March 2011
46 posts
11 tags
Corporate Philanthropy is Good for Business
Giving increases business value.
By Reena De Asis
What if corporate leaders thought more like Bill Gates, a leading philanthropist and founder of Microsoft, who once said, “As we look ahead into the next century, leaders will be those who empower others.”
Ideally, innovative corporations would increasingly function beyond the short-term profit motive and pay greater attention to...
9 tags
Changing Symbols of Success
Humanity is on its way to redefining “normal.”
By David Wann
While our core needs have remained much the same over the millennia (self-esteem, security, social support, status, clean water, nutritious food, etc.), the way we meet these needs has changed radically in the age of machines. In a new era – more conscious of living things and less focused on products – our habits and practices will...
8 tags
Will Coffee Be a Casualty of Climate Change?
We’d better wake up or we won’t be able to smell the coffee anymore.
By Dean Cycon
For several years government officials and scientists have argued whether global warming was a man-made or a natural phenomenon. They have wrestled over droughts, air circulation patterns, icecaps and a thousand other indicators of whether global warming was “likely” or “directly” our fault. In spite of the strong...
12 tags
Taking the Economic Road Less Traveled
“I took the one less traveled by. And that has made all the difference in the world.” -Robert Frost
By John Perkins
As the events in the Middle East and the tragedy of Japan’s earthquake continue to unfold, we are called upon more than ever to transform the U.S. government, one that relies heavily on predatory capitalism. We are witness to truly historic changes in global leadership that...
6 tags
When Talk about "the Elephant in the Room"...
Counteracting sensational reporting to construct a sustainable opportunity.
By Lavinia Weissman
The aftermath of the earthquake and tsunami disaster in Japan has surfaced conversations people often describe as “the elephant in the room” – the toxic facts no one wants to talk about, even when there is not a crisis to pause the denial. In the press, each day, as we watch the rising death toll,...
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Safety and Sustainability Lacked a Voice at...
Why worker health and safety is good for sustainability and the environment.
Originally posted on the CSRwire website.
By CSRwire Talkback Managing Editor Francesca Rheannon
It happened on March 24, 2011. The radioactive water poured over the workers’ boots and burned their feet and ankles as they struggled to lay new power cables at reactor No. 3 at the Fukushima-Daiichi nuclear ...
9 tags
Shift Series Bridges Generation Gap
Join in the event that bridges generational gaps and spurs innovative sustainability solutions.
By Joe Siblia
The Shift Series National Social Entrepreneurship Conferencein Washington, D.C., April 1 – 2, inaugurates multiple movements. Unless you haven’t been paying attention (or are over 40), there’s a huge technology gap between the baby boomers and millennials. Baby boomers see a new Web tool...
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The End of Empire
Great human advances were made when we still valued life.
As part of the New Economy 2.0 series
By David Korten
In an earlier day our rulers were kings and emperors. Now they are corporate CEOs and hedge fund managers. Wall Street is Empire’s most recent stage. Its reign will mark the end of the tragic drama of a 5,000-year Era of Empire.
Imperial historians would have us believe civilization,...
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Baking Social and Environmental Values into...
The flexible purpose corporation could make companies more responsible.
By Susan H. Mac Cormac
As the oil flowed for months unchecked into the Gulf from the Deep Horizon rig, the world focused on the environmental and social harm corporations can inflict. Did BP cut corners in terms of safety and labor standards in order to promote shareholder value?
In the wake of the BP oil spill, pundits...
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Towards a Healthy Renewable Energy Future
We can do 100% renewables by 2050.
By Leslie Danziger
The Green Transition Scoreboard® shows $787.6 billion has been invested in renewable energy from 2007–2010 with another $571 billion in firm commitments. Significant momentum in renewables includes growth in solar energy: US solar capacity doubled in 2010 (Bloomberg); US solar power market reached $6 billion in 2010 (Wall Street Journal); US...
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Global CSR: How Your Giving Scales Internationally
Corporate philanthropy scales up its impact.
Part Two of a two-part series.
By Pamela Hawley
There are numerous strategic benefits to international giving. Let’s take a look at a few of them.
Corporate giving abroad is now a level playing field. Because the cost is so low, anyone, at most any age, can become a donor. When I was growing up, people waited “until they were 50 to make it big.”...
13 tags
Global CSR: Why It Is Now A Part of HR
International giving boosts human resources’ return on investment.
Part One of a two-part series.
