New UN Framework Leverages Business to Benefit Global Education

September 22, 2013, 7:01 pm

≫ Next: Redefining Value: The New Metrics of Sustainable Business - The SB Community Weighs In, Part Three

≪ Previous: New Animated Video Asks: 'How Much Is (Your Mother) Earth Worth?'

A new framework aimed at helping businesses to realize business benefits while advancing global education goals was recently announced by the United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon at a CEO summit in New York.

Developed by UNESCO, UNICEF, the UN Special Envoy for Global Education, and the UN Global Compact (GC), The Smartest Investment: A Framework for Business Engagement in Education helps firms make the case that education is not only good for society but also good for business by outlining how to make the case internally about why they should engage in education, selecting appropriate activities and acting in a responsible manner.

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Redefining Value: The New Metrics of Sustainable Business - The SB Community Weighs In, Part Three

September 23, 2013, 12:12 pm

≫ Next: Developing a Purposeful Brand: A Practitioner’s Toolbox, Part Two

≪ Previous: New UN Framework Leverages Business to Benefit Global Education

We believe that nothing can drive faster organizational response to a changing business environment – or facilitate realignment between corporate functions or within value networks — than a shift in the metrics used to track success.

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Developing a Purposeful Brand: A Practitioner’s Toolbox, Part Two

September 23, 2013, 12:50 pm

≫ Next: Investors Ask General Mills to Step Up Packaging Responsibility

≪ Previous: Redefining Value: The New Metrics of Sustainable Business - The SB Community Weighs In, Part Three

In this series, Christophe Fauconnier & Benoit Beaufils, respectively CEO & founding partner of brand consultancy Innate Motion, present the tools that the company uses to develop purposeful, mission-driven brands with their clients. Benoit & Christophe view their tools as a free “thoughtware” suite, and propose that readers borrow and reapply. Read part one in the toolbox: people immersions.

Christophe Fauc...

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Investors Ask General Mills to Step Up Packaging Responsibility

September 23, 2013, 4:36 pm

≫ Next: Carbon Policy: Inside Microsoft's Efforts to Integrate Sustainability Into Its Financial Model

≪ Previous: Developing a Purposeful Brand: A Practitioner’s Toolbox, Part Two

This week, investors are asking General Mills to take responsibility for recycling its post-consumer packaging waste.

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Carbon Policy: Inside Microsoft's Efforts to Integrate Sustainability Into Its Financial Model

September 19, 2013, 5:08 pm

≫ Next: Reality Check: Climate Counts Launches World's First Science-Based Carbon Rating

≪ Previous: Investors Ask General Mills to Step Up Packaging Responsibility

Originally written for and published on CSRwire's Commentary section, Talkback, on September 12, 2013.

On July 1, 2012, Microsoft issued a new corporate policy across 14 business divisions in over 100 countries: Every division would now be accountable for its carbon emissions.

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Reality Check: Climate Counts Launches World's First Science-Based Carbon Rating

September 23, 2013, 3:24 pm

≫ Next: Starbucks Jumps on the Sustainably Sourced Wagon with New Origins Campaign

≪ Previous: Carbon Policy: Inside Microsoft's Efforts to Integrate Sustainability Into Its Financial Model

On Tuesday at the New Metrics of Sustainable Business Conference, Climate Counts will present initial findings of the first-ever science-based rating of corporate carbon emissions. The study, conducted by Center for Sustainable Organizations (CSO) Executive Director Mark McElroy and Bill Baue, applies CSO's Context-Based Carbon Metric, which compares company carbon emissions to science-based targets.

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Starbucks Jumps on the Sustainably Sourced Wagon with New Origins Campaign

September 23, 2013, 2:13 pm

≫ Next: Lack of Reliable Metrics Impeding Sustainable Business Growth, Study Says

≪ Previous: Reality Check: Climate Counts Launches World's First Science-Based Carbon Rating

Continuing a positive trend of transparency in the food industry, Starbucks' latest campaign focuses on the quality and sourcing of its coffee beans, as sustainability and health concerns continue to motivate consumers to ask, "Where does this come from?"

Launched on Sunday during the Emmys, the new documentary-inspired TV ad shows the heritage of the cafe chain's Arabica coffee beans. "The bean matters, because you cannot roast in quality, you cannot roast in complexity," the voiceover says as black-and-white footage of coffee plantations and the roasting process runs.

