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
“Focus” is having a great run these days. Daniel Goleman’s book on it is excellent. People with focus are able to capture more information, complete tasks sooner, become skilled in a discipline earlier. Malcolm Gladwell has written eloquently about the need to spend 10,000 hours in order to truly master a subject. There’s a lot to be said for single-mindedness. Read More...
If the perception of your brand’s green efforts is falling short of reality, then it’s time to stop and re-examine all aspects of the social impact of your outreach. Gone are the days when consumers would buy “green” for green’s sake; they want to see for themselves how a brand is actually making a difference. And it’s in your best interest to inform and educate them. Read More...
Buying organic tomatoes may not be a big deal. They taste better and they’re better for both your health and the planet; enough reasons to justify paying a price premium. No wonder organic food is leading the growth of sustainable consumption.But it isn’t always that easy to make the more sustainable lifestyle choice. You may have found yourself feeling bad for using your car instead of public transportation. While staring at an organic cotton T-shirt, you may have wondered if you should buy it or go for the cheaper standard cotton version a couple racks away. It's often an uncomfortable struggle between collective and private benefits: the planet versus your wallet. Read More...
Nestlé has announced a commitment to create 20,000 positions for young people across Europe over the next three years.The Nestlé needs YOUth Initiative will offer jobs to 10,000 people under the age of 30 and create 10,000 apprentice positions and traineeships by 2016."Today, one in four young people in Europe does not have a job," said Laurent Freixe, Nestlé Executive Vice-President and Zone Director for Europe, speaking at the Nestlé needs YOUth launch event in Athens, Greece, where more than half of those under the age of 25 are unemployed. Read More...
A few years ago, my ad agency was acquired by Maddock Douglas, an innovation agency based in Chicago. For a year, I worked with the team at MD, honing a green innovation process for their clients.I learned a number of incredibly useful things from my friends at MD, but one has served me particularly well in the business of building futureproof brands: the power of a global expert network.A global expert network is, as the name implies, a network of smart, specialized idea people you can call upon to guide your thinking. In my case, they’re C-suite level, generally entrepreneurial, with strong brand experience. Read More...
Only one in five companies has fully integrated sustainability into business, according to the BSR/GlobeScan State of Sustainable Business Survey 2013, which received responses from more than 700 corporate sustainability executives — the largest pool to date.In this year’s survey, respondents were asked for the first time to indicate the extent to which sustainability is integrated into the core of their business. Only 21 percent of respondents reported that their company is close to full integration. A majority say that their company is either about halfway to integration (51 percent), or is just getting started (22 percent). Read More...
Many organisations are grappling with the same question: How do we create an employee reward and recognition programme designed to deliver widely adopted and sustained pro-environmental behaviours? Read More...
Five major organizations active in the social investment market — the Big Lottery Fund, Citi, Big Society Capital, the City of London Corporation and the Cabinet Office — have come together to launch the Social Investment Research Council (SIRC), which aims to “generate powerful and practical insights for the benefit of social sector organizations and investors.”The research body will seek to maximize the benefits for socially motivated investors by enhancing knowledge within the sector, the founders say. During the organization’s first year of operation, it will focus on better understanding the investment products currently on the market and the kind of investors they seek to attract. Read More...
There is no simple way to identify a leading company in sustainability. Given the proliferation of ratings, rankings, blogs and indices, there is no shortage of opinions, and often these are in direct conflict with one another. The methodologies used to calculate performance are often very opaque, or nonexistent. Even highly reputable organizations, based on a good core of data, often produce wildly divergent results from one another. And once the pundits get a hold of any ranking, they usually tear it to pieces, bringing their own criteria, opinions and biases to bear and further muddying the waters. While the debates are often fierce, no one can really agree on what sustainability itself really means. Read More...
Walmart now has more than 180 renewable energy projects in operation or development around the world and generates 89 megawatts (MW) of solar across 215 locations, according to a report last week by the Solar Energy Industries Association. This is enough to power 22,250 U.S. homes and is more than is produced in 38 U.S. states. Earlier in 2013, Walmart partnered with SolarCity to install solar on another 60 stores in California, part if the company’s goal to have solar power on 75 percent of its stores in the state. The company also is testing other projects, such as micro wind, large-scale wind farms, solar water heating and solar thermal to maximize the renewable energy potential of each location. Read More...