By Pamela Hawley
Here’s our corporate world situation: your Fortune 500 company is opening eight offices abroad next year. Or perhaps you’ve moved from the U.S. to open up a new office in silicon hotspot Bangalore. Even if you are a domestic company, your employees are increasingly from all...
12 tags
Measuring Happiness in Seattle – an Emerging Model
Seattle’s Happiness Initiative does the metrics on a sustainable future.
By Laura Musikanski and John de Graaf
In 1991, six people came together to form the first sustainable communities organization. They called it Sustainable Seattle. This was their idea: Let’s create the world’s first set of regional sustainability indicators, and let’s do it by asking people how they define sustainability in...
17 tags
Top Seven Strategies to Cure Global Warming
It will take a coordinated effort of responsible innovation, smart policy and living well with less to fight the war against climate chaos.
Part Three of a three-part series from CSRwire, “Health Hazards of Climate Change.”
By CSRwire Talkback Managing Editor Francesca Rheannon
Climate change has been called the biggest global health threat of the 21st century. Part One of this...
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China's Mammoth Plan to Double Hydropower...
Water-rich southwest region, though, is getting dryer.
Originally posted on the CSRwire website.
By Rachel Beitarie, Circle of Blue
The hydropower dam construction program in southwest China has no equal anywhere in the world.
Here in Suijiang County, a remote and mountainous region on the border between Sichuan and Yunnan provinces, the immense scope of the most aggressive dam-building...
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A System Designed to Crash
The calculus of the debt economy equals booms, busts and inequality.
As part of the New Economy 2.0 series
By David Korten
The unrealistic expectation that money should grow effortlessly in perpetuity is more than an issue of unrealizable expectations. It combines with a Wall Street controlled debt-based money system to create an imperative for the economy to grow profits of bankers, and...
9 tags
Fukushima Dai-ichi: Ending the Faustian Bargain...
The costs and perils of nuclear power are too high to risk.
By Mitchell Beer
Anyone who has watched the nuclear industry with even a slightly critical eye has known somewhere, sooner or later, a calamitous accident would come to define a technology that is too dangerous for humanity to control.
With the Fukushima Dai-ichi disaster unfolding day by day, that accident has a name and its victims...
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Corporate R&D: Global Investments in Green...
When companies compete to be the “greenest,” rapid innovation springs.
By Timothy Jack Nash
Corporate spending on Research & Development is an informative signal for the direction of the overall economy. R&D strategies and budgets are often laid out in a long-term horizon, so they give a good indication of a company’s heading. When companies in a sector start competing to be the...
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Women Boost the Bottom Line
Gender diversity in the boardroom is good for companies.
By David Wilcox
Criterion Ventures’ managing director Jackie Vanderbrug made an excellent argument for how to celebrate International Women’s day—in the corporate boardroom. Citing research conducted by Catalyst, Vanderbrug reiterated boards with three or more women outperform those without by 83% (measured by return on equity). Diversity...
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The Conflict in “Conflict Free” Mining
“Conflict free” diamonds – greenwashing or fact?
By Marc Choyt
Suppose you are a socially responsible person and want a diamond engagement ring. You decide to go “conflict free” on a website selling “ethical jewelry.” Little do you know the notion of a “conflict free” diamond (at least in Canada, as reported in this article) is really a spin that is currently being offered to socially...
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Conflict Minerals: Unintended Consequences
Stop conflict minerals – but don’t halt economic growth in southern Africa.
By Deborah Albers
Over the past decade the world has been exposed first to conflict diamonds and now conflict minerals. Conflict minerals are mined in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and neighboring countries where human rights violations are commonplace, environmental damage is rampant and profits from the...
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Sustainability leadership: mastering the art of...
Sustainability leaders can influence five to 10 times their budgets.
Originally posted on the CSRwire website.
By CSRwire Contributing Writer Elaine Cohen
Corporate sustainability budgets amount to a small fraction of a percent of sales at the largest companies. But effective sustainability executives control spending five to 10 times greater than their own budget.
A new piece of...
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Health Hazards of Climate Change - Lessons From...
Business and government need to make sure alternatives to fossil fuels do not add to human and environmental health hazards.
Part Two of a three-part series from CSRwire.
By CSRwire Talkback Managing Editor Francesca Rheannon
My last post in these pages, written a week ago, tackled seven top health hazards of climate change. I promised readers my next post would explore remedies...
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China Responds to Explosive Growth, Pollution and...
