Tomorrow is Valentine's Day, and this year thousands of Americans are planning on something beyond just flowers and chocolates. February 14 is one of the biggest days of the year to shop for jewelry — last year, Americans spent more than $4 billion on baubles for their loved ones.

But behind the glitter of the gold ring often lies an uncomfortable reality: the destructive impacts of irresponsible mining. Many mining companies are notorious for violation of human rights, destruction of natural areas and hazardous dumping of toxic waste.

As a jeweler, I was troubled by the fact that the jewelry I sold could be linked to such abuses. Nine years ago, I came across the No Dirty Gold campaign and had the stark realization that I was participating in the active destruction of the planet. I couldn’t continue making jewelry, glossing over the fact that I was part of a very big problem.

That spurred a change in sourcing our precious metals, and since 2005, we have been selling gold and silver jewelry made from entirely reclaimed metals sources.

Now more than ever, customers want to know where their jewelry comes from. There are ways to source responsibly — and when we do so, our actions put pressure on the mining industry to adopt improved environmental and social standards.

Recently there have been positive legislative steps to hold the mining industry accountable. The Dodd-Frank conflict minerals bill requires companies to investigate their supply chains and report the purchase of minerals whose profits were channeled to armed militia groups in the Congo.

In response to civil society pressure, mining companies are also increasing investment to engage with affected communities earlier and more frequently. An increasing number are participating in the Initiative for Responsible Mining Assurance (IRMA), an independent, third-party certification effort to promote higher social and environmental standards for mining. Artisanal mining cooperatives from Bolivia to Ghana are participating in the Fairmined certification system through the Alliance for Responsible Mining whose certified gold has passed their rigorous environmental and social standards.

These steps are good news for jewelers interested in building a responsible supply chain for their jewelry, but much more needs to be done. I call on my colleagues in the jewelry business to sign on to the No Dirty Gold campaign’s Golden Rules, and pledge to avoid “dirty” or questionable sources of minerals. As an early signatory to the campaign, I’m delighted that over 100 jewelers have signed on and are calling on the mining industry to clean up its practices.

Valentine’s Day is a great opportunity for jewelers to respond to consumers’ increasing demand for ecologically and socially friendly goods, including jewelry. The little shifts in action that are taken can lead to a tipping point where transparent supply chains and participation in a more responsible mining industry become almost universal.

For more examples of groundbreaking cross-sector partnerships driving social and environmental change, check out our editorial channel highlighting #Collaboration.

To learn more about how brands worldwide are cleaning up their #SupplyChains, check out the editorial channel.

In part one of our review of Andrew Savitz’s book Talent, Transformation, and the Triple Bottom Line, we explored why human resource managers should be involved in a brand’s sustainability initiatives. Now, we’ll look at how companies can leverage HR to achieve sustainable growth throughout the entire workforce lifecycle, starting from employee selection all the way to retirement.

Employee Selection

Traditional HR focuses on strengthening the employer’s workplace reputation to attract the most talented and desirable workers and recruiting candidates from every career stage. Sustainable HR includes sustainability-related values as a key element in the employer brand and employee value proposition.

Sustainable HR in Action: Savitz describes how PwC’s recruiting strategy at job fairs facilitates values alignment with potential employees. Instead of giving away branded stress balls, visors or other merchandise, PwC asks job fair participants to identify a favorite charity, to which PwC will then contribute $5. Candidates come to recognize PwC as a firm that gives to causes they care about, instead of generating junk that will pollute the environment. In turn, PwC gains insight into which causes are most popular with potential employees and how to be more strategic in its future philanthropic efforts.

Career Development

In addition to the Traditional HR responsibilities of supporting employees’ career development, Sustainable HR helps employees identify sustainability opportunities in career paths throughout the organization and implements training to improve employee awareness of how environmental and social trends affect the company.

Sustainable HR in Action: Savitz describes how Gap improved the sustainability of its supply chain management by incorporating social responsibility into the product skills courses provided to designers and managers. Gap’s Retail Academy includes coaching for managers to consider how decisions they make upstream can cause unintended impacts on suppliers downstream. When hot sales require a rapid restock, Gap managers are taught to consider whether the manufacturer has the capacity to fulfill the order without instituting excessive overtime, using underage workers or risking unsafe production processes.

Andrew Savitz, keynote speaker at Sustainable Brands 2014 San Diego

Rewards and Retention

Traditional HR sets and implements policies regarding employee behavior and rewards achievements. Sustainable HR includes sustainability in performance appraisals and offers meaningful incentives for achieving sustainability-related goals.

Sustainable HR in Action: Savitz describes how the SC Johnson Greenlist system rates materials used in the company’s products according to their environmental and health impact, and ties the results to employee appraisals. Each raw material receives a rating from “unacceptable” to “best.” When SC Johnson scientists create a new product or reformulation, they must aim to select materials rated “better” or “best” ingredients. Of the 500 top-management, bonus-eligible positions, approximately 25 percent have a bonus objective related to Greenlist. Nearly 48 million pounds of volatile organic compounds have been removed from SC Johnson’s products in the seven years since the system was introduced.

Workforce Planning

In addition to Traditional HR duties of researching and planning for talent trends and demographics, Sustainable HR considers how emerging environmental risks and opportunities require new knowledge, skills and mindsets.

Sustainable HR in Action: Savitz describes how after discovering that the costs of its environmental impacts were €145 million, PUMA created and filled a number of new positions, including an energy-management specialist, a conservation and ecosystem services specialist, humanity and ecology teams, and additional environmental and social auditors.

Early Termination, Retirement and Post-Retirement

Sustainable HR considers the social and economic impact of early termination and retirement.

Sustainable HR in Action: Savitz describes how American Electric Power (AEP) addresses the significant workforce challenge they are facing with the loss of knowledge as aging workers retire. At the same time, the current economy has put financial stress on growing numbers of would-be AEP retirees. To address these twin problems, AEP has created a program that offers flexible post-retirement work opportunities, with health care and other benefits, to older employees. 

The Cradle to Cradle Products Innovation Institute on Wednesday launched a product registry designed to increase transparency from manufacturers.

The Cradle to Cradle CertifiedCM Product Registry allows consumers, designers and builders to make wiser, healthier decisions and calls for greater transparency from the manufacturer. Other features include improved overall site speed and the optional certification scorecard, which is a summary of levels achieved in the five categories of certification optimization: material health, material reutilization, renewable energy & carbon management, water stewardship and social fairness.

"Our certification is unique in encouraging companies to improve their product's ingredients and processes,” said Bridgett Luther, president of the Institute. “The multi-attribute nature of our certification becomes a powerful way to show a company's commitment to making the world a better place for people and planet."

Over 200 certified products are eligible for LEED v4 credit, and more than 1,000 variations can be found using the new Product Registry.

The Institute has also increased its international presence with new accredited assessment bodies and three new board members. This year, board chair Warner Philips welcomed trustees Gerrit Bruggeman, Marion Hunt and Scott Mackinlay Hahn. Ten new accredited assessment bodies have joined the Cradle to Cradle network from around the world including Spain, Turkey, Switzerland,Germany, Brazil, the Netherlands and the UK.

Cradle to Cradle Certification is a system that recognizes and incentivizes innovations in product design and manufacture so the making of things becomes a positive force for people, the economy and the planet. The companies and products presented in this collection are redefining traditional notions of quality in ways that meet new expectations of 21st-century customers. Check out a list of the most innovative Cradle to Cradle Certified^CM product case studies of 2013.

Last November, the Institute and Make It Right announced four winners for its second annual Innovation Challenge: Ecovative, bioMASON, ECOR and ROMA. Entrants were asked to create a building product that is safe, healthy, affordable, effective and designed to be returned safely to nature or industry after use. Winners met the basic criteria of the Cradle to Cradle Certified^CM Product Standard, optimizing for material health, material reutilization, renewable energy & carbon management, water stewardship and social fairness.

Last month, a front-page New York Times story reported that global business leaders Coca-Cola, Nike, and others are factoring in climate change risks as threats to the bottom line. This news followed CDP’s December reveal that 29 major companies use a shadow carbon price in their finances for climate risk evaluation.

What do these stories have in common? Risk.

I’ve noticed a decisive pivot in business conversations about climate change impacts from uncertainty— as just cause for delay or inaction — to a core business competency: managing risk. For forward-looking companies, this pivot may signal a tipping point from academic discussion to business action that they can use to their advantage.

