FabianPattberg.com

Today’s post is about interesting videos in the Sustainability and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) I have come across recently.

Here are three interesting videos on the topic of Sustainability.

They are all different but interesting never the less.

Sustainability from Josh Munson on Vimeo.

What is Sustainability? from Info CVC on Vimeo.

Campus Sustainability from Open Dome Studios on Vimeo.

Which video do you prefer?

I prefer video number 3.

The last 3 weeks have been packed with the publication of many Sustainability / CSR Reports. Here I some I came across and found interesting:

• Verizon (North American Telecoms Company)
• Infosys (Business Consulting, IT Systems and Outcourcing Company)
• Ford (I guess there is no need to tell you who Ford is)
• Siemens (Germany-based global technology company)
• Aracruz Cellulose (Global leader in eucalyptus pulb – very resource intensive)
• BCE (Canadas largest communications company)
• ST Microelectronics (Producer of semiconductor products)
• Coca-Cola Hellenic (One of the largest bottlers and vendors of Coca-Cola company’s products in the world)
• Orange (a large Telecommunication company based in Europe)
• Lufthansa (Global Airline)
• BAA (Owner of a lot of Airports across the globe)
• Enel SpA (Italian Energy Company)
• Xstrata (Global Mining Company)
• Vodafone (One of the largest telecommunication companies globally)

Have I missed any? All feedback welcomed.

This is a great video from TED again. This time on Twitter and social media in general.

Definitely worth a look that is why I wanted to share this with everyone. And a big thank you for David and Perrine for pointing me to this very interesting video.

This is the next part in the “People I follow in Twitter“ series I started several weeks ago.

Today’s post is about the people or better in this case, the organizations I follow to when I am looking for news relating to Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR).

The following list is a good mix of interesting organizations and websites.

CSR News on Twitter

• Ethical Corporation: A conference organizer specializing in CSR event

• TheCSRFeed: The CSR Feed from 3blmedia

• Apesphere: A good all around news website on sustainability and CSR topics

• CSR Wire: One of the most important CSR News agencies

If you feel that I have missed someone that provides equally good information on CSR News please feel free to suggest them here.

I am a member of a lot of social networks. Most of them are on Sustainability and related topics.

This week was particularity interesting as a intensively debated discussion on the Just Means network caught my attention. This discussion focused around the responsible business practices of Shell.

Here is the direct link and screenshot of some of the detailed discussion:

This discussion in itself is nothing extraordinary.

What I feel is a lot more interesting is that someone contacted Shell in order to invite them to comment. And they DECLINED (see below).

This wasn’t really a good decision from Shell in my opinion. Even though most likely nothing will come from this discussion about Shell this kind of stakeholder pressure will become much more common practice in the next few years. Social Media will be the big new challenge for Sustainability and Communication departments.

And I am really looking forward to it as this will mean that companies need to engage more!

What do you think? Any opinions or comments?

Here is another excellent example of how a video can be very effective in bringing a simple message across in a very powerful way.

If you are looking for the ultimate video to show to the Climate Change and Global Warming sceptics in your life then show them this clip:

I know whom I will show this for sure. Maybe then they will finally get it that we need to ACT NOW to save our planet.

After many months of late nights after the regular work the day has finally arrived where I can announce to you that the new version of the SustainabilityForum.com is now live.

Once you look at the new website you will see a clear difference to the old website. The difference is that SustainabilityForum.com is not just a discussion forum anymore but now comprises of four main areas all proving information on Sustainability topics.

The four areas of  the new SustainabilityForum.com website are:

1. The Discussion Forum: Our discussion forum is main place for you our members to share information on Sustainability topics and other off topics. Our topics range from Sustainable Energy to Jobs and Internships in the Sustainability sector. So no change here.
2. NEW: Our Daily News: This is the place for daily news on a broad range of sustainability topics. We are constantly scanning the web for sustainability-related information and news that could be of interest to our members and you the reader. Our intention with this news area is to provide the reader with the most interesting news items of that day or from the past few days. We are only including the news that is truly interesting, no corporate spin and surely no green washing allowed here.
3. NEW: Our Blog: Our blogging area is where an opinion is wanted and expressed in order to provide the reader with a different angle to a certain Sustainability topic. We are always looking for news guest or paid writers that would like to post in our blog area. If you are interested in writing for us or simply would like to blog on SustainabilityForum.com then please get in touch and write us an email to admin(at)sustainabilityforum.com.
4. NEW: The Events Area: If you organizing an event or would like to hold a online chat on a certain topic then this events areas will be just right for you. We hold regular online events where members can share and discuss interesting news and information on the topic of that particular events session

The new SustainabilityForum.com will continue to cover a wide range of Sustainability topics. The only difference is that we will now have a more structured and convenient way of bringing the interesting news to you.

