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
It’s already been a busy year for Procter & Gamble – full of new milestones, goals and partnerships aimed at continuing to improve its products and operations along the entire value chain. We caught up with P&G’s VP of Global Sustainability, Virginie Helias, ahead of her upcoming keynote at SB’17 Detroit, to hear the latest on the company’s progress on its multifaceted sustainability agenda.
A year after being suspended from the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) and dropped by companies such as Unilever, Mars, Incorporated, Nestlé and Kellogg for clearing peatlands in Kalimantan, Indonesia, Malaysian palm oil producer IOI Group has announced plans to eliminate deforestation and exploitation throughout its supply chain.
Corporate social responsibility is stuck. When it emerged on the scene 20 years ago, businesses and other stakeholders had high expectations for what a focus on CSR could deliver. But the reality is that neither business nor society are on track to enable nine billion people to live well within the boundaries of the planet by 2050 - let alone 2030. There’s a lot at stake: Unless business collectively steps up to contribute substantively to embracing and achieving the Sustainable Development Goals, many business models will be at risk.
New research by global research consultancy Povaddo LLC has revealed that 65 percent of employees want their CEO to publicly take a stand on environmental and social issues.
Media giant Bloomberg has officially hopped aboard the sustainability wagon, adding a new section to its site dedicated to climate science and the future of energy. ClimateChanged.com will focus on the ways in which climate change affects financial markets. “Climate change is fundamentally an economic story, it’s an economic problem,” Bloomberg’s sustainability editor Eric Roston told The Huffington Post. “It’s naturally a business story and it’s naturally a concern to rationally minded executives in any sized enterprise.”
In its annual Environmental Responsibility Report, tech giant Apple has revealed ambitious new plans to develop a closed-loop model for its supply chain. To achieve this goal, the world’s second largest smartphone producer will focus on using only renewable resources and recycled materials and eliminating conflict materials from its value chain.
Following the announcement of its new store renovation initiative, CVS Pharmacy has revealed that it will be eliminating parabens, phthalates and the most prevalent formaldehyde donors in nearly 600 beauty and personal care products in its CVS Health, Beauty 360, Essence of Beauty and Blade lines. CVS Pharmacy will stop shipping store brand products that don’t meet these standards to distribution centers by the end of 2019.
This is the fourth in a series of articles examining the many facets of ‘sustainable leadership.’ Find links to the entire series below. Our search for sustainable leadership has shown us how to create organizations that use change to become stronger by using values and purpose to facilitate the transitions that arise during change.
CVS Health announced this week it is harnessing the power of design to activate its purpose. The national drugstore chain is rolling out a new store renovation project that builds on its mission to help people on their path to better health.
The International Sustainable Campus Network (ISCN) is a non-profit association of more than 80 colleges and universities from over 30 countries, with a mission of providing a forum for the exchange of information, ideas and best practices for achieving sustainable campus operations and integrating sustainability in research and teaching.
When Etsy began the process of creating a new global headquarters in Brooklyn, NY, it saw an opportunity to drive change, to set a new standard for sustainable construction and design and to create a space that reflected its values, especially those related to community, craft, and sustainability.
This is the third in a series of articles examining the many facets of ‘sustainable leadership.’ Find links to the entire series below. The first step in our search for sustainable leadership has shown how purpose and values can make us more able to handle change. Managed correctly, this generates a form of competitive advantage that grows stronger with each challenge we face, making other leadership models “obsolete.” This article looks in more detail at how we can achieve this.
With a 2030 deadline looming, stakeholders across the European Union are ramping up efforts to tackle CO2 emissions. In addition to calling for a clampdown on imports of unsustainable palm oil production for biofuel, the EU is zeroing in on coal production, with national energy companies pledging to put an end to the construction of new coal-fired plants after 2020.
The social and environmental impacts of palm oil production are widely recognized. And while the issues of deforestation, habitat degradation and human rights abuses are gaining momentum within the international community, measures designed to curtail them — including certification — are plagued by inefficiencies and a lack of transparency.
With 2020 fast approaching, former United Nations Climate Change Chief Christiana Figueres has called on the global community to take action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in an effort to mitigate the worst impacts of climate change.
This is one of a series of interviews that started when Rosie Warin, CEO of culture and communications agency Kin&Co, began having conversations with high–profile, values–driven leaders of the ‘purpose revolution’ about the future of leadership. Each explores how these leaders got to where they are now, and what they think the future of values–driven leadership looks like. Did you know that Niall Dunne, Chief Sustainability Officer at BT, used to be a professional athlete? Or that his first job was on the floor of a cat food factory, and he used to break the rules? And that’s not even the best bit…
What if the next era will be better than expected? Human beings are fascinated by the idea of predicting the future. We have always tried to know what lay ahead, by looking at events that were about to determine our destiny, for good or for bad, in order to be ready to face them. The desire to have the power to foresee the future goes back to ancient times. In Eastern and Western cultures alike, fortune tellers, wizards, astrologists, ministers, oracles, shamans and prophets have interpreted comets and stars, atmospheric events, animal behaviors, bones, entrails, rings of smoke, crystal balls, the fire, their dreams, books and so forth.
The People’s Climate March is coming to Washington, DC on April 29th. Businesses and their employees can take part and show their support for climate action.
This is the second in a series of articles examining ‘sustainable leadership’ and what it entails. Find links to the full series below. We start our search for sustainable leadership with a quote from Buckminster Fuller: “You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.” This rule has applied to all successful innovations, from the bronze age that replaced the stone age, to the iron age, the industrial revolution, electricity and smartphones; these innovations succeeded because they made what existed before obsolete.
This is one of a series of interviews that started when Rosie Warin, CEO of culture and communications agency Kin&Co, began having conversations with high–profile, values–driven leaders of the ‘purpose revolution’ about the future of leadership. Each explores how these leaders got to where they are now, and what they think the future of values–driven leadership looks like.