Simply put, this change moves the conversation from: “What if we’re wrong about potential climate change-fueled catastrophes?” to “What if we’re right? What do we stand to lose, and how can we manage those risks?”

As an example of how this conversation has shifted, look at how Talking Climate’s Adam Corner explored uncertainty versus risk as an academic finding in November 2012. Compare that to his forceful Jan. 31 Guardian piece calling for the framing of risk over uncertainty as a business imperative.

While this idea may be familiar to SB readers, it’s worth noting how fast and far the “risk rather than uncertainty” message is spreading to broader business audiences — and who is delivering the message.

Forward-thinking business leaders and influencers can leverage this momentum for action within their organizations, and with industry peers, supply chain partners, customers, government and civil society allies.

Here are 11 notable recent instances in which business conversations about climate-change impacts center on risk:

Sept. 9, 2013: Harvard Business School’s “Working Knowledge” site reports on shifting the debate about climate change from a political discussion to a practical conversation about risk and reward.

Oct. 3, 2013: Financiers Michael Bloomberg, Hank Paulson and Tom Steyer announce their year-long “Risky Business” initiative to measure U.S. economic risks from climate change impacts.

Oct. 24, 2013: Investors ask oil, coal and power companies for climate risk information.

Dec. 6, 2013: Climate scientist Tamsin Edwards reports her findings from a meeting called “Communicating Risk and Uncertainty around Climate Change.”

Jan 15: Ceres hosts the Climate Risk Investor Summit with 500 global financial leaders.

Jan. 23: Sustainability thought leader Bob Willard posts “Unleashing 3 Risk Arguments in the Climate Debate” article

Jan. 24: At the Davos World Economic Forum, World Bank president Jim Yong Kim calls for carbon pricing and climate risk disclosure by government, businesses and NGOs

Jan. 30: Citing fiduciary duty, 17 philanthropic groups pledge divestment from fossil fuels and investment in clean-energy technologies as a “prudent response to climate risks.”

Jan. 31: Bloomberg starts his new job as United Nations special envoy to help cities around the world prepare for climate-change risks.

Feb. 5: White House announces “climate hubs” to help farmers and rural communities respond to climate risk.

Feb. 7: A new Ceres report shows more companies reporting climate risk to CDP than to the SEC.

The scientific consensus on human-caused global climate change hasn’t changed that much in the past 10 years. In that time, there’s been very little climate action overall. But now that’s clearly changing.

It’s been said that, “When we change how we look at things, the things we look at change.” I’m encouraged that global leaders in business, finance, government and behavioral economics are shifting to talking about climate-change impacts as business risks that can be managed rather than uncertainty that can’t.

This is a powerful mindset we can use to help achieve broad, global sustainability gains at every level. 

Social responsibility is an integral element of sustainable development. Since the endorsement of the Protect, Respect and Remedy framework by the UN in 2011, an increasing number of initiatives is starting to require organizations to consider their supply chain impacts when completing Sustainability Rating questionnaires (e.g., the Dow Jones Sustainability Index) or reporting to their stakeholders. The Global Reporting Initiative’s (GRI) fourth-generation guidelines (G4) added reporting on supply chain-significant and potential negative Labour Rights and Human rights Impacts into GRI's scope.

GRI G4 also put a strong emphasis on the concept of materiality as a key for choosing where an organization should put its efforts within its sustainability-related activities. G4 defines Material Aspects as issues “that reflect the organization’s significant economic, environmental and social impacts” and encourages the reporting organization to focus its reporting effort on these aspects. There is, however, an important challenge in identifying the Material Aspects. What are the issue areas in which an organization has its most significant social impacts? How can they be identified and prioritized? 

Until now, nearly all social due diligence assessments have taken a single-tier, country of origin-based approach, which considers only the risks associated with the country in which the final production stage occurs. This truncated approach can be contrasted with a full supply chain approach, or "life cycle approach,” which considers risks across the full set of countries in which the full set of supply chain activities are distributed. The life cycle approach can also take into account the labor intensity of each supply chain process, supporting prioritization by helping companies identify where in their supply chains are the greatest concentrations of labor hours at social risk.

The European Union's Joint Research Centre has recently published a report underscoring the importance of taking a life cycle-based approach to understanding and managing social risks in support of policies and decision-making for socially sustainable development. The report, available for free download on the EU website, conducted a macro-scale analysis of the social risk profile of EU-27 imports by combining trade statistics regarding imports from in-EU-27 and out-of-EU-27 trading partners in 2010, with country and sector-specific social risk indicator data addressing five thematic areas: Labour Rights and Decent Work; Health and Safety; Human Rights; Governance; and Community Infrastructure. It estimated the apparent social risk profiles of EU-27 imports based on consideration of country/sector-of-origin social risk data only (the truncated, country-of-origin approach), and compared these results with results from a life cycle-based social risk assessment that takes into account the distribution of social risks along product supply chains.

Greg Norris, speaker at Sustainable Brands 2014 San Diego

The report shows that (1) the majority of social risks associated with imports to EU-27 countries are attributable to activities outside the EU-27 rather than inside the EU-27, and (2) the risks of injuries and fatalities make the largest proportionate contribution to an overall, single-score measure of risk. However, the country-of-origin and life cycle approaches provide otherwise dissimilar “signals” about the magnitude and distribution of social risk. The country-of-origin approach invariably prioritizes interventions targeting only those direct trading partners known to have high levels of social risk in the sectors providing exports to EU-27 Member States. In contrast, the life cycle approach provides insight as to the distribution of risk along supply chains, which may be low in the sector of a given country exporting products to Europe, but high overall for those products due to the social risks associated with the activities that support production in that sector. Such supporting activities include physical flows of inputs such as raw materials and energy, and also the activities of service sectors. The life cycle approach hence affords a fuller, more realistic and informative picture of where, in what processes, and to what extent social risks may be of particular concern.

The study was conducted using the Social Hotspots Database, a repository of social indicator data covering 57 economic sectors in each of 225 countries, addressing five overarching thematic areas: Labour Rights and Decent Work; Health and Safety; Human Rights; Governance; and Community Infrastructure. These indicators were developed based on the recommendations of the UNEP/SETAC Guidelines for Social Life Cycle Assessment (UNEP/SETAC 2009), the ISO 26000 Guidelines for Social Responsibility (ISO 2010), the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) G3 Guidelines, (GRI 2006) and the Global Social Compliance Programme (GSCP) Reference tools (GSCP 2012). The indicators in turn are transparently based on over 200 sources of data. The Social Hotspots risk tables themselves are able to support country-of-origin assessments, but they are not limited to this. By being linked with a Global Input-Output model derived from the Global Trade Analysis Project general economic equilibrium model, the full Social Hotspot System also enables life cycle-based, full supply chain assessments social risks.

The EU report demonstrates that it is now possible for organizations to harness and benefit from a life cycle approach in performing social risk due diligence, and it illustrates how doing so provides crucial insights regarding the materiality of social sustainability issues.

What is REDD+?

Accounting for 15 percent of global annual greenhouse gas emissions, deforestation has turned what should be our largest terrestrial carbon sink into our second largest source of climate-changing emissions. Although deforestation is estimated to cost the global economy $2-5 trillion each year, we continue to place higher value on cut forests than standing.

Why are we perpetuating such perverse economic incentives, and what can we do to create a more sustainable paradigm for economic development?

These are the questions the United Nations sought to answer with the creation of REDD+ (“Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation”). A global mechanism to quantify and value the carbon-storage services that forests provide, REDD+ provides developing countries with an economic alternative to deforestation. It creates a low-carbon pathway to economic growth that will be critical to sustainable human progress and climate-change mitigation.

Like any other global mechanism, REDD+ requires institutional support with public, private and civic participation. And like any other global mechanism, it won’t be easy. But current environmental, economic, and population growth trends provide us with no choice but to be proactive; the world simply cannot afford to wait to create more sustainable economic incentives for land-use decisions.

Is it working?

Global REDD+ efforts are already working on the ground and preparing to scale.

REDD+ projects — which are independently validated and verified to robust environmental and social standards — are already protecting 14 million hectares of threatened tropical forest and reducing emissions by 22 million tonnes of CO₂ annually.

National REDD+ programs are creating the institutional and transparent financial infrastructure necessary to integrate REDD+ into global climate-change mitigation and sustainable growth strategies.

Subnational programs (often called “jurisdictional”) are linking these project and national program activities. Many jurisdictions, states, and countries — including California, Brazil, and Mexico — are already exploring “jurisdictional partnerships” to achieve shared emission reduction and forest conservation goals.

So what’s missing?

What is really needed to make REDD+ work is not just institutional development, but return on investment. The ROI — the cash flow that provides sustainable economic alternatives for these forest communities and developing countries — is the sale of the emission reductions generated from REDD+. There must be a market for these emission reductions; there must be demand that values supply.

The original vision for REDD+ was that an international climate agreement would put a price on carbon and thereby create demand through regulated markets. This vision, however, has yet to come to fruition. It is unlikely that global climate policy will come into existence before 2020 and, more importantly, it is unlikely that it will be driven strictly by government mandates.

If we are to truly address the unsustainable incentives in our economic system — if we are to reconcile our economic and environmental systems, particularly with regards to land use — we must engage and change private sector practices.

Private sector engagement

The REDD+ mechanism must be incorporated into private sector practices, corporate business models, andregulatory frameworks to create sustainable alternatives to deforestation and low-carbon opportunities for economic development.

The private sector must be part of the solution. Financial institutions, multinational corporations, and commodities producers must incorporate the value of forests to create a return on investment for global REDD+ activities. Only then will demand for REDD+ emission reductions incentivize developing countries to provide a supply of forest conservation.

The United Nations Environment Programme Finance Initiative (UNEP FI), in its recent Interim Forest Finance Project Report, emphasizes the importance of stimulating demand for REDD+ emission reductions through private sector engagement between now and 2020. The report calls for “using public sector funding to leverage considerably more private sector investment,” acknowledging that clear and long-term financial incentives need to be developed in partnership with private sector practices.

Stimulating the private sector to purchase emission reductions from REDD+ activities, the report concludes, is critical to accelerating the financial flows that will keep forests standing, keep carbon sequestered, and create sustainable economic opportunity for developing countries.

Making it work

Several companies and sectors are already involved and investing in REDD+. Insurance giant Allianz describes its REDD+ investments as “leveraging our capital base to build up the low-carbon infrastructure of tomorrow,” while financial magnate Barclays regards its REDD+ investments as “a shift toward a realistic understanding of what we need to do to adapt to climate change and sustain local economies.”

The private sector has an unparalleled role in creating sustainable economic incentives around land use to achieve both climate and economic development goals. As institutional infrastructure for REDD+ continues to advance, the return on that investment must materialize in the form of private sector models and practices that stimulate demand for REDD+.

To learn more about public-private synergies for REDD+, check out Code REDD’s REDD+ Talks series and hear from Kering, PUMA, Microsoft, Natura, UNEP, UNDP, Wildlife Conservation Society, BSR, and more.

“Green marketing” expert Jacquie Ottman is the co-author (with David Mallen) of a report published in September through Ad Age called, How To Make Credible Green Marketing Claims: What Marketers Need to Know About the Updated FTC Green Guides. We spoke with her recently about the report and the challenges and continued evolution of making sustainability claims in marketing.

What prompted you to put together your 'Guide to the Green Guides'?

The FTC issued updates to the "Green Guides for Environmental Marketing Terms" in October 2012. These were the first updates since 1998, so much had changed in the marketplace. The research report that I co-authored with David Mallen (at the time still with the NAD, the industry's self regulatory body), is intended as an essential resource written in layman's terms for marketers who need to understand what's new since the Guides were last updated – but for many readers, simply a guide to Green Guides and how they can be used to prevent misleading consumers about the validity of various sustainability claims, images and eco-labels.

How can companies benefit benefit from your guide?

No one wants to mislead their consumers. Because making green claims is very challenging due to the technical nature of “green” and the fact that not all players — the marketers, the lawyers, the scientists or the FTC – really understand a lot of the science involved, risks of misleading consumers even among the most well-intended marketers is very high. Greenwashing can be an expensive and risky proposition: There's legal, financial, reputational and revenue risks that can result from lawsuits. A poll of consumers found that 78 percent would boycott products if they found they were associated with greenwashing. Our report talks about how to avoid these risks. I even included for the first time a 43-item checklist that businesses can follow to reduce the risks.

As a veteran in the field of "green marketing," how do you feel about the use/overuse of terms such as "green" and "sustainable"? 

Jacquie Ottman, speaker at Sustainable Brands 2014 San Diego

It's ironic, we call it “green marketing,” but there's no such thing as a truly green product — every product uses resources and energy and creates waste. What's new about the FTC Green Guides is for the first time since they were introduced in 1992, the Guides recommend against using terms like “green,” “eco-friendly” and “planet-safe” unless you can prove scientifically and with the help of a third party that this is the case. Given the nature of the science  (life cycle assessment), chances are this will be nearly impossible for any company to prove. 

So expect not to see such terms used much in the future (and of course, if you do, be suspect!) Ditto for images like what I call the 'planets, babies and daisies.' The FTC declined to define "sustainable" in this round of Green Guides. I suspect it's for a couple of reasons: Sustainable is often equated with renewable (at least in the dictionary), and the FTC did provide guidance on “renewable.” However, we all in the business define “sustainable” in terms of the triple bottom line of environment, economy and equity. The Green Guides only cover environmental terms, so it is possible that they saw the term “sustainable” as out of there purview. Interestingly, the FTC declined not to define the term “natural” either. I suspect that's because natural is more often associated with health than environmental matters, so that's out of the purview of the Green Guides as well.

Do you feel we need to expand our vocabulary, or is the new familiarity of these terms necessary to continue to drive consumer engagement?

I think the problem may be just the opposite! There may be too many terms floating around and it's confusing consumers. For example, research that the FTC did as part of their process for updating the Guides showed that consumers confuse the term “renewable” with “recycled,” “recyclable” and “biodegradable.” What's important to remember is that marketers are responsible for what consumers take away from your messages, and that could be very different from what you intended. So in using these terms advertisers need to be very careful to test new communication and provide any additional clarification so that consumers take away the intended message. 

What's the most important thing that marketers can learn from the FTC Green Guides?

Be specific. In lieu of using what is called 'generalized environmental claims' such as “green” and "eco-friendly," simply state the specific environmental benefit of your product. Examples might include “energy efficient,” "made with 25% recycled content" and "fuel efficient.”  

Jacquie Ottman will co-host a free webinar— with Rebecca Griffith, senior staff attorney of the National Advertising Division of the Advertising Self-Regulatory Council — on Wednesday, February 26, examining the updated FTC Green Guides as distilled through the Ad Age report. Visit the webinar landing page for registration and more information.

Every cup of tea you drink should help better the lives of the people who produce it, improve the environment where it is grown, and contribute to a thriving global industry, according to a new report from some of sector’s biggest players, launched today by global sustainability nonprofit Forum for the Future.

Unilever, Yorkshire Tea, Tata Global Beverages and James Finlay are among members of the Tea 2030 partnership calling for the sector to find legal ways to collaborate — whilst continuing to compete vigorously — to turn tea from a standard commodity into a “hero crop,“ which benefits the millions who work in all parts of the industry as well as the wider environment and economy.

The Tea 2030 partners will now focus their collaboration on three key areas:

• Sustainable production — benefitting the environment and communities where tea is grown;
• žMarket mechanisms — which deliver greater value to all players in the supply chain;
• žEngage consumers — so they both demand more sustainable tea and reduce impacts associated with tea consumption.

Launched today,The Future of Tea — A Hero Crop for 2030, is the result of a year’s research and collaboration between organisations from all parts of the sector, facilitated and managed by Forum for the Future. The Tea 2030 partners include four of the seven companies responsible for 90% of the world tea market, Unilever, Tata Global Beverages, James Finlay and Twinings, plus the Ethical Tea Partnership, Fairtrade International, IDH — the Sustainable Trade Initiative, Rainforest Alliance, S&D Coffee and Tea, and Yorkshire Tea, and they are supported by the International Tea Committee.

The report identifies profound challenges facing the industry, including climate change, population growth, and competition for agricultural land and water. It sets out key principles that will allow the sector to overcome these challenges and achieve a sustainable future. And it calls on everyone across the tea value chain — workers, growers, processors, traders, packers, retailers and consumers — to unite to achieve the shared vision.

