McDonald’s Shareholders to Vote on Marketing Unwholesome Food to Children

| Thursday May 23rd, 2013 | 0 Comments
Shareholders say McDonald's targeting of children through products like Happy Meals has contributed to childhood obesity.

Shareholders say McDonald’s targeting of children through products like Happy Meals has contributed to childhood obesity.

A resolution at the McDonald’s annual shareholder meeting today will seek to prevent the fast food giant from marketing unhealthy food to children.

The resolution demands that McDonald’s “stop substituting PR for genuine change – namely ending its marketing to kids – when it comes to its staggering impact on public health,” according to Corporate Accountability International (CAI), the advocacy group spearheading the campaign.

“The resolution requires McDonald’s to examine and report on how its efforts to address its public health impacts are keeping pace with increasing public pressure and efforts to limit the fast food environment,” Sara Deon, director of CAI’s “Value [the] Meal” campaign, tells TriplePundit in an email.

“What McDonald’s is attempting to pass off as nutritional initiatives, slick nutri-washing campaigns, and ineffectual voluntary initiatives, are nowhere near enough to address the public health impacts of its business operations nor is it enough to protect shareholders from increasing financial risk,” says Deon.

Click to continue reading »

Permalink CONTINUES » discuss Discuss This »

podium [Your News Here]

HP’s 2012 Sustainability Report: More Carbon Reporting, Transparency, Social Enterprise

Leon Kaye | Thursday May 23rd, 2013 | 0 Comments
HP, 2012 sustainability report, global citizenship report, social enterprise, CHAI, Kenya, India, carbon footprint, carbon emissons, Chris Librie, supply chain, Chongqing, China, Swarthmore College, Clinton Global Initiative, carbon reporting, carbon footprint disclosure, Chuasala, Leon Kaye, transparency, Silicon Valley

Chongqing, China, home of many HP factories.

This week HP released its 2012 sustainability report, or in HP’s lingo, Global Citizenship Report. The voluminous report–almost 150 pages if you include the GRI Index–jumps into minute detail about the work HP has accomplished on several fronts, from its corporate governance structure to the company’s leveraging of technology for health initiatives to scouring its supply chain for greater efficiency.

Yesterday, I spoke with HP’s Director of Environmental and Health Initiatives, Chris Librie, from his office at the company’s Silicon Valley headquarters. I was curious about several issues: What does it take for a company to report on a tangled and complicated supply chain? Why would the company dive into health initiatives 10 time zones away? And what sets HP’s carbon footprint disclosure far apart from other multinational firms?

Click to continue reading »

Permalink CONTINUES » discuss Discuss This »

Shareholders Press for More Disclosure from Fracking Companies

| Thursday May 23rd, 2013 | 0 Comments

shareholders protest oil and natural gas frackingFor the fourth year in a row, a group of shareholders has organized to pressure oil and gas companies to disclose and address the risks of a drilling method called hydraulic fracturing, also known as fracking. The fracking risk disclosure movement has been gathering steam as the impacts of fracking are becoming evident in more communities, contributing to increased public awareness and greater demand for corporate reports that acknowledge and quantify risk factors including water contamination, local air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions.

The diverse group consists of the CSR nonprofit As You Sow, leading sustainable investment company Calvert Investments, investment advisory firm Green Century Capital Management, and the advocacy organization Investor Environmental Health Network along with socially responsible investors The Sisters of St. Francis of Philadelphia and New York City Comptroller John C. Liu.

Click to continue reading »

Permalink CONTINUES » discuss Discuss This »

Do Apple’s Tax Practices Reflect Irresponsible Capitalism?

| Thursday May 23rd, 2013 | 1 Comment

Apple storeOn Tuesday, Apple’s CEO Tim Cook came to Washington to testify in front of a Senate panel examining how Apple used “loopholes” to avoid paying billions of dollars in U.S. taxes.

Apple is not the first or the only company to use these tax strategies to minimize its tax payments, but just like with the Foxconn episode, the company found out once again that being very successful and profitable also has its price in terms of higher accountability demands.

The reports on Apple’s tax avoidance and Cook’s testimony once again brought up the question of tax fairness and what it means nowadays when we expect companies to be responsible for the impacts of their decisions and activities on society.

To further explore this issue from a CSR perspective, we tried to answer some key questions that hopefully shed some light not just on Apple’s behavior, but also on the practice of taking advantage of tax loopholes in general.

Click to continue reading »

Permalink CONTINUES » discuss Discuss This »

Women in CSR: Pamela Gill Alabaster, L’Oréal

| Thursday May 23rd, 2013 | 0 Comments

women-csr-banner
Welcome to our series of interviews with leading female CSR practitioners where we are learning about what inspires these women and how they found their way to careers in sustainability. Read the rest of the series here.

