In the US market demand for advice on climate change and sustainability is growing due to a dramatic shift in US climate change policy, the cost reduction potential of “green” programs and competitive pressure to implement a climate change strategy. Consulting firms that fail to establish their climate change expertise during 2009 will miss out on the biggest opportunity in the consulting market for 20 years, according to independent research conducted by Verdantix. The ground-breaking analysis of the US climate change consulting market applies 56 evaluation criteria to assess 19 consulting and professional services firms including BCG, Booz & Company, CH2M Hill, ENVIRON, ERM, Ernst & Young, ICF International, McKinsey & Company, PA Consulting Group and PwC.
SustainableBusiness.com recently announced its 2009 Sustainable Business 20 (SB20) List: The World’s Top Sustainable Stocks. The 8th Annual SB20 List consists of 20 public companies that are leading the way to a sustainable economy. The list is presented in the Progressive Investor newsletter, published by SustainableBusiness.com, which tracks and analyzes green stocks. To choose the 20 companies, SustainableBusiness.com works with a group of judges, who are among the most respected green stock analysts in the world. Judges select companies across the range of green business sectors – solar, wind, geothermal, smart grid, water, food, agriculture, green building and transport. In addition, over a third of the companies populating this year’s SB20 List are “Corporate Pioneers” – companies with conventional products and services that are greening their product lines.
The corporate social responsibility studies and reports we spotlight cover the following topics: attaining sustainable growth through corporate social responsibility; CRS’ emergence as a crucial instrument for minimizing conflicts with stakeholder; the impact on proactive policies on employees, consumers and diversity and their relationship to the firm’s financial performance; the notion of a socially responsible corporation is potentially an oxymoron because of the naturally conflicted nature of the corporation, using corporate Social Responsibility to Understand the Credit Crisis; a look at whether the modern corporate governance model is sustainable; and the impact of political views on corporate decision-making and corporate social responsibility.
