2010 February | FabianPattberg.com

All is not well in the Apple world!

February 28, 20101:08 pm

We all love Apple with its modern and innovative products – but some recent news about the lack of stakeholder feedback and irresponsible business practices are making me wonder whether Apple is not willing to listen and act anymore with regards to Sustainability and CSR?
These two recent articles raise big question marks about the way Apple is conducting its business and whether to buy Apple products in the future.

Article 1 – Apple Focuses on Green at Shareholder Meeting
This sounds like a good business practice but the important part of the article to consider here is this paragraph:
‘Voted down were two shareholder proposals, each of which the board recommended voting against. The first was a proposal for Apple to prepare a “sustainability” report on the company’s environmental policies and the effects that climate change may have on the company’s competitiveness; the board’s position was that Apple “is already substantially fulfilling–and in many respects exceeding–the request for information [in the proposal].” The second was a proposal to amend the company’s bylaws to establish a board-of-directors sustainability committee to “ensure [Apple's] sustained viability” in the face of “changing conditions and knowledge of the natural environment, including…natural resource limitations, energy use, waste disposal, and climate change.” The board’s position was, again, that management was performing “exceptionally well in this area” and thus such a committee was unnecessary. (You can read Apple’s 2010 proxy statement for all the details of these proposals.)’

Article 2 – Apple admits using child labor
The point here is that Apple still uses the factories that they know uses child labor. This is totally unacceptable in my opinion.

Is Apple is getting to big and confident as an organization to not be responsive to the stakeholder demands and not practice responsible business practice? Is their thinking that the Apple products are just so sustainable that they do not need to do the same actions, etc. as their industry competitors?

If this is really the case then I am hugely disappointed by Apple and will reconsider to actually use their products in the future. Do not get me wrong. I love my Apple products but this will make no difference to me if they are acting irresponsible in terms of business practice.

Picture Credit: arquera

Why do we trust companies to do the right thing?

February 22, 20107:16 pm

4 Comments

Now here is a difficult question to answer. Having worked in this Sustainability / Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) field for a good while now I must say that this very basic question is not really easy to answer. Especially from the viewpoint of the Sustainability / CSR professional. It is our business to be trust agents and convince others to trust in the good companies are doing.

So as engaging bloggers do ( and I am hoping you will see me as one of these engaging bloggers), am I putting this question to you, my reader, and seek your opinion.

Here is what I think about this: Trusting companies to do the right thing is difficult as companies are so integral to our society and way of living. Most of us either work for one company or have companies as customers. Companies provide us with the income we need to buy the things we need to live our life, care for our family and raise our children.

So what other choice other then to hoping that they will do the right thing do we have? I think we need to look at the other side of this question. It is not a choice but rather a duty, a duty for us as stakeholders of these companies to ask and demand of them to do the right thing. We can not hope for them to do the right thing but we can and need to demand it.

And the time can not be better nowadays with such easy access finding like-minded people from across the globe using the internet and ways to publish your messages via free social media tools.

Change starts with believing that you can make a difference. And we need to start believing that we can create a better business world. We, as a Sustainability / CSR professionals or activists, need to believe that we can influence all of these negative aspects that are pulling our confidence down at the moment by using our education, experience and passion to make it a better business world for us and our own stakeholders. This is our duty as stakeholders.

This is my take on this but what is yours?

Picture Credit: s4nt1

Facebook – A useful Sustainability and CSR platform?

February 16, 20106:28 pm

1 Comment

I guess most of you are also members of Facebook and I assume you are also interested in Sustainability and CSR. The question I have pondered on during the last few weeks is whether Facebook is actually a good platform for the Sustainability / CSR field. I am convinced that LinkedIn and Twitter are but what about Facebook?

These are the positives, negatives and the unknown aspects of Facebook and Sustainability/CSR from my point of view.

Positives

Facebook is a huge platform. Here are some stats on Facebook’s reach. What an amazing place for potentially promoting Sustainability / CSR. A recent example is the Robin Hood Tax group which has amassed over 70.000+ members within days.
Facebook offers an amazing potential reach for causes or people with common interests. This is the a link to a recent success story of a London Group. Really interesting. Imagine this could be a Sustainability / CSR group next time.
It is free of charge with all sorts of ways to connect to friends, family, likeminded people and interesting Sustainability / CSR information.
Important discussions and topics are being shared and discussed. A very promising breeding ground for potential new ways of stakeholder engagement, etc.
Great technology and amazing interactivity features that can only help visualize and expose certain aspects of Sustainability / CSR in a positive way.

Negatives

What about my privacy? Are the new privacy settings really working? Will these new rules be enough for everyone to feel safe while sharing something on Facebook?
From a company point of view it can be said that the barriers of entry for companies on Facebook are still to high (Just look at the revenues Facebook is making from ads…not much in comparison to how big they are). Could this be a sign that the consumer is disinterested in the corporate world on Facebook? How can a company run a Facebook campaign and properly tap into the vast stakeholder feedback that it could offer?

