June 2011
31 posts
11 tags
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...
8 tags
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 ...
10 tags
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...
7 tags
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...
7 tags
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...
9 tags
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...
9 tags
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...
9 tags
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...
9 tags
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...
9 tags
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...
8 tags
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....
8 tags
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...
3 tags
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...
9 tags
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....
10 tags
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...
1 tag
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...
10 tags
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...
10 tags
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...
10 tags
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...
8 tags
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...
11 tags
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...
8 tags
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.
...
8 tags
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...
7 tags
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...
8 tags
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...
6 tags
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...
9 tags
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...
9 tags
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...