PamAlabaster HeadshotTriplePundit: Briefly describe your role and responsibilities, and how many years you have been in the business.

Pamela Gill Alabaster: I am Senior Vice President, Corporate Communications, Sustainable Development & Public Affairs. I lead both the public affairs and the sustainable development functions for the largest subsidiary in the L’Oréal group.

In the Sustainable Development role, I am charged with advancing organizational competencies, knowhow and best practices by collaborating with internal and external teams to deliver against the global performance goals, aligned with the focus on sustainable innovation, sustainable production, sustainable consumption and shared development.

I am a 20-year veteran of the company and have spent half of my career in marketing leadership roles and half building corporate functions and practices.

3p: How has the sustainability program evolved at your company?

PA: Although L’Oréal became a signatory of the Global Compact in 2003, and has been reporting on the company’s global sustainability performance since 2004 through GRI, the U.S. sustainability function was not established until 2011. We are early in our journey. Aligned with headquarters, our focus over the past two years has been to develop and pioneer practices, programs and initiatives that help drive greater operational efficiencies, leverage sustainability as a platform for product innovation, educate and mobilize employees, engage and collaborate with external stakeholders and advance the reputation of our enterprise and brands. We are making good progress and have significant opportunities and challenges ahead.

Click to continue reading »

Permalink CONTINUES » discuss Discuss This »

SAP Invests in Skills Development Programs Throughout Africa

Leon Kaye | Thursday May 23rd, 2013 | 0 Comments

csr in emerging markets

SAP, SAP Africa, Antonia Ashton, education, Leon Kaye, SAP Education, CSR in emerging markets, information technology, skills training, Kenya ICT Board, Multimedia University of Kenya, MMU, Kenya, South Africa, Leon Kaye

Cape Town, South Africa (Leon Kaye)

Africa is the new frontier for business; in fact, in this decade, seven of the world’s 10 fastest growing economies will be in Africa if current projections are accurate. Multinationals including SAP, PepsiCo and Unilever are either actively investing or are mulling increased focus on the region. From natural resources to agricultural products to the bustling hubs of technological innovation in Africa’s cities, this continent of one billion people spread across 54 states is on the move.

But the desire and demand for educational opportunities has far outpaced the opportunities actually available in Africa. To that end, this week SAP launched a “Skills for Africa” program tasked with developing information technology skills to boost access to education and support for entrepreneurs. SAP will work with dozens of partners to offer as many as 2,500 students skills training in the next five years. A pilot program in Kenya with 100 students started last fall.

TriplePundit had the opportunity to catch up with Antonia Ashton, Head of Integrated Communications for SAP Africa. I wanted to learn about some of the challenges companies face in emerging markets such as Africa–so I shot her some questions, which she answered from her Cape Town, South Africa office.

Click to continue reading »

Permalink CONTINUES » discuss Discuss This »

The U.S. is Paying Too Much For Healthcare and Receiving Too Little

| Thursday May 23rd, 2013 | 0 Comments
The U.S. spends more on healthcare than any other country, but does not have the best average quality.

The U.S. spends more on healthcare than any other country, but does not have the best average quality.

When it comes to most things, you get what you pay for. Paying more for a ticket to a baseball game means you will have better seats. Patronizing an expensive restaurant results in higher quality food. But when it comes to healthcare – a matter of life and death for every man, woman and child in this country – it’s backwards.

According to a 2012 report by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the United States spends some 17.6 percent of its GDP on healthcare – far more than any other OECD country – but does not see quality increases commensurate with its spending. While the U.S. has 2.4 practicing physicians per 1,000 people, the OECD average is 3.1. Most OECD countries have an average of 3.4 beds, but the U.S. has only 2.6 for every 1,000 people.

Congress has spent so much time squabbling over who should be paying for healthcare that it has failed to ask the most pertinent question – why do we pay so much?

This month, the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) released inaugural data detailing the prices hospitals charge for common procedures, which revealed a wide range of price fluctuations between different hospitals, with no real method to the madness.

Click to continue reading »

Permalink CONTINUES » discuss Discuss This »

Coca-Cola Works to Counter Childhood Obesity

Lisa Marie Chirico
| Thursday May 23rd, 2013 | 0 Comments
Coca-Cola is reducing their advertising targeted at children in their attempt to counter obesity claims.

Coca-Cola is reducing their advertising targeted at children in their attempt to counter obesity claims.

By Lisa Marie Chirico

Maybe John Milton got it half right. During his fiery rant in “The Devil’s Advocate” he blames God for setting the rules in opposition after giving man instincts, but ultimately concludes that free will plays a big role in our lives. For companies who create products that are deemed unhealthy, such as soda and cigarettes, consumers’ free will takes center stage. Corporate profits have swelled over the years thanks in part to consumers saying “yes” when it may have been in their best interests to say “no.” So, when a public health crisis – such as obesity – occurs, who is to blame?

