July 2011
7 posts
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As always we will bring you provocative and thoughtful work by the world’s leading thinkers in CSR and Sustainability.
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Why Is There Still Green In My Funds?
The green message needs some honing to go mainstream
By Marc Stoiber
This article is based on a speech I presented to the Canadian Socially Responsible Investment Forum June 20, 2011.
About two months ago, Joel Makower posted a story titled ‘Green Marketing Is Over.’ Makower believes green marketing as we know it has failed us – the great green consumer revolution simply hasn’t materialized,...
Boards in a Time of Crisis
The phone hacking scandal in the UK raises questions about the role of its corporate board.
By Lucy P. Marcus
What role does the board play in times when a company is involved in a crisis that has an impact on the community?
I don’t mean “brand management” or “reputation management”. I mean cases like the one we are seeing now with the News of the World hacking scandal in the UK, or last year...
NGOs dissatisfied? Fine with me…
New Guiding Principles for Business and Human Rights are just out from the U.N.
By Christine Bader
Last month, the U.N. Human Rights Council unanimously endorsed the Guiding Principles for business and human rights. Despite overwhelming support of the principles from many previously-opposed camps — business lobbyists and socially responsible investors, trade unions and corporate law...
Zero Net Emissions With Economic Growth? Europe’s...
Originally posted on the CSRwire website.
By Francesca Rheannon
Växjö, Sweden has been able to slash its carbon footprint by a third while nearly doubling its GDP.
Summer is houseguest time out here in the Hamptons. So it was that I recently found myself hosting a young friend from Sweden – in the U.S. as a Visiting Artist with a New York dance organization — and her parents, who were here...
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When the People Lead
History teaches us that ordinary citizens can – and do — change the course of history.
By David Korten
Through word and deed, the early American colonists who refused to accept the authority of a distant British monarch and his rapacious chartered corporations created a political imperative. Ultimately the formal political leaders we now call the founding fathers were forced to issue a...
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Accounting for Sustainability: A Charge to...
Guidance on reporting for students and sustainability professionals.
By Martha Woodman, MBA I’ve got a simple formula for you: sustainable business practices + reporting = continued improvement and growth = better business and a better world. How do I know? For more than 20 years I taught college students about accounting. That changed in 2001, under the guidance of an inspirational...
June 2011
31 posts
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Beyond branding: CSR as a tool for competitiveness...
Corporate social responsibility provides competitive advantage in an evolving business environment.
By Tatjana de Kerros
The current economic and social climate in the UAE has put competitiveness, sustainability and responsible business at the top of the agenda. Whilst corporate social responsibility (CSR) practices have been controversially associated with improving brand recognition and...
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Vampire Tax Havens: The Secret Drain on the Global...
Originally posted on the CSRwire website.
By Francesca Rheannon
Offshore tax havens are starving economies of the capital needed for productive investment and saddling governments with crippling deficits.
The headlines scream it every day: city, state and national budgets are being cut, cut, cut. Citizens are up in arms, outraged that needed government services are being eliminated, wages ...
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Democracy’s Epic Moments
The colonists created the new institutions they needed in spite of Britain’s rule.
As part of the New Economy 2.0 series
By David Korten
The parallels between the independence movement that liberated thirteen colonies on the east coast of what is now the United States and the emerging independence from Wall Street movement are both revealing and instructive, as I wrote in Agenda for a New...
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Resilient Cities Will Be Sustainable Cities
Experts gather in Bonn to share ideas on urban responses to climate change.
By Philip Monaghan
In the spirit of the theme of the conference I attended in Bonn (Resilient Cities: 2nd Annual World Congress on Cities and Adaptation to Climate Change), I was pleased to overcome the shock and surprise of Icelandic volcanic ash cloud and an e-coli food outbreak to share my latest research insights with...
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Verging on the Sustainable?
Sustainability pioneer John Elkington reports back from sustainability’s new frontier.
By John Elkington
When I recently had dinner in San Francisco with Joel Makower of GreenBiz, he blamed me for pulling him into the sustainability space over 20 years ago. (In the late 1980s, he translated our best-selling Green Consumer Guide into the American version.) Having just attended the London version...
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Building Successful Non-Profit Boards
Being a board member is a responsibility, not a sinecure.
By Elmira Bayrasli
The possibilities of the boardroom, board director Lucy P. Marcus believes, should aspire to the ideals that legendary medieval English King Arthur created at his famous table. There, knights gathered in effort and equality to erect a vast empire that changed history.
Change is one of the incentives driving individuals...
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Sustainable Value Creation
CSR is no longer about risk mitigation and “doing no harm;” it’s about shared value creation.
