PRESS RELEASE -
I have worked at AT&T for over 18 years. Most of that time has been spent in various sales and operations roles and I’ve really enjoyed my time with this company. But I’ve particularly enjoyed the past three years leading our community engagement programs. Why? Because I get to see firsthand how community investment and volunteer service impacts people and their communities. Because I get to see how corporations and small businesses across the country who participate in this work are so much more than product or service providers. This visibility has changed my life. It’s caused me to rethink my personal priorities and increased my awareness of how simple acts of giving and service can lead to positive changes in society.
NEW METRICS -
Think of a company, any company. Got one? OK. Now ask yourself this: Is the company truly sustainable, in everything it does and sells? If not, then how must the company change before it is?
MARKETING & COMMUNICATIONS -
At SB ‘14 London last month, one thing that really stood out for me was the focus on how storytelling can be used to help brands engage their customers with the theme of sustainability. For example, on the first morning of the first day, Daianna Karaian and Stuart Duncan from Futerra ran a workshop that focused on how to tell a sustainable brand story that customers will listen to.
MARKETING & COMMUNICATIONS -
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).
PRESS RELEASE -
By: Scott Sapperstein
As an openly gay general manager at AT&T, I experience AT&T’s commitment to equality and inclusion firsthand; my story as an employee is special because it is unremarkable. From the day I joined AT&T 13 years ago, AT&T fostered an environment where I feel comfortable to share who I am. My husband Rob is a part of my work life just like any spouse, and when he and I married, I was proud to share the news with my AT&T family.
ORGANIZATIONAL GOVERNANCE -
John Meynard Keynes once said: “Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influence, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist.” I think most business leaders would scoff at the idea that an economist guides their business decisions, but a step back in time might challenge their skepticism.
INNOVATION & TECHNOLOGY -
In her opening address Tuesday at SB ’14 London, Sustainable Brands founder KoAnn Skrzyniarz confronted the audience with a challenge: Reimagine what an economy might look like if it was based on trust.“The big root of the conversation we’ve been having this year is about connecting head and heart,” she said.Reflecting that it had been “an explosive year” on many fronts, with key battles on ideology taking place across the world, Skrzyniarz said the passion for interlinking sustainable business with social value was growing: “As we continue to have this conversation around the world, more communities are coming to us, asking us to localise the conversation,” she revealed.
BLOG -
The first morning of SB London featured some excellent speakers and stories, from Lyf Shoes’ Aly Khalifa to Michael Dickstein from Heineken to B&Q’s Chris Moss. Between them, this brilliant lineup delivered some great insights, accompanied by several common themes. Happily, they spell the first two objectives of the entire conference. Here they are:
ORGANIZATIONAL GOVERNANCE -
On the way into this workshop, I overheard a remark that this was a novel session, and involved working with clay … this turned out to be absolutely true, but more on that later.Simon Robinson and Maria Moraes Robinson are the co-authors of Holonomics: Business Where People and Planet Matter. The obvious question is, what exactly is ‘Holonomics’? Simon explained that he and Maria had struggled to find a suitable term for the point where ‘wholeness’ and ‘economics’ converge, and decided to create Holonomics, shorthand to describe the way in which we view the outside world, and especially the naturally occurring but complex systems in nature.
CIRCULAR ECONOMY -
“We are made wise not by the recollection of our past, but by the responsibility for our future.”— George Bernard ShawA bird in the hand…We know that a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. The adage works well, and it makes sense for a hunter-gatherer, but does it also holds true for a globalised species seeking a sustainable future? Under some circumstances might the bird in the hand actually be worth less than a larger number of birds, which are potentially available but currently out of reach?Does the value proposition change at four birds in the bush, at six, or at ten?
NEW METRICS -
On Wednesday, I had the pleasure to attend Metrics that Matter, Messages that Motivate — Making the Right Case for Sustainability in Healthcare, an event hosted by The Wharton Initiative for Global Environmental Leadership (Wharton IGEL) and Johnson & Johnson at Wharton’s West coast campus in San Francisco. Geoffrey Garrett, recently named dean of the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, kicked things off by emphasizing the importance of sustainability in every area of our daily lives.
INNOVATION & TECHNOLOGY -
The deadly collapse of the Rana Plaza textile factory in Bangladesh in April 2013 was a tragic, overdue wake-up call to the fashion industry — not only to take action to ensure the safety of workers throughout their value chains, but also to illustrate the critical need for transparency as far as their operations reach throughout the world.
NEW METRICS -
Rounding out the final afternoon of Sustainable Brands’ New Metrics ‘14, Susan Hunt Stevens, founder & CEO of WeSpire, led a candid, data-rich conversation with representatives from TD Bank, Intel and CA Technologies about their employee engagement programs.“These three people are doing really amazing work not only in employee engagement, but more importantly, connecting employee engagement to broader business value and key HR metrics,” Stevens said.
NEW METRICS -
It’s Friday afternoon at New Metrics ’14, and next on the agenda is a workshop offering data-based insights and recommendations on top global supply chains risks from specialists in the field.The conversation was co-led by Andrew Savini, Manager of Supplier Management & Audits at Intertek, and Mark Robertson, Head of Marketing & Communications at Sedex, who shared their companies’ data analyses of supply chain risks and real-world experience.
NEW METRICS -
A two-part session on Thursday afternoon explored sustainability context through examining the evolution of corporate sustainability goals, and case studies from leading companies proactively applying it to their goal-setting processes.First, Sustainability Context Group co-founder Bill Baue — moderator of both parts — led a discussion on the state of corporate sustainability goals and equipping companies with practical advice on how to incorporate context.
COLLABORATION & CO-CREATION -
Almost 400,000 people turned out in NYC yesterday for the US edition of the People's Climate March, the largest protest in the history of the issue, joined by more than 2,000 events in 166 countries worldwide.The streets began to fill up about 10:30am, with the official start scheduled for 11:30am, at 59th Street and Columbus Circle.
PRESS RELEASE -
Women seek to make all business sectors more “female friendly”New MIT Sloan students at orientation in August They comprise the highest ever female percentage of an entering MBA class at MIT Sloan, but some of the women now beginning their studies hope to reshape gender lines far beyond their Cambridge campus.
PRESS RELEASE -
Getting away from the cult of motherhood: Why paternity leave is so important — Lotte Bailyn Sports radio isn’t a typical venue for impassioned debate on work-family issues and employment policy. But recently when Daniel Murphy took three days off from his job as second baseman for the New York Mets to be with his wife as she delivered their newborn son, it became just that. Two WFAN broadcasters — Mike Francesa and Boomer Esiason — took to the airwaves to rebuke Murphy’s absence.
BLOG -
As we get closer to my personal favorite among the growing list of Sustainable Brands events — New Metrics, this year in collaboration with the MIT Sloan School of Management — I am finding it hard not to engage complete strangers on the street in excited attempts to share bits and pieces of the powerful program we have put together. Without trying to be too self-congratulatory about it, allow me to let some of that energy out by sharing 10 highlights — more specifically, 10 firsts — that will take place in the New Metrics plenary program in just over two weeks. All of these highlights will deliver either exclusive launches or results presented for the first time to a live audience. Here go the teasers: