The Magazine of Corporate Responsibility

Tag Archive for ‘Climate Change’

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.”

GE Report Looks Toward “Pathway to Sustainability”

GE’s 2009 corporate citizenship report – “Renewing Responsibilities” – sets forth a vision of addressing global concerns with confidence, integrating sustainability into the company’s core business strategy. “Our goals,” GE says, “are to make money, make it ethically and make a difference.”

Activist Investors Claim Record Results on Climate Change

Investors filed a record 101 climate and energy-related resolutions with 88 U.S. and Canadian companies in 2010, a 50% increase from the year-earlier, according to activist shareholder organizations. A record 51 resolutions were withdrawn after the companies agreed to climate change and energy-related commitments.

The Outlook for Cleaner Airplane Fuels

The friendly skies aren’t much greener than they were a few decades ago. And most national governments have been reluctant to impose new environmental restrictions on the already ailing airline industry. Nonetheless, some airlines and airplane manufacturers are taking steps to improve their eco-footprints

Climate Change: Copenhagen’s Misssed Opportunity

Hopes were high that international negotiators in Copenhagen last December would be able to hammer out a strong agreement to once and for all take the climate beast by the horns and begin to reign in carbon emissions worldwide. But a new binding formal agreement was not to be, mostly because of conflicting priorities among participating countries.

Game Change: Environmentalists Advise WalMart on Sustainability

When the Environmental Defense Fund first fought for a ban on the pesticide DDT more than 40 years ago, the non-profit organization went to court and sued. Times have changed. These days, EDF staff members work directly with companies like WalMart to address sustainability issues.

Will More Electric Cars Increase Reliance on Coal?

The advent of electric cars is not necessarily a boon for the environment if it means simply trading our reliance on one fossil fuel—oil, from which gasoline is distilled—for an even dirtier one: coal, which is burned to create electricity.

Investors Introduce Record Number of Climate Change Resolutions

The resolutions, up 40% from last year, have been presented to some of the nation’s largest coal companies, electric power and oil producers, home builders, big box retailers, financial institutions and other businesses thought to be not adequately disclosing and managing potential climate-related business impacts.

Climate Change: Will Carbon Tax Unite ExxonMobil and Its Critics?

The only hope for a new carbon-cutting law from the U.S. Congress in 2010 could involve what has long been thought of as the least politically viable approach: a tax on carbon. But achieving that might very well require an alliance of strange bedfellows – including environmental advocates and ExxonMobil, long a chief climate change skeptic.

BOOKS: Environmental Disasters as Case Studies in “This Borrowed Earth”

Robert Emmet Hernan provides a frightening catalog of detail in his new book, “This Borrowed Earth: Lessons from the 15 Worst Environmental Disasters around the World.” Hernan’s message is simple: “If we forget how and why these disasters happened and what horrible consequences emerged from them, we will not avert future disasters.”