Originally posted on the CSRwire website.
By Elaine Cohen
CSR is not what it used to be. Long gone are the days when managing your carbon emissions and contributing to the community were good enough. Today, the talk is about sustainable value creation. But is this a realistic...
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Double Choke Point: Demand for Energy Tests Water...
The cords of energy demand and water supply are tightening around the world’s two largest economies.
Originally posted on the CSRwire website.
By Keith Schneider, Circle of Blue
The coal mines of Inner Mongolia, China and the oil and gas fields of the northern Great Plains in the United States are separated by 11,200 kilometers (7,000 miles) of ocean and 5,600 kilometers (3,500...
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CSR in the WikiLeaks Age
Originally posted on the CSRwire website.
By Francesca Rheannon
WikiLeaks revelations aren’t just about politics but also about how well corporate practices conform to stated CSR goals.
The news broke several weeks ago the suppliers of several major U.S. apparel companies had convinced the Obama Administration to kill a plan by the Haitian Parliament to raise the country’s...
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United We Stand; Divided We Fall
Left and right need to unite to defend the interests of the majority.
As part of the New Economy 2.0 series
By David Korten
From the beginning of history, Empire’s rulers have maintained their power by sowing fear, mutual suspicion and division to prevent those who bear the burdens of their rule from uniting against them. On the political right, anger is directed against government. On the...
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Negotiating with the Taliban: A promising exit...
Weighing the pros and cons of bringing the Taliban to the table.
By Stefan Wolff
To be clear up front, what is at stake is not the exit of foreign troops from Afghanistan, but Afghanistan’s exit from its devastating civil war.
Both exits, however, are inextricably connected in reality, even though much of the debate, especially in Western capitals, is predominantly focused on the former....
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Dreaming of Volunteer-Donor Integration
Making the case for volunteer managers and fundraisers to journey together.
By Robert Rosenthal
As the Blackbaud Supporter Journey Tour makes its way across the country, jokes about Journey the band will definitely make less sense than they did yesterday in San Francisco. Steve Perry and company are actually from here, and so tunes like “Don’t Stop Believin’” are part of the official soundtrack...
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Energy Economy Brings Change to Shepherd Life:...
The northern city of Xilinhot is booming as the coal industry expands. But it will take a lot of water to feed both the city and mining.
Originally posted on the CSRwire website.
By Carl Ganter, Circle of Blue
Wu Yun, 23, tucks in her mittens and pulls on furry boots to help her father feed the livestock, as a frigid blast of razor-sharp ice crystals - some of them blackened from the...
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How Social Media Empowers Consumers to Re-engineer...
Social media empowers consumers to change the way companies do business.
By Simon Mainwaring
No doubt many readers of Talkback agree that free market capitalism has fallen into disrepute, proving to be ineffective in creating a prosperous society for everyone. Today, Wall Street banks, wealthy investors, corporate CEOs and boards continue to pursue profits at the expense of the overall society....
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After Deepwater Horizon and Fukushima: Can...
Better GRI reporting standards would help companies avert costly disasters.
By Sanford Lewis
As many readers know, the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) is the leading standard for corporate sustainability reports, developed through collaboration of NGOs, investors, companies and other stakeholders. About 2,000 companies currently issue reports referencing the GRI’s guidelines. Through June 30...
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Rains Bring Relief for Six-month China Drought,...
Although now satiated, the dry spell is the latest in a growing trend of severe water shortages threatening China’s food production, energy generation and accelerating modernization.
Originally posted on the CSRwire website.
Photo: © J. Carl Ganter/Circle of Blue
By Nadya Ivanova, Circle of Blue
Heavy rainfall began in China at the beginning of the month, easing the effects of a prolonged...
7 tags
Saving the World by Making Capitalism Work for...
Innovative models shared at Europe’s first SOCAP conference.
Originally posted on the CSRwire website.
By Jeffrey Hollender
Innovation. Passion. Possibility. Potential. Just four words that come to mind when I think back on the first-ever SOCAP/Europe conference (an organization dedicated to the flow of capital towards social good), which took place on May 30-June 1 in Beurs van...
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Mapping Uncharted Waters
A compelling New Economy policy framework is being framed and developed.
As part of the New Economy 2.0 series
By David Korten
I am among those who hoped President Obama, based on his campaign promises, would introduce reforms putting the United States on the path to a New Economy.
Unfortunately, for all the powers of the presidency, any new president, no matter what his intention, quickly...
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Déjà Vu All Over Again, BP Style
It’s time to get tough on repeat corporate offenders.
