I spoke recently at the Social Enterprise Symposium at the Smith School of Business UMD. As always with student events, the audience was stimulating and the questions provided me with new frameworks and perspectives – including how fortunate I am to be in the job I am. There were many questions about working in the field: What is the most fulfilling role in a corporation? How can one make a difference? How should you be assessing a company that you are thinking of joining?
There was much discussion about ensuring that the company you join has a commitment to CR, demonstrated through volunteering programs, philanthropy, and green activities in the office. Implementing or participating in programs like is considered a way to help have … Read the Full Post
I spoke on a panel this month on “The Reality and Rhetoric of Corporate Social Responsibility” for George Washington University’s Institute for Corporate Responsibility.
Each year, Professor Jenn Griffin, associate professor at the Institute, takes a group of students on a highly oversubscribed trip to the UK to meet with corporate executives and look at contrasts between UK and US approaches to corporate responsibility. This is a topic that I often talk about here on my blog, so I asked her to share her top findings from years of visits and study. The video is below.
… Read the Full Post
CERES recently launched their report The 21st Century Corporation: The CERES Roadmap for Sustainability. Last year’s report, CERES 20-20, laid out four pillars. The second pillar was ‘setting new standards and expectations for business leadership’. This new report dives deep into this pillar exploring 20 expectations related to governance, stakeholder engagement, disclosure and performance. It is comprehensive in breadth, thorough in depth and full of inspiring examples that demonstrate it can be done. I think it will remain valuable for many years as a benchmark.
My initial look was dominated by the four key drivers of sustainability: (1) Competition for Resources, (2) Climate Change, (3) Economic Globalization and (4) Connectivity and Communications. Although my original inspiration for CSRPerspective was the intersection between ICT … Read the Full Post
I have the pleasure of joining an esteemed panel of speakers this week to discuss jump starting sustainability in the corporate sector. This is a topic that I talk about extensively on this blog and speak about at many conferences throughout the year. Businesses around the world are rethinking their business models, products and employment engagement programs to address sustainability. < ?xml:namespace prefix = o />
The event is being hosted by University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith’s School of Business and for those who are unable to attend in person, it will be streamed live here at 6.00pm EDT. You can also follow my tweets or post your own tweets throughout the event using the hash tag #SES10. The twitter stream will also be visible here. … Read the Full Post
Last week I had the pleasure of meeting Jack Armstrong Leader of BASF’s Construction Markets North America and also a board member of the Sustainable Building Industries Council and Chair of the Construction Market Team of the Plastics Division of the American Chemistry Council.
Jack described to me the “3:1 Study” that compared the carbon benefits and carbon burden of the chemicals industry. I was intrigued by the parallels with the Smart 2020 study produced by The Climate Group and Gesi, that I have written about previously and that looks at a similar comparison between benefit and burden in the ICT sector. Jack kindly agreed to say a few words about 3:1 Study on video for me.
… Read the Full Post