Although data shows that Americans are consuming fewer soft drinks and more bottled water, current research blames sugary, carbonated drinks for the rise in childhood and adult obesity in the United States. It appears that soft drink giant Coca-Cola (who received an overall scientific rating of 6.1 out of 10 from the GoodGuide) is taking the “best defense is a good offense” approach when it comes to thwarting claims and eliminating perceptions that their products contribute to obesity.

Click to continue reading »

Permalink CONTINUES » discuss Discuss This »

SBIO Semi-finalist 2013 Interview: LaborVoices

3p Contributor | Thursday May 23rd, 2013 | 0 Comments

By Candice D McLeod

Each week leading up to the Sustainable Brands Innovation Open (SBIO) finals on June 5th, where the runner-up will be decided via live online public vote, we will feature two articles on an SBIO semi-finalists. Meet semi-finalist LaborVoices.

LaborVoices is utilizing mobile technology to solve human rights issues within global supply chains.logo-laborvoices-125x70

Founder, Dr. Kohl Gill, was inspired to create LaborVoices while on a trade and labor delegation to Sri Lanka and Bangladesh as part of the State Department’s Labor Rights and CSR office.

“I noticed that most workers had mobile phones, but none of them were using them to avoid abusive labor practices,” says Gill. “I thought that there ought to be a way to connect workers with each other, to allow them to report their working conditions, and drive other workers toward the best employers.”

With a PhD in semiconductor physics, Dr. Gill decided to combine his technical academic background with his experience working with supply chains and grassroots labor organizations to develop LaborVoices. The product aggregates worker-sourced information across suppliers and sends the feedback to brands, as well as to other workers. The objective is to provide market transparency to all stakeholders so that “brands find and reward the best-in-class suppliers.” This, in turn, would force suppliers to improve working conditions in their factories.

Click to continue reading »

Permalink CONTINUES » discuss Discuss This »

Key Changes in Global Reporting Initiative’s G4

ISOS Group
ISOS Group | Wednesday May 22nd, 2013 | 0 Comments

This is the final post in our series on the countdown to the G4.

g4-banner

G4 DevelopmentsPrevious iterations of the Global Reporting Initiative’s standards have been all-inclusive, encouraging reporters to report widely on their environmental, social and governance issues.  Some critics of the G3.1 and G3 standards complained that they rewarded breadth over depth by categorizing reports into three levels (A, B and C) – with the “best grade” given to the reports with the biggest scope. 

G4 represents a big shift in the standard – away from “put it all out there” to “less is more” – so long as what gets reported is material to the organization. The new standards ask reporters to use the sustainability report to document what really matters- a big shift away from reporting on everything the company monitors.

First things first. The G4 is split into two complementary documents: a manual consisting of the principles and standard disclosures themselves and a separate implementation manual to help reporters make their way through the process. The second document details the necessary steps a reporter needs to take to launch and manage a sustainability reporting process within any organization, regardless of their level of experience. The first document offers flexibility for preparers to choose which disclosures to focus on and how to align efforts to local/regional report requirements and frameworks. In addition, new clarifications on how to report on shared supply chain impacts outside of operational control will hopefully support organizations in taking additional responsibility for supply chain sustainability and governance.

Here are the key changes reporters need to know about from G4: 

Click to continue reading »

Permalink CONTINUES » discuss Discuss This »

Electric Vehicle Charging Community Apps Recargo and Xatori Merge

| Wednesday May 22nd, 2013 | 3 Comments

charge stationA familiar refrain you’ll hear in connection with the market for electric vehicles is that its success depends not only on the vehicles themselves, but also on building out the requisite EV charging network to a sufficiently large scale that it becomes useful.

While the choice of plug-in cars is widening, the infographic below represents just how rapidly that charging infrastructure is growing too. In the last two years alone, the deployment of charging stations has grown more than ten-fold in the USA, so it’s easy to understand why EV owners have come to rely on tools that ensure they are up-to-date as to where they can plug in. The two leading companies in providing such tools via their apps for EV owners, Recargo and Xatori, have just announced that they will merge to combine their resources to deliver a more powerful offering to their users.

Click to continue reading »

Permalink CONTINUES » discuss Discuss This »

Global Reporting Initiative’s G4 Guidelines Revealed

| Wednesday May 22nd, 2013 | 0 Comments

ReportsThere has been much speculation about what the Global Reporting Initiative will do with G4 to improve on the sustainability reporting guidelines set out in G3.1. Will G4 include controversial features like executive pay transparency, do away with the much loved (by American corporate over-achievers) letter “grades” for levels of transparency, or simplify the sector supplements?

