How organizations are addressing the 'G' in ESG – striking the balance of maximizing long-term growth and value while safeguarding the interests of all stakeholders
“One ring to rule them all, one ring to find them, one ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them.”JRR Tolkien, The Lord of the RingsSustainability isn’t simple. And when it comes to uniting a group of people behind a green initiative, things tend to get messy. Read More...
Belgium‐based materials technology and recycling company Umicore topped the annual list of sustainable companies produced by Toronto-based investment research firm Corporate Knights. The Global 100 list was unveiled at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland this week. Natura Cosmeticos, Statoil, Neste Oil and Novo Nordisk rounded out the top five. (Novo Nordisk held the top spot on the 2012 list.) Read More...
McDonald’s, which uses Marine Stewardship Council certified wild-caught Alaska Pollock for its Filet-O-Fish sandwich, will begin displaying the blue MSC ecolabel on product packaging, in-restaurant communications and external marketing beginning in February — coinciding with the launch of Fish McBites, McDonald’s newest fish menu item, which also uses wild-caught, MSC-certified Alaska Pollock. Read More...
Unilever today announced that more than 50% of its factories achieved the goal of sending no waste to landfill in 2012. This achievement has prompted the company to stretch its original zero-waste target by bringing its commitment for 2020 five years forward. Read More...
Seventy percent of companies believe climate change has the potential to affect their revenue significantly, a risk which is intensified by a chasm between the sustainable business practices of multinational corporations and their suppliers, according to research published today by the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) and Accenture. Read More...
The more powerful corporations become, the more obligated they are to behave ethically and with the public interest in mind, according to 73 percent of respondents in a new global consumer survey. Read More...
Business model innovation and collaborative innovation are expected to play larger roles in global performance, particularly in emerging markets, according to the annual "Global Innovation Barometer," published by GE this week. Read More...
Business model innovation is steadily becoming more of a familiar term in the combined world of brand marketing and sustainability. Read More...
Ramon Arratia is a sustainability director with 13 years' experience in corporate positions at companies such as Vodafone, Ericsson and, currently, Interface. Read More...
2011 has been a rough year for leaders. Popular revolutions toppled dictators in Egypt, Tunisia, and Libya; the Occupy movement attacked corporate leaders who led us into recession; Europeans tossed government after government; and Americans watched in horror as their political leaders led the nation to the brink of default. We shook our heads as global summits failed to make any si Read More...
The more things change, the more they stay the same. Like most clichés, this one conveys some truth, as do words attributed to ancient Greek poet Hermesianax: “As within, so without.” Those who have endured inner-work fully enough to enjoy the outward results will attest that self-awareness leads to empowerment, which in turn leads to voice. Leadership, expressed thro Read More...
Danish pharmaceutical firm Novo Nordisk was named the most sustainable corporation in the world by Corporate Knights, the Toronto-based media company focused on “clean capitalism.”Corporate Knights’ 2012 Global 100 list includes companies from 22 countries encompassing all sectors of the economy, with collective annual sales in excess of $3.02 trillion, and 5,285,645 million employees.The top ten companies on the list are: Read More...
Brand leadership is about creating a connection between the brand and its customers. We can identify three waves through which brand leadership has evolved in relation to sustainability: Read More...
Whether you are a business leader or a MapQuest user, knowing where you are and where you want to go is important. But if you’re a leader of a sustainable brand, this is only the beginning. Who you are at your core now counts more than ever. Read More...
I did not think about it before sitting down this evening (January 16, 2012), but to write about leadership on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day is to feel one’s own limitations. Read More...
When was the last time you saw the CEO of a world-class company wading knee-deep in the specification and design of sustainability metrics? Dr. Richard Stammer of Agri-Mark, Inc. (d.b.a. Cabot Creamery Cooperative) is one such person. Read More...
It used to be that good brand management simply meant finding the right positioning, leveraging well-understood media channels and delivering solid quarterly returns. Not anymore. Read More...
The basics of sustainability excellence are fairly well known by now: reduce your footprint, create products and services that help customers do the same, drive employee engagement, think value chain, track data and enable transparency, and on and on. But real leaders will go further and address the scale of the sustainability challenges we face by fundamentally remaking their Read More...
We use the word leadership easily, as if we really knew what we are talking about. But do we? We often view leaders as the ones who ride in on a white horse to save the day, to slay the dragons, to lead us out of the woods. Read More...
The great transformations in the history of humankind began with a vision -- a powerful vision that inspired and engaged people to collectively transform their reality. We have always had visionary people in our world -- some have used their vision for the good of all -- others for greed, exclusion and destruction. Read More...