Sally Uren, CEO of Forum for the Future, said: “The tea industry operates in some of the world’s poorest countries that are most vulnerable to climate change and faces serious challenges. We are urging organisations across the sector to collaborate to find solutions that will safeguard its future and transform the lives of millions of people working throughout the industry.

“The Tea 2030 partnership is leading the way by planning action to make tea a hero crop — one that not only delivers a great commodity, but also improves livelihoods, tackles climate change, and engages the support of tea drinkers throughout the world in creating a sustainable industry.”

Challenges Facing the Tea Sector

The tea sector is facing some major challenges that will have a profound impact on the growing, distribution and marketing of tea in the future. The report identifies ten key issues:

• Demographic changes
• Resource constraints
• Climate change
• Competition for land and productivity
• Availability of labour and mechanisation
• Balance of power across the supply chain
• Emergence of new business models
• Sustainability leadership of emerging economies
• Improvement in wages and labour welfare in the supply chain
• Consumer attitude to food value

Pier Luigi Sigismondi, Chief Supply Chain Officer at Unilever, said: “Unilever is committed to creating a sustainable tea business but we know we cannot do this alone. That’s why we are proud to be part of Tea 2030 and believe this important collaboration is key to improving the livelihoods of millions of people in the sector and building a more sustainable future for tea.”

The report presents four possible scenarios for the year 2030, examining ways in which these challenges may shape the world and the future of the tea industry. They are designed as a tool to help businesses plan for the future and develop sustainable products and business models.

Following extensive research, a series of workshops and collaboration meetings with the Steering Group, three platforms have been identified as priorities for action working together. Delivering improved livelihoods for all within the tea value chain is central to all three platforms.  They are:

1.  Reaching and engaging tea drinkers

• Tea is the world’s most popular beverage after water, and more than three billion cups are drunk each day. The report says that consumer support is essential in making tea a hero crop and generating the investment needed to build a sustainable tea industry.
• Tea 2030 partners will now take action and make recommendations on how to create consumer demand for sustainable tea. “By communicating more creatively on how and where tea is made, brands have a huge opportunity to change the perception of tea among its drinkers and to encourage them to value it as a high-quality, sustainable product,” says the report.
• Coffee drinkers now choose “quality” coffee over instant, and consumers are interested in the provenance and story behind their cup of fairtrade coffee. Marketing teams from brands and retailers have an important role to play in generating consumer demand for better quality tea produced to high social and environmental standards.
• The industry will also look at how to change consumers’ behaviour to reduce the environmental impacts of tea consumption; for example, saving energy and water by boiling only as much as is needed and recycling used tea bags.

2.  Creating more sustainable market mechanisms

• Tea is grown in 35 countries, including some of the world’s poorest, and provides a vital source of employment and export earnings. A second platform will study how to develop sustainable market mechanisms that will benefit players in all parts of the tea “value chain,” particularly growers.
• The report notes that the whole industry will benefit if growers gain more control over their product and a greater share of its value. This will give them the opportunity and motive to develop their agronomy and business skills, improve productivity and professionalism, and ultimately make the sector more resilient and able to cope with changes that lie ahead.
• The industry should review a whole range of issues, including payment terms, the availability of investment finance, the way tea is traded, where it is processed and packaged, and wider questions such as whether to set up a futures market for tea, following the example of coffee.
• The report says traders could play a bigger role encouraging cooperation across the value chain, helping retailers understand the challenges of sustainable production and producers to understand consumer demands.

3.  Developing more sustainable production

Tea is grown in some of the countries most vulnerable to future climate change. Changing weather patterns are already causing problems in some tea-growing areas, and threaten to affect yields and prices. As populations grow, tea is also likely to have to compete with food crops for land, water and scarce resources such as phosphorous for fertiliser.

• “Tea companies need to ensure that their production benefits local communities, by providing employment, by respecting communities and contributing to local services, and by treating the environment sustainably, ensuring that the land maintains productivity in the long term,” says the report.
• The tea industry should not only minimise its impact on the environment but also restore ecosystems through reforestation, increasing biodiversity and improving water management and soil quality, the report says.
• It should also explore how tea growing can deliver additional benefits; for example, mixed planting of tea and food crops, and developing tea estates so that they store carbon — potentially attracting carbon financing.

Ron Mathison, Group MD of James Finlay Limited, said: “Today we face many environmental and social challenges. Some of the challenges are similar to those faced years ago, some are different and require new ways of working. We recognise that we cannot overcome all these challenges on our own and that no business can be truly sustainable in isolation. We must work with all the key stakeholders to explore all the major factors that might influence and shape the future sustainability of the tea industry.” 

For more examples of game-changing multi-sector and -industry #collaboration to solve some of the world's most pressing problems, check out our editorial channel.

Is 2014 the year that sustainability marketing and communication becomes become a big deal for companies? That’s certainly the impression you could draw judging by Unilever’s recent launch of its Project Sunlight campaign, not to mention Chipotle’s "Scarecrow" film and interactive game along with IKEA’s new sustainability awareness-raising "Wonderful Everyday" campaign.

It’s also the overriding conclusion of the fourth annual Social Media Sustainability Index— a comprehensive study of how 475 global companies use social media and online channels to communicate their sustainability and corporate social responsibility activities.

In researching the Index, our team of researchers looked at 4,000 social media sites and platforms. What we found was striking: In 2013, 233 of the 475 companies used social media to communicate sustainability or CSR. That’s a four-fold increase from when we started the Index back in 2010.

Part of the reason for this increase can be explained by the explosion of corporate social media noise in general. But it also seems clear that, as the environmental and societal issues that frame sustainability begin to grow in importance within society and at board level, so companies are increasingly keen to tell the world about just how sustainable they are trying to be.

Twitter, not surprisingly, was the platform most companies felt comfortable talking through. The companies included in our Top 100 (and ranked in the Index) used 86 different Twitter accounts. Naturally, Facebook and YouTube also were very popular for sustainability storytelling while a few ambitious companies including Walmart, Telecom Italia, IBM and Sun Life also embraced platforms such as Instagram, Tumblr and Pinterest (Details are available in the full report).

Yet, while companies are committing more resources to social media sustainability communication and marketing they still have plenty of work to do in how they communicate those stories. All too often Tweets read like press release headlines, blog posts have all the creativity of a scientific instruction manual and YouTube videos are dominated by dry, corporate speak. As a result they only get a handful of views.

For sustainability to win mainstream respect online, companies will need to talk about their environmental and social responsibility work with the same passion and the same creativity with which they promote their core products and services. To do that, companies will need to have a clearer understanding of their audience. It won’t be enough to talk to kindred spirits in the sustainability and CSR community. Neither will they be able to position sustainability just as a niche topic for academics, NGOs and the “green” media.

The Top 10 companies on this year’s Index — Spanish bank BBVA (up from #2 last year), followed by AT&T, IBM, GE, Unilever, Levi Strauss & Co (last year’s leader), Nike, Coca-Cola, BSkyB and Suez Environnement — are already succeeding at bringing sustainability into the mainstream by winning over consumers, customers and their own employees with stories about products and services that are useful, interesting and relevant.

We look forward to tracking how many more companies make that journey in 2014.

The full Social Media Sustainability Index is free to download at sustainly.com.

For more examples of how brands are using #Communications to share their values with consumers, check out our editorial channel.

Greenpeace certainly is on a roll, counting two major successes in as many weeks with commitments from fashion brand Burberry and retailer Primark to eliminate toxic chemicals from all of their products and production processes by 2020. Now the NGO is riding the wave of momentum generated by its global Detox campaign and “Little Monsters” report to Milan fashion week, where it has called out luxury brands including Versace, Louis Vuitton and Dolce & Gabbana for using the same hazardous chemicals used in the manufacturing of fast fashion to produce children’s clothes.

For the report, 27 products from eight luxury fashion brands were tested. 16 of the products tested positive for one or more of the following chemicals: nonylphenol ethoxylates (NPEs), phthalates, per- or polyfluorinated chemicals, and antimony. According to the analysis, the highest concentration of NPEs was detected in a Louis Vuitton-branded ballerina shoe while the highest concentration of PFCs were reportedly found in a Versace jacket. Some of these chemicals, when leached into the environment from factories and the clothes themselves, can accumulate in the world’s waterways and have hormone-disrupting qualities.

