3p Contributor: joey
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Say what you mean and mean what you say: Socially Responsible Investment in Europe
As Europeans headed for their long-awaited summer holidays, bankers had good reason to celebrate. The annual return across the board has been exceptionally favorable. For green and ethical fund managers it has been a bumper year. As of June 2005, there were 375 “socially responsible” funds available to investors in Europe, 6 % more than the year before, and this year promises similar growth in funds using ethical, social and environmental criterion for portfolio development.
From the second quarter of 2004 to the same period in 2005, managed “ethical” assets grew 27%, from 19 billion to 24 billion mid term 2005. The U.K. leads the ethical banking community in Europe. 33.2% of the SRI funds offered to the public are registered there. France is considered the strongest growth market based upon the value of assets under management and a 20% growth rate in the number of funds offered for the second consecutive year. Sweden and Italy make up another 10% of the market for SRI products.
Omaha Beach Revisited: “Attitudes need to change”
According to Costa Christ, director the Bar Harbor, Maine Chamber of Commerce and expert in international travel, tourism currently represents 83% of worldwide export trade. To put this figure in a meaningful context, he adds that tourism is the largest non-military service sector in the world. Travel and tourism spending exceeded $6 trillion globally in 2005, according to the World Travel & Tourism Council.
If you were a mayor of a coastal city or town anywhere in the world, on what would you base your community’s development strategy? Tourism, of course, which since the 1960´s has often meant creating pristine white beaches where nature never intended them to be and using mechanical sweepers to remove what the sea leaves behind every day at low tide. The French Conservatoire du Littoral, however, is campaigning to leave the beaches “au natural” and hopes that environmentally minded tourists will “vote with their flip-flops” for beach resorts that opt to let Mother Nature do her thing.
Article Here
From Parks and Rec in Europe to the Pittsburgh Pirates – Transforming supply chains through Ethical Procurement
In Europe, pressure to have verifiable quality ratings recognized throughout the European Union has corporations working hard to obtain the ISOs necessary to sell their goods throughout the E.U. and keep pace with the competition, but with increasing numbers of suppliers located in developing, non-unionized countries, certifying sources and achieving anything close to socially responsible procurement is still a problem throughout the continent.
Since the 1990s, community groups have engaged in individual campaigns primarily aimed at boycotting both European and foreign manufacturers who violated human rights or harmed the environment. These actions made companies and consumers aware of the social liability of doing trade with ethically dubious corporations, but did not result in stronger networks that worked with and rewarded compliant suppliers. Local and regional governments began to respond to citizen pressure for ethical practices in government procurement and since 2003, an increasing number of local governments throughout Europe have been working jointly to establish and enforce mandatory ethical standards for their suppliers. One such network is “Clean Clothes Communities“, which is focused on workers´ rights in the textile trade.
On Both Sides of the Atlantic Fashion Faces the Future
Three cheers for Concha Guerra, Vice-Consul for Economics and Technology Innovation for the Community of Madrid and Leonor Perez Pita, director of Madrid’s “Pasarela Cibeles”, Spain’s top fashion show. Reacting to protests against the gaunt image projected at last year’s Cibeles, they announced this week that new health guidelines would be enforced for screening models participating in this year’s event. As part of an integral plan to address a growing epidemic of anorexia and bulimia in Europe, models participating in future editions of Madrid Fashion Week will now be screened according to an acceptable body mass index. Application of professional medical criterion has eliminated 30% of the models expected to work the catwalks of Cibeles, including supermodels Kate Moss and Esther Canadas. Elite, and other top modeling agencies worldwide are up in arms, wailing that they are victims of scapegoating, but Guerra and Perez Pita stand firm for a new healthy image for Spanish fashion.
Cibeles is the third largest fashion event in Europe, on par with Paris and just behind New York and Milan. In fact, the mayor of Milan, Letizia Moratti, has spoken in favor of Guerra’s decision and may introducing similar measures for Milan fashion shows. London is monitoring the industry and public feedback to events in Madrid and initial scoffing has given way to serious consideration of implementing changes there.
