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Category Archives - Sustainability & CSR News

Is Facebook mutating into a money-making machine?

February 2, 201212:31 am

I just heard about the upcoming Facebook IPO via mashable and needed to write a quick post about it as I feel that this development has a significant CSR angle to it.

The CSR angle of the Facebook IPO

The big problem I see is that Facebook is getting to powerful and influential due to its extreme high valuation ($15 billion USD+) and the consequential interest of global investors that are after one thing only: Making lots of money.

Facebook’s purpose in my view, is to provide us with a platform to connect with our friends and family. And to me it seems that an IPO will in a way sell our personal information and relationships to the shareholders of Facebook. And this is not right. It is actually very wrong.

As a responsible business Facebook should focus on providing us with the best possible personal global social networking site and not mutate into a global money-making machine out to let us pay for premium features or inundating us with the latest PR exercise of a global car manufacturer for example.

I really like Facebook don’t get me wrong but if Facebook will mutuate into this money-making machine once it is a publicly-listed company, then I am surely leaving it for good as I do not want to be part of this website anyone.

This is my view on this. What is yours?

Howies splits from VF – A good sustainable business decision

January 18, 20124:48 pm

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I am not the most passionate shopper or consumer when it comes to clothing but one company I have always been buying from over the past years has been Howies in the UK.

Howies started out with the vision to be a truly sustainable and environmentally friendly organisation years ago. They joined Timberland in 2006. I like Timberland, so I continued to shop with Howies. In 2011 Timberland where bought by VF. This acquisition made business sense for Timberland and VF but as a Howies customer I must admit I did not like the idea of my brand being one tiny part of a huge world-wide brand conglomerate. This is the link to the post: VF and Timberland, if you are interested in my VF-Timberland view.

Today I was very pleased to read that the Howies owners bought back the business from VF. Howies would have been a tiny part of the overall business and the owners, in my view, rightly decided that being part of VF would not be good for the future of such a great sustainable clothing brand.

This is the news item from the Howies website: On our own two feet

The CSR / Sustainability angle on this development

I believe that this is a great example of how CSR /Sustainability can best thrive while being small, and that belonging to a multi-national corporation does not always help in promoting sustainable business practices. Yes, you could argue that this is a one of example but so far my experience has thought me that sustainable business practices work best if the business can go and evolve at its own pace without much interference from big-business trying to accelerate this process. It certainly helps if you more cash available to do as you please but in the end it all depends on the commitment of the business owners, its employees and key stakeholders to make change happen. This is a lot easier in a small independent business.

I would like to congratulate the new Howies owners for this bold move. I will certainly order more in the future from now on. The reason is very simple: I now know who is behind the business, how they source their products and what they stand for as a business. This is all I want and need to know from a sustainable business these days.

What is the value of a CSR conference when the audience is too specific?

December 15, 20111:19 pm

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If you are in Berlin, Germany today and tomorrow you might be interested in the annual international CSR conference called »CSR – Social Responsibility in International Dialogue« organised by the German government. This is the Twitter hashtag if you want to follow some tweets about the conference: #CSRGermany.

A few weeks ago I discussed the value of this conference with a CSR friend of mine and to my astonishment we agreed that it would be necessary to attend, but only really if you are looking to do business in the CSR sector. The continuing conversation made it very clear that it would be incredibly boring and useless to go for anyone not part of the CSR business community.

What is the purpose of a CSR conference?

Hang on I thought. But is that really useful? Shouldn’t it be the other way around? Surely every normal citizen should be the target audience for this kind of CSR conference. And certainly the conference should not be a gala for companies working in the field and the so-called CSR specialists looking to network and to acquire new business. CSR in my view is for everyone not just the people that work in the field.

But the sad reality still is that CSR continues to be a topic for specialists and not the main stream stakeholders.

This also shows that CSR in Germany is still a topic for the specialists and these specialists seem to want to stay amongst themselves as well……. Normal stakeholders still do not seem to show an interest in the CSR topic. Maybe this is an indication that the way we communicate CSR is still wrong? But this is a topic for another post so lets get back to the topic today.

What value do you see in visiting conferences in the CSR sector? Would you go even if you where not working in the sector or would this put you of?

My wish for CSR conferences in the future, is that they should be open and more importantly interesting to anyone working AND wanting to know more about CSR and the role of business in making the world a better place. Is this just wishful thinking and am I being just too idealistic?

My CSR perspective of the COP 17 talks in Durban

December 8, 20114:52 pm

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Some of you will know that the COP 17 in Durban will finish tomorrow. The summit started on the 28th of November and so far, judging from some of the blogs and articles I have seen, not much will be achieved in Durban by the end of tomorrow.