Is momentum for runaway development too powerful to restrain?
Originally posted on the CSRwire website.
By Keith Schneider and Nadya Ivanova, Circle of Blue
In an era of economic turmoil that has produced massive unemployment, accelerated industrial decline and sowed fear and doubt across much of North America and Europe, China last week offered a much different lesson on growth and...
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Needed: A Tidal Wave Of Innovation
Japan’s tragedy points the way to a safer future – if we learn its lesson.
By Carl Safina
Japan’s tsunami is a horrific tragedy of staggering human and economic proportions. It is also as natural a disaster as humanity can still suffer. Its cause is shifting plates in Earth’s crust. It has nothing to do with greenhouse gases or global warming, which now casts suspicion on whether weather-related...
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Phantom Expectations
Wall Street has created phantom expectations far in excess of the real wealth available to satisfy them.
As part of the New Economy 2.0 series
By David Korten
It is a curious thing. Unless we stuff it in a mattress, we expect whatever money we don’t immediately spend to grow in perpetuity without effort. We do not expect the same of real wealth. Buildings must be maintained. Machinery must be...
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GMOs: Cause of Seedy Situations (Part Two)
In Part One, Dr. Vandana Shiva explained GMO seeds don’t increase food security. In Part Two, she shows they destroy farmers’ security as well. (Part II of II)
By Dr. Vandana Shiva
Ninety-five percent of the cotton grown in India is the GMO variety Bt. cotton and Monsanto owns and controls most of the Bt. Cotton in India through licensing arrangements. The company charges Rs. 50 Lakh (about...
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GMOs: Cause of Seedy Situations (Part One)
The claim that GMOs will increase food security is a myth. The reality is darker. (Part I of II)
By Dr. Vandana Shiva
GMOs (Genetically Modified Organisms) continue to be promoted as the only solution to hunger and food security.
However, the tools of genetic engineering are merely tools of transferring genes across species boundaries. They are not tools of breeding. Breeding is still done...
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Efficiency: Bedrock of the Green Transition
Research shows, efficiency investments pay back fast.
By Rosalinda Sanquiche
The Green Transition Scoreboard® (GTS) tracks private sector investments since 2007 in green technologies, including investments in Efficiency and Green Construction. Efficiency in use of energy and materials is basic, often simple to implement and offers the fastest, best bang for investments.
Of the $2 trillion...
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What We Can All Do in the Face of A Tsunami
The tsunami in Japan reminds us of some important lessons.
By John Perkins
In light of the terrible earthquake that struck the Pacific we feel deep sadness; our hearts go out to the Japanese, and to the impacted people of so many lands, and to all sentient beings. When disasters like this happen one of the fundamental things to remember is we always have the choice to operate in openness and...
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U.S. Naval Forces Warned: Tackle Global Warming
U.S. naval forces need to plan for national security threats from global warming.
By CSRwire Talkback Managing Editor Francesca Rheannon
U.S. naval forces need to prepare for serious national security threats stemming from climate change impacts that are “certain,” happening now and being caused by human activity, according to a just-released report by a blue-ribbon committee convened by the...
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The Next Great Reconstruction
Jeffrey Hollender has a 10-point plan to get the U. S. economy back on track.
By Jeffrey Hollender
Don’t be fooled by the recent rise of the Dow or declining unemployment numbers – our economy is still in a terrible mess. Here’s what we need to do NOW!
The reason America’s financial house is in such disorder is three-fold: First, we simply lack a credible strategy to create a sustainable and...
6 tags
Putting a price tag on corporate social...
Exploring CSR as ‘EDP.’
Originally posted on the INSEAD website.
By Theo Vermaelen
Corporate social responsibility (CSR) remains a misunderstood, sometimes controversial issue - in spite of the fact numerous companies have adopted CSR policies. Critics of CSR programmes argue that a CEO who wants to do “good” should do so with his/her own money, not with other people’s money. ...
10 tags
Top Seven Health Hazards From Global Warming -...
Efforts to limit or destroy the US EPA’s authority to regulate greenhouse gases risk disease and death for millions of global residents.
Originally posted on the CSRwire website. A two-part series from CSRwire. Part One: Greenhouse Gases Are Hazardous to Your Health
By CSRwire Talkback Managing Editor Francesca Rheannon
All politics is local, they say, but the impacts often are not....
11 tags
Water rights transfers and high-tech power plants...
China acts on looming crisis with ambitious water conservation and transfer program.
