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Organizational Governance

How organizations are addressing the 'G' in ESG – striking the balance of maximizing long-term growth and value while safeguarding the interests of all stakeholders

HSBC to Phase Out Coal Financing by 2040 — Will Wall Street Follow Suit?

Cross-Posted from Finance & Investment. HSBC announces its thermal coal phase-out plan on the same day as a Sierra Club-Center for American Progress report calls out Wall Street’s outsized contribution to the climate crisis. Can the necessary sea change be made in time to avoid disaster?

Tony’s Chocolonely: The Advent of More Teachable Brand Moments?

Cross-Posted from Marketing & Communications. “Tony’s has done a great job of raising awareness of an important issue; and there is a real risk that the overriding message that will be left, once the dust settles, is one of a brand getting it wrong — and that could undermine all of the important messaging that Tony’s tries to share through its purpose.”

European Retail Giants Drop Brazilian Beef Over Deforestation Linked to Meat Giant JBS

Cross-Posted from Supply Chain. The move comes following an investigation by Repórter Brasil and Mighty Earth that tracked deforestation-linked beef to European retail store shelves. JBS, the world’s largest beef producer, has long been on the radar of environmental NGOs and forward-looking investors due to its destructive practices.

The Way We Think About Carbon Markets Is About to Change

Cross-Posted from Circular Economy. What has been sorely needed is an agreed-upon international framework that broadly establishes who can sell carbon credits; who can buy them and for what purpose; and what constitutes a quality carbon credit. COP26 took a major step towards such a framework.

McDonald’s Working to Increase Demographic Representation of Franchisees

Effort aims to help underrepresented applicants become McDonald’s franchisees by removing socio-economic barriers — in part through a $250M commitment to alternative financing — to attract more franchisees who reflect the composition of the communities it serves.

Widespread Engagement at Heart of Dow’s Mission to Transform Into a 125-Year-Old Sustainability Leader

Cross-Posted from From Purpose to Action: Building a Sustainable Future Together. Today, Dow considers its sustainability strategy and business strategy to be one and the same; employees understand that the two can no longer be separate. But, as Global Sustainability Director Haley Lowry explains, this didn’t happen overnight.

Purpose & the Stakeholder Factor: 10 Trends for 2021 and Beyond

To capture the top trends of 2021, Porter Novelli reviewed and analyzed a year’s worth of Purpose-driven and stakeholder news, activities, campaigns and announcements to deliver the latest in stakeholder intelligence. Here are our 10 need-to-know trends for today and tomorrow.

Cotton Laundering Shows Risk of Business as Usual with China

Cross-Posted from Supply Chain. China’s importance to global supply chains as a key source of raw materials and labor puts brands at high risk of inadvertently supporting forced labor. Right now, the focus is on the garment industry; but other industries should pay close attention and ensure they are closely monitoring their entire supply chains.

Shaking Up Boardrooms and Society: The World’s First Purpose Governance Playbook

‘The New Purpose Governance Framework’ is the first comprehensive set of purpose-governance guidelines in the world, which charts the path for boards to up their game in approving and governing their organization’s purpose.

Synergizing ESG Data Collection Improves Reporting, Performance

Cross-Posted from Marketing & Communications. Nasdaq OneReport helps companies position themselves for current and future ESG-related work — whether regulatory or voluntary — to help align overall goals and outcomes across organizational departments and roles.

Innovation for Good Driving Both Internal and External Impacts for Kohler

Cross-Posted from Innovation & Technology. What happens when a company empowers its associates to think creatively and innovate with a social purpose? You find yourself with a potent strategic framework for solving for some of the world’s most pressing social and environmental challenges.

Conscientious Consumption: The SB 2021 Holiday Gift Guide

With no end in sight to the pandemic and its many ripple effects, we can all use a little bit of brightness in our lives! So, here are some of the many companies, platforms and products aligned with a more intentional approach to consumption, that we’d be happy to support anytime.

Business ‘First Responders:’ How Can Companies Thrive While Solving for Relentless, Real-Time Crises?

In his new book, “Lead With We,” Simon Mainwaring urges business leaders to adopt a ‘first-responder’ mindset — and provides a blueprint for a proactive, ‘prepare for anything’ approach that enables them to lead with purpose in an increasingly challenged world.

'A Compass for Just and Regenerative Business': 5 Principles of the Leadership We Need

As a fellow leader in this sustainability movement, how might you shift to a more regenerative approach? Here, Forum for the Future’s Samantha Veide explores what the concept means for business and shares five principles for regenerative leadership.

Attention, Business Leaders: Environmental Rights, Human Rights Inextricably Linked

Perhaps the takeaway of the week is that the ‘next 10 years’ of business and human rights coincide with the 2030 deadline for us to halve carbon emissions — and that environmental rights are now very clearly seen as human rights. Companies pursuing a net-zero strategy must make human rights central, too.

5 Lessons Learned from Employing a Second-Chance Workforce

About half of our employees have a criminal record, and I’ve learned valuable lessons from working with them. If your business is considering hiring formerly incarcerated people, the following lessons may help you avoid common obstacles to building a positive environment, so both your new employees and your business can thrive.

2021 a ‘Landmark’ for Corporate Human Rights Litigation

On day two of the UN Forum on Business and Human Rights, delegates discussed how environmental damage is being viewed as a human rights violation in a growing number of court cases around the world — and that the UN Guiding Principles may increasingly be criteria in court judgements.

Racing to Zero, Part 1: On Track, or Playing with Numbers?

Many companies say they’ve reached their net-zero goals, but is it really that easy? We can make the numbers look good, at least in the short-term; or we can strive for greater impacts — towards real zero and beyond. If we don’t take this challenge seriously today, we won’t be in business in ten years’ time.

Where Is the New Roadmap for Business and Human Rights Taking Us?

Cross-Posted from Supply Chain. As delegates from the UN launched the roadmap at day one of this year's Business and Human Rights Forum, full respect for human rights by business was described as a strategic — not just an operational — issue, requiring a change of corporate culture and of business models.

While Travel Was Quiet, JetBlue Was Busy with Sustainability

Cross-Posted from Innovation & Technology. During COVID, JetBlue announced several sustainability targets — including a net-zero target by 2040, as well as a set of short-and medium-term targets to help them get there. We asked Carl Otto, JetBlue’s Senior Analyst for Sustainability and ESG, how they'll do it.