Leadership
Exemplary cases of sustainability leadership and intrapreneurship, and the qualities, ethical principles and/or dilemmas inherent within them.
Recruit Group: Resolving Society's Negatives with Business Solutions
This post has been translated from Japanese. Read the original interview here.
How Lyft Drives Growth Through Purpose
Brands that position themselves as purpose-driven activists dedicated to using profits to further their mission carve out a competitive advantage amongst today’s conscious consumers. Lyft is an excellent example of a company distinguishing itself by building a brand around values, as well as quality. The rideshare company is the second-largest in the sector, controlling over one-third of US market share, with Uber driving the majority. While there is tough competition, Lyft stands out with its purpose, mission and activism, which recently lead the company to celebrate 1 billion rides.
2 Tools That Can Help Set Your Business Up for True Future-Fitness
Following the analysis of over 6,000 studies, the world’s leading climate scientists at the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) last month released a Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5°C. The main conclusion from the report was that global warming is likely to reach 1.5°C in just 12 years if current rates of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions continue. To halt warming at 1.5°C and thus avoid the most disastrous impacts of climate change, the IPCC states that anthropogenic GHG emissions must reach net zero by 2050. This is a monumental task and one that will require what the IPCC calls “rapid and far-reaching transitions.”
Global Competition Highlights New Era of Private Sector Sustainability Leadership
We live in the Fourth Industrial Revolution – an era with unprecedented technological advancement. This revolution has also come at a time with serious global ecological and social challenges. Thankfully, companies around the world are committing themselves to finding innovative, profitable solutions to these problems.
Levi Strauss Sets Industry Bar with Science-Based Targets for Global Supply Chain
Levi Strauss & Co. (LS&Co.) today announced a new climate action strategy, which sets aggressive targets for reducing carbon emissions across its owned-and-operated facilities and global supply chain by 2025; among its goals are using 100 percent renewable electricity in its company-owned facilities.
Report: Schneider Electric, Vestas Leading Capital Goods Makers in Low-Carbon Revolution
Innovation in the capital goods sector is driving a low-carbon industrial revolution, according to a new report from CDP. Released today, Bridging low-carbon technologies finds that demand for transformative technologies such as electrification, digitization and automation are growing significantly.
Why My OBE Shows That the Greatest Sustainability Challenges Lie Ahead, Not Behind Us
On Thursday, June 14th, I will be with my closest family at Buckingham Palace, proudly receiving my OBE. For those outside the UK, this may not mean much (unless you’ve been watching “The Crown”), but the award is a public recognition of doing something useful — in my case, for services to sustainability.
‘Best for the World’: B Lab Recognizes Nearly 1,000 Top Scoring B Corps
Businesses that earned top scores on the B Impact Assessment are being celebrated today with the announcement of B Lab’s 2018 “Best for the World” lists. B Lab simultaneously released separate lists recognizing Certified B Corporations in the top 10 percent for overall score, as well as in the categories for environment, customers, governance, community and workers.
Transformational Leadership in Action ... and In Transition
Last week, over 2,000 representatives from our global community of sustainability practitioners, brand strategists, product and service innovators, thought leaders and other change-makers converged at SB’18 Vancouver to share their latest insights on a multitude of themes pertinent to all of those committed to improving business around the world. Here, we dig into a topic at the heart of all lasting change: Transformational leadership.
Caesars Makes Industry-Leading Commitment to Reduce Carbon Emissions by 95%
On Wednesday, Caesars Entertainment Corporation, the world's most diversified casino-entertainment provider, announced it has set science-based targets to drastically reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the company and throughout its supply chain. The ambitious goals demonstrate Caesars’ ongoing commitment to fighting climate change and mitigating long-term risk.
Growing the Next Generation of Change Agents to Tackle Today’s ‘Wicked’ Problems
The world is complex and interconnected. When we pull one lever in a system, it ripples throughout. Pull the right levers and you can solve some of the most complex problems, pull the wrong one and it can be disastrous. This is why it is critical to take a systems approach when solving complex, or what Sally Uren, CEO at Forum of the Future, calls “wicked” problems.
Kingfisher Continues on Path to Net Positive, Puts Customers at Heart of 2025 Goals
European home improvement company Kingfisher has set out ambitious sustainability targets for the next seven years – the latest stage of its journey to become a net positive business by 2050.
SoulBuffalo Gets Execs Out from Behind Desks to See Their Impacts on the World
As we at Sustainable Brands — and anyone working to rectify the damage people have done to the planet — are well aware, it's all too easy to ignore pressing social and environmental issues if their effects can’t be seen or felt in our daily lives. After a life-altering excursion across three continents, SoulBuffalo CEO and founder Dave Ford was determined to find a way to change this, by taking those just as responsible for causing as solving many of these issues — global corporate decision-makers — out into the wild to experience the effects of their business decisions with their own senses.
4 Ways CEOs Can Truly Drive Purpose in Companies
This is the ninth in a series of articles examining how business leaders and companies can transform their corporate culture in order to succeed in the midst of the impending Purpose Revolution. Find links to the full series below.
New Clif Bar Scholarship Alleviates Debt to Help College Seniors Pursue Purposeful Careers
Clif Bar & Company attributes its success to “not selling out” when the owners walked away from a $120 million buyout offer in 2000.
5 Teens’ Hunger Relief Projects Earn $10-50K Through New General Mills Program
By 2050 there will be over 9 billion people on the planet, and food production will have to increase by as much as 70 percent to feed everyone. We are already struggling to feed everyone today, even in America.
Purpose Is Becoming More Critical to Attract, Retain Employees
A new report has found that more than 1 in 4 British managers would take a pay cut for a purpose-led job, a third would leave their job if the company’s overall purpose was unclear, and more than half would leave if their company’s values and purpose did not align with their own. Purposeful leadership is no longer a ‘luxury’ CSR exercise — its becoming critical to staff engagement and commercial resilience.
Canadian SMEs Leading the Way in Sustainability, But Limited by Capacity
New research from the University of Waterloo suggests that small businesses have enormous potential to advance sustainability in Canada. 86% of SMEs surveyed think that sustainability is important, and more than half have taken steps to make their practices more socially and environmentally-friendly.
When You Think ‘Sustainable and Ethical Returns,’ Think Female Leaders
Larry Fink’s recent clarion call to capitalism that managing “environmental, social,and governance (ESG) matters demonstrates the leadership and good governance that is so essential to sustainable growth” should not fall on deaf CEO ears.
New REI Product Standards Raise Sustainability Bar for Outdoor, Retail Industries
Smack in the middle of the third year of its groundbreaking #OptOutside campaign, which began with a bold stand against the shopping rampage of Black Friday and has expanded into a global movement to empower its customers to embrace the great outdoors, REI Co-op today debuted a set of product standards aimed at elevating sustainability across the retail and
