Pause to support a cause

Paying consumers for their opinions is not a new tactic, but market researchers are now proposing to give money to causes instead.

The ‘Pause to Support a Cause’ initiative will pledge money to a not-for-profit of your choice when you fill out a market research survey.

In essence, you get to feel like you’re making a contribution without doing much, NFPs get a more regular source of income and researchers can get opinions from people who otherwise wouldn’t bother.

This seems to be the next step up from programs like Ripple, where ad revenue goes to a cause for each click, and FreeRice, where users play a word game and view ads for rice donations.

However, the hope behind ‘Pause to Support a Cause’ seems to be that consumers will look at ways to contribute to their favourite NFPs beyond giving their opinion.

The advisory team has a few big names, with members from Ashoka, SIFE, Hershey’s and P&G.

The program is still in Beta with only selected organisations being allowed to participate. However, you can submit your contact details to get involved or keep updated.

What do you think? Would you take the time to do surveys for donations?

CSR course to be made compulsory for undergraduates

Should CSR training be mandatory for all business students?

It seems that if we are to have corporate citizenry at all levels of business, this needs to be the case. Currently most CSR managers are internal hires, coming either from ‘corporate communications’ departments or technical backgrounds. It’s much harder to find specialists who have the training to execute the concept of ‘doing well by doing good’.

However, most universities have been slow to offer students the option to learn about  CSR, let alone making it a core component of business degrees.

The University of Adelaide has recognised the need to incorporate CSR into their business curriculum. Their ‘Corporate Responsibility in Global Business’ course started out as a Masters elective, but in 2010 will become a compulsory subject for Bachelor of Commerce students in their final year.

The man behind the course is Jim Redden, whose previous work on the Australian Government’s  WTO Advisory Committee, with mining companies and expertise in developmental economics are evident from the course content. He started out with aid organisations such as Oxfam, and is now conducting research and teaching for the Institute for International Trade (University of Adelaide).

So what’s actually in this course?

Key topics include: risk management, triple bottom line reporting, transparency, corporate governance, poverty and development issues, corporations and trade rules and environmental issues.

The approach is firmly grounded in practical management. Generally for students, environmental issues are the most accessible, as well as being the main issue faced by CSR managers in Australia. But they are challenged to think of strategies for real world situations across all topics.

In order to achieve this, industry involvement is vital. Admittably Adelaide, one of Australia’s smaller state capitals, has fewer internal CSR practitioners than its compatriots in the Eastern states. However, Jim has been able to bring in a variety of speakers to challenge his students to think about the issues they will face in the industry.

Past speakers have come from banks, mining companies, unions, NGOs, the Department of Consumer Affairs and Transparency International. The most controversial? A discussion of whether an arms retailer can ever operate ethically, and how that might be achieved.

The course aims to allow students to make up their own minds about the degree to which the behaviour of contemporary global corporations is ethical and responsible. Students are equipped with the practical tools to deal with the real and complex issues of poverty, conflict, environmental disasters and corruption – so that they can choose to make a difference as future managers.

Practical analysis also extends beyond lectures; the major project for the course is a research report where students must analyse and critique a company’s corporate responsibility efforts.

You might be wondering how a course like this is assessed – when so many CSR professionals debate the scope of the practice, how do you ensure that students fully understand the field?

Apart from the report already mentioned, students are required to write answers to short one page case-studies on global corporations for most tutorials and sit an exam (60% of the final grade). The exam covers key defining concepts (what is CSR, reporting standards, technical terms, international bodies etc.), requires analysis of a case study and argumentative essays (eg. ‘Should codes of conduct for global corporations be voluntary or compulsory by law?’).

Of course, CSR is a broad subject that is difficult to compress into a 12 week course. Jim stresses that it is primarily meant to provide a foundation for students, provoking them to think about the key issues, learn about management options and sort the corporate responsibility from the PR stunts.

