With multi-stakeholder dialogue on CSD-19 and Rio+20 continuing, will a bridge be crossed?

Originally posted on the CSRwire website.

By CSRwire Contributing Writer Martha Shaw

The 19th annual meeting of the United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD-19) opened with hopes countries will agree on policy decisions that will significantly improve the safe use of chemicals, management of waste, safety in mining, efficiency of transport and reduction of the world’s consumption of Earth’s materials. Annual CSD meetings seek to promote more sustainable use of Earth’s resources. Sha Zukang, Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs, warned of the consequences of unsustainable consumption and production on the world’s ecosystems. Member States are being urged to agree on a plan to promote more efficient and safer use of chemicals and waste.

“We need to change our consumption and production patterns so that our economies proceed on sustainable paths, and so that we are able to address key global challenges like climate change, water and other resource scarcities, and environmental degradation,” said Mr. Sha Zukang.

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Corporations are using our money to trash the environment.

By Hank Boerner

Let’s ask ourselves, whose money is it, anyway? In a recent CSRwire Talkback blog post, I wrote that, in my opinion, the highest test of true corporate responsibility is to see how the corporate board and management respect the concept of managing other peoples’ money (OPM). That set me thinking: as the billions and tens of billions of dollars that trade every day go swirling around the capital markets…whose money is it, anyway that stock traders and investment bankers and hedge fund managers and other market mavens are using to “play the market?” Yours and mine? Let’s think about that for a second or two as we read of investment banking bonuses.

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