Looking for blogger/authors
SustainabilityForum.com is expanding and we are always looking for writers to that would like to publish their articles. As a writer you can either choose to be a guest writer or a paid writer that would like to contribute on a regular basis. If you are interested in writing for us or have your blog posts published on SustainabilityForum.com then please get in touch by sending an email to admin(at)sustainabilityforum.com.

Your Feedback is wanted
Please visit our new SustainabilityForum.com and let us know what you think by sending us an email to admin(at)sustainabilityforum.com in order to make it even better and customize it to your needs.

See you on SustainabilityForum.com hopefully.

All the best,

Fabian

This week has been a good week. And I wanted to finish it off with a quick recap and some reflections on how much and how little business networking has changed in my opinion.

The week in review:

• The new version of the SustainabilityForum.com is nearly ready. A few more tweaks and we are ready to go next week (Fingers crossed).
• Business is going well too. So far I cannot feel the economic downturn. But I think I can consider myself lucky and I am grateful for that.
• I was able to purchase the domain Fairtrader.org this week. Who knows…that might be another project down the line. A really nice name. Short and memorable.

21st Century Business Networking
This week has also been a fantastic business networking week. I was able to connect with so many great new people. And that made me think. How many people would I have been able to connect with this week and the last few months without the use of some of the modern online business networking tools.

The answer is pretty clear…..not a lot. Especially not from all across the world.

I then remembered that I recently talked to my father about this and how amazed he was about these networking tools.

He said that he is and always has been relying on three business main ways to expand his business network:

• Attending and organizing conferences and workshops
• Being a member of a business club or other clubs in interest areas such as sport, art, etc.
• Cold calling possible business partners and customers to arrange one to one meetings.

Our new networking activities that have drastically changed the way we now network enhance these three business networking activities in my opinion. I categorize them in three areas:

• Social Media: Tools such as Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, etc. help us to connect to like minded people easier then ever before without having meet in person.
• Online Business Meetups: Websites such as Meetup.com etc. now make it incredibly easy to find meetings and get-togehters with like minded people in your local, regional and national community.
• The evolution of modern communications: Modern communication tools such as Skype and the normality of telephone international flat rates make it so much easier and convenient to reach out to people all across the globe.

Again, the beauty of these new tools is that they all enhance and increase your networking possibilities in a way that my father only dreamed about 20 years ago. And I think this is only the beginning. We will see great new developments in these areas ove the next 10 years.

But I also believe these old and new ways of networking have one outcome in common: To really build a proper and long lasting business relationship we always have to meet in person as business is still and will always be conducted between individuals that know and trust each other.

Modern business networking technology will not change this basic law no matter what. And this is a good thing.

Picture Credit: luc legay

I have been using Twitter for the past year and see Twitter as a great tool to extend the private and business networks.
The problem I had with Twitter from the beginning was whom to follow on the topics that I am interested in.
This is the first post in a new Twitter series I am writing where I will be listing the usernames of some people I follow on topics such as Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), CSR/Sustainability News, Social Media, and more. The post today will be about the Twitterers (people that are on Twitter) that tweet (expression for the individual Twitter updates) about CSR.

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Twitterers

• James Farrar – A great blogger and invaluable source of CSR and technology insights
• Mallen Baker – Mallen provides top quality information and insightful commentary on all CSR topics
• David Connor – A never ending source of CSR information
• Chris Jarvis – Great insights and excellent blogger on CSR
• Andrew Newton – Invaluable information source on CSR and Sustainability
• Martin Smith – CEO of JustMeans and a modern CSR entrepreneur

There are a lot more people that are providing excellent information on CSR on Twitter even though they are not listed here. This is just snapshot of the people I follow on the topic of CSR.

Search for CSR on Twitter

Another great way to get started connecting to like-minded CSR people on Twitter is to do a Twitter search with ‘CSR’ as the keyword or any other keyword you are looking for. Here is the direct link to the Twitter search for CSR:
http://search.twitter.com/search?q=csr

This way you will never miss a tweet on the keyword you are looking for.

Happy networking everyone!

This week seems to be the week where I am posting a lot of videos. I have no idea why but I would not want to withhold this very interesting video on the ‘Business Case for Sustainability’ from my readers.

This video is a speech from Ray Anderson, the CEO of Interface.

He founded the company 30 odd years ago and is still running it as of now. Back in February of this year he gave this speech at a TED Conference in California.

This is a very inspiring video about how he became ‘Sustainability-Aware’ as a person and what he then initiated at Interface to limit the environmental and social impact of his business.

A ‘Must-Watch’ for every Sustainability / CSR company representative or anyone interested in the business case for Sustainability.

Enjoy!