Leadership
Exemplary cases of sustainability leadership and intrapreneurship, and the qualities, ethical principles and/or dilemmas inherent within them.
UN Secretary-General Calls on Businesses to Help Finance Sustainable Development
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Tuesday called on the corporate community “to be our partners in supporting and financing this agenda” at a global conference on financing for development.The International Business Forum in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia was tasked with finding resources for a 17-point, 15-year UN plan on meeting human needs, protecting the planet and ending poverty. These Sustainable Development Goals will be up for final approval at the UN General Assembly in September.
Novo Nordisk Launches Campaign to Improve Diabetes Awareness in Kenya
Novo Nordisk, in partnership with the Kenyan Ministry of Health and the Kenya Diabetes Management and Information Center, has launched a six-month diabetes awareness campaign in Nairobi to promote early diagnosis through screening, especially among low-income populations.The campaign’s message — ‘It takes only five seconds to get your blood sugar tested’ — is backed up with diabetes screening and education at public health care facilities and faith-based organizations in selected counties including Nairobi.
Investors Worth $1.5 Trillion Support Federal Methane Emissions Reduction Plan
Leading investors representing $1.5 trillion in assets under management released a statement of support on Thursday for a strong federal standard to reduce methane emissions from the oil and gas industry, according to Ceres. The White House’s proposal, released in January 2015, would cut methane emissions from the oil and gas industry by 45 percent below 2012 levels by the year 2025. A draft rule is expected this summer.
AT&T, Verizon Pledge to Improve Energy Efficiency of Home Internet Equipment
AT&T, Verizon, and Cisco are among the dozens of internet service providers, equipment suppliers and retail equipment manufacturers to join the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) and the National Cable & Telecommunications Association (NCTA) in announcing a new voluntary agreement to improve the energy efficiency of internet modems, routers and other equipment that deliver broadband to millions of American consumers.Other companies to sign on include Charter Communications, Comcast, DIRECTV, Bright House Networks, Cablevision, CenturyLink, Cox Communications, Time Warner Cable, Actiontec, ARRIS, D-Link, EchoStar Technologies, NETGEAR and Pace and Ubee Interactive.
Making a 'Big Pivot' to Sustainability Will Require a Cultural Evolution
Last year, Andrew Winston stood on the main stage at SB ’14 San Diego and called for the business world to make a “Big Pivot” — away from ecologically harmful practices and toward a sustainable future.
UN Global Compact Unveils Website to Spur Sustainable Business
The UN Global Compact (UNGC) has launched a new official website aimed at spurring corporate sustainability action.Designed to support business at all stages along the corporate sustainability journey — from those companies that are just learning how to integrate sustainability into their business, to the most advanced companies operating on the leading edge — the website helps make the business case for corporate sustainability and shows how companies can engage on specific issues, such as gender equality and climate. It also provides ideas for leadership practices, such as engaging boards of directors and setting long-term sustainability goals.
Wells Fargo, USCM Honor Cities for Best Neighborhood Stabilization Programs
The mayors of Baltimore, MD, Little Rock, AR and West Sacramento, CA have been recognized with top honors in an awards program administered by The U.S. Conference of Mayors (USCM) and funded by the Wells Fargo Foundation.Presented Monday at USCM’s 83rd Annual Meeting in San Francisco, the 2015 CommunityWINS (Working/Investing in Neighborhood Stabilization) Grant Program includes monetary grants to city-based non-profit organizations and recognizes mayors for exemplary leadership in developing local programs that promote long-term economic prosperity and improve the quality of life for residents in three categories: neighborhood stabilization, economic development and job creation.
BASF Convenes Scientists, Leaders at Symposium to Discuss Sustainable Food Solutions
On Tuesday and Wednesday in Chicago, BASF is hosting a Science Symposium, gathering academics and thought leaders from a variety of disciplines to discuss the challenge of sustaining global food production.The event, “Sustainable Food Chain – From Field to Table,” is part of BASF’s yearlong program to celebrate its 150th anniversary, during which it will collaborate with multiple stakeholders to “co-create” solutions to global issues including smart energy, food and urban living.
More Than a Badge: What We Can Learn About Sustainability From the Boy Scouts
My recent meeting with the Boy Scouts of America and their suppliers radically shifted my view of what the Scouts are about. My impression of the Boy Scouts was stuck in my experience as a Scout back in the ‘70s. As a middle schooler, I joined the Scouts to hang out with my friends. I loved the outdoor activities and the pursuit of merit badges.