Here are some recent useful links to articles:

My CSR perspective

Taking a look at the interim results of the COP 17 from a CSR perspective, I must say that this is a disappointing result so far. I can hardly describe how disappointing actually. It seems to me that Organizations and governments from across the globe have lost the will and interest to change our destiny when it comes to tackling climate change.

It is very clear that they have quickly turned away from this uncomfortable climate reality only to focus on the single most important topic they always have: Business and economic growth. In a way the economic downturn and EU debt crisis have come at the right time for them to change the topic back to economic growth and prosperity.

Don’t get me wrong. Economic growth and prosperity are essential for our economy and local / global businesses. I know what I am talking about. I also run my own business and I need to find ways to bring in “fresh money” in order to pay my employees and the current bills. But I do not need to always grow my business in order to keep my business in the black. If I am not making enough money I need to find ways to grow AND cut back on the costs I have. But if I would be as ignorant towards such substantial treats to my way of doing business as the global organizations and governments are at the moment when we look at the dangers of climate change, I would be out of business very quickly.

We all need to change in order to avoid the damming effects of climate change. Everyone has to play their part. But the frameworks for our coordinated actions need to be set by our governments with the help of global organizations. And from what I am seeing at the COP17, are we actually much further away from this result than ever before.

The AA1000SES (2011) – Developed by stakeholders for stakeholders

November 11, 20117:19 am

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Today’s post is about the exciting news that the AA1000SES (2011) Stakeholder Engagement Standard has been published today. Countless experts from across the globe provided feedback and helped to revise the standard over the course of the past 2.5 years!

This is an important development for the CSR / Sustainability field in my view as the standard provides extremely useful guidance on stakeholder engagement and because it is the first standard to be published under a Creative Commons license and not under the umbrella of an organization, for-profit or NGO.

It is the first genuine standard for stakeholders developed by stakeholders.

This is the full press release below and a link to download the full standard here: AA1000SES (2011) or visit the website AA1000SES (2011) website for more information and to leave a comment.

Full press release:

The Technical Committee responsible for the development of the new AA1000SES (2011) international Stakeholder Engagement Standard is very pleased to announce its release.

The AA1000SES (2011) has been developed in consultation with and has been welcomed by practitioners, policy and operational researchers, civil society and business leaders and representatives from other standards bodies.

The AA1000 Stakeholder Engagement Standard provides a basis for designing, implementing, evaluating and assuring the quality of stakeholder engagement. It has been designed to be multi-purpose, not just for sustainable development, and can be used by businesses, civil society, public bodies and multi-stakeholder networks and partnerships.

Anne Pattberg (disclosure: yes this is my wife!) from the Technical Committee states: “The Technical Committee would like to thank all stakeholders who have over the last two and a half years contributed to the extensive revision of this standard by attending workshops in more than 20 countries and participating through a variety of other virtual engagement mechanisms.”

The AA1000 SES (2011) provides guidance for continuous improvement, recognizing different levels of practice and can be used as a stand-alone standard or as an integral element of other standards and guidelines (e.g. AA1000AS, GRI, ISO26000, UNGC, OECD, IFC). The AA1000SES (2011) is relevant to micro-level engagements as well as macro-level engagements on major societal concerns and applies to businesses, civil society, public bodies and multi-stakeholder networks and partnerships. It also supports developments in other areas such as quality management, transparency, reporting and governance.

We would like to take this opportunity to thank all the organizations and individuals, including the past Standards Board and secretariat, as well as the Technical Committee and the many supporting stakeholders who have contributed so much to this international body of knowledge.

About AA1000SES

Originally published as an exposure draft in 2005, the AA1000SES is an open-source framework for designing, implementing and communicating the stakeholder engagement process as well as assuring its quality. This new edition takes into account feedback from an extensive piloting program, ongoing research into evolving practice and broad-based international engagement.

Note:

AA1000SES (2011) is made available under the stewardship of the AA1000SES Technical Committee to ensure its availability to all stakeholders and to acknowledge its ownership and creation by a large and diverse community of organizations and individuals. It is for use by all stakeholders. The intellectual property is protected by a Creative Commons copyright.

The future governance of the AA1000SES (2011) will follow the March 2011 agreement between the AA1000SES Technical Committee and the then secretariat. The Technical Committee looks to the AA1000 Interim Standards Board (ISB) and the AA1000 User Group to cooperate to advance a governance for the AA1000 series that can rise to today’s sustainability challenges and provide a focal point for the continued pooling of international expertise.

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Please share this exciting news with your network and feel free to download the standard from the AA1000SES (2011) website.

Consolidation in the CSR Social Media field

July 16, 20119:04 am

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This week saw an interesting development in the CSR / Sustainability field. JustMeans was acquired by 3blMedia. This is the link to the press release. I have had several emails and messages on Twitter and Google+ asking me what I thought about this new development. Here is what I make of it.

