of best practice in Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). In the course of these conversations, it can be easy to lose sight of the fact that vindication of successful sustainability should come in the form of public recognition. As can be seen, significant numbers of survey respondents around the world cannot or will...

The past few years have seen growing hostility in the Russian government towards the NGO community. New laws passed last summer by the Duma, the Russian parliament, required NGOs funded from abroad to re-register themselves as “foreign agents,” a move that has prompted a great deal of international criticism by bodies such as Amnesty International. The government maintains that NGOs are vehicles for foreign interference in Russian affairs—charges that are strongly rejected by the organizations in question. GlobeScan’s data indicate that...

The past few weeks have seen the food industry in Europe engulfed by a crisis with potentially far-reaching ramifications. A range of processed meals sold by a large number of prominent consumer brands have been found to contain horsemeat instead of beef. The unfolding scandal has exposed the complex multi-country supply chains involved in meat processing and the lack of transparency for the end consumer, and is raising concerns about what the pressure to keep down consumer prices means for the...