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Lack of Reliable Metrics Impeding Sustainable Business Growth, Study Says

September 23, 2013, 9:30 pm

≫ Next: E&S Topics Comprised 40% of Shareholder Proposals Filed in 2013

≪ Previous: Starbucks Jumps on the Sustainably Sourced Wagon with New Origins Campaign

Less than a third (32 percent) of CEOs believe the global economy is on track to meet the demands of a growing population, while two-thirds (67 percent) report that the private sector is not making sufficient efforts to address global sustainability challenges, according to a recent survey by the United Nations Global Compact (GC) and Accenture. Still only 38 percent say they currently are able to quantify the business value of sustainability.

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E&S Topics Comprised 40% of Shareholder Proposals Filed in 2013

September 23, 2013, 11:21 pm

≫ Next: Inspiring the Supply Chain: Sprint's New Supplier Booklet

≪ Previous: Lack of Reliable Metrics Impeding Sustainable Business Growth, Study Says

Nearly 40 percent of all shareholder proposals filed in 2013 came from the environmental and social (E&S) category, representing the largest category overall, according to a recent report by Ernst & Young.

Taking flight: Environmental sustainability proposals gain more attention identifies the specific requests investors are making in environmental sustainability proposals, company practices referenced by shareholder proponents in their supporting statements and examples of company actions that have led to withdrawals.

The top five E&S proposal topic areas were:

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Inspiring the Supply Chain: Sprint's New Supplier Booklet

September 24, 2013, 12:05 pm

≫ Next: Putting Sustainability Data into Context

≪ Previous: E&S Topics Comprised 40% of Shareholder Proposals Filed in 2013

As the sustainability world places increased focus on supply chain issues, there’s no doubt that any corporation on an authentic CSR journey needs to carefully examine the impacts of its entire supply chain. In fact, according to the United Nations Global Compact’s recently published Global Corporate Sustainability Report, supply chain management is the single greatest barrier to large companies advancing to the next level of sustainability performance.

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Putting Sustainability Data into Context

September 24, 2013, 1:20 pm

≫ Next: Rubies in the Rubble: Fighting a Culture of Waste One Chutney at a Time

≪ Previous: Inspiring the Supply Chain: Sprint's New Supplier Booklet

Many companies have been publicly reporting on sustainability metrics for more than 20 years, and others are just getting started. As the practice is maturing and becoming more commonplace, stakeholders are beginning to ask, “Are these metrics really measuring sustainability?”

For example, most companies do report on their greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and water use, but what they’re not doing is putting these metrics in context. In other words, does a company’s goals and performance meet the need to decrease emissions by 80–100% by 2050* in order to stave off the worst impacts of climate change? And how does its water use measure up to availability in water-scarce, water-stressed and water-sufficient areas?

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Rubies in the Rubble: Fighting a Culture of Waste One Chutney at a Time

September 24, 2013, 2:15 pm

≫ Next: Microsoft, Diageo Among Latest Companies Urging Policymakers to Address Climate Change

≪ Previous: Putting Sustainability Data into Context

In 2010, Jenny Dawson was a couple of years out of university working at a hedge fund company in London. One day, she found herself at a wholesale market where she saw pallets of edible fruit and vegetables going to the waste bin. The food had been grown in neighboring countries in Europe and as far away as Kenya.

To Dawson it was sheer madness and an environmental and social travesty that so much good food requiring great resources to grow and transport to London would ultimately end up in the garbage. “Seeing pallets of perfectly good fruit coming in from Kenya destined for the garbage evoked a reaction in me. There must be something we could do. We can’t be this wasteful,” says Dawson.

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Microsoft, Diageo Among Latest Companies Urging Policymakers to Address Climate Change

September 24, 2013, 4:45 pm

≫ Next: SNAP Answers: How Can Protecting Nature Help Ensure Food, Energy, Water Security for Nine Billion People?

≪ Previous: Rubies in the Rubble: Fighting a Culture of Waste One Chutney at a Time

Business calls for strong climate change action are getting louder. A half-dozen more leading global companies including Microsoft, Owens Corning, Diageo, Thornton Tomasetti, and Acer America Corporation last week joined hundreds of other U.S. businesses in signing the Climate Declaration, which calls on federal policymakers to seize the economic opportunity of addressing climate change, according to CERES.

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SNAP Answers: How Can Protecting Nature Help Ensure Food, Energy, Water Security for Nine Billion People?

September 24, 2013, 5:53 pm

≫ Next: Transforming Desire: What Gets People In and Out of Bed When It Comes to Sustainability

≪ Previous: Microsoft, Diageo Among Latest Companies Urging Policymakers to Address Climate Change

The Nature Conservancy (TNC), the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), and the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis (NCEAS) today announced the launch of SNAP (Science for Nature and People), a collaboration aimed at solving the world’s most pressing conservation and human development challenges. The announcement was made at the annual meeting of the Clinton Global Initiative.

