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
Arriving on the heels of Hurricane Florence, Hurricane Michael proved again that companies are making significant commitments to relief and recovery efforts in the wake of natural disasters. Our round-up of Hurricane Florence corporate response efforts covered some innovative ways that companies are reacting to disasters. Unfortunately, we’re already revisiting the topic with a snapshot of how companies reacted to Michael, and why it’s increasingly critical for any company to have a disaster response strategy in place.
Countries with peace and security thrive in terms of economic development and human rights advancements, while those that suffer from weak governance cannot seem to break the cycle of chronic conflicts and turmoil. This clear correlation between sustainable development and societal stability has long been recognized by scholars and sustainability professionals, yet overlooked by most of the global indicators for sustainable development, such as the Global Reporting Initiative and the United Nations Global Compact.
Next month’s election could potentially be historic for Washington State, where voters will have the choice of enacting the first-in-the-nation carbon fee — a concrete measure to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the state. Measure 1631 has the support of several prominent Washington-based businesses including REI, Expedia, Microsoft and Northwest Energy, and over 100 businesses in total.
Jennifer Motles and her colleagues at Philip Morris International (PMI) are on a crusade to end smoking. They know many of us probably won’t believe them. And they are OK with that; they just want the chance to prove it.
In the past year, we’ve seen more and more bold and potentially risky moves from brands, taking stands on pertinent societal and environmental issues: Airbnb, Google and other tech giants against the US’ immigration ban; Target supporting individuals’ right to use bathrooms corresponding to their gender identity; Heineken’s and other brands’ vocal support of
EcoVadis has published the second annual edition of its Global CSR Risk and Performance Index. The report provides an updated look at the corporate social responsibility (CSR) performance of more than 33,000 companies, across the calendar years 2015 through 2017.
A campaign launched today is holding BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, accountable as the single largest contributor to climate destruction. BlackRock’s Big Problem — supported by over a dozen organizations, including Friends of the Earth US, Amazon Watch and the Sierra Club, with support from The Sunrise Project — asserts that as the world’s biggest owner of fossil fuel companies, BlackRock is putting the planet on a path towards runaway climate change. The campaign launches as world leaders in climate policy, solutions and finance gather in New York for Climate Week.
Today’s consumers are increasingly concerned about the impact their purchasing decisions have on the planet. People want to know how products they buy affect social and environmental ecosystems, and are paying more money for and attention to healthy foods and consumer goods.
Hospitality giants Sandals Resorts International (SRI) and Caesars Entertainment have joined the growing, cross-sector fight against single-use plastics with ambitious phase-out plans for plastic straws and stirrers.
One year since the launch of its 'Sustainable in a Generation' Plan, Mars announced this week that it is changing how it does business. Speaking ahead of last year’s UN General Assembly (UNGA) and Climate Week in New York, CEO Grant F. Reid warned that the "global supply chain is broken," and business needed to make a "huge step change" in order to deliver on the climate targets outlined in the Paris Agreement and the UN Sustainable Development Goals.
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.
The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) offer many business opportunities for companies while addressing critical operational risks, according to a new report produced by audit, tax and advisory firm KPMG LLP; in partnership with the non-profit organization, Textile Exchange: Threading the Needle: Weaving the Sustainable Development Goals into the Textile, Retail and Apparel Industry.
The majority of US citizens (62 percent) say they believe climate change is a problem but feel unempowered to address it, according to the 2018 Cone/Porter Novelli Climate Change Snapshot — instead, they are looking to companies to take the lead. Yet, even as individuals may feel personally powerless — less than four-in-10 (38 percent) feel their actions can make a real difference — they do see companies as critical players in progress against climate change. 58 percent say that in the absence of government progress, companies should take the lead.
London’s Heathrow International Airport has chosen the winners of its inaugural Centre of Excellence Sustainable Innovation Prize, which were judged as the best solutions to some of the sustainability challenges facing airports and the aviation industry more widely. Launched in January, the competition challenged entrants to focus on three areas as part of Heathrow’s Centre of Excellence for Sustainability work:
“Break down the silos” has become a bit of a catchphrase for business in the last decade, as companies have come to realize the benefits of cross-departmental collaboration. Today's sustainability teams charged with boosting the impact of their initiatives could gain a lot by adopting this mantra, too. Whether the goal is to cut CO2 emissions, reduce waste, conserve resources or all of the above, more and more brands have sustainability strategies in place. But making them a meaningful part of your brand is another story.
Who are you and why should I care? Since the 1950s, companies have turned to externally focused branding methods to answer these questions that consumers have about their businesses. Today, companies face an increasingly hyperconnected, skeptical marketplace where customers are demanding more. They want to know the substance beyond the sizzle of advertising. For branding to remain the economic engine it has been over the past 70 years, we need to ask: What’s next?
60 members of the Partnership for Sustainable Textiles have revealed concrete action plans to ensure humane working conditions, greater environmental protection and fair wages in their own companies and in their suppliers’ production facilities. The Partnership — a multi-stakeholder coalition made up of companies, associations, NGOs, trade unions, standards organisations and the Federal German Government, formed in 2014 with the aim of making improvements along the entire textile supply chain —considers this a major step forward, as it means that many members agree on revealing even sensible information for the first time.
In the summer, all we talk about is rain. Walk into a diner or a barn, or just run into someone at the store, and the first question anyone asks — even before “How are you?” — is, “Did you get any rain?” It’s the same in New Mexico as in Montana, Colorado, Wyoming, Arizona and California. Everyone is concerned because, as ranchers, we know the health of our cattle depends on the amount of water that falls out of the sky. And this year, it hasn’t been a lot.
News stories that praise Costa Rica’s use of ‘100 percent renewable energy’ for a growing number of days on end are focusing on the fact that the nation laudably generates a great deal (and sometimes all) of its electricity from wind, solar, hydro and sugarcane. As I discovered during a recent visit, the equivalence of ‘electricity’ with ‘energy’ is often made, but make no mistake — for some uses (i.e. cooking/heating) and transportation, natural gas and/or propane or conventional combustion engines are still the norm. A fair number of the diesel-powered buses and trucks are clearly (or rather not clearly) running on older engines.
The release of classified documents such as the so-called Panama and Paradise papers in recent years has provided a glimpse into the opaque world of tax havens and their role in the global economy.