What else would we like to see in there? I could see some scope for emphasising the importance of internal CSR training, using community investment for effective marketing, and giving some directions on SRI. But as a start it’s good to see social responsibility being pushed as a topic that all managers need to be aware of and not just a one-person role description.

What do you think about the course?

[For more info about the course or to talk to Jim, contact the Institute for International Trade on +61 (08) 8303 – 6900 or the School of Business at the University of Adelaide.]

The course aims to allow students to make up their own minds about the degree to which the behaviour of contemporary global corporations is ethical and responsible. The emphasis is more on giving students the practical tools to deal with the very real and complex issues of poverty, conflict, environmental disasters and corruption – so that they can choose to make a difference in their future jobs.

Choice: Eco Phones

Their low cost and our (well, some of us) constant need to have the latest and greatest cell phone has seen them piling up in landfills at an alarming rate. This is even more worrying as toxic metals in these devices pose serious health threats should they find their way back into our immediate environment (e.g. Mercury seeping into waterways where it eventually ends up in food, causing brain damage).

Enter, the Eco Phones.

Major phone manufacturers, Sony Ericsson, Motorola and Samsung have all recently released phones touting Green Credentials as a key feature.

SONY ERICSSON

Earlier this month, Sony Ericsson unveiled its 2 new phones which pioneer a feature they’ve named ‘Greenheart‘, the C901 and the Naite (which comes with a “Carbon Footprint Calculator“?). ‘Greenheart‘, it seems, is the company’s new label for products which use:

• Reduced Packaging
• Recycled Plastics (min 50%)
• Waterborne Paints
• Electronic Manuals instead of Paper

The most impressive feature here has to be the use of recycled plastics with ‘reduced packaging’ and the use of electronics manuals sounding feeble. The company however hopes to expand these features through the entire product portfolio, which could collectively make a significant impact on the environment.

One thing to note here though is that the C901 actually has a pretty impressive feature set which includes a 5 megapixel camera with xenon flash and smile detector (because of course, knowing that you’re doing your part to protect the environment, why wouldn’t you be smiling), something which is in stark contrast to the other phones introduced here which are disappointingly lacking in ‘real’ features and seem to be targeted at very basic phone users.

MOTOROLA

The Motorola W233 Renew for example, announced in January, attracted this less than flattering comment from technology site Engadget:

“We hear this thing is made out of water bottles… and lameness”

The former is a fact, this phone IS made out plastic recycled from discarded water bottles, which I think is interesting because of its ‘single-source’ nature (think Green & Black’s Chocolate) but otherwise, do we really care what our recycled plastic used to be?

In addition to using recycled plastics, the phone also comes with a postage paid ‘recycling envelope’ to make it easy for purchasers to return their previous phone for recycling. Neat, but with the W233’s limited feature set, you might want to hang on to your older phone for just a little bit longer before mailing it away.

The press release that accompanied the launch announcement made it abundantly clear that the product’s designers had “people who put making phone calls as their number one priority in a mobile phone” in mind. Something which tremendously limits the appeal of the product, since a large population of us, I am sure, use our phones for so much more than just phone calls.

Motorola also reminds us that the phone is the world’s 1st Carbon Neutral Phone (much like Fiji Water is the world’s 1st Carbon Negative Water) through the purchase of carbon credits from carbonfund.org (the same people who awarded the product a CarbonFree Certification).

Samsung

Finally, in September 2008, Samsung launched an Eco version of their basic E200 phone, which meant that the phone now used:

– Bio-Plastics (from Corn) for its case

– Recycled Paper for its box

That can’t be it can it? Yes it is. The amount of carbon you would save by buying this version over the regular phone (as calculated by mobilegazette) is equivalent to the carbon generated by driving all of 382m in a Ford Focus.

Closing

It seems that life is still tough for the mobile phone buyer who wants to minimize her environmental footprint.

The good news though is that despite how the credentials of the current generation of Eco Phones seem lacking, they do seem to be improving with each successive product launch.