SNAP is designed to find practical, knowledge-based ways in which the conservation of nature can help provide food, water, energy and security to Earth's fast-growing population. SNAP will tackle high-profile problems where the solution has a clear pathway to implementation.

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Transforming Desire: What Gets People In and Out of Bed When It Comes to Sustainability

November 12, 2013, 2:24 pm

≫ Next: New Process Developed by GE, Sasol Producing Biogas from Wastewater

≪ Previous: SNAP Answers: How Can Protecting Nature Help Ensure Food, Energy, Water Security for Nine Billion People?

There’s nothing sexy about a Materiality Report. Delicately revealing your intimate water stewardship credentials is unlikely to get any one hot under the collar. And no one at your local is going to leap out of bed for a carbon-reduction conversation.

Dream in a Box is a methodology I have been working on for some three years with Peggy Liu of JUCCCE and China Dream fame. It has its own dream: to help people re-imagine a more enduring, future-proofed model of prosperity at scale, a prosperity that aligns itself with a populist aspiration — a new aspirational concept of thriving within our own, our communities and our immediate world’s means.

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New Process Developed by GE, Sasol Producing Biogas from Wastewater

November 12, 2013, 12:12 am

≫ Next: Can Universities Lead the Way to Embedding Sustainability Within Organizations?

≪ Previous: Transforming Desire: What Gets People In and Out of Bed When It Comes to Sustainability

Sasol, a South African chemical and energy company, and General Electric’s GE Power & Water have developed technology that will clean wastewater while also producing biogas as a by-product.

The technology, known as Anaerobic Membrane Bioreactor Technology (AnMBR), will be further developed at a new demonstration plant at Sasol's R&D Campus at its Sasol One Site in Sasolburg, the companies say.

The partnership with GE leverages GE's ecomagination-qualified ZeeWeed 500 membrane and decades of membrane bioreactor experience, and Sasol's expertise in biological treatment of effluents derived from the Fischer-Tropsch (FT) process, a key component of gas-to-liquids (GTL) conversion technology.

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Can Universities Lead the Way to Embedding Sustainability Within Organizations?

November 12, 2013, 3:03 pm

≫ Next: New Social Network Helps Community Projects Find 'neighbourly' Corporate Sponsors

≪ Previous: New Process Developed by GE, Sasol Producing Biogas from Wastewater

This was the question that motivated Bruno Sarda, Director of Global Sustainability Operations at Dell and adjunct professor at Arizona State University (ASU), and Dr. George Basile, senior sustainability scientist and School of Sustainability professor at ASU, to partner with GreenBiz Group in a survey of corporate leaders in July of 2012. Sarda and Basile were jointly tasked with creating an Executive Master’s program for the Rob and Melani Walton Sustainability Solutions Initiatives at ASU’s Global Institute of Sustainability (GIOS) and were looking for input from sustainability executives on how to make the degree program as impactful as possible.

Searching for the “How”

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New Social Network Helps Community Projects Find 'neighbourly' Corporate Sponsors

November 12, 2013, 5:09 pm

≫ Next: Unilever Pledges 100% Traceable Palm Oil by End of 2014

≪ Previous: Can Universities Lead the Way to Embedding Sustainability Within Organizations?

Each week leading up to our SB London conference, where the winner of the SB London Innovation Open (SBIOL) will be announced on November 18, we will get to know each of our four finalists. This week, meet neighbourly.com.

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Unilever Pledges 100% Traceable Palm Oil by End of 2014

November 13, 2013, 12:51 am

≫ Next: Getting Over the Sustainability Innovation Hump

≪ Previous: New Social Network Helps Community Projects Find 'neighbourly' Corporate Sponsors

In a major move towards sustainability for one of the world’s largest purchasers of palm oil, Unilever on Tuesday announced that all of the palm oil it buys globally will be traceable to known sources by the end of 2014.

The company says it purchases roughly 1.5 million tons of palm oil and its derivatives annually, which represents about 3 percent of the world’s total production, for use in products such as margarine, ice cream, soap and shampoo.

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Getting Over the Sustainability Innovation Hump

November 13, 2013, 11:27 am

≫ Next: Can Aspirationals Help Make Sustainable Consumption Cool?

≪ Previous: Unilever Pledges 100% Traceable Palm Oil by End of 2014

I just read an interesting Deloitte study linking sustainability with innovation inside corporations. According to the study, companies engaged in sustainability innovate more than their competitors. At the risk of sounding cheeky, I don’t find this hard to imagine. Companies that recognize the importance of sustainability tend to be those pushing for new ideas. And applying the sustainability filter to innovation efforts sparks new patterns of thinking — and fresh ideas.

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