Originally posted on the CSRwire website.
By Nadya Ivanova, Circle of Blue
On a flat and desolate expanse of alkaline desert along the Yellow River in northern China, a mammoth new industrial model to generate energy and save water is rapidly taking shape. The Ningdong Energy and Heavy Chemical Industry...
7 tags
Developing Women Leaders: Five Factors That Matter
To thrive in the future, support women leaders.
By Lucy P. Marcus
There are five universal factors that, no matter where people are, where they are from or what sector they are in, make a real difference in encouraging young women to reach success.
Though they are prone to credit luck for their success, it is mostly hard work and perseverance that brings women to the top of their field, be they...
9 tags
Licensed Criminal Syndicates
“Conservatism” today looks much like the piracy of old.
As part of the New Economy 2.0 series
By David Korten
Like many Americans, I grew up believing conservative values were about local control and personal responsibility for family, community, nature. It seemed curious to me the political alliance that drove a rollback of Roosevelt-era policies that created the American middle class called...
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Good News on the Global Green Transition
New reports show shifting investment greenward is prudent and do-able.
By Hazel Henderson
Ethical Markets Media (USA and Brazil) now reports over $2 trillion invested in the green private sector since 2007 in the 2011 Green Transition Scoreboard® Report. Thus, we call for pension funds to shift 10% of their assets under management (AUM) away from risky hedge funds, dark pools and commodity ETFs...
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Green wish or green wash? The difficult transition...
Defining the green economy means defining prosperity.
By Philip Monaghan
According to media reports and unofficial briefings the UN has finally given up on a credible, binding global climate deal on carbon reductions ever happening. Commentators are saying the North and South will never be able to agree on common ground, politicians do not have the appetite to think long-term anyway, and to make...
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Investing in Women & Girls
Originally posted on the BCLC Blog.
By Emily Drew
If you were a woman in rural Benin today, you would spend 10 hours each week carrying food and water. As a Tanzania Masaai woman, you would walk up to 30 kilometers to collect water in the dry season and, of course, walk back with your liquid burden.
“Women’s time and income poverty often reinforce each other with negative impacts,” the World Bank...
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Breaking the Sustainability Barrier
Tougher GHGE targets would bolster economic growth.
By John Elkington
Wherever in the world I find myself, I talk to audiences about the Sound Barrier. I take them back to the late 1940s and early 1950s, when test pilots were slamming into an invisible – but deadly – obstruction in mid-air as they tried to fly ever faster. Aircraft broke apart as the shock waves tore their wings away. But then...
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The New Economy: 7 Action Steps
Out with the old, in with the new.
By David Korten
In his recent State of the Union address, President Obama emphasized the global competition for jobs. He pointed to the example of China and India educating their children “earlier and longer, with greater emphasis on math and science.” He brought both Republicans and Democrats to their feet to applaud his call for America to “out-innovate,...
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Lesson from Libya: Despotism, Poverty and Risk
Companies concerned about sustainability need to factor political democracy - or lack of it - into risk analyses.
Originally posted on the CSRwire website.
By CSRwire Talkback Managing Editor Francesca Rheannon
In his acclaimed new book, The View From Lazy Point, the author-scientist Carl Safina writes, “Saving the world requires saving democracy. That requires well-informed...
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What's at Stake with Canada's Increased Asbestos...
What you may not know about asbestos.
Originally posted on the CSRwire website.
By Krista Peterson
Most Americans are aware of the health dangers posed by asbestos and are aware it is no longer incorporated into most products in the United States. But many would probably be surprised to learn asbestos use is not actually outlawed — the ban was overturned by the New Orleans Fifth...
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A Dry and Anxious North Awaits China's Giant Water...
Authorities anticipate approval for new western line to tap energy reserves.
Originally posted on the CSRwire website.
By Aaron Jaffe and Keith Schneider, Circle of Blue
Talk about the mother of all water projects. In 2014 some 9.6 billion cubic meters of water a year (2.5 trillion gallons) will pour through the immense tunnels under construction in Henan Province in northern China, and be...
Inception Under Threat
Adding perspective to this fevered trend of cuts.
By Lucy P. Marcus
I’m tracking a deeply disturbing trend: inception is under attack.
Things that fall into categories of blue-skies, notional and long-term thinking and investments, be it in people, planet, businesses, politics or culture are under threat. The choices that lead to these decisions and cuts are named and blamed on many things...
