LEADERSHIP -
Earlier this month, He Named Me Malala, the feature-length documentary on the inspiring story of Nobel Laureate and girls’ education activist Malala Yousafzai, opened in theatres across the U.S. and Canada. To accompany the release, her charity, the Malala Fund, launched a Stand #withMalala global campaign to encourage people to stand up and take action for education rights.
CLEANTECH -
Equator Kenya, a food-processing company that produces African Bird’s Eye Chilies for export, has joined the Business Call to Action (BCtA) with a commitment to provide climate-smart technologies, training and market linkages to 8,000 smallholder farmers along the Kenyan coast.This business is designed to reduce the crop risks posed by climate change, which will help increase incomes among the farmers — 6,000 of whom are women — as well as improve crop yields and quality.
ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE -
The world’s most innovative leaders know that social businesses are more profitable businessesConsumers around the world, from Vancouver and Toronto to Shanghai and New York, believe that a company’s social role goes beyond simply meeting legal requirements, complying with ethical standards, creating jobs and paying taxes. Research shows that consumers everywhere expect companies to act as social leaders, using their business expertise to lead social change.
NEW METRICS -
“No country can get ahead if it leaves what amounts to half the population behind.”
This quote from the McKinsey report, Economic Benefit of Gender Equality, provided a soft opening to a session focused on the data and facts pointing to the benefits of gender diversity in business.
ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE -
“Women challenge the status quo because we never are it.”Addressing a (thankfully) diverse audience of sustainability professionals in London, UK, last month at an event hosted by The Crowd, Cindy Gallop -– a global activist for the gender equality movement -– pulled no punches in reminding business leaders why women are essential to making corporations fit for a better world.
PRESS RELEASE -
Report chronicles the company's gains in Diversity, Philanthropy and Sustainability among employees and communities Las Vegas, Sept. 8, 2015 – MGM Resorts International (NYSE: MGM) employee volunteers build a house from the ground-up, and hand over the keys to an elated single mother and her children. Tens of millions of dollars are spent conducting business with minority- and women-owned enterprises, supporting the company’s strategic objectives and commitment to diversity. MGM Resorts and NRG Renew partner to install one of the nation’s largest rooftop solar arrays at Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino, stretching a massive 20 acres.
STAKEHOLDER TRENDS AND INSIGHTS -
As World Water Week draws to a close in Stockholm, Sweden, issues of gender equality have been brought into sharp focus with a growing acknowledgement among business leaders that the global water burden still falls overwhelmingly on women.
PRODUCT, SERVICE & DESIGN INNOVATION -
Today, President Obama hosted the first-ever White House Demo Day focused on inclusive entrepreneurship, welcoming startup founders from diverse walks of life and from across the country to showcase their innovations. The President also announced new public- and private-sector commitments that promise to provide more Americans with the opportunity to pursue their bold, game-changing ideas.
CHEMISTRY, MATERIALS & PACKAGING -
Coca-Cola has launched a new campaign to discourage stereotyping and prejudice. In time for the Muslim holiday of Ramadan, the beverage giant will remove labels from its soda cans throughout the Middle East.The company explained its rationale behind the campaign in a statement: "In a time when equality and abolishing prejudices is a hot topic for discussion around the world, how does one of the leading brands like Coca-Cola join in the conversation? In the Middle East, during the month of Ramadan, one of the world's most well-known labels has removed its own label, off its cans, in an effort to promote a world without labels and prejudices."The no-label cans feature one blank side and one side reading: “Labels are for cans, not for people.”
MARKETING AND COMMS -
Pope Francis has been creating news in sustainability circles lately and lots of it.Why? Well, it’s not just because his message of peace, simplicity, and pursuit of the common good resonates with millions the world round, but also because his beliefs are uniform and undivided in ways political, corporate, union or community leaders can seldom afford to be: It is within each of us, he says without preaching or scolding, to be better people, more caring, more generous and, of course, more considerate of the environment.
