In this post, Elaine analyzes the GRI’s own sustainability report, asking what extent GRI Stakeholders should be content with a report about direct impacts and outputs (the things that the GRI is saying, doing, using) versus a report about the outcomes the GRI can reasonably claim to have influenced.
Argues why businesses should move beyond the duality of environmental concerns and making money to expos the false divide between environmental and business thinking. It makes the case that doing so is important in order for the organization to operate successfully, and thrive, in an increasingly resource constrained world. by Christopher Gleadle, author of Sustainable […]
In this post Elaine focuses on the importance of critically reviewing the organization’s sustainability reporting by posing and then speaking to a series of questions that focus in on various aspects of how to evaluate the current state of an organizations sustainability reporting.
The recyclable plastic bags you get at the green grocer are not biodegradable. But product life-cycle assessments, which are about to become more prominent in the marketplace, fail to consider whether those bags will break down in landfills or just end up as litter.
Sustainability is a business practice important to all businesses of all sizes that is beginning to impact across the entire supply chain, as more and more global firms begin to see securing a green supply chain as a strategic priority. Integrated reporting increases the transparency of the organization, highlighting the issues and the impacts towards governance and structure.
Announcement for the upcoming: UNEP FI 2011 Global Roundtable sustainability conference that is occurring on the 19-20 October 2011 at the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center, in Washington, DC. This is a biennial, high-level conference that typically attracts a select group of 600 plus sustainable finance and responsible investment leaders and thinkers for an intensive, two-day dialogue.
In this post Elaine gives some examples of successful sustainability goals and examples of goals that fall short of the mark, arguing that reporting needs to address what companies WILL do not just what they HAVE done. This post seeks to give insight on what is the right way for companies to establish sustainability goals.
Lean manufacturing practices and sustainability are conceptually similar in that both seek to maximize organizational efficiency. Where they differ is in where the boundaries are drawn, and in how waste is defined. Sustainability expands the definition of waste to include the wider range of consequences of business actions including environmental and social consequences. Lean processes are inherently less wasteful and in this sense promoting lean processes can help organizations become more sustainable.
This post examines the importance of successfully communicating the importance of sustainability for the bottom line, in terms of risk mitigation, value opportunities and business benefits associated with sustainability to an organization’s CFO. The CFO is typically ultimately responsible for investor relations, facilities, purchasing, human resources, IT and have a large impact on all organizational resource allocation decision making in general, and CFOs can have a major impact on the ultimate success or failure of an organizations sustainability programs.