I do hope that next year will see mobile phone companies move beyond the gimmicks like ‘Carbon Footprint Calculators’, introduce measures to reduce their manufacturing process’ carbon footprint (real reductions, not ones achieved by carbon credit purchases) and take steps to eliminate (or at least reduce) the levels of toxic chemicals in their products.

What kind of Green Features would YOU like to see in your next Mobile Phone?

Military surplus reborn as Couture

Parachutes remade into Fashion? 

Christopher Raeburn is one designer who does not source his fabrics from the garment factories of China, Bangladesh nor Vietnam, instead.. his suppliers are the militaries of the United Kingdom, Germany and even the Czech Republic!

Freshly graduated from the Royal College of Arts in 2006, winning the Ethical Fashion Forum’s INNOVATION competition in 2008 and now working on collaborations with the likes of Tim Soar (a collection that includes jackets stuffed with recycled duck feathers from used duvets) and even Virgin Airlines (transforming their uniforms into bags), Christopher is definitely an ethical designer to watch.

Christopher gladly admits that the ethical awareness of his designs was a ‘happy accident‘ coming out his desire to use these particular fabrics (which he stresses are well made and will last). Into the future, we are sure that Christopher is taking his designs in an ethical direction more ethically, a sign of this is the dropping of fur (which popped up in in his 2008 womenswear collection) in all his 2009 collections.

We will be keeping a close eye on Christopher and are incredibly excited to hear who wins this year’s INNOVATION prize (Press Release in July).

Interviews with Christopher Raeburn: The Guardian, GreenMyStyle

Other Articles: London Fashion Week, The Discerning Brute

Twittering Responsible Business Summit: Part 1

Earlier this month I had the pleasure of Twittering The Responsible Business Summit Live from London, here is Part 1 of “The Journey of Hastag #RBS09”

First few tweets (Tuesday 5^th May) were about how excited everyone was at the tweeting that was going to happen at the Responsible Business Summit and the introduction of the #rbs09 hashtag, from @Ethical_Corp, @davidcoethica, @mrochte and myself.

A bit of real information then started coming through with a link to @Ethical_Corp founder Toby Webb’s post ranking the sessions at the conference by number of registered attendees (in case you were wondering, Embedding CR in your Company and Supply Chain Management came out tops).

Then came questions from both me and @davidcoethica to our followers, wondering if anyone else was going to be at the summit. I don’t know about David but I didn’t get any responses.

At the same time @Ethical_Corp used the attendance of CEOs of Timberland, IKEA and the Chairman of Shell to gain further interest. Which proved to be successful as it was retweeted by Chris Jarvis @RealizedWorth and @SteelyGreen.

Word also seemed to getting out of the hashtag-o-sphere with @robarj (Ryan Jones, Global Brand Manager at P&G) tweeting about the conference and Mario Vellandi @mvellandi retweeting it adding #rbs09.

 A day before the conference @davidcoethica sent out a list of sessions happening during the conference and asked the community if anyone had any questions, immediately retweeted and replied to by @RealizedWorth who was interested in employee engagement (I am guessing because Chris’s profession is creating great employee volunteering programs).

In the same day, the first exhibitor came online, Charles Bosher @cbosher, Corporate Membership Manager at the NCVO, tweeted being ‘weirdly looking forward’ to the conference.

The claim to 1^st Tweet on conference day went to neither me nor David with Martin Smith @Martin_CSR, CEO of JustMeans, claiming the prize.

But what definitely kicked off the questions was @davidcoethica tweeting that he had just arrived at the conference and was taking questions. Retweeted by Ginee @loopyginee.

@SSRIMikeTyrrel How do co’s plan to communicate sust. Perf. To investors now that banks thar organised meets for them are closed?

@RODIEN When will a treaty be signed by the worlds (business) leaders that CSR in EVERY company is mandatory?!

