The Magazine of Corporate Responsibility

Tag Archive for ‘Accenture’

Investors Press Companies on U.S. Chamber Board Roles

A group of investment organizations with about $43 billion in assets under management has sent letters to 35 major companies represented on the board of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, urging company managements “to evaluate their role and to assess the risks and benefits of Board membership.”

Opinion: U.S. Chamber of Commerce and A Failure in Governance

Many leading companies strive to follow best practices in corporate governance, demonstrating responsiveness to investors and protecting shareowner value in the process. Paradoxically – argues a leading socially responsible investment executive – some of these same companies often appear to leave their commitment to corporate governance at the doorstep when they serve on the board of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

Sustainability: Business Strategy Trumps Reputation

Sustainability may be a massive and vitally important global movement, says columnist Gael O’Brien, but it often suffers from its own ambiguity. “It isn’t surprising that when you ask people what their company is doing in sustainability,” she reports, “the question back is almost always ‘how are you defining it?’”

Influential Voices in U.S. Board Rooms

Regulators and rulemakers led the list of 100 most influential people affecting corporate governance in America’s board rooms in 2010, according to the National Association of Corporate Directors. Sen. Christopher Dodd and Rep. Barney Frank, authors of the Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Law, were re-elected to the list as was Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Mary L. Schapiro.

Verbatim: How Businesses View Sustainability & CSR Reporting

Investment firm Walden Asset Management recently researched and compiled quotes from sustainability and corporate responsibility reports by several dozen companies in a wide range of industries. The exercise showed, says a Walden executive, that attention to such issues has become vitally important for a company’s business, and that transparent reporting is, as one CEO said, one of “the prices of doing business today.”

The Ethical Risk of Business as Usual

Columnist Gael O’Brien wonders what it will take to convince corporate leaders to build into their risk management strategies the capacity to ask crucial questions about ethical liability, as is done with legal liability. Such a step, she says, would be hardly radical and would have the objective of putting ethical conduct on the table as a deliberate outcome.

Corporations See Sustainability Offerring Trillions in Opportunity

Sustainable development over the next several decades offers “vast new business opportunities” – valued as much as US$6.2 trillion – for companies that have “the foresight to lead,” according to a new report by a leading corporate sustainability group.

VIDEO: Accenture’s Mark Foster on Thinking About Tomorrow

Despite the crucial cost cutting that businesses are undertaking in this economic climate, it’s also important to be thinking about tomorrow, Accenture’s Mark Foster tells Big Think.