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Posts tagged ‘global economy’

May 21

agrione

Dull? Maybe. But Building a Better GRI is Vital to More & Better Corporate Sustainability

Blogging from GRI Global Conference on Sustainability and Reporting in Amsterdam

The word ‘audit’ is derived from the Latin word “audire” which means “to hear” — an apt etymology in the movement for more and better corporate sustainability, where stakeholder interests are so closely and vitally linked to good sustainability reporting.

We, the stakeholders, increasingly want to hear what companies are doing, or not doing, on sustainability issues and, of course, we want to understand, not only what companies are reporting on but critically how they report.

Just as the audited financial statement rose Read more

May 17

2013-05-15 19.21.48

PRIORITIES, PRIORITIES , PRIORITIES – Does your Sustainability Strategy Do More Than Just Include the Words Social and Economic

Pushed by horrific tragedies such as the deaths of over 1,100 people in a Bangladeshi textile industry, the personal values market, or the marketplace of consumer ideas and concerns, is constantly expressing greater demand for companies to address social and economic – and not just environmental — sustainability issues.

This is good news for sustainability but challenging for sustainability managers many of whom already feel they are fighting too many fires on the sustainability front as it is.

It’s about Priorities
On the wall by my desk I have a set of themes printed on big bits of paper, Read more

Apr 24

capitalism

Capitalism: Its What We Got

About a year ago, I was asked by to participate with an esteemed colleague, Smita Premchander of Sampark, an NGO based in Bangalore, India (www.sampark.org) and board member of Friends of Women’s World Banking, in Crossfire of the journal for Enterprise Development and Microfinance (Vol. 23 No1.) for which we were to  address the assertion “the ‘Occupy’ movement and the polarization of rich and poor demonstrate that we are losing the battle on poverty alleviation in the free market system.”

I was arguing to the negative, or that we are not losing the battle Read more

Apr 19

big bank

It the Game, Not Just the Players: Royal Bank of Canada and Consumers Complicit with Drive to Low Wage Outsourcing

I was visiting a hospital in Canada the other day and overheard health care workers joking about their wages, saying “she was a low-income patient…. Heck we are all low-income now a days… there is no such thing as a middle class job.”

In the wake of the Royal Bank of Canada’s (RBC), understandable, yet inexcusable gaff managing the outsourcing of some 45 IT jobs to iGATE Indian employees, one has to wonder if these nurses might not be right.

But who’s to blame?  And what is a company to do about it? Read more

Jan 10

break-of-dawn-in-the

Dawn is (still) Breaking in the Sustainable Century.

Twelve years into the industrial revolution Cromptons’s spinning mule and Watt’s steam engine were years from being patented. Within 25 years however the face Western economies would forever change.

Twelve years into the Sustainable Century consumer patterns, industrial tragedies, resource scarcity, sustainably certifications, government regulation, and stakeholder group pressure (with the aid of a little thing called the internet) conspire to make sustainability something companies simply cannot ignore.

But don’t uncork the campaign yet…. Read more

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