What You Bring to the Table
For me, some of the most interesting marketing news this year has been the declaration of war between the big retailers for the organic food market, both in the States and the U.K. AdAge kicked off the campaign in mid July with an article about Wal Mart’s multimillion-dollar campaign “focused on its new organic food offerings,” their “first ever” organic logo and the advertising tagline “What will you bring to the table?” According to Janel LaMonica, VP-creative director at Bernstein-Rein, there have always been two things holding back the growth of the organic food market: one, the difficulty in finding organic products, the other, the difficulty of affording them. She makes the claim that “Wal-Mart has taken down both these barriers.”
The True Price of Everything
There is a lot of talk these days about rising energy prices, but many U.S. agricultural sector websites still insist on telling Americans that they live better than anyone else in the world because their food is cheaper. Calculating from a base of the percentage of one´s annual wage that is dedicated to food expenses, the statistics are quite astonishing. According to the USDA/Economic Research Service, the percentage of family income spent on food in the United States has dropped from 24.2% in 1930 to a mere 9.5% in 2004. A UC Davis education site puts the figure at less than 9%, adding a eulogy that Americans should be truly grateful.
According to Food Check-out Week, another site published by the California Farm Bureau, in 2006 “the average household will earn enough disposable income — that portion of income available for spending or saving — to pay for its annual food supply in only five weeks”. Five weeks compared to nine weeks for the French, thirteen weeks for the Japanese and a whopping seventeen weeks for the Mexicans.
Sharing the View from the Summit
Before I started writing about sustainability, I used to take on freelance work as a language, public relations and corporate communications coach for Spanish executives in a wide range of sectors, from tourism to manufacturing. I helped them negotiate contracts with foreign partners, compete for high-level positions in multinational corporations and survive foreign takeovers of their companies.
I was often sought out because I was an American and the American executive model was the most admired. From time to time, I served as a human resources consultant for Northern European and American companies. After a candidate was hired, I was often asked to coach the new executive to improve his or her language skills and inter-cultural communications. Most of these executives had shelves full of books about American management and marketing concepts. To perplexed FC Barca and RCD Espanyol fans, I explained the business terminology related to American and British sports vocabulary; what it is was to field or bunt for another person, cover all the bases, have targets and goals, to huddle, and to establish a level playing field. In those days, Europe looked almost exclusively to North Americans for advice on how to reach the heights of success; from stolen cheese theories to the strategy of selling one’s Ferrari after one reached the top. Things have changed a bit since then.
GM Moving into Hybrid Territory
Despite initially dismissing hybrids as a fad, GM has decided to get in on this automobile sector whose market share is expected to grow three and a half times its current level over the next six years, according to J.D. Power and Associates. At this year’s North American International Auto Show, GM will be introducing two new SUV hybrid models. On the one hand is the Saturn Vue Green Line, which will retail for under $23,000, making it the cheapest hybrid on the market. On the other hand is the Chevy Tahoe, which offers a more sophisticated, “two mode” hybrid system. GM intends to have 12 hybrid models on the road within the next four years. Read more…
When Going Green Means Gaining Greenbacks
As testified to in one of yesterday’s postings, alternative energy investments can offer the best ROI yields on the market today . It is well worth exploring this Database of State Incentives for Renewable Energy website. Take a peek and see if this might be the time for you to go green…both environmentally as well as inside your pocketbook!
The Pot of Gold at the End of the Sun Beam
Wanna go green and get rich at the same time? State and Federal Incentives make solar infrastructure among the most lucrative and risk free investments that can be made. Take the following example:
Here in my home town of Chicago, I am one of three owners living in a residential three flat building. Our monthly natural gas bill associated with hot water averages $170 per month. This totals in excess of $2000 annually. Keep in mind that, in less than a year, natural gas prices have more than doubled.