Coca-Cola Enterprises Responds to Obesity Concerns, Sets Most Ambitious Sustainability Targets to Date
Coca-Cola Enterprises (CCE) published its tenth annual Corporate Responsibility and Sustainability report this week, in which it set its most ambitious environmental and social targets to date.The new commitments include:
Healthcare Firms Top 2015 Newsweek Green Rankings
Pharmaceutical companies Biogen, SHIRE and Allergan led the Global 500 in the 2015 Newsweek Green Rankings, a popular assessment of corporate environmental performance.Reckitt Benckiser Group, Adobe Systems, Swisscom, Unilever, Broadcom Corporation, Roche Holding (another pharmaceutical firm) and BT Group rounded out the top 10.The rankings are done in partnership with Corporate Knights Capital, HIP (Human Impact + Profit) Investor, and leading sustainability minds from nongovernmental organizations and the academic and accounting communities.
How Can We Scale the B Corp Movement?
In an engaging session on Thursday morning, the final day of SB ’15 San Diego, a group of expert panelists discussed the obstacles and opportunities to growing the Certified B corporation movement, and faced some tough questions from the audience on its future.
How to Influence National Public Policy: Updates and Lessons from Proactive Brands
Tuesday afternoon’s session led by Anne Kelly, Senior Director of Policy at Business for Innovative Climate and Energy Policy (BICEP), shed light on how corporations influence public policy and government regulation in support of a sustainable economy.
The Key to Transformational Change Leadership? Holonomic Thinking
“What happens when you cut a hologram in half?” Maria Moraes Robinson and Simon Robinson asked as a prelude to sharing what holonomic thinking means. When you cut a photograph in half, you get two separate images, but when you cut a hologram in half, the whole image can still be seen in each piece. Holonomic thinking represents a shift in consciousness from understanding an organization as a collection of individual parts, departments or programs, seen separately, to seeing the organization as a whole that expresses itself and comes into presence in the various individual parts. It means “standing in front of a customer or partner and being able to express the organization as a whole, being different and at the same time being the same.”
Unilever, WWF, Germany Named Sector Leaders in Driving Sustainability Agenda
Globescan and SustainAbility released their 2015 Sustainability Leaders survey today, asking experts to assess the progress that various institutions have made in advancing sustainable development since the historic Earth Summit in 1992.Results drawn from 816 sustainability experts across 82 countries indicate a positive perception of non-state actors and lack of confidence in the leadership of national governments. NGOs’ sustainability contribution is ranked highest among those polled, followed by social entrepreneurs, independent academic organizations, social change movements, and multi-sector collaborations.
San Diego, Aurora Among ‘Most Water Wise' Cities
San Diego, Calif., Aurora, Colo., Torrance, Calif., Poway Calif. and Hermosa Beach, Calif. are the cities with the highest percentage of residents that made pledges during a monthlong campaign in April to promote water efficiency.The 2015 Wyland National Mayor’s Challenge for Water Conservation, organized by the Wyland Foundation and Toyota, involved residents from more than 3,900 cities making 391,325 pledges online to reduce their water use at home, around the yard and in their lives. The challenge addressed the growing importance of educating consumers about the many ways they use water, the organizers say.
What Can ‘The Systems View of Life’ Teach Us About Sustainable Leadership?
Fritjof Capra is the author of many best-selling books, including The Tao of Physics, The Turning Point, The Hidden Connections and The Web of Life. His most recent book is The Systems View of Life: A Unifying Vision, co-written with his friend Pier Luigi Luisi. I recently had the opportunity to meet Capra in São Paulo, where we discussed this new systemic concept of life, and particularly what it means for leadership in organisations.
Report: Unilever, Coke Have Strong Water Management Practices But Most Food Companies Lagging
Unilever, Coca-Cola, General Mills and Nestlé rank highest among food and beverage businesses in managing scarce water resources, but most major companies need to adopt far stronger practices, according to a new report released Thursday by nonprofit sustainability advocacy group Ceres.
CVS Health Kicks Off 2nd Annual Fundraiser to Fight Lung Cancer
CVS Health today released its eighth annual Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Report, outlining the company's progress against its CSR strategy, Prescription for a Better World. President and CEO Larry Menlo stated that changing its name to CVS Health and no longer selling tobacco products reflect how the company is working to change the way health care is delivered. Menlo added that the company’s ultimate goal is to lower the cost, improve the quality of, and increase access to health care for patients and customers so they can live healthier lives.
Brands, Old-School Diplomacy & the New Humanities
We’re up to our ‘proverbials’ in Brand Advocates, Influencers & Champions. The social shock troops have to no little degree saved a lot of the big consumer multinationals from themselves. They have proved themselves both central in driving relevance and a vastly improved and far more respectful model of customer service. They are to that end critical in securing the survival of relevance in many multinational brands who until quite recently had acted with old school impunity and arrogance when called to account.But the blunt grassroots tool for creating better is just one of two required to secure an improved human existence in the face of our stratospheric levels of consumption and the brands who feed it.