“It’s time these luxury brands lived up to their reputation as fashion trendsetters, and started leading the toxic-free fashion revolution," said Chiara Campione, Fashion Duel project leader with Greenpeace Italy. "By committing to Detox their supply chains, brands like Valentino and Burberry have shown that beautiful fashion doesn’t have to cost the earth. What are toxic addicts like Versace, Louis Vuitton, Dior or Dolce & Gabbana waiting for?”

Half-a-dozen investors have filed shareholder resolutions with ten fossil fuel companies, including Exxon Mobil and Chevron, seeking an explanation of their strategies for competing as the world moves toward a low-carbon global economy.

The resolutions focus on potential carbon asset risk, or the possibility that these companies’ present and future fossil fuel-related assets will lose value as various market factors — such as energy efficiency, renewable energy, fuel economy, fuel switching, carbon pollution standards, efforts to curb air pollution and climate policy— increasingly threaten demand for fossil fuels and related infrastructure.

The other fossil fuel companies to receive the resolutions include Southern Company, Hess, Anadarko, Devon, Kinder Morgan, Peabody Energy, FirstEnergy and CONSOL Energy.

Equity valuation of some oil producers could drop by 40 to 60 percent under a low-carbon scenario, according to an HSBC report cited by the investors.

Resolution filers include the Connecticut State Treasurer’s Office, the New York State Comptroller’s Office, Arjuna Capital, As You Sow, First Affirmative Financial Network and the Unitarian Universalist Association. These shareholders say fossil fuel companies are not sufficiently disclosing these risks to their investors, even after a coalition of investors managing over $3 trillion of collective assets sent letters last fall to 45 of the world’s largest fossil fuel companies urging them to report on this very same concern.

“Climate-related trends such as carbon-reducing regulations and clean energy growth are a real threat to fossil fuel companies’ future profitability, but most firms have relegated it to the ‘someday’ pile when it comes to corporate priorities,” said Mindy Lubber, president of the sustainability advocacy group, Ceres, and director of the Investor Network on Climate Risk — which helped coordinate the filing of these resolutions.

The letters and resolutions are part of the Carbon Asset Risk Initiative, coordinated by Ceres and Carbon Tracker, with support from the Global Investor Coalition on Climate Change. Through this program, investors are addressing the growing concern that demand for fossil fuels will be less in a low-carbon future and that no more than one-third of proven reserves of fossil fuels can be consumed prior to 2050 if the world is to achieve its goal of limiting average global temperature increases to 2°C, as outlined by the International Energy Agency.

As part of this initiative, investors have asked fossil fuel companies to assess — under both a business-as-usual scenario and a low-carbon scenario — the viability of capital expenditure plans, the risk of stranded assets, physical risk to operations from climate change impacts, and the affect of these risks on the workforce.

Investors have been much more vocal about climate change in recent years, achieving notable victories during the 2013 shareholder proxy season, with a near-record 110 shareholder resolutions filed with 94 U.S. companies on corporate sustainability challenges such as climate change, supply chain issues and water-related risks.

Low rent prices, public-private-nonprofit partnerships, and hip incubators are converging to create an ideal environment in Detroit for social entrepreneurs, leading forward-thinking startups to increasingly reject the saturated and cutthroat environments of Silicon Valley and New York City for a bit of Midwestern Nice. As the city emerges from the ashes of its Chapter 9 filing last year, here are 5 startups revitalizing Detroit while pursuing the Triple Bottom Line.

Hantz Woodlands

Hantz Woodlands is transforming blight to beauty as vacant, abandoned properties are converted to fields for new agricultural production. Their dream is an ambitious one: create the world’s largest urban farm, in Detroit. They plan to purchase 200 acres of land this year from the city of Detroit. This would generate tax revenue from land that was a liability for the city, create local jobs, strengthen the local food system, and improve quality of life for residents.

Batch Brewing Company

Winner of the 2013 Comercia Hatch Detroit contest, Batch Brewing Company will be Detroit's first nanobrewery. Producing beer in smaller quantities than a microbrewery, Batch is bringing a national trend and proven business model--not to mention a huge selection of beer--back to Detroit. Batch will also give back to the community through its monthly rotating "Feel Good Tap," featuring a unique beer and new charity partner each month. To celebrate the launch of the Feel Good beer, Batch will host a monthly event featuring local music and artists. The art will remain on installation for the subsequent month available for sale with 100 percent of the profits going back to the artist.

Fresh Corner Café L3C

Fresh Corner Café L3C is a mission-driven fresh food delivery and catering service formed in response to the troubling lack of access to high-quality healthy foods in Detroit. They connect an expansive network of neighborhood stores with a burgeoning local food supply in order to ensure that all Detroiters — including the 70,000 households that do not own a private vehicle — can easily and always access a Good Meal.

Rebel Nell

Founders of Rebel Nell, Amy Peterson and Diana Russell, are using pieces of broken graffiti — or paint flaking off old murals — to create pendants, earrings and cufflinks. As part of its mission, the company is dedicated to hiring disadvantaged women to help them move from a life of dependence to one of self-reliance, overcoming barriers to employment through the fruits of their own labor — and creating beautiful art at the same time.

Inventev

Dave Stenson has made a career in the auto industry with nearly three decades working in engineering and product development for General Motors. Today, he is pushing forward a cleantech automotive startup focused on hybrid electric commercial trucks. With idling diesel trucks costing America billions each year in fuel, workers’ health, and harmful CO2 and NOx emissions, the emergence of high-performing electric commercial vehicles has the potential for far-reaching impacts. In addition, trucks outfitted with the Inventev system are able to supply temporary mobile, and clean, energy for accessory equipment, like bucket trucks at job sites, or homes experiencing temporary power outages during emergencies. Such technology will enable partner Pacific Gas & Electric to keep homes and businesses powered during maintenance and repair work. Inventev is based in Detroit's TechTown business accelerator.

For more examples of #startups increasing social and environmental sustainability through disruptive innovation, check out the editorial channel.

What would happen if your company ceased to exist? 

Would journalists write headlines heralding your past achievements, or would their stories simply add you to a list of bygones? Would analysts express disappointment or would they point to indicators that made your death predictable? Would employees wonder how it could have ended, or would they have known it was inevitable? Would customers mourn your passing, or would the demise of your brand go unnoticed?

Thousands of companies come and go every year, barely leaving a trace of their existence. Even many large corporations are easily forgotten — like those in the airline industry. Remember TWA? Once the largest domestic airline, TWA introduced many groundbreaking developments and embodied the glamour of air travel. But hit by the pressures of de-regulation, the airline suffered through bankruptcies and was eventually acquired by American Airlines, which quickly discarded the brand name. In my home town of St. Louis, TWA went from dominating the airport to a fleeting memory in just a decade. By the end, the value of the TWA brand had diminished only to the route it flew — which were easily replaced.

Compare that to what would happen if Southwest closed its doors. Or Singapore Airlines. Or Virgin America. These companies have built powerful brands that would be seriously missed if they ceased operations. Who would give us the freedom and fun that Southwest is known for? Who would pamper us and attend to our every need like Singapore does? Who would design the travel experience with Virgin America’s combination of service and style?

How do you build the kind of brand that would be missed? How do you carve out such a distinctive position and create such a powerful emotional connection? You drill down to the core of your existence to identify the essential, enduring value of your brand— and then you design and run your business to execute relentlessly on that core brand essence. When what you stand for is clearly expressed and delivered in everything you do, every day, you make an indelible mark on people’s hearts and minds.

Being crystal clear about your brand purpose is critical. Some organizations enjoy that clarity, but for those that don’t, there are several ways to achieve it. One is an exercise I often use with my clients: writing a Brand Obituary.

It’s not the most pleasant thought, but it focuses the mind to imagine what it would be like if indeed your brand ceased to exist.

In this exercise, it helps to think of your brand as though it were a person — the type of person the brand would be if it came to life today. I ask my clients to think of their brand in its totality, as all that the brand entails — and on its best days, when it’s executing with excellence.

Pretend that you are a reporter for a local newspaper who must write the obituary for your brand, which just passed away today. This invented scenario can help you uncover the true nature of your brand.

Here are some questions to answer in the obituary:

• What was the brand’s biggest accomplishment in life? What will it be remembered for?
• Who did the brand leave behind? What did the brand leave unaccomplished? Who will mourn or miss the brand, and why?
• What lessons can be learned from the brand’s life? What can be learned in the wake of its death?
• Now that the brand is gone, what will take its place?

Once you’ve completed the column, write a headline to capture the essence of the obituary – that headline, in turn, often captures the essence of your brand.

I often instruct members of the executive team, or a cross-functional group, to write their obituaries individually and then share them with the group in a working session. As the columns are shared aloud, there is usually some discomfort (talking about the brand’s demise is understandably not a desirable activity), but there are always moments of revelation. Common themes emerge and people start to see their purpose, their core beliefs, and what sets the brand apart with great clarity. From that point, the brand essence is just a few pen strokes away.

Positive thinking is powerful and envisioning success is a popular exercise among athletes and executives alike. But sometimes taking the opposite approach can be just as important. By imagining a future without your brand, you can create one in which it thrives and makes an impression that is exceptional, sustainable and memorable.

This post first appeared on the Harvard Business Review blog on January 28, 2014.

Kellogg Company has announced a commitment to work with its global palm oil suppliers to source fully traceable palm oil, “produced in a manner that's environmentally responsible, socially beneficial, and economically viable.”

To do so, Kellogg is working through its supply chain — from suppliers to processors to growers — to ensure that its palm oil is sourced from plantations that uphold the company's commitment to protect forests and peat lands, as well as human and community rights.

To achieve its goals, Kellogg says it will require all global palm oil suppliers to trace the oil to plantations that are independently verified as legally compliant; adherent to the company's principles for protecting forests, peat lands, and communities; and compliant with all principles and criteria of the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO), of which Kellogg is a member. Suppliers must comply with the requirement by Dec. 31, 2015, or be working to close any gaps identified in their action plans.

"By partnering closely with our suppliers to meet these expectations, we will work together to address the important topic of deforestation," said Diane Holdorf, Kellogg’s Chief Sustainability Officer. "Every year we make significant progress against this important priority, and as we seek to further advance these goals, we will continue to report annually on our progress."

The commitment is garnering support from external stakeholders such as Green Century Capital Management, an investment advisory firm that provides conscientious investors opportunities to direct their funds toward companies that exhibit — or in ways that encourage — environmentally responsible corporate behavior. Green Century, a long-term Kellogg shareholder, worked closely with them in updating this commitment.

"Green Century is excited to support Kellogg on this important palm oil journey, which will ensure the company's core values are upheld throughout the supply chain and create long-term value for both shareholders and the environment," said Lucia von Reusner, Shareholder Advocate at Green Century Capital Management.

Sharon Smith, campaign manager with the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS)’s Tropical Forest & Climate Initiative, pointed out the broader implications of Kellogg’s announcement: “Though the cereal company’s ingredients and climate change might seem like apples and oranges, the reduction of climate change emissions from palm oil production is directly dependent on the demand for this oil. If companies start demanding palm oil that doesn’t contribute to deforestation, isn’t grown on peatlands and doesn’t exploit human rights, palm oil producers on the ground will start to provide a better product. This better oil will ultimately protect our environment by reducing emissions.

“We hope that the commitments Kellogg’s outlined soon become industry requirements. We’d like to see all palm oil producers making oils with these values and companies walk away from suppliers that cannot prove their palm oil is deforestation-free, peat-free and conflict-free.”

In addition, Kellogg says it is:

• Requiring that 100 percent of its palm oil comes from suppliers that also are RSPO members operating in compliance with RSPO principles and criteria.
• Requiring through its Global Supplier Code of Conduct that suppliers commit to ethical business practices, respecting human rights, and reducing their impact on the environment.
• Supporting the Consumer Goods Forum (CGF) pledge to achieve zero net deforestation by 2020.

Palm oil has gained more attention recently as its prevalence as an ingredient — in everything from food and fuel to beauty products and cleaning agents — has dramatically increased its demand, and the devastating impacts of its cultivation on rainforests. UCS recently released an infographic to continue to raise consumer awareness of the importance of changing our practices around the sourcing of this ubiquitous ingredient:

“So far, Kellogg’s is riding high,” Smith said. “But the real question is whether the company is moving fast enough and aggressively enough to make this commitment a reality in time to address a rapidly changing climate?”

While a number of global consumer-goods brands — including Hershey, L’Oréal, Unilever and Starbucks— have announced various levels of commitment to responsible palm oil sourcing in recent months, dozens more — including Kellogg— source their oil from Singapore-based Wilmar International, the world’s largest palm oil processor, which accounts for over one-third of the global palm oil processing market. In December, after years of pressure from Greenpeace, NGOs and consumers around the world, Wilmar committed to a no-deforestation policy. While Greenpeace says the policy has the potential to be a landmark win for the world’s forests and the people that depend on them for their livelihoods, it now falls to Wilmar to follow through.

To learn more about how companies worldwide are cleaning up their supply chains, check out our editorial channel.

Consumer demand, government legislation and technology advances will propel sustainable packaging to a $244 billion market by 2018, according to a new report by Smithers Para.

The Future of Sustainable Packaging to 2018 details market sizes, projections and five-year sustainable packaging trends to 2018, focusing on key drivers, trends and technologies shaping the sustainable packaging industry. The report breaks down sales by type, end-use market and geographic region, and provides comprehensive coverage of the global market and supply chain.

Sustainability programs are increasingly being seen as a source of innovation that can help in differentiating a company by appealing to the consciences of consumers, the report says. These programs also serve as a platform for new product and market development.

According to the study, the most common sustainable packaging trends are:

• Downsizing/lightweighting of packaging
• Increased recycling and waste recovery
• Increased use of recycled content
• Increased use of renewably sourced materials
• Improvements in packaging and logistical efficiency

In the recycled material packaging segment, paper packaging is the largest market, followed by metal, glass and plastic. While the demand for recycled plastics remains strong, the material faces several challenges, including lack of infrastructure for collection and sorting, international market competition for existing recovered materials and compliance with requirements related to food and drug content.

Driven by demand for sustainable packaging in countries like China and India, the biggest growth comes from the Asian market. The demand for sustainable practices is driving the market for greener packaging, which is boosted by a growing affluent and health-conscious middle-class population. Smithers Pira forecasts that Asia will be the largest market for sustainable packaging in 2018, accounting for 32 percent of the overall market.

The report concludes that the issue of sustainable packaging will continue to grow in importance over the next decade and is predicted to become the number one challenge facing companies, beating cost and other issues by 2023.

Innovation in packaging has a wide reach, particular in the food and beverage industry. European beer maker Carlsberg recently teamed up with a group of global suppliers to develop the next generation of packaging products that are optimized for recycling and reuse, otherwise known as “upcycling.” The companies will use the Cradle to Cradle Design Framework®, created by professor Michael Braungart and EPEA Internationale Umweltforschung GmbH, to develop a Cradle-to-Cradle® roadmap and assessment of their products.

And last year, UK paper manufacturer James Cropper announced it has developed an innovative recycling process that incorporates cocoa husk waste from chocolate production into unbleached cellulose fiber to produce a food-grade paper. The company says turning the otherwise wasted skins of many of the 3.5 million metric tons of cocoa beans produced each year into paper could be a significant breakthrough for the food and packaging industries.

For more examples of innovations in sustainable #packaging, check out the editorial channel.

Between brands who use misleading ecological or social claims in their campaigns and those who decide not to communicate at all, there is a balance to find. How can companies communicate their social responsibility commitments in a relevant and effective way? What are the trends for 2014 and the years to come? 30 French experts answered.

French regulations are forcing companies to publish more and more information on the social and environmental impacts of their activities and their social commitments (Article 225 of the Grenelle II law). For their part, citizens are disillusioned about the brands’ CSR discourses and do not hesitate to criticize, especially on social networks. And the "police of greenwashing" are watching and denouncing any companies that use misleading ecological or social claims.

In this context, how can companies communicate their commitments to social responsibility in a relevant and effective way? What are the trends for 2014 and the years to come? At the end of 2013, at the request of the consultancy Sircome, 30 French experts in corporate social responsibility communications and sustainability marketing shared their visions and key points. There are four main results.

Openness and humility facing the complexity of CSR issues

CSR topics are particularly complex: multiple and overlapping environmental and social impacts, sharp scientific methods and tools to evaluate, multiplicity of labels and standards, etc. Moreover, these issues have been recently and not thoroughly addressed in marketing and communication training programs. A first step is therefore to raise expertise in this field.