Live from Amsterdam, the news is in. At least a little bit of it. It looks like GRI is staggering their releases to keep everyone on their toes. Here’s the first little tidbit:

The G4 guidelines will include a greater focus on materiality. The clarifications should help companies to focus on the issues that are material (in the financial sense) to their companies. For example, an oil company’s report should probably include more information about its carbon footprint than its office recycling policy. And a clothing company would be remiss to skip pesky supply chain issues.

The goal of this shift to increased materiality will lead to shorter, more meaningful reports. Ernst Ligteringen, Chief Executive of GRI, hinted at these changes when we spoke way back in September. We’re pleased to hear they made the final cut. A greater focus on materiality should lead to less greenwashing and make it easier for stakeholders to review CSR reports.

Click to continue reading »

Permalink CONTINUES » discuss Discuss This »

Samsung Galaxy S4 Scores First Smartphone Sustainability Certification

Leon Kaye | Wednesday May 22nd, 2013 | 1 Comment
samsung, galaxy s4, s4, TCO, TCO Development, sustainability certification, sustainability certification for smartphones, smartphones, Korea, apple, apple foxconn, rare earth metals, recycling, visual ergonomics, Galaxy S4 vs iPhone 5, Leon Kaye

The Galaxy S4 scored TCO’s first smartphone sustainability certification

Last week, TCO Development granted Samsung’s Galaxy S4 the organization’s first ever sustainability certification for smartphones. The certification is important for Samsung and the overall smartphone market for several reasons. First, as smartphones proliferate and accomplish everything from reducing usage of laptops to helping alleviate poverty in emerging markets, the world’s resources necessary to manufacture them, from rare earth metals to petroleum, will become more constrained and difficult to procure. Furthermore, consumers are becoming aware of the social cost resulting from their assembly, as last year’s Apple-Foxconn saga clearly demonstrated.

And for Korea, the Galaxy’s S4 certification shows the country’s leading manufacturers have not only turned this tiny Asian company into a technology powerhouse, but a compelling sustainability laboratory. But will consumers really care, or even notice?

Click to continue reading »

Permalink CONTINUES » discuss Discuss This »

Patagonia Creates $20M Fund to Invest in Eco-Friendly Startups

| Wednesday May 22nd, 2013 | 0 Comments
Patagonia has launched $20 Million & Change to invest in environmentally friendly startups.

Patagonia has launched $20 Million & Change to invest in environmentally friendly startups.

Patagonia has launched a fund to invest in environmentally responsible startup companies. The fund, aptly dubbed “$20 Million & Change,” will start with $20 million to invest and can grow in the future as needed.

In a letter published on the company’s blog, Patagonia founder Yvon Chouinard said $20 Million and Change will “help like-minded, responsible startup companies bring about positive benefit to the environment.”

Patagonia has not revealed the number of companies that will receive funding or when the first round of investments will be announced, but Patagonia spokesperson Jess Clayton says the company has “already had many companies and startups apply for funding.” Most investments will be between $500,000 and $5 million.

Clayton, tells TriplePundit that $20 Million & Change will fund apparel companies “that compliment Patagonia” as long as they are not “in direct competition.” Patagonia “will be looking to fund technologies and innovation that help make the apparel industry cleaner and more environmental.”

“Those technologies can and will be used by our competition,” says Clayton, “which is a good thing in our opinion.”

Click to continue reading »

Permalink CONTINUES » discuss Discuss This »

Climate Change Means Shallower Great Lakes and More Expensive Goods

| Wednesday May 22nd, 2013 | 6 Comments
Great Lakes Freighter photo by  BaronSteffan

Great Lakes Freighter photo by BaronSteffan

Great Lakes water levels are at historic lows, 26 inches below their long term averages, raising prices right at the beginning of the supply chain for iron ore, grain, and coal. For every inch the water levels fall, a freighter needs to leave another 100 tons of goods behind on the dock. That means one of the cheapest and most efficient ways to move freight in the world becomes less efficient and more expensive as the water levels drop.

It’s important to note that over 160 million tons of goods are carried on the Great Lakes each year, keeping our nation’s industrial belt supplied with raw materials. When ships carry less cargo, the cost per delivered unit increases even before the ore gets turned into steel, translating directly to higher cost for manufacturers and consumers.

Lakes Michigan and Huron have been below the historic average for 14 years now, and in January they fell to all time record low. They’ve gotten so low, 1013 foot “lakers” are having more difficulty navigating. They’re getting hung up on sand bars entering ports and are carrying up to 15 percent less capacity to make up for the lack of water. Shipping isn’t the only industry affected. The multi-million dollar charter fishing industry on the Great Lakes is also impacted as boats are unable to navigate the shallow channels.

Click to continue reading »

Permalink CONTINUES » discuss Discuss This »