The unknown Facebook factor for Sustainability / CSR

Will Facebook also be a platform for promoting Sustainability / CSR or help us be more sustainable? Sometimes it seems to me that the things we do on Facebook such as joining a group or becoming a fan of something/ omeone is just too superficial. Where is the use in it?

In summary
I do not think we could imagine a world without Facebook now but this is not true for the Sustainability / CSR field. Currently there are different platforms that are more significant. And not Facebook.

So the questions is: Isn’t Facebook really just a platform for connecting with your friends and family or will it transform into something different over time? Something more complex….. Mark Zuckerberg definitely things so.
For the Sustainability / CSR field, Facebook still needs to evolve in order to be more accessible. Maybe is this something the Facebook teams are currently working on. Who knows…………

Review of the GE Global Research blog

February 12, 20106:03 pm

5 Comments

I did a post several weeks ago about the quality of company blogs. It turned out to be a very popular post and it got even more interesting when a representative from GE Global Research also commented. She (Katelyn Buress, Communications Specialist) commented on the fact that I included their blog in the ‘Not so sure about category’. Blogs in this category in my opinion had some some aspects missing to be truly recommendable blogs.

Since then GE Global Research and I have been exchanging ideas and concluded that it would be very useful for GE Global Research and you, my readers, to discuss their blog here once I posted my suggestions on how the blog of GE Global Research could be improved. I am providing my feedback in written and video form. The video is at the bottom of this post.

How GE Global Research describe their blog:
“The intention of Edison’s Desk is to be the place where GE Global Research technologists discuss the latest in technology, innovation, science, and engineering. The blog is meant to be engaging, dynamic, and interactive; we are welcome and appreciative of any feedback or input as to the content or style of the site. We’ve got some incredible scientists and engineers with broad interests and technical expertise blogging on Edison’s Desk. We’d love your input what content interests you and ways we can improve the site all together.” – Katelyn Buress, Communications Specialist, GE Global Research

GE Global Research is very keen on feedback from you. So please feel free to put forward your suggestions in the form of comments at the bottom of this post.

My overall impression:
This blog is a good blog in its current form but there is something missing in my opinion. It mainly needs some work to be truly engaging and interactive. Here are some of the detailed changes I would recommend.

Suggestions for improvement

Overall RSS feed
I am missing a possibility to subscribe to all posts via the website-wide RSS feed. I can not find it anywhere other then in my browser address field. So why not provide a RSS button or some other form of visualization for everyone to subscribe to the website wide RSS feed.

Online Community engagement
This blog is a great platform and GE picked up my blog review very quickly. This means that they are scanning the social media sphere for any feedback. This is a good move but what I am missing on the blog is some kind of association with social media sites in order to show your online community engagement. This would personally provide me with the reassurance that you are openly communicating with your stakeholders.

Interactivity on the site
The community engagement criticism is also part of this point – the lack of interactivity on the GE Global Research blog. Why not use more plugins or sidebar elements that show your YouTube Channel for example? Or some kind of a Twitter feed? Anything that might show that you are actively engaging with the reader.

Other GE blogs
How about providing links to other GE blogs? There are many more GE blogs out there and all form part of the overall GE business. I would really like to visit some other GE blogs just to get more information on other parts of GE. A place somewhere on the blog would be an ideal addition to the overall user experience.

I have also recorded a brief video walk-through of the blog talking about these comments.

Here is the video walk-through:

So what do you think about the blog? What would you do differently or advise GE Global Research to do?

Help us to tackle poverty and climate change: Support the Robin Hood Tax

February 10, 201012:50 pm

5 Comments

I am not really the big campaigner and I am highly critical of many campaigns that are supposed to help the poor and that aim to help to fight climate change but today a campaign was launched that I am strongly supporting and that I wanted you to know about. This campaign is intended to introduce a so called ‘Robin Hood Tax’.

This is how the idea is being described on the campaign website:
‘The Robin Hood Tax is a tiny tax on bankers that would raise billions to tackle poverty and climate change, at home and abroad. By taking an average of 0.05% from speculative banking transactions, hundreds of billions of pounds would be raised every year. That’s easily enough to stop cuts in crucial public services in the UK, and to help fight global poverty and climate change.’

This video comes with the launch today. It makes it very clear what the logic behind the tax is.

Here are some recent articles about the launch:
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2010/02/10/business/business-uk-britain-banktax.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/8506718.stm
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/feb/10/robin-hood-tax-pressing-problems
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/top-stories/2010/02/10/celebs-charities-and-unions-call-for-robin-hood-tax-on-banks-to-help-the-poor-115875-22031754/
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-02-09/-robin-hood-tax-on-banks-would-aid-poor-u-k-non-profits-say.html

So please sign up to help us promote this possible tax to help the poor and fight climate change. Remember every good thing you do, no matter how small, will make our world a better place. None of us can change the world on our own but we can definitely change the world together.

Fabian Pattberg

Monthly Archives - February 2010