By Bob Monks
As we pass the one-year anniversary of the Gulf Coast disaster, I am reminded of the earlier BP disaster at the Texas City oil refinery in 2005. I’m still astounded that a leading company previously charged with numerous felonies for a major environmental disaster was allowed to have another major disaster just five years...
8 tags
Games are the Future: Saatchi & Saatchi S CEO
The sustainability challenge: move away from language and toward experience.
By Emily Drew
Angry Birds and Cinepuzzle. Those are the favorite games of Judah Schiller, CEO of Saatchi & Saatchi S, whose San Francisco office got rid of the board room years ago and replaced it with a game room, complete with Xbox Kinect. “We have our best meetings in the game room,” Schiller and his...
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Panera Bread CEO Says Pay What You Can
People are inherently good, and Panera’s new social model proves it.
By Emily Drew
One in six Americans live in “food insecure” homes. This means one in six Americans is seriously hungry, likely under-nourished or malnourished and doesn’t know when he/she will have their next meal.
When Panera Bread Founder and CEO Ronald Shaich learned this, he thought about how Panera Bread opens...
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Fact: Men Don’t Brag About Buying a Nissan Leaf
Why sustainability will not be achieved until “green” goes mainstream.
By Emily Drew
Eighty-two percent of consumers say “green” is feminine. Green is the new pink, and that’s not good for environmentally friendly products and businesses.
A study launched by OgilvyEarth states “green” products aren’t being marketed effectively to the mainstream consumer and green marketers...
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ESG and CSR Game Changer: the CalPERS Embrace
A model of good money management embraces ESG.
By Hank Boerner
We’ve commented here on “Universal Ownership,” which like the term “SRI” can have several meanings and dimensions, depending on the speaker (and those who hear her and interpret the words). I like the concept of UO as the communities’ monies, with funds contributed into the larger pool, partially and in the main by individuals and...
9 tags
New Markets and New Commons Transforming Finance
Markets that respect the commons are the way of the future.
As part of the Green Economy series
By Hazel Henderson
The idea that more markets are always better and should eventually spread worldwide (known as “market fundamentalism”) is now challenged by the growing movement to protect and defend the global commons: our Earth’s atmosphere, rivers, oceans, biodiversity and...
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Is Sanofi Aventis Moving Beyond the Challenges of...
As a global health leader will Sanofi Aventis create new sustainable markets of value for health?
By Lavinia Weissman
Greenbiz.com, recently published two important reports by its Chairman and Executive Editor Joel Makower. The first report is an article titled, Green Marketing is Over. Let’s Move On. And the second is a video of Joel’s presentation on the State of Green Business 2011.
...
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Can The Insurance Industry Survive Climate Change?
The insurance industry can be a key player in helping the world mitigate and adapt to climate change - but only if it can adapt to climate change risks itself.
Originally posted on the CSRwire website.
By Francesca Rheannon
The weather just seems to be getting crazier and crazier. First, the Mississippi River caused record flooding in several communities. Now, it’s the turn of...
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Impact Investing: The Big Bang Theory
“Tonight we move forward a new idea, that capital is used for meaning.” Naomi Smith reports from SOCAP/Europe.
Originally posted on the CSRwire website.
By Naomi Smith
“This impact investing space is kind of like the big bang,” says Brian Walsh, director of Liquidnet for Good. My first night at the SOCAP/Europe conference and Brian has summed up the 100+ page masters...
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The Great Stock Scam
Are corporate executives robbing the (investment) bank?
As part of the New Economy 2.0 series
By David Korten
We think of stock sales as ways for households to invest and for corporations to raise capital. But if you dig into the numbers, something very different is going on.
In 1999, according to corporate-ethics guru Marjorie Kelly in The Divine Right of Capital, the public sale of newly...
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Can Computer Games Change The World?
New online games may lead to new realities.
By John Elkington
Welcome to the Anthropocene era, when human impacts begin to overwhelm those of other species. The implication, as long-term environmentalist Steward Brand put it, is that “Humanity is now stuck with a planet stewardship role.” Then provocatively, he argued, “We are as gods and have to get good at it.”
So where would you look for...
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Subpoenas vs. CSR Plaudits: A Tale of Two Goldmans...
Goldman Sachs is happy to help women progress—as long as they aren’t employees.
By Aman Singh, Vault.com
Goldman Sachs has received yet another subpoena – this one from the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office, which is investigating causes of the recent financial crisis and has asked Goldman to turn over information related to its mortgage and derivatives business prior to the...
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CSR and Employee Engagement: Does it Matter?
Employees will be valuing CSR credibility more and more.
By Dr. John Izzo
There is growing evidence consumers care about CSR when it comes to whom they buy from and survey evidence suggests employees like to work for companies that are good citizens. As someone who has spent over 20 years advising companies on their brand image and how to create highly engaged workforces, I am often asked by...
