MEMBER SPOTLIGHT -
We recently sat down with Atlanta McIlwraith (@timberland_ATL), Senior Manager of Community Engagement at Timberland, to learn about the exciting work Timberland is doing to re-introduce organic crops and support communities with urban greening projects.
In addition to supporting sustainable agroforestry models around the world, read on to learn about Atlanta’s personal work with organic agriculture, including her Christmas tree lot and nonprofit farm.
FINANCE & INVESTMENT -
HSBC is making moves to tackle climate change, unveiling five new commitments aimed at helping drive the transition to a low-carbon economy. A major component of the financial giant’s climate push is a pledge to make $100 billion in financing available for sustainability projects by 2025.
PRODUCT, SERVICE & DESIGN INNOVATION -
Selected from a pool of over 900 applicants, 20 promising African digital startups will participate in the XL Africa residency, the flagship initiative of the business accelerator launched by the World Bank Group’s infoDev program last April. Running from November 6 – 17 in Cape Town, South Africa, selected entrepreneurs will have the opportunity to learn from their mentors and peers, increase their regional visibility and get access to potential corporate partners and investors.
WALKING THE TALK -
From empowerment, optimism and sustainability in space to a whole strategy designed to ‘Make It Better,’ SB’17 Copenhagen rounded out with a host of speakers espousing positivity as a key component of the change that purpose-driven brands are aiming to create in the world.
Compensating for your environmental impact has never been easier
by Marius Cortsen
MARKETING AND COMMS -
Shifting an entire product portfolio to align with an ambitious sustainability strategy is no small feat. Even those considered leaders in corporate sustainability are still refining their approach. This session on day two of SB'17 Copenhagen explored how sustainability scorecards have been developed and used to support product innovation processes for sustainability at several major brands.
In introducing the session, Eric Mugnier of EY France set the scene: Companies are increasingly expected to bring sustainable solutions to market through innovating and preferentially investing in products that are good for life.
FINANCE & INVESTMENT -
Building on its larger social impact strategy, which seeks to support the growth of micro and small enterprises around the world, Visa has launched the newly-incorporated Visa Foundation. As its first order of business, the Foundation has made a financial commitment of up to $20 million to Women’s World Banking.
PRESS RELEASE -
Managing company water in a sustainable way can drive both business and community value. CDP, a nonprofit global environmental disclosure platform, listed GM on its Water A-List for effective water management practices implemented around the world.
CDP develops the ranking at the request of 827 investors with assets over $100 trillion. Hundreds of companies submit their information for assessment and scoring, with 10 percent making it on the A list.
Beyond the environmental benefits, GM sees the following drivers behind industrial water conservation.
Reduced risk and increased cost savings and efficiency
PRESS RELEASE -
Visa (NYSE:V) today marked the launch of the newly-incorporated Visa Foundation, which has been established as part of Visa’s larger social impact strategy that will prioritize the growth of micro and small enterprises around the world, enabling individuals, businesses, and economies to thrive. To mark its inception, the Visa Foundation is making its first financial commitment of up to $20 million to Women’s World Banking.
BUSINESS CASE -
Energy efficiency is a simple, quick and cost-effective method to reduce both costs and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. That’s why companies are scaling up their energy-efficiency projects in an effort to achieve greater results. And it’s important that they do: Buildings play a considerable role in GHG emissions: Commercial buildings, in particular, make up roughly 20 percent of total U.S. energy. So, it’s no surprise that optimizing building systems is on the rise.
SUPPLY CHAIN -
The Responsible Sourcing Network (RSN), a project of the nonprofit organization As You Sow dedicated to ending human rights abuses associated with raw materials, has released a new report analyzing 206 companies’ due diligence regarding the use of conflict materials in their supply chains. In a year-on-year comparison, almost all participants decreased their scores, despite demonstrating strong initiative to mitigate risks.
FINANCE & INVESTMENT -
P2Binvestor (P2Bi), a leading marketplace lending platform that offers crowdsourced, asset-secured lines of credit to growing companies with big ambitions, is catalyzing the growth of mission-aligned business with the launch of a first-of-its kind bank partnership program. The new program provides startups and emerging businesses an innovative way to quickly access capital while allowing banks to increase their addressable market and improve their conversion rates.
FINANCE & INVESTMENT -
Salesforce Ventures, the corporate investment arm of Salesforce, a global leader in customer relationship management (CRM), has launched a $50 million impact investment fund to accelerate the growth of companies using Salesforce technology to address challenges across workforce development, equality, sustainability and the social sector.
LEADERSHIP -
Today’s companies are being tasked with the impossible: How can we make money for our shareholders, pay our employees well, and positively impact the environment and society as a whole? The purpose of a business used to be specifically to increase value for the shareholders. While this still clearly holds importance today, there is a growing pressure to expand this value to all stakeholders, and the perception of value is changing.
MARKETING AND COMMS -
Despite growing investor demand for information surrounding businesses’ social and environmental performance, a new report from Carbon Clear has revealed that 61 FTSE 100 companies are not assessing or not disclosing climate risk in their annual reports.
FINANCE & INVESTMENT -
With the backing of a group of impact investors, Singularity University, a global community with a mission to educate, inspire and empower leaders to apply exponential technologies to address the world’s most pressing challenges, has launched SU Ventures, a program designed to address the more long-term needs of impact-focused startups.
FINANCE & INVESTMENT -
Fairphone, a social enterprise and modular smartphone producer spurring a paradigm shift in the technology industry, has secured €6.5 million to scale up its mission to make fair, responsible electronics mainstream. The investment will enable Fairphone to continue innovating in the areas of material sourcing, production, distribution, recycling and product longevity.
PRODUCT, SERVICE & DESIGN INNOVATION -
Earlier this week, financial services group Discovery outlined the growth in scale and impact of its Vitality Shared-Value Insurance model. Since launching Vitality 20 years ago, Discovery has invested considerably in building a platform that serves a global network of insurers, providing access to the Vitality brand, product offerings, technological innovations, actuarial and data insights and program assets. The Global Vitality Network now operates in 16 countries across North America, Europe, pan-Asia, South Africa and the United Kingdom, serving around 10 million clients through seven insurers.
PRESS RELEASE -
Today, Bank of America released “Banking on a Low-Carbon Economy: The Economic Impacts of Bank of America’s $125 Billion Environmental Business Initiative.” The report, based on analysis conducted by consulting firm EY, examines the economic impacts of a $12.6 billion subset of the company’s $125 billion environmental business commi
BUSINESS CASE -
Four in 10 telecomms and consumer goods companies reporting to CDP fail to capture or report any financial value from strong environmental performance, according to new research released Wednesday by Accenture, CDP Hermes Investment Management.
WALKING THE TALK -
While it has widely been accepted that business-as-usual practices are not synonymous with a sustainable future, business still needs a nudge in the right direction, according to MARS CEO Grant F. Reid, who has called out the need for transformational, cross-industry collaboration to tackle the most pressing social and environmental challenges.