The total cost of purchasing and installing a system that would best address our building’s hot water needs is approximately $11000. In Illinois, our clean energy rebate program will pay half of the first $10K spent on solar water heat, solar space seat, and photovoltaics. After that, 25% of costs are reimbursed for the next $20K. Given these rebates, this system will cost our condo association an estimated $5750.
Romantic Organics
In the 1920s, the Society of American Florists coined the term “say it with flowers”. Americans have consistently been doing so for an increasing number of special occasions ever since. Consumers now have the chance to say it with sustainable flowers. Gerald Prolman’s web-based flower business, Organic Bouquet, affords online shoppers the opportunity to remain romantic while going organic. This is great news for my love life, as on more than one occasion I’ve hit sensitive nerves by staying true to my boycott of the floral industry. Thanks for you help, Mr. Prolman.
Biofuel Hits the Big Stage
What do you get when you combine the legendary country singer Willie Nelson and biofuel? “BioWillie”, the newfangled fuel of Texas truckers. Biodiesel, which is derived from vegetable oil, animal fats, and sometimes in used form from the frying pans of restaurants, recently enjoyed a new federal subsidy which has reduced its price. This created the perfect time for a group of Texas investors, including Willie Nelson, to start soliciting what they claim to be the nation’s first branded biodiesel blend–”BioWillie“.
Brian Talley, a 44 year-old truck driver who was filling up on some BioWillie in Fort Worth on his way to Oklahoma to pick up a load of tires, had this to say to The Wall Street Journal:
Everybody wants to keep the environment clean. But people who advocate a shift away from fossil fuel would prefer we lived in caves, walked everywhere we went and ate grass. I’m sorry. I like to eat meat. I like cars. I like modern things. There’s ways of fixing these problems without going to extremes.
Brian, meet BioWillie.
The G8 tackles Global Warming
The G8, which stands for the “Group of Eight,” will meet this week in Gleneagles, Scotland. Together, these eight industrialized nations comprise 60% of the world’s GDP. At the top of their agenda for this meeting is global climate change. The Economist reports that 24 of the world’s biggest companies petitioned the G8 to develop a worldwide system of greenhouse gas emissions limits, with tradable permits for businesses. These permits would limit the amount of CO2 each company could emit.
The only such mandatory system currently in place was started this year by the EU. Under this system, companies are given a certain allowance for carbon dioxide emissions. By improving their emissions standards, companies who fall under their designated emissions allowance can sell their excess “carbon permits” to companies who have exceeded their limits. Currently, the U.S. has a similar program called the Chicago Climate Exchange, but membership is optional and not government enforced.
Presently the US opposes mandatory emissions standards. US support for such measures is seen as vital, largely because America is the world’s largest polluter. With China poised to overtake the US as the greatest greenhouse gas producer by 2025 and India right behind (see SF Chronicle), a unified accord could serve as a vital precedent for such rapidly developing nations. US backing of such policies in slowing the heating of the planet appears to be vital.
Better Burned Abroad: Exporting Oil Proves Economically and Ecologically Advantageous for Venezuela
With oil prices surging 4% Friday to get back near $60 a barrel, Venezuelan oil earns ten times more on the international market than it does domestically. Such lopsided price ratios have inspired PDVSA, Venezuela’s state oil company, to boost fuel exports by 100,000 barrels per month. PVSA aims to do this not by increasing their overall production levels, but rather through renewable energy projects within Venezuela, whereby the nation’s lowered oil consumption will allow for a higher volume of exports.
This is an interesting case, as it involves the insatiable appetite of the global market for oil creating an economic climate within Venezuela in which it is advantageous to become less petrol dependant. In becoming less petroleum dependant, Venezuela has a greater amount of oil remaining to export, as well as cleaner air inside its borders. At present, Venezuela is the fourth leading exporter of crude oil worldwide.
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