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
Sonoma County Winegrape Commission, also known as Sonoma County Winegrowers (SCW), has created a 100-year business plan to preserve agriculture in Sonoma County well into the 22nd century. The time period of 100 years was chosen because it represents two generations before and the next two future generations — spanning from grandparents to grandchildren. The plan addresses such issues as innovation and research, natural resources, the regulatory environment, community engagement and marketing while building coalitions throughout the community in support of sustaining agriculture in Sonoma County in the long term.
Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) is an impressive concept. It covers everything from business operations to corporate governance. It includes streamlining and automating corporations; making all business processes highly efficient, cost-effective and fully automated; all resource use fully planned, controlled and understood. ERP today provides an integrated view of core business processes across various departments, ranging from sourcing, manufacturing and sales to accounting and payroll.
The UN Global Compact expelled 372 companies in the second half of 2014 for failure to communicate progress for at least two consecutive years, bringing the total number of expelled companies in 2014 to 657.These expelled companies represent 10 percent of the 3,760 participants due to submit a Communication on Progress (COP) within the second half of 2014. A total of 197 companies achieved the GC Advanced level, reflecting an increased commitment to transparency and accountability.The number of companies joining the UN Global Compact continues to exceed the number of expulsions, with 729 companies from around the world joining the initiative from July through December 2014.
Mark Clifford’s forthcoming book, The Greening of Asia: The Business Case for Solving Asia’s Environmental Emergency (Columbia Business School Publishing, March 2015), offers a hopeful take on major trends in the region, such as entrepreneurs and entrepreneurial companies working together to generate solutions in energy, land and water conservation that are efficient and sustainable.
CH2M Hill and Tetra Tech lead the global environmental consultancy market for the second consecutive year, which saw a 0.8 percent decrease to stand at $28.7 billion in 2013, according to new research by Environment Analyst.
Twenty-two million people were displaced by extreme weather events in 2013, three times more than the number displaced by war, according to the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC), as reported by Reuters. To put this in perspective, in the early 1970s the total number of people displaced by extreme weather events was only about 10 million.Rising sea levels, as well as extreme weather and natural disasters such as heatwaves, floods and droughts linked to global warming are likely to force millions of people to move, with many never able to return.
UK grocery giant Sainsbury’s has announced that 95 percent of the palm oil used in its own-brand products is now certified as sustainably sourced. The supermarket revealed this statistic late last month, on the day it also became the first UK retailer to launch a dishwashing liquid made with palm oil certified as sustainable by mass balance analysis.
Paul Polman is CEO of Unilever, a member of the Scaling Up Nutrition (SUN) Movement Lead Group and Chairman of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development. This is his observation following his involvement at Lima COP 20.
Many companies today view sustainable business practices as an integral part of their overall strategy — and much more than an opportunity to enhance their brand image. A natural extension of this trend is increased demand for experienced executives who can help companies meet their environmental goals. According to a 2014 report by the International Renewable Energy Agency, approximately 625,000 ‘green’ jobs were created in the renewable energy sector alone in the United States last year. In many cases, these are well-paying positions requiring higher education and/or specialized training.
The Hershey Company, in partnership with Project Peanut Butter (PPB) — a project aimed at ending child malnutrition across sub-Saharan Africa — has announced that the Project’s newest manufacturing facility (in Kumasi, Ghana) is now beginning full operation. Thanks to a nearly $1 million investment from Hershey, the new plant will produce PPB’s peanut-based Ready to Use Therapeutic Foods (RUTFs), which the organization calls the world’s most effective treatment for severe childhood malnutrition.
This week, Procter & Gamble published its 16th annual sustainability report, which reveals how the CPG giant made far-reaching — and as it turns out, lucrative — improvements to its global operations years ahead of schedule.