6 tags
CSR Summer Reading Picks
A crop of new and recent books will improve your sustainability IQ while you soak up the sun at the beach.
Originally posted on the CSRwire website.
By CSRwire Talkback Managing Editor Francesca Rheannon
Memorial Day has come and gone and the summer season is upon us (even if it’s still formally a few weeks away). The crises in the economy and environment continue to amplify in the...
May 2011
27 posts
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But What About My 401(k)?
What would happen if Wall Street went away?
As part of the New Economy 2.0 series
By David Korten
The first reaction of most people to the call to shut down Wall Street is one of jubilant enthusiasm. The second reaction is, “But what about my 401(k) retirement account?” The same question might be raised about our credit cards, mortgages, and medical, homeowners and auto insurance.
Money may be...
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The Corporate Electioneering Debate: Should...
Support is growing to give shareholders the right to vote on corporate political spending.
By Sanford Lewis, Attorney
In response to the Supreme Court’s decision in Citizens United v Federal Election Commission, which expanded the opportunity of corporate treasuries to be used in electoral fights, diverse responses by the shareholder community have emerged. With company managers beginning to...
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The Rise of Cause Integration
Integrating cause into a company’s corporate culture is good for business.
By Reena De Asis
For innovative businesses to create a sustainable impact, long gone are the days of just slapping a ribbon on a product for a “cause” or writing an occasional check for one’s nonprofit of choice. Cause, now, goes much deeper than marketing.
Ryan Scott, founder and CEO of Causecast, in his most...
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China's Other Looming Choke Point: Food Production
Yellow River Basin is center of contest over water, energy and agriculture.
Originally posted on the CSRwire website.
By Keith Schneider, Circle of Blue
Even along the eastern bank of the Yellow River, which irrigates 402,000 hectares (993,000 acres) of farmland north of Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region’s provincial capital, there is still no mistaking the smell of dry earth and diesel...
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New Styles of Courage
Investors are collaborating with companies to create positive change.
By David Wilcox
Sometimes I am overwhelmed with admiration for those who have faced danger and summoned the courage to step forward and act. It is easy to see them as different from the rest of us. But some recent experiences have shifted my focus to what we have in common with that class of courageous heroes. No matter where...
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The Corporate Social Irresponsibility of The...
“This country was built by unpaid interns. And in exchange, I assume they got college credit.” - Stephen Colbert
Originally posted on the CSRwire website.
By CSRwire Talkback Managing Editor Francesca Rheannon
All over the U.S. - and abroad - college students are packing up their belongings, vacating student digs and heading out in droves to fill thousands of summer internships....
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Shut Down the Con
The Wall Street economy is playing investors for patsies.
As part of the New Economy 2.0 series
By David Korten
Wikipedia defines a “confidence trick” as “an attempt to defraud a person or group by gaining their confidence. The victim is known as the mark, the trickster is called a confidence man, con man, confidence trickster, or con artist, and any accomplices are known as shills. Confidence...
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Climate Change, One Pepper At a Time
Ethnobotonist Gary Paul Nabhan is following food resilience in the desert Southwest.
By Aaron Kagan
Gary Paul Nabhan wears many hats, but when we recently spoke in his hometown of Patagonia, Arizona, he had on a khaki ball cap emblazoned with a caricature of a horned toad.
An ethnobotanist by trade, Nabhan is an enthusiastic desert dweller and a research scientist at the Southwest Center at the...
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Building Buffalo From The Bottom Up
A nonprofit engages businesses and residents to create a sustainable community.
By Sally Kohn
By every measure, Buffalo, New York, is one of the poorest cities in the United States. In 2009, 28.8% of families in Buffalo lived below the official poverty line—meaning literally one in four people in Buffalo is desperately poor (since the official poverty line is set obscenely low) while at least as...
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Recreating Our Economy: The Untapped Power of...
Democratic enterprises that build community prosperity are gaining ground.
By Jeffrey Hollender
We have before us an incredible opportunity to transform our economy. The disastrous turn our fiscal health took in 2008 has forced us to really think about the way our country creates and distributes wealth. One positive outcome of the recession is a zeal and enthusiasm around the idea of community...
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The Sustainable CEO Blueprint
We need more phenomenal CEOs.
Originally posted on the CSRwire website.
By CSRwire Contributing Writer Elaine Cohen
Some women manage to do it all and succeed at all they do, despite those who say it’s not possible. “Turning down the noise of negativity” is the clue to great achievement. This is a lesson more CEOs could do well to learn when advancing and embedding...