My View

I think this development is a sign of the current difficult economic times as well as normal consolidation in any kind of business sector. In my view JustMeans was going in no particular direction over the past months and seemed to slowly go away as a player in the CSR / Sustainability Social Media world. Toby Webb wrote about this several months ago and made some very good points.

This new development might kickstart another phase of interesting development for the site. I also hope that this acquisition does not mean that JustMeans will simply be another news outlet for 3blMedia. I am a strong believer in the fact that good content is the key to any websites success. If 3blMedia will focus on this strong content creation and engagement in a “non-marketing” and “honest” way I would expect the site to be a growing community for professionals in the field. This is what JustMeans wanted to be from the start after all. I hope they will succede with this new leadership. Best of luck from my side.

This is my take on the acquisition. What is yours?

Poll results: Latest Sustainability / CSR trends in 2011

June 22, 201112:24 pm

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Several weeks ago I started the online poll asking the question what in your view the biggest trend in CSR this year (2011) is so far was. This is the link to the poll post and results.

Today’s post is taking a closer look at the top 5 and what this ranking of CSR / Sustainability topics and trends can possibly tell us. Here are the top 5 trends identified by 82 different voters from across the globe:

Top Trend: Social Media (20 votes)

I guess this comes a no surprise that Social Media is the top answer when you consider that the distribution of the poll mainly used Social Media channels such as Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. But this is nevertheless a clear sign that Social Media continues to be the trend in 2011 in terms of CSR and Sustainability best practice.

Supply Chain is keeping everyone on their toes (14 votes)

This was a surprise for me to be honest. I did expect the topic to be a top 5 topic but not really at number 2. Possible reasons for this top placement in my view are that Supply Chain topics never really go away for a business no matter how much work they do or how well they are performing. The relationship with your suppliers (especially in the manufacturing) is usually changing each month at least and each organisation needs to stay on top of these developments. That is why best practice trends are always something organisations involved in making CSR / Sustainability work are looking for.

Stakeholder Engagement is changing (13 votes)

This is something I expected. This “Evergreen” is always very popular when we talk about CSR / Sustainability trends. The issue I have is that the term stakeholder engagement can mean so many different things in terms of CSR / Sustainability. The emergence of Social Media has proven to be a deciding factor for successful stakeholder engagement in my view. Stakeholder engagement means a lot more then just engaging stakeholders using Social Media but the increasing importance of Social Media will be an interesting differentiation for the continuous overall adoption of stakeholder engagement best practice across businesses globally.

GRI gets the recognition it deserves (10 votes)

The Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) being named one of the top 5 trends in 2011 was another positive surprise. The GRI has always been a important player in the CSR / Sustainability field but it seems that it focus on integrated reporting and the way it uses Social Media these days is something people in the field recognise and appreciate during 2011.

CSR /Sustainability Reporting and ISO 26000 round up the top 5 (6 votes each)

The fifth spot on with 6 votes each was a tie between CSR / Sustainability Reporting and the ISO 26000. Both of them are closely related and for me the most interesting aspect of this tie was that they are both about making sense of the way you report your CSR / Sustainability strategy and best practice as a business.

Conclusion:

Social Media, Supply Chain and the different aspects of CSR / Sustainability reporting are prevalent when you take this snapshot poll about the latest trends in 2011. Next to the communication aspect of CSR / Sustainability practices and activities, the guidance of institutions such as the GRI are very important to the people which voted.
This leads me to conclude that organisations and other institutions are slowly opening up in terms of communication but guidance on an array of CSR / Sustainability standardisation aspects (reporting, ISO 26000 and GRI) are also something CSR / Sustainability professionals are looking for in 2011.

The future of CSR at Timberland after the VF deal?

June 14, 20111:17 pm

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Some of you might have read the news item yesterday and today that Timberland has been bought by VF (company selling branded lifestyle apparel including jeanswear, outdoor products, etc.).

When I read the news I immediately wondered about what this would mean for the CSR / Sustainability activities of Timberland now and in the future.

Will Jeff Swartz and his team have the freedom to do what they have done so effectively over the past years in terms of CSR and Sustainability best practice.

This is what Jeff Schwartz had to say in the last tweet I saw:

Selling doesn't mean selling out. VF's commitment to sustainability real; scale must mean impact

bird The future of CSR at Timberland after the VF deal?

June 13, 2011 9:46 pm via TweetDeck ReplyRetweetFavorite

@Timberland_Jeff

Jeff Swartz

My view

Time will tell of course but I must say I certainly hope that Jeff is right and that the scale of the organisational effort is what is important to make an impact and not necessarily the ownership here in Timberlands case. But I hope we will hear more details about this from Timberland and VF during the next few weeks. Timberland after all has been great in communicating CSR / Sustainability efforts and best practice.

Here are some another interesting news stories on this announcement as it evolves further:

Your view

What is your view on this breaking news? Are you worried as well or do you see this as a good development?