Sustainability is a journey that raises many questions and often challenges conventional wisdom within the company. To be successful and create values, internal stakeholders (directors, managers, employees) and external stakeholders (suppliers, customers, NGOs) have to be involved, first to better understand their perceptions and expectations.

In France, a relevant example is given by Orange, the telecommunications operator, which leads an active policy of listening to its stakeholders. Thus, a webpage allows each person to discover the twelve areas of the group CSR activities and select the three of greatest importance.

Bringing the actors together around commitments linked to the business strategy

Ten years ago, creating a Sustainable Development Department was seen as a breakthrough. Today, experts note that the stakes are sometimes confined to that direction, instead of being spread across the entire company. And sustainable development is too often seen as a constraint rather than as a source of innovation and wealth.

Above all, companies must be deeply engaged in identifying and reducing their environmental and social impacts, in a coherent way with the overall strategy and in response to the stakeholders’ concerns. These commitments must be linked to products and services. Mobilizing employees is key to success.

Les 2 vaches (Stonyfield Farm / Danone) is an interesting example in this regard. Marketing is at the service of the company’s "mission": Move society towards a more transparent food system, with more meaning and fun. Employees deploy their energy and skills to convince all the actors in the chain to engage in organic: farmers and consumers of course, but also bankers, agricultural colleges, distributors, etc (see our interview of Les 2 vaches’ CEO— in French). 

A communication strategy and resources in line with digital risks and uses

Web 2.0 tools are transforming society. French consumers seek information about products and services, exchange freely their views and experiences and sometimes try to put pressure on companies (via online petitions, for example). New forms of consumption (sharing, exchange, loan, repair, direct sales, bundling) and innovation (co-design, co-production, open innovation) are growing.

Certainly, reputational risks are increasing, but also opportunities! Companies can provide the means to reduce the first and seize the second. Training marketing and communications teams to these (r)evolutions seems essential. Well-supported employees can also become ambassadors of the company’s CSR strategy. Digital tools are a great way to enter into conversation with influencers and consumers to listen to their questions and answer in real time, if possible.

Thus, the banking group BNP Paribas opened in 2013 a forum on its website and initiated the conversation on Twitter around the hashtag #banqueresponsable (sustainablebanking). During several months, users were able to freely express their ideas and opinions. A community manager, expert in the company’s CSR policy, answered them with great responsiveness.

Towards a CSR communications platform, delivering honest, varied and challenging discourses

Discourses about the company’s commitments must be sincere and present actions whose effects are evaluated. They should also highlight the obstacles and inevitable progress margins. Speech alone is not enough, even sitting on evidence such as labels: stakeholders require more information on practical operations connected to the products’ quality.

Communication practitioners often misjudge campaigns about sustainability: binding, boring, sanctimonious, not very "sexy" ... They are wrong. As highlighted by several experts, communicating on sustainability issues can be innovative, creative and motivating. The rationality of the CSR discourse must be accompanied by relationship, emotion and projection in a more desirable and sustainable future.

Finally, many experts think the CSR report has become a "monster," primarily intended for extra-financial rating agencies. But it is expected to merge with the annual report. Some experts also invite companies to establish a communications platform for bringing CSR results, commitments and societal goals of the company to the attention of the parties involved, in forms and through appropriate channels, throughout the year.

For example, the Bel Group (The Laughing Cow, Kiri, Leerdammer, Boursin) has posted on its website several educational videos. In a simple and visual way, they explain what CSR is and the various commitments of the group. Hence, information is accessible to all those who know nothing about CSR (that is to say, the majority of users) and also to those who will never make the effort to read written content on the subject (but for whom video may be of interest). More detailed content is available under the videos for those wishing to deepen the subject, and experts are invited to consult the CSR report.

Com-rse.fr: a website to deepen the reflection

For those who wish to go further, I invite you to join the debate on Twitter using the hashtag #ComRSE and visit http://www.com-rse.fr/ (in French). You will find all the experts’ advice, detailed analysis, several examples, a series of temporal references, a glossary and a selection of resources (books, guides or websites) for further reflection and action on the challenges of CSR communications.

For more examples of how companies are using #Communications to share their values with consumers, check out our editorial channel.

The glory of abundance is not necessarily lost and visions of a flourishing future are not naïve. There are strong signals pointing to the possibility of a thriving global economy — with health, dignity and happiness for all involved. The leading brands of tomorrow are seeing a wealth of opportunities in pursuing that possibility. They are reimagining their role in society, redesigning the ways they deliver value, and regenerating economic, environmental and social benefits as a result.

Smart brands planning for the long term are making sure their products and services are top-notch competitors in the market, while also solving social problems and alleviating, or altogether eliminating, resource tensions along the way. More and more are also starting to reach out in authentic voices, lifting artificial communication barriers and inviting key stakeholders on interactive, co-creative journeys. As we gear up to host hundreds of brands at the biggest annual gathering of the global Sustainable Brands community in early June, let's take a look at what proved to be the 10 most popular talks from Sustainable Brands events in 2013.

Here they are, in no particular order:

1. A Future Without Tradeoffs: BMW i's Path to a Sustainably Beautiful Future, by Uwe Dreher, Head of Marketing, BMW i— Uwe shares how the BMW i series of electric cars, featuring the compact urban i3 and the dynamic i8 sportscar, are being built from the ground up as entirely new concepts with the goal of being 'uncompromisingly sustainable' for the next age of mobility.

2. The New World of Shared Value: Mapping the Benefits of Project Phoenix, by Paulette Frank, VP of Sustainability, Johnson & Johnson— Paulette tells the story of Johnson & Johnson's Project Phoenix, which has taken on the unexpected and highly impactful challenge of turning a 'waste co-operative' in Brazil (think waste picking or scavenging) into a sustainable business enterprise.

3. Designing a Restorative Supply Chain through Co-Innovation, by Miriam Turner, Assistant Vice President Co-Innovation, Interface— Miriam presents the Net-Works initiative, a project in which Interface finds and feeds discarded fishing nets into an ambitious post-consumer nylon recycling process.

4. The Power of Storytelling: Lessons in Consumer Engagement, Activation and Loyalty, by Jonah Sachs, Co-founder and CEO, Free Range Studios— Jonah, an internationally recognized storyteller and author of Winning the Story Wars: Why Those Who Tell (and Live) the Best Stories Will Rule the Future, gives tips on leveraging storytelling as a tool for corporate communications.

5. The Economic Benefits of Circular Business Models, by Jamie Butterworth, CEO, Ellen MacArthur Foundation— Jamie helps us navigate opportunities in creating, measuring and communicating business and brand value in the context of innovating for a circular economy. The amount of market analysis describing the opportunities in profiting from a circular economy is growing thanks to the Foundation's research with McKinsey and others.

For more conversations like these, join us this June 2-5 at SB'14 San Diego. We will be moving the conversation forward with a focus on reimagining what's possible and redesigning our brands for the regenerative economy of tomorrow. Learn more

6. What's Brewing: Embedding a Unified Business Case Approach to Drive Product, Brand, Marketing and Operations at the Same Time, by Jim Hanna, Director of Environmental Impact, Starbucks— Jim argues that some of the techniques and arguments used to make a business case for corporate investment in sustainability are not working as desired. He shares his views on building a 'unified' business case approach that works equally well for everyone.

7. Disruptive Innovation and the Rise of the Values-Based Economy, by Tessa Wernink, Director of Communications, Fairphone— Tessa guides us through the motivation and respective advantages of Fairphone's social innovation model, while explaining why the startup sees itself as part of 'the rise of the values-based economy.'

8. From the Inside Out: Inspiration, Transformation and Change Management, by An Helena Van Hoofstat, Change Management Specialist, Kering— Kering, the parent company of PUMA, Gucci, Stella McCartney and multiple other brands, is considered one of the few most impressive corporate leaders in sustainability globally. In this presentation An Helena shares both the vision and on-the-ground tactics behind the company's efforts to create an employee base that is up for the challenges of the next economy.

9. Internal Carbon Fees to the Rescue, by Rob Bernard, Head of Sustainability, Microsoft& Bruce Rauhe, Walt Disney Imagineering, Disney— A select few companies are starting to incentivize financially their own business units internally in favor of reducing carbon footprints, effectively charging said business units in some fashion if they go beyond their 'carbon budgets'. Microsoft and Disney are two companies that are serious about this approach and there is a lot to learn from the early days of their efforts.