@MsNotMr I’m curious about Green & Blacks and what they are doing to promote responsibility in their industry

@Martin_CSR You should ask the opening panel how they plan to use social media to better engage stakeholders

@Martin_CSR also took the opportunity to tweet about a new podcast about Timberland’s Sustainability strategy just before their CEO’s keynote, fantastic timing. This was immediately followed by the JustMeans crew jumping on with a few retweets of @Martin_CSR from co-founder @KevinEdwardLong and the official @justmeans_CSR account.

Words of encouragement came through too

@fair_ruth Hope #rbs09 goes well, would be interested to hear more

Then the summit kicked off.

(Look out for Part 2 later this week)

Wooden Bicycles Galore

So you’ve gone from Prius to Bicycle, how more Sustainable can your transport be? 

How about a Bicycle made out of a Sustainable material, like Wood maybe?

At last month’s Milan Design Week, designer Ross Lovegrove, with Danish Bicycle Company Biomega, unveiled a Bicycle handmade in Denmark out of Bamboo, a material abundant in China and the fastest growing woody plant on the planet.

Think you can out-do Ross? Bamboo Bike Studio, still fresh from its launch 3 days ago, will give you (at least) the tools to do so (BYO Talent) with their $1,000 2-day course teaching you to make your own bamboo 2-wheeled transport. (Did I mention that the proceeds go to a venture with Columbia University’s Earth Institute to build the world’s 1st Bamboo Bike Factory in Ghana?)

Someone the Studio would love to have as a guest instructor would be Berliner, Arndt Menke, who for his diploma thesis created the ‘Holzweg‘ bicycle frame made entirely out of wood, beautiful, and with the potential for serious performance weighing in at an impressive 2.3kg.

Need something not only from nature but designed to perform IN nature? Waldmeister (translation: Forest Master), also based in Germany, handcrafts its bicycles’ wooden frames and outfits them with top notch components providing comfort and control in and out of the woods.

Source: Fast Company

Czech Households to Receive $500m for Green Home Improvement

Today, Japan is contributing to our potential for a further reduction in emissions – Martin Bursik, Czech Environment Minister

Solar Heating: Now Subsidized

To fulfill its target to buy 100 million metric tons of Carbon Emission Rights, Japan has bought 40 million metric tons of these rights from the Czech Republic at a cost of $500m. The Eastern European country sold the ‘redundant’ rights it had earned by reducing its carbon emissions by a decent 24% (from 1990), significantly above its pledge (Kyoto) of 8%.

To put the reduction in perspective, Germany reduced its emissions in the same period by approximately 22% but will unlikely engage in a similar trade as its Kyoto pledge was a significantly higher 21%. 

The Ministry of Environment, led by Green Party leader Martin Bursik, will use the substantial financial inflow to subsidize Czech households’ building or installing environmentally friendly heating or insulation systems.

The move will not only reduce the country’s energy use and carbon emissions but, perhaps more importantly for the regular Czech household, significantly reduce their heating bill during the current downturn.

More at: PlanetArk, CarbonOffsetsDaily

Build a Supermarket from Wool, Wood and Straw

When you’re the largest supermarket chain in the UK, you have to set an example of being environmentally responsible.

Tesco has already established ‘energy efficient stores’ in the UK like the one pictured below..

Low Carbon Tesco in Manchester

Now imagine that made out of Wood, Wool and Straw…

That seems to be Tesco’s next step in Slovakia.

Here’s an extract from the company’s website:

“Plans are underway to build an eco store from sheep wool, wood and pressed straw in the small town of Rajec in the mountainous region of Northern Slovakia.

The new Tesco store will be the only one of its kind in Central Europe. The unique construction is attracting lots of attention and the citizens of Rajec are proud to host this unusual supermarket.

Mirek Friml is our Director of Construction at Tesco Slovakia. He says, “We are using natural materials like wood, wool and straw, to reduce our impact on the environment. We have started to construct low-energy stores in Slovakia but we would like to go further and create something new. All construction materials will be sourced locally.”

