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
The success of a community programme for your employees probably has more to do with branding than you first think. How can you activate purpose in employees and keep them engaged with your community programmes over the long term? Importantly, how can you create internal visibility about your programmes that withstands company change, especially in an uncertain post-Brexit world? Using examples from GSK and Patagonia we consider how their use of bold internal branding has allowed them to lead the way to creating employee programmes with that all-important ‘stickiness’ for the long term.
Business and political leaders convened in London on June 28 and 29 for the second annual Business & Climate Summit, where they called for the ratification of the Paris Climate Agreement without further delay, as well as more collaboration between businesses and governments in order to achieve global policy frameworks conducive to long-term, climate-resilient, low carbon investments.
For the first time, data has shown a decoupling between revenue growth and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions output among the world’s 500 largest businesses (Global 500), according to a Thompson Reuters report released today. While as a group the companies are not yet reducing their emissions at a rate that follows the global scientific consensus on the risks of climate change, the slight improvement over the past five years offers a glimmer of hope.
Remember Coles Notes? Those magical little study aids that helped bring focus and clarity to even the most mind-numbing of university courses (Hmmm, come to think of it, I wonder what they were printed on?). As a busy professional, I now rely on exactly that kind of trusted analysis in almost all realms of my life - be it which phone to replace my ailing device with, which restaurants serve the best vegetarian fare, where to stay whilst on the road.
Pick up any quote book or Google ‘inspirational memes’ and “Don’t be afraid to Fail” will most likely pop up in the first few pages. The idea of failure as the key to success is not a new one and yet the discussion around failure and real-life examples, particularly in the world of sustainability, is lacking.
Today at the UN Global Compact Leaders Summit 2016 in New York, Claus Stig Pedersen, Head of Corporate Sustainability at biotech giant Novozymes, was announced as one of ten 2016 Local Pioneers of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
Today, Dell unveiled the significant progress it has made against the 21 goals under its 2020 Legacy of Good Plan. Based on a baseline of its Fiscal Year 2013 (FY13) performance, the company aims to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from its facilities and logistics by 50 percent, ensure 100 percent of product packaging is sourced from sustainable materials and is either recyclable or compostable, identify and quantify the environmental benefits of IT-based solutions, and much more.
“If you want to get people engaged, inspire them - don’t require them ... The most lasting changes people make are the ones they make themselves.” — Daniel Alvarez, Pixar Animation Studios Research increasingly shows that purpose-driven employees are more productive and more deeply engaged, as well as more satisfied at work.
Kashi is on a mission to increase organic acreage in the U.S. – but we can’t do it alone. Today, I’d like to invite you – food lovers, buyers, and growers - to join us on our journey. The Challenge Forty percent of the United States is farmland – but, despite soaring demand for organic products, less than one percent of that farmland is Certified USDA Organic.1 At Kashi, we believe in nourishing, plant-based foods that promote powerful, uplifting health – and we cannot talk about improving the health of people without improving the health of our planet.
The food industry is in the midst of a revolution that’s reshaping the way we grow food, develop recipes, choose ingredients and even decide what materials go into the packaging of our products. For today’s consumer, transparency is the coin of the realm. That’s the subject of the panel discussion I led at Sustainable Brands ‘16 San Diego last week.
Think back to when you were a child daydreaming about what you wanted to be as an adult. Did you imagine dancing across stages as a ballerina? Flying into space as an astronaut? When I was little, I daydreamed about becoming a best-selling author, just like my idols Beverly Cleary and Roald Dahl. Generally, children don’t daydream about their actual future careers - as accountants, operations managers, marketing executives or business leaders. I personally never daydreamed about becoming a communications consultant! What makes these youthful daydreams about “when I grow up” different? They are purely purpose-focused. We imagine realizing our dreams – as performers or trailblazers – and in those imaginings, feel fulfilled.
Integrating purpose through a common brand promise and aligning sustainability strategy with internal culture and values are key drivers of corporate leadership, according to the findings of the just-released 2016 Sustainability Leaders Survey, by GlobeScan and SustainAbility in partnership with Sustainable Brands, released today at SB’16 San Diego.
In our previous post, on supporting your CEO, we discussed some tactics sustainability change agents can employ to help shape their CEO’s decision making on sustainability. We were also curious to know what these CEOs thought about the personal characteristics of effective change agents. One theme that emerged from our conversations with over 100 CEOs, board members, and sustainability executives from a range of global companies was knowing how to challenge your CEO while keeping your passion in check.
SB’16 San Diego kicked off strong with a morning workshop led by Kevin Wilhelm - CEO of Sustainable Business Consulting - and Kevin Hagen, Director of Corporate Responsibility at Iron Mountain. Together, they have created the Hagen-Wilhelm Matrix – a tool to help organizations not only identify what phase of sustainability they are in but how to advance their organization forward. This matrix moves away from linear sustainability phases offered by other models that map organizations’ sustainability journeys.
“Our goal is to make the intangible tangible, which is what we have to do with culture,” said Pamela Wilhelms, founder of Wilhelms Consulting Group, during a Monday workshop at SB'16 San Diego. The workshop, “Understanding and Measuring Cultural and Systems-Change Dimensions within Companies,” focused on how forward-thinking companies can initiate cultural shifts toward sustainability — and how to measure success. As the world moves toward a more sustainable economy, leading brands will be those capable of identifying and measuring healthy cultural dynamics. But culture often is too subjective and intangible to measure.
In her Monday morning workshop at Sustainable Brands’16 San Diego, psychologist Laura Delizonna, PhD, provided an introduction to positive psychology, how it fosters success, and how it can be leveraged in the workplace. “Positive emotions help us broaden our vision, build resources, and grow as individuals,” Delizonna explained. Practicing mindfulness and building emotional intelligence, she added, have been proven to boost memory, ability to collaborate, and altruism.
It’s no secret that your CEO’s level of commitment to sustainability can have a huge impact on your organization’s sustainability journey. That’s why we decided to speak with over 100 CEOs, board members, and sustainability executives from a range of global companies, to try to understand the factors that influence CEO leadership and decision making around sustainability — and how corporate sustainability change agents can help support that process. Here are a few of the interesting things we learned:
Two-thirds of U.S. employees feel their work and personal life are becoming increasingly blended and nearly all (93 percent) want to work for a company that cares about them as an individual, according to the 2016 Cone Communications Employee Engagement Study. The study reveals an increased expectation for companies to provide not only basic benefits but also ones that allow employees to bring their passions for social and environmental issues to the workplace.
For the first time since A.T. Kearney’s first Global Cities Index in 2008, London overtook New York City to claim the top spot. London has steadily improved its performance in the 27 metrics across the five evaluated dimensions: business activity, human capital, information exchange, cultural experience, and political engagement.1 While New York continued to lead in business activity and human capital, London was able to close the gap due to its leading position in cultural experience and increased political engagement. Paris ranked third and was the leader in the information exchange dimension.
In the wake of the signing of the historic global climate agreement on Earth Day, more than a half-dozen leading food and beverage companies converged on Capitol Hill last week to press U.S. House lawmakers for federal action on climate change.