By Philippe Bellevin,  Strategy and Business Development for BT Americas

Phillipe Bellevin and his PV/EV combination was already lined up for the first post in the “Making the Commitment” series. Then last week Phillipe was runner up in the BT Chairman’s Award Winners 2011 in CSR Supporter of the Year category. You can see Phillipe tell his story on video here and read his additional insights below.

After a year of considering solar panels and BT’s employee discount program, we took the plunge.  The reason why? The possible availability of mass market electric vehicles.

The corporate program through BT can provide the kick-start for employees who are considering solar but haven’t taken the first step: contacting a solar installer. In our… Read the Full Post

A couple of years ago we launched a solar program for our US employees to help them consider solar PV at home.  Interest has been significant, with lots of people attending webinars and learning about solar.

Actual take up has been low as it is a big investment, but what has struck me is the level of enthusiasm amongst those people who have installed solar through our partnership with Sunpower and for people who have done it independently.

Over the next couple of days I will be sharing a few short blog posts from colleagues in BT in the USA who have installed solar PV.  As you will see some have gone a big step further and also have an EV!

Marc Gunther wrote an excellent blog post earlier this week titled Let’s Do Away with CSR that has created much discussion. While I agree with many of the sentiments in Marc’s post, and in the comments by Carol Sanford (the author on whose book “The Responsible Business he bases the post),  I disagree with Marc’s conclusions. 

I think the answer is to put the role Corporate Responsibility Officer or Chief Sustainability Officer on a par with others in the C-suite. This is one of the reasons I have been so excited to have chaired the professional development committee of the CROA for the last year or so.

Professions with clout have an accepted understanding of their role, a body of knowledge, individual membership organization, certification, ethics code… Read the Full Post

I started writing a post about an idea I had that helps me position CSR in relation to Creating Shared Value(CSV) and to compliance. As I tried to write it I realized that a diagram might say it better, so here is my first attempt at a graphic blog post!  You can also click on the picture to see it in regular printable page format.

Click to Enlarge

Here are some additional posts that elaborate on this topic:

Sustainability is overrated

As a dual citizen, UK/USA, I am always slightly torn on Independence Day.  Some of my US friends tell me tongue in cheek they call it Good Riddance Day! But given the ongoing relationship between the UK and the USA and the extent to which the citizens of both countries seem to aspire to each other’s ways of life in so many respects, I think it should be renamed Interdependence Day.  And for more reasons than the relationship between the US and the UK.

In my review of Paul Gilding’s book The Great Disruption I mention his reference to the old way of seeing the environment as something ‘over there’ that we strive to keep pristine so we can visit it at weekends.… Read the Full Post