Organizational Change
The latest creative strategies and tools helping organizations to engage their teams in building market-leading, purpose-driven brands.
Next-Gen ERP: Managing … and Saving the Panda Bears?
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.
For Clifford, Hope Springs Eternal for 'The Greening of Asia'
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.
Now Is the Time for Action to Preserve Our Precious Ecosystems
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.
Sustainability Managers Bring More to the Table Than Environmental Expertise
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.
Project Peanut Butter Now Producing Life-Saving Therapeutic Food in Ghana, with a Little Help from Hershey
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.
Now You Can Peer Into McDonald's – But Do You See Customers?
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.
Punks, Wonks & Breakout Strategies for Sustainability Innovation
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.
Can Hallway Theater Be the Missing Link in Employee Engagement?
How do you engage corporate employees to focus their determination and creativity in working toward business goals? Sparking and capturing the imagination, and dedication, of employees is a core issue for any company — particularly for those focused on sustainability issues.
Unleash the Radical Intrapreneurs!
John Meynard Keynes once said: “Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influence, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist.” I think most business leaders would scoff at the idea that an economist guides their business decisions, but a step back in time might challenge their skepticism.
#SB14London: A Lesson in Successful Cross-Sector Partnership from HP & Kiva
Karen Little, Director of Development at Kiva, and Ann Ewasechko, Global Manager of Strategic Partnerships & Innovation in Education at HP, discussed the great success of their joint social campaign “Matter to a Million” during a Wednesday afternoon session. Matter to a Million is a 5-year global partnership between HP and Kiva aiming to support 1 million entrepreneurs around the world through microlending and, as Ewasechko said, to empower employees to make an impact and a difference.
Innovating for Sustainability - A Game of Two Halves?
Julian Borra of the Thin Air Factory and Thomas Kolster, author of Goodvertising, provided another immensely entertaining and engaging presentation from SB ’14 London’s main stage in Tuesday’s afternoon brief session. Every footballing cliché in the book was employed to warm up the expectant audience, and we weren’t disappointed.This sustainability tag-team took us on a journey towards new thought processes in problem-solving. They pointed out that innovation for sustainability is often more about the way the innovation process is approached and managed, rather than the innovation itself. To illustrate this view, the team offered two thought-provoking quotes:
#SB14London: Barry Digs Deep Into Challenges, Lessons Learned as M&S Embarks on Next Phase of 'Plan A'
As Marks & Spencer’s Plan A programme moves into a new phase — that of engagement — the company’s director of sustainable business, Mike Barry took to the stage Tuesday evening at SB ’14 London to offer his insights into how companies can build long-term, restorative models that are as much about inclusivity as they are profitability.
Engaging Stakeholders in Sustainability: 3 Lessons from UPS
UPS, the world’s largest package delivery company, boasts some of the highest sustainability scores, credentials and rankings brands can earn, including reducing its total GHG emissions while increasing its shipping volume in 2013. How has the company achieved all this? What can others learn from its success so far? SB was recently invited to UPS HQ in Atlanta for the company’s annual Global Forestry Event — and we gained some insights:1. Start with low-hanging fruit
Carbon Trust, Singapore Collaborating to Improve Energy Efficiency of SMEs
The Carbon Trust and the Sustainable Energy Association of Singapore (SEAS) today announced that they will be working together to help small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Singapore to improve their energy efficiency. The announcement of the collaboration is being made at Kew Gardens in London as part of the official state visit to the UK of Dr Tony Tan Keng Yam, President of the Republic of Singapore.The SEAS is leading a S$17 million SME Energy Efficiency initiative, with support from SPRING Singapore, the National Environment Agency (NEA) and Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore (IDA). The goal is to help some 300 SMEs achieve at least 10 percent savings in energy costs over the next three years.
Setting Yourself Up for Failure? The Challenges of Environmental Target-Setting
Companies often set targets for memorable milestones and landmark years, such as 2015 or 2020, as this makes it easier to communicate and refer to them — there are 17 companies in the FTSE 100 that will be held to account in 2015 for meeting the targets that they themselves publicly set for reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
Caesars Helping 'Grown-Ups to Play Responsibly' by Playing Responsibly, Itself
Caesars Entertainment’s fifth annual Corporate Citizenship Report, "Serious Play," highlights the gaming resort chain’s progress in areas including Responsible Gaming, Employee Development, Environmental Stewardship and Community Investment Performance. The report details the company's societal and environmental impacts in 2013, highlights its corporate citizenship efforts in action, and elaborates on how Caesars is fulfilling its mission of inspiring grown-ups to play responsibly.
NYC Commits to Reduce Emissions 80% by 2050
In the spirit of this week, which has seen global leaders convening in New York City for the UN Climate Summit and more than 400,000 citizens filling the City’s streets for the People’s Climate March, NYC Mayor Bill De Blasio has committed to reducing the City’s greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs) by a whopping 80 percent by 2050 from 2005 levels with plans to renovate its public and private buildings.
Protest Prompts 8 Major Fashion Retailers to Support Wage Increase for Cambodian Workers
Thousands of workers took to the streets of Phnom Penh, in Cambodia, last week to protest for a near-doubling of the minimum wage for retailer workers there to US$177 (£110) a month. It seems their calls for fairer pay have sparked a response from the fashion industry, as eight leading retailers have now pledged to pay more for clothes produced there, according to the Guardian.
Letting Your Mission Drive Success: Lessons from Ben & Jerry's and Seventh Generation
All businesses value consumer and employee loyalty and the opportunity to shape the playing field in which they operate. Mission-driven businesses such as B Corps Seventh Generation and Ben & Jerry’s are finding that having an authentic purpose that resonates with their customers opens the door to exciting approaches to activism that engage their base in powerful ways. The union of company and employee passions not only boosts loyalty but also can lead to successful advocacy for shared causes. Conventional companies seeking to emulate their successes should follow three key steps:1. Build a mission that is relevant for your consumers
MIT's Digital Supply Chain MOOC Set for Global Launch
On Sept. 30, supply chain education will take a major step into the digital age with the start of SCx, an online educational program developed by the MIT Center for Transportation & Logistics (MIT CTL) for thousands of professionals across the globe.The SCx curriculum is part of the MITx initiative, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s selection of massive open online courses (MOOCs). SCx is one of the first “XSeries” offerings that award certificates for successful completion of an entire sequence of courses.MIT says more than 9,000 individuals have already signed up for the first course of the three-course program — CTL.SC1x Supply Chain and Logistics Fundamentals.
