This white paper proposes a Sustainability Framework to facilitate development of a sustainability strategy. The Framework can be used to evaluate the overall scope of current sustainability initiatives, and identify and recommend new actions. It can also be used to provide a structure for critical analysis of an organization’s existing sustainability strategy. The approach was developed based on programs at BT and from partners and suppliers that are committed to making a difference.
A couple of articles caught my attention last week. This blog post by Marc Gunther about the pros and cons of reusable shopping bags and this one in the Washington Post about the implications of the success of the Fair Trade movement.
In different ways, both indicate the need for an increasing maturity in our approach to corporate responsibility and sustainability as our programs take root and grow. Initiatives that appear to be the right thing to do at a small scale, need to be revisited as they scale and the full implications become evident.
Marc identifies inaccuracies in the truisms that are bandied around about plastic bags (the 1 mile island of trash in the Pacific) , but also questions the underlying assumption of … Read the Full Post
A couple of weeks back I wrote a post on the three stage journey of corporate responsibility. We are in the midst of the holidays when make believe is at the fore. I thought I would try my hand at a make believe all in one software package for all three stages of the journey, that would ease the lives of us practitioners. Angel investors sought for release 3.5. Software vendors feel free to tout your wares in a comment!
Release 1.0 –Give it Away Responsibly: For proponents of the traditional mode of corporate responsibility our first release provides state of the art management of the company’s philanthropy, community investment and volunteering. A full suite of reports … Read the Full Post
Amazon recently launched an app that allows anyone to collect competitive pricing data quickly and easily from a store shelf and feed it back to the company. I tried it myself. Amazon can act quickly to adjust their online pricing based on data from thousands of pairs of eyes. This has attracted a lot of criticism as predatory. But I could argue that it is nothing new. Amazon are just doing what the industry has been doing for years. Only they are doing it better and without the middle player of a research consultancy.
This has many characteristics in common with other ICT capabilities that cause concern. Something we have always done becomes a concern only when we can do more of it, more quickly.… Read the Full Post
Forbes has reported on twelve 2012 predictions for the telecom industry. Among the predictions, the primacy of India and China; emerging market companies will gain ground in rankings at the expense of companies from developed countries; focus on machine to machine interfaces (smart grid, logistics); mobile subscriptions will exceed 6bn (half in Asia Pac alone); global broadband penetration will surpass 10% (0.7bn I assume), installed PCs will pass 2 billion; continued focus on cloud computing
What does this mean for corporate responsibility and sustainability in 2012 ?
Well, an ongoing issue with digital divide as some have broadband connected PCs and some only mobile phones. I suspect that in some ways this will always be an issue. As new services roll out they will … Read the Full Post
ICT services impact our every day lives from how we work, to how we travel to how we make purchasing decisions for our daily needs. In this video series, I examine all of these elements from inside executive offices, to transportation systems, inside grocery stores and even teleworking in my own home.
In this fourth episode, I explore how ICT enables home owners and developers to lower their carbon footprint and other components of their environmental footprint, enabled by creating homes that are connected internally and connected with the outside world. For this video, I visited the Department of Energy’s Solar Decathlon where I spoke to the winners from University of Maryland.
