New figures released recently show that the number of companies and other organizations publicly disclosing their performance against a range of key sustainability indicators has risen markedly over the last year. The Global Reporting Initiative is now tracking of over 1000 organizations worldwide who issued sustainability reports based on the GRI G3 Guidelines in 2008 – the highest number ever recorded. The figure represents an increase of 46 per cent on the 2007 figure of 685.
Claremont McKenna College’s Roberts Environmental Center recently released a detailed analysis of the social responsibility reporting efforts of the world’s top entertainment corporations that revealed that the entertainment sector lags behind most others in corporate environmental and sustainability reporting. The report scores companies based on the reporting, intent, and performance of their environmental and social sustainability efforts. The research, based entirely on material released on the firms’ Web sites, found that Bertelsmann, a German firm, and CBS, Viacom, and Walt Disney, outperformed the industry giants News Corp. and Time Warner. However, these firms scores were mediocre when compared to the scores of other industries.
Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) and Restaurant Associates (RA) recently unveiled their Green Dining Best Practices, which is a comprehensive set of science-based recommendations for environmentally friendly foodservice. In a National Restaurant Association survey of trends for 2009, environmentally friendly equipment and sustainable practices topped chefs’ lists of hot trends and top cost-savers.
The Academy of Management Review is issuing a call for papers for a Special Issue and Workshop on Strategic Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Sustainability. Two key research questions are: (1) how can social and environmental responsibility be implemented more effectively through integrated market and non-market strategies? and (2) how can the various business sub-disciplines (e.g., human resource management, management information systems, organizational behavior, marketing, and accounting) contribute to our understanding of the determinants of superior financial, social, and environmental performance? This special issue will promote the concept of theoretical metatriangulation, as expressed in previous articles on theory building in the Academy of Management Review. Contributions from strategic management, organizational behavior, human resource management, organizational theory, economics, political science, sociology, moral philosophy, and other disciplines are encouraged.