10. Measuring the Core Business Benefits of a Social Value Proposition, by Jason Saul, Founder & CEO, Mission Measurement— Jason discusses the concept of a 'social value proposition,' what kinds of value it can deliver, and how to measure them. In the process, he underlines the distinction between socially conscious consumers and consumers that respond to core-product 'social value drivers.'

As part of a massive brand relaunch, seafood quick-service restaurant chain Long John Silver's (LJS) is on a mission to get more US consumers to "Think Fish."

The new campaign promotes seafood as a dining option that’s healthy for people and for the world at large: Two new TV spots point out advantages of fish over meats such as beef and pork, while a third, called "Final frontier," shows cows confined on a farm while a narrator asks, "Anyone ever heard of free range? Get your next meal from the real frontier — fish sustainably harvested from the wildest place on earth."

The sentiment behind the message — promoting seafood as a more sustainable protein source than land-based meats — is true in the best-case scenario, where the fish is responsibly sourced, and one that is smart to push to American consumers, who eat much more meat than fish. On the “Think Fish” campaign page on its website, LJS — the largest seafood restaurant chain in the US — asserts that all of the fish that it serves is “sustainably caught and harvested.” Specifically, the chain says it gets its wild-caught fish from “the deep waters of the Bering Sea” and harvests its lobster from “the icy shores of Northern Europe,” and a spokesperson told Ad Age that “non-core items such as shrimp are farmed.”

No further supplier information is available, but the site goes on to assert: “We continually look to partner with certified and sustainable suppliers in order to provide the best tastes the ocean has to offer. In 1989, we were the first fish house to adopt Alaska Pollock to curb over-fishing in the Pacific. Plus, we championed the 1998 American Fisheries Act that served to create quotas for commercial fishing.”

Owned by Yum! Brands (Taco Bell, KFC, Pizza Hut) until 2011, LJS is on a mission to revamp its image after taking a blow in July, when the Center for Science in the Public Interest called the chain's Big Catch plate "the worst restaurant meal in America," weighing in with a heart-clogging 33 grams of trans fat. Since then, LJS discontinued the Big Catch, committed to eliminating trans fats from its menu by the end of 2013, unveiled a menu featuring meals under 600 calories and is now touting the sustainability benefits of its responsibly sourced seafood. But the lack of specificity of supplier information means consumers will have to take LJS’ word on that.

A growing number of retailers, brands and suppliers have committed to sustainable fishing practices, many of them through certifications or partnerships with organizations such as the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) and FishWise. Even McDonald’s has committed to using only MSC-certified Pollock in its Filet-o-Fish sandwich and Fish McBites. Certifications, while not always a guarantee of best practice, provide a level of oversight that consumers trust; by not providing any information on their supply chain, LJS is setting itself up for additional scrutiny. If Mars Petcare can MSC-certify the fish used in its Sheba cat food, what is preventing LJS from attaining a similar stamp of approval?

A report released in August from the Center for Culinary Development (CCD) Innovation and Packaged Facts revealed that growing consumer awareness of the vulnerable state of the global environment and food supply, along with increased education about ecologically sound foods, is leading to a long-term increase in environmentally conscious eating. Between that and the growing consumer demand for corporate transparency, I suspect discerning seafoodies will soon expect LJS to back up its sustainability claims with more than just pretty messaging. 

For more examples of how brands are using #Communications to share their values with consumers, check out our editorial channel.

China spent more on smart grids than the US for the first time in 2013, with the $4.3 billion it invested accounting for nearly a third of the world’s total, Bloomberg reports.

Though global spending rose almost 5 percent to $14.9 billion, North American investment declined as much as 33 percent to $3.6 billion, according to data released Tuesday by Bloomberg New Energy Finance.

Smart grids permit power generators and users to monitor usage, which helps utilities to adjust supply to demand and reduce costs by saving energy in transmission. Bloomberg says China has installed almost 250 million smart meters, enabling customers to provide immediate feedback to utilities that are able to use the data to set pricing and smooth fluctuations in consumption.

“Asian and European markets will drive growth through 2020, while in North America the focus will continue to shift from hardware to software as utilities look to squeeze additional value out of the vast amounts of grid data now available,” Colin McKerracher, a senior analyst on smart technologies for energy at BNEF, said in a statement.

Europe is expected to have 180 million meters installed by the end of the decade from 55 million now, BNEF says.

Spending on distribution automation, technology used to locate and automatically fix faults on the grid, rose to $5.4 billion in 2013 from $4.4 billion in 2012, driven in part by the increased use of power generated from renewable sources.

A 2012 study by the Smart Grid Consumer Collaborative, an industry group whose members include electric-utility companies and vendors of technology used to create “smart” power grids, found that energy efficiency is as important to low-income consumers as to the general population. The study also found that low-income consumers’ environmental attitudes align fairly closely with those of the general population.

Most low-income consumers (72 percent) believe that global warming is real, and that saving energy helps the environment (82 percent). 80 percent report that they try to minimize their impact on the environment through daily actions. A quarter of the low-income consumers surveyed for the study felt that the potential benefits of smart power grids — including preventing power outages, obtaining near real-time information on their energy use, and making it easier to connect renewable energy sources to the grid — were important enough that they would be willing to pay more for them.

In related news, Bosch recently expanded its offering beyond the design of home appliances to form a new company, Bosch Connected Devices and Solutions GmbH, for the Internet of things and services: The company will supply compact electronic products and software expertise designed to make devices and objects intelligent and web-enabled across a broad range of applications. It will initially focus on sensor-based applications for intelligently networked homes, or “smart homes,” as well as for activities in the fields of traffic, transportation and logistics.

To learn more about how organizations are using IT and #BigData to drive sustainability innovation, check out the editorial channel.

An EU-funded program is developing a method for making plastic packaging from the fermented wastewater of processed juice, which could save the beverage industry millions while tapping into growing consumer demand for eco-friendly products.

Through the PHBOTTLE project, researchers are working to create value from industrial residues by developing them into a new biodegradable material. The project is focusing on juice-processing wastewater because it contains high concentrations of organic substances, including fermentable sugars such as glucose, fructose and maltose.

“The main tangible result of the project will be a new bottle made of biodegradable material, which will be obtained through the fermentation of wastewater,” project coordinator Ana Valera explained. “The project should also contribute to the creation of new jobs, because new biotechnology facilities will be required to properly develop this new material.”

Due to the fact that the levels of these fermentable sugars can reach 70 percent of the total organic load, researchers believe juice wastewater is an ideal and cheap source of raw material to produce an organic compound called PHB, a type of biopolymer.

The European Commission says PHB has several useful properties as a raw material for food packaging. It is moisture- and vapour-resistant, won’t dissolve on contact with water, has see-through properties and offers good protection against oxygen, all of which help to slow food spoilage. In other words, the compound is perfect for making biodegradable juice packaging.

Food packaging is one of the most visible sources of waste, with over 67 million tonnes generated in the EU every year. Cutting down this waste would mean reduced energy use and carbon dioxide emissions, as well as less waste treatment costs.

Due for completion in 2015, PHBOTTLE will show how ‘green chemistry’ — a scientific approach to developing products and processes that reduce the use and generation of hazardous substances — can benefit European industry and consumers, and lead to new innovations.

While the main goal of PHBOTTLE is to develop new biodegradable food packaging solutions, potential non-food packaging uses, such as cosmetics, and even non-packaging applications such as automotive parts, will also be examined. For researchers, the project is providing them with better insight into potential uses for waste materials across a range of sectors, and how these materials can best be processed. Throughout the project, particular attention is being paid to the stability of food packed in the new material during storage. Food safety and quality is important in the development of the new materials and processes.

Last year, Italian biotech firm Bio-on developed a bioplastic called PHA (Polyhydroxyalkanoate), made from agricultural processing waste materials, which is 100 percent biodegradable in water and soil and can be used as a substrate for electric circuits. When combined with suitable nanofillers, the polymer can act as an electricity conductor, with the potential of replacing plastics in most electronics.

BASF also announced a strategic manufacturing partnership with Heritage Plastics, Inc. to produce the chemical company’s ecovio® compostable bioplastic products in North America. The partnership enables BASF to expand manufacturing of its ecovio biopolymers, which were previously only produced in Europe.

To learn more about innovative ways companies worldwide are turning waste into resources, check out the #WasteNot editorial channel.

For more examples of innovations in sustainable #packaging, check out the editorial channel.