The Magazine of Corporate Responsibility

Tag Archive for ‘Sustainability’

Arguing for Meatless Mondays

Meatless Monday—the modern version of it, at least—was born in 2003 with the goal of reducing meat consumption by 15 percent in the U.S. and beyond. The rationale? Livestock production accounts for one-fifth of all man-made greenhouse gas emissions worldwide and is also a major factor in global forest and habitat loss, freshwater depletion, pollution and human health problems.

Execs Optimistic on CSR Initiatives, Despite Economy

Business leaders responsible for corporate social responsibility and sustainability programs expect budgets and activity for corporate initiatives in the sector to hold steady or increase despite economic uncertainty, according to a new survey. Climate change was chosen more than any other issue as either a “significant” or “very significant” priority for companies.

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?’”

Exploring “Green” Alternatives for Tires

Tires are indeed no friends to the environment. Most tires on the road today are constructed of roughly equal parts natural rubber, petroleum and “carbon black” filler, along with a dash of other chemical additives to improve functionality. The tire industry has embraced recycling in recent years, but still some 25 percent of tires wind up in landfills.

What’s So Bad About Cotton?

There’s a lot “bad” about conventionally grown cotton—cotton grown with the aid of synthetic chemicals, that is. The Organic Trade Association considers cotton “the world’s dirtiest crop” due to its heavy use of insecticides. The nonprofit Environmental Justice Foundation reports that cotton uses 2.5 percent of the world’s cultivated land yet uses 16 percent of the world’s insecticides—more than any other single major crop.

10 Simple Things You Can Do To “Green” Your Office

No matter how green your office may be already, there is surely room for improvement somewhere. Here are 10 suggestions to help get you and your co-workers further along on the path to office sustainability.

Jeffrey Hollender Discusses Sustainability with Big Think

Jeffrey Hollender, Co-founder & CEO of Seventh Generation, discusses corporate responsibility and sustainability issues in an interview with Big Think.

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.”

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.

Opinion: BP puts costs ahead of environment. Are we surprised?

BP’s failure to stop the worst oil spill in U.S. history is indicative of a much larger problem with companies that have embraced one of the central ideas in management today: stakeholder theory. The idea that companies can meet the needs of “stakeholders” leaves them open to moral abuse without normative principles at its core.