Danish pharmaceutical firm Novo Nordisk has opened its eleventh Diabetes Support Center, improving access to affordable diabetes treatment in some of the largest cities in Ghana and Nigeria.The new Diabetes Support Center at Holy Family Hospital in Nkawkaw, Ghana will provide insulin and glucose testing equipment at a reduced cost, access to trained healthcare professionals and free diabetes screening for the general public. The centers are part of the company’s Base of the Pyramid project to help improve diabetes care and lessen the financial burden of diabetes treatment for low-income groups.
For the first time in over a decade, the majority of executives anticipate resources for every corporate citizenship dimension to increase over the next three years, according to a new report from The Carroll School of Management Center for Corporate Citizenship at Boston College.
McDonald’s unprecedented corporate-transparency marketing campaign, “Our Food. Your questions,” is the fast food giant’s attempt to reduce the impact of one major aspect of its brand and operations — low prices and massive amounts of highly processed foods have led to questions about what exactly is in its food, whether it is all safe for human consumption and how integral various aspects of sustainability are to its supply chain.
German power and gas giant E.ON has announced it will now focus on renewables, distribution networks and customer solutions, and spin off its conventional generation, global energy trading, and exploration and production businesses into a new, independent company (“New Company”), a majority of which will be spun off to E.ON SE shareholders.“I’m pleased that the Supervisory Board unanimously approved the Board of Management’s proposed new strategy, which will give our employees and our investors clear prospects in two strong companies that are viable for the future,” E.ON Supervisory Board Chairman Werner Wenning said.
Today is #GivingTuesday, a day dedicated to charitable giving, harnessing the power of social media and the generosity of people around the world to bring about real change in their communities. In the spirit of the day, The Salesforce Foundation, Atlassian and Entrepreneurs Foundation of Colorado announced the Pledge 1% program, setting a target of securing 500 pledges by #GivingTuesday 2015.The program is the result of corporate social responsibility leaders coming together to encourage and challenge their peers to pledge 1% of their company’s equity, product and employee time for their communities.
Innovation. We love it! Especially in the trending world of sustainability.And rightly so: The potential impact and influence of sustainability innovation in the shaping of a more positive human existence is immutable and immeasurable.Innovation’s role in reinventing and reimagining the way the domestic, private and public sectors use, reuse and replenish the limited resources we have at our disposal is critical to our survival as a race. So anything that inspires us to escalate our ability to innovate, whether that might be of the incremental, process or radical kind, deserves all the help it can get. We cannot really afford for sustainability innovation to stall or fail — but it does so, all too often.
The American Sustainable Business Council’s (ASBC) third annual summit Nov. 13 and 14 in Washington, D.C. brought together 150 entrepreneurs, business leaders, investors and elected officials to discuss the state of play—and possibilities—for policies that advance a sustainable economy.Founded in 2009, ASBC is a national business advocacy policy organization representing over 200,000 businesses across the nation. ASBC works on a wide range of policy issues at the federal and state level, working to advance a sustainable economy by shifting markets and policies. ASBC raises up the voice, presence and power of business to create jobs, grow business and build a sustainable US economy.
General Mills released a new water policy this week that factors water risk considerations into business decisions, including where to locate new facilities. A primary aim is to improve the health of watersheds—particularly those critical to the company’s business.Last night at The Nature Conservancy (TNC) Global Water Summit, General Mills chairman and CEO Ken Powell spoke about the company’s efforts to conserve and protect global water resources critical to the business. He shared the company’s journey of “über-collaboration” with stakeholders to improve the health of watersheds and announced significant steps the company is taking to ensure freshwater for future generations.
53 California-based companies, including Apple, Google and Facebook, have received perfect scores in an annual report assessing lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender (LGBT) workplace inclusion.The 2015 Corporate Equality Index (CEI) is a project of the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), the nation’s largest LGBT civil rights organization. As the national benchmarking tool on corporate policies and practices related to LGBT workplace equality, the 2015 CEI unveiled that a record 366 businesses — spanning nearly every industry and geography — earned a top score of 100 percent and the distinction of “Best Places to Work for LGBT Equality.”