PRODUCT, SERVICE & DESIGN INNOVATION -
Just 13 of the 200 highest paid CEOs in the U.S. are female, according to data published recently by the New York Times. While gender parity in the workplace is advancing worldwide and many women are heeding the call to ‘Lean in’, progress in changing outcomes is generally slow.
LEADERSHIP -
Companies, especially publicly owned corporations, carefully manage their image and messages. But this age of social media, changes in consumer tastes and demands for increased transparency have caused more companies to be bolder, especially when it comes to sustainability and social responsibility issues. One such company is Starbucks, which has often taken controversial stances on the Affordable Healthcare Act, minimum wage and now, race relations.
STAKEHOLDER TRENDS AND INSIGHTS -
On Sunday 8th March, the world celebrated the economic, political and social achievements of women - past, present and future. The theme for this year’s International Women’s Day - Empowering Women, Empowering Humanity – could not have been more accurate.
SUPPLY CHAIN -
We’ve heard a lot recently about 2015 promising to be the year of sustainability — with global conferences on sustainable development and climate change, new UK legislation fighting modern day slavery, and the forthcoming UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), set to shape the global remit for social, economic and environmental development.One of the key goals of the SDGs is to achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls around the world. With this in mind, the post-2015 development agenda offers a great opportunity to drive lasting change for women’s rights and equality.
PRODUCT, SERVICE & DESIGN INNOVATION -
Digital currency, aka cryptocurrency, is shaking up the financial industry’s entrenched institutions, and now its potential for doing good is dawning — as it enables accountability and financial sovereignty one mobile click at a time.Stellar, a nonprofit building a global digital platform for money transfer, is partnering with open-source text messaging network, Vumi, to empower young women in South Africa in an aptly titled program, Give a Girl a Savings Account.
THE NEXT ECONOMY -
From historic climate change marches and bold advocacy by companies on the price of carbon to global economic volatility and heated debates on inequality, 2014 was a year of accelerated awareness and action for sustainable development.Our Ten Trends for 2015 distills SustainAbility’s thinking over the past year and forecasts the issues that will shape the sustainable development agenda in 2015.
MARKETING AND COMMS -
Sport England, previously known as the English Sports Council, has launched an ad campaign called “This Girl Can,” which uses real women to promote exercise among females.The campaign’s first 90-second film, aiming to inspire women of all shapes and sizes to get off the couch, has generated more than 2.9 million views on YouTube in its first week and trended at number two on Twitter. FCB Inferno, the London agency behind the film, described it as "a celebration of active women designed to make the attainable aspirational."
PRODUCTS AND DESIGN -
GoldieBlox, the startup behind “Engineering Toys for Girls” and star capital-raiser on Kickstarter, may have blazed a trail by marketing construction toys to girls. But it may be the venerable, and long-criticized, LEGO brand that finally has gotten it just right in terms of how to properly engage this largely overlooked segment of its audience.LEGO recently parried years of criticism with a new TV ad that focuses on the imaginative powers of play in young girls — a paean to the relationship that they can have with toys that traditionally haven’t been marketed to them, as dolls and costumes have — and a call for them to #KeepBuilding.
MARKETING AND COMMS -
A group of angry-looking men surround a woman seated alone in the desert, and proceed to "stone" her … with flower petals, in a striking (no pun intended) new campaign by United Colors of Benetton in support of UN Women (the United Nations agency that promotes gender equality and empowerment of women), launched to commemorate the UN International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women (November 25).
LEADERSHIP -
53 California-based companies, including Apple, Google and Facebook, have received perfect scores in an annual report assessing lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender (LGBT) workplace inclusion.The 2015 Corporate Equality Index (CEI) is a project of the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), the nation’s largest LGBT civil rights organization. As the national benchmarking tool on corporate policies and practices related to LGBT workplace equality, the 2015 CEI unveiled that a record 366 businesses — spanning nearly every industry and geography — earned a top score of 100 percent and the distinction of “Best Places to Work for LGBT Equality.”