These trends, which range from a boom in certified multi-family construction to the advent of consumer friendly home energy technology, were identified by us based on discussions with a broad range of audiences over the latter part of 2011.

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McDonald’s will soon roll out a new ad campaign that will feature the sage and long time American icon, the farmer. Lettuce and potato growers will see TV time.

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In working with a variety of corporations and organizations one issue is becoming increasingly prominent: the growing need to disclose efforts to act in a more sustainable manner. In that context, the trend towards greater transparency ultimately is headed in one direction – an “Integrated Report” in which financial and nonfinancial performance are tied together and articulated in a single document. Although there is no formal standard to what constitutes an integrated report, there is growing evidence that the financial markets reward those companies that engage in sustainable behavior and disclose those efforts in a comprehensive manner, including impact on bottom line performance.

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A look back at the role of corporate banks during the financial crisis of 2008 and a look at other options such as Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFIs).

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Olfa Strauss’ experience this summer and how her company handled protests over rising food costs and wealth inequality in Israel will be an enduring case study for other companies in the Middle East that will feel pressure to change their ways throughout a region that demands more accountability and dignity from their leaders.

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BSR, led by President and CEO Aron Cramer, held a media event announcing the results of a global business survey poll that reveals sustainability, in fact, ranks highly within companies’ core strategies and operations.

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By: Joe Lawless What is corporate social responsibility and why should any business care about it?  Corporations have been debating about social responsibility since the 1950s.  What has changed in the intervening 60 years is consumers’ access to information – the good, the bad and the ugly.  Good information about the noble acts of firms [...]

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Ernst & Young released a report earlier this week that explains how sustainability can and will change the role of the Chief Financial Officer (CFO).

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The scandal that is currently rocking the media world puts Rupert Murdoch clearly in the epicenter of the storm. News of the World (NoW), a UK based publication of News International (NI) has been accused of hacking a murdered school girl’s phone. The scandal has resulted in the resignation and consequent arrest of Rebekah Brooks, [...]

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Last week Intel, the world’s largest semiconductor maker by revenue, released its annual CSR report, a task it has completed faithfully since 2001.

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Critics of ExxonMobil will not be satisfied with anything that one of the world’s largest energy companies says or does, so the report focuses what they company has achieved versus what it said it has done in the past.

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With $700 million annual revenue from cookie sales, Girls Scouts has recently come under fire for not only failing to adequately address, but for unethically censoring critiques of the company regarding its palm oil use. The organization has claimed to have done its part by joining the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO), but critics [...]

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Earlier this month, the Obama Administration under the USAID (United States Agency for International Development) launched the advisory committee on voluntary foriegn aid (ACVFA).  On that list advisors was none other than Cameron Sinclair, a person who has revolutionized the way we think and speak about people and architectural spaces, and actually acts and implements [...]

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With over 1 billion monthly searches for recipes, Google is in a prime position to influence what Americans “discover” when searching for food. The Internet search giant released a new tab next to the “Images, Videos, and Shopping choices” on their search-results screen: Recipes. This option will ultimately simplify finding professional recipe websites, but what [...]

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In 2009’s Strategy for Sustainability, Adam Werbach promoted what he called the TEN cycle (transparency, employee engagement and outside networking) as an avenue by which corporations could implement sustainability into their operations and succeed at reaching their North Star Goal. The North Star was a broad reaching, time sensitive and value-centered goal. It aligned the [...]

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Toyota is transforming their corporate philanthropy to be “by the people and for the people” with the advent of their 100 Cars for Good program. The company will donate 100 cars to charities across the United States. The winners will be determined by the voting public on a daily basis this summer, putting their philanthropy [...]

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We live in a world of choices like a fish lives in a world of water. But how do we know, which choices will have a greater or lesser impact on our poor overstressed Mother Earth? Some of them are obvious, but most are not. If only we had a little green angel sitting on our shoulder that we could ask. Okay, not likely. Then how about an iPhone app? Believe it or not, such a thing already exists. It’s called GoodGuide and it is available both on the web and as a mobile app.

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Whatever you think about WikiLeaks’ founder Julian Assange, he is not going down–nor will he be extradited -quietly. The megalomaniac Internet activist has caused plenty of consternation, and a spike in antacid sales, for his release of US State Department cables and other confidential information that has revealed much about wars and events around the [...]

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Hoping to get to a greener clean? That’s easier said that done in a world full of green-looking bottles filled with mysterious ingredients. Of the roughly 3000 chemical compounds that appear in household cleaning products, only about 7% have been fully tested and close to half of the rest have virtually no data on the specific risks accompanying them. What’s worse is the fact that cleaning product manufacturers are not required by law to list their ingredients, so you don’t even know which untested ingredients they contain. That part of the story is finally changing, not because of new government regulations (don’t hold your breath for those), but because more and more businesses are catching onto the idea that consumers really want to know what they are buying and are therefore scrambling to become more transparent.

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Italy pays the highest rate per wind-generated kilowatt hour in the world: 180 euros. The arrest of Italy’s head of its National Wind Energy Association surely does not help on the public relations front. And Sicilians are speaking out vs. the mafia, who have found a new revenue stream.

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There is little consensus about what exactly it means to be a greenwasher. According to Sourcewatch, it is the … “unjustified appropriation of environmental virtue…”.  Others have said it is the corporate effort to display itself as environmentally responsible in order to mask wrongdoing. Still others attribute it to misleading marketing through false or exaggerated [...]

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The environmental writer Andy Mannle suggests that thanks to the BP oil spill, we are enduring another painful economic lesson called the tragedy of the commons.

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With many people calling for a boycott of BP for its lack of effective action in last month’s oil spill disaster, it is clear that consumers understand that where they spend their money matters.  Whether boycotts are effective or not is not the question…a lot of times, it’s the attention such efforts receive, which leads [...]

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Lists that tout companies that engage in corporate social responsibility are “advantageous” says Dal LaMagna, who founded Tweezerman, a Long Island, N.Y.-based beauty products company formed 21 years ago.  “Lists let companies market to their customers and help consumers pay attention.  They show those customers that the company doesn’t exploit.” But he notes that there [...]

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Greener World Media recently published its third annual State of Green Business Report. The document examines numerous indicators and data to determine trends in the green business arena. Four of these green trends are: Radical transparency goes mainstream: The information age and the environmental movement have actually collided. Tons of information is available about products, [...]

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“The conceit that corporations must be treated identically to natural persons in the political sphere is not only inaccurate but also inadequate to justify the Court’s disposition of this case.” – Minority Opinion by Supreme Court Justices Ginsburg, Breyer and Sotomayor. News outlets and the blogosphere are abuzz with reactions to Thursday’s Supreme Court decision [...]

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At the Green Business Conference, Joey Shepp, founder of Earthsite, a boutique web design and strategy company, gave his presentation for best tips in using social media for sustainable businesses.  This includes social networking, blogging, online reviews, and direct communications devices. The statistics are a bit surprising, even to someone like me who uses social [...]

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Above: “U.S. Hikes”, a live data table by Factual.com: Click & Scroll to view & edit data. “Decisions. They are made every day. Some are made on the fly such as when a low fuel alert prompts me to stop at the nearest gas station. Some are more considered, involving detailed research and analysis, perhaps [...]

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Earth Day happens for the 40th time today. And some aren’t too pleased with how big, commercial, and opportunist it’s gotten. That it’s become like going to church on Easter, a once a year empty gesture without lasting ramifications or lifestyle changing. But then along comes a company like Energy Circle, who are doing something [...]

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