Smart business leaders believe that an active corporate social responsibility program is an asset when it comes to attracting top talent. The data agrees. A recent study from Net Impact showed that 35% of American employees would take a 15% pay cut to work for a company committed to CSR, and that 45% would do so for a job that makes a social or environmental impact. Read More...
A majority of Americans (69 percent) would not take a job with a company that had a bad reputation, even if they were unemployed, according to an annual corporate reputation survey released by Corporate Responsibility (CR) magazine and Allegis Group Services. This is a six percent decrease from 2012.CR says it polled more than 1,000 employed and unemployed Americans to gain insights into how both corporate reputation and transparency can impact job decisions.More than half (62 percent) of those currently employed said they would take a job with a company that had a bad reputation if they were offered more money. This number has increased by four percent year-over-year, the magazine says. Read More...
Imagine walking into your office one morning to find a business card on your chair — with a different title. It might just give you pause. Read More...
A factor critical to the development of any mission-driven brand is the nature of the ecosystem to which it belongs. A community that holistically embraces the philosophies of sustainable development offers ideal grounds for development of the business ideologies, spirit and camaraderie vital for propagation of any sustainable brand.The metropolitan Chicago area, also known as Chicagoland, is proving to be one such community in the U.S. Driven towards creating a sustainable economy and region, these considerations are taking center stage in the region’s regulatory, business and community development policies and strategies. Read More...
On October 5, the One Young World conference, which convenes young people around the world to create positive change, gathered several leaders in the sustainability world to discuss the future of the integration of the environment and the economy. Known as “The B Team,” members Sir Richard Branson, founder of Virgin Group; PUMA chairman Jochen Zeitz; Arianna Huffington, president of The Huffington Post Media Group Paul Polman; Prof. Read More...
The number of women directors who now sit on the boards of the United Kingdom’s largest companies, the FTSE-100, has risen from 12.5 percent to 19 percent since 2011, according to a recent report by the UK Department for Business, Innovation and Skills.Former British Trade Minister Lord Davies founded Women on Boards in 2011 to track progress towards the UK’s goal of having 25 percent of board positions being held by women by 2015. According to the recent numbers, FTSE-100 companies must appoint 66 more female directors in the next two years to meet the target.The report also shows that the number of all-male boards on the FTSE-100 index has fallen to 6 companies, down from 21 companies in 2010. Read More...
Senior leadership is the most critical driver of sustainability within a business and nearly half of businesses (44 percent) believe engagement with business leaders will be the most important factor in successfully implementing a sustainability strategy over the next three years, according to a new study by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU).Sustainability Insights: Learning from Business Leaders, commissioned by Coca-Cola Enterprises, is based on a survey of more than 300 European business executives; it explores how businesses’ sustainability strategies have performed in recent years and identifies the key drivers for future success. Read More...
The topic of the value of getting more women in the top echelons of corporate leadership has garnered a great deal of coverage as of late. Credit Suisse published a report in 2012 stating that their research shows that having more women on corporate boards increased both the share price — particularly in volatile markets — and the return on equity (ROE) of companies. Norway, the first country to have instituted a quota of 40% on boards in 2003, now says that this presence of women in leadership has made boards and companies more professional and more global, as they had to search outside of the borders of Norway for women to serve. To date, France, Malaysia, Iceland, Italy, the Netherlands and Spain have followed suit to break this glass ceiling. Read More...
Organizations that hope to address perpetually mounting competitive pressures need workers who bring passion to their jobs to navigate challenges and accelerate performance improvement, according to new research from Deloitte’s Center for the Edge.Unlocking Passion of the Explorer found that only 11 percent of U.S. workers are passionate and possess the attributes needed for sustained extreme performance improvement. Read More...
Originally written for and published on CSRwire's Commentary section Talkback on September 9, 2013. Redefining corporate law. Targeting the node of enterprise to shift capitalism. Read More...