As well as being better for the environment, the store will also be less costly to run, so it is good for business, too.”

It’s a different step for Tesco, but probably in line with traditional building methods of the area.

Is it just a house made out of straw? Well, if it means less transportation of materials and lower energy usage it will be a great case study to show that being eco-friendly doesn’t have to come at a cost.

Seeds of CSR at Schulich

Students at the Schulich School of Business at York University last month again reminded us why their school was ranked 3rd Globally for CSR Education by the Aspen’s Institute’s ‘Beyond Grey Pinstripes‘ list. Their Corporate Social Responsibility Society (CSRS), a chapter of Net Impact, once again hosted their annual CORE Conference which both educated the student body about CSR and provided them with the necessary skills to implement CSR in the business environment.

The Society’s Marketing Director, Luvleen Malhans, has written an exclusive piece about the conference for EvolvingChoice :

Speaker at CORE 2009

In its fifth year running, the 2009 CORE Conference has grown to be one of the largest undergraduate CSR conferences hosted in Canada. Hosted by the Corporate Social Responsibility Society (CSRS) at the Schulich School of Business at York University (Toronto), this conference brought forward-thinking students together with top business leaders, exposing them to the perspectives and practices of CSR in the business community. Delegates had the opportunity to meet with representatives from companies and organizations that are actively involved with CSR such as Loblaw, TELUS, Suncor, Coca-Cola Bottling Company, TD Financial Group, Corporate Knights, Canada Helps.org to name just a few.

This year’s conference theme was “Changing the Present, Sustaining the Future.” Examining the evolution of CSR in the corporate environment, the conference encompassed a theme based on the “Past, Present, and Future of CSR.” The conference also aimed to reflect on the growth in CSR and proactive CSR initiatives implemented over the years, while also assessing the current issues and goals faced by leading Canadian companies today.

Panel at CORE 2009

The key highlight of the annual CORE Conference is its Case Competition. This year’s title sponsor Loblaw Companies, a prominent Canadian retailer, provided the focus for a CSR Case related to many of the issues it faces. Five undergraduate finalist teams competed fiercely by presenting their findings and recommendations in front of Loblaw judges and all delegates. One issue of great emphasis was Loblaw’s local food sourcing initiatives. Currently 25% of Loblaw’s produce is considered ‘local.’ However questions over total greenhouse gas emissions in local production and inability to grow certain produce locally were issues that teams showed creativity and thought in. But in the end, almost all teams showed a preference to growing Loblaw’s local food sourcing yet with unique methods and examined various business alternatives.

New to this year was the Ernst & Young Video Competition. This competition served as a creative platform for undergraduate students to submit a video outlining what CSR means to them. With workshops held by TD Financial Group and Coca-Cola Bottling Company, students had the ability to learn in an interactive setting the CSR initiatives, achievements and goals such companies engage in. Coca-Cola Bottling Company used this opportunity to outline its first ever Canadian CSR Report. The process in creating the report and communicating with Coca-Cola’s stakeholders was discussed along with future goals and development that the company is working towards.

 

Students at CORE

Moreover, the conference had various distinguished keynote speakers that discussed crucial issues that many companies and organizations face, along with the key aspects of working in the CSR field. Speakers such as Professor Andrew Crane used humourous yet insightful comments such as how as investors we actually would have been better off just buying beer for a year than investing in today’s market place as your return on recycling the beer bottles would have been greater when compared to certain suffering stocks. Delegates also had the opportunity to hear from CSR author and expert, Dr. Bob Willard. With 34 years of experience, Bob provided an insightful look into how to overcome many of the obstacles in implementing CSR in corporations. With useful tips in conveying CSR terminology and discussing the motivators for sustainability his presentation provided a different perspective on quantifying and communicating the business case for sustainability.

The 2009 CORE Conference was a valuable event in educating and promoting CSR amongst future business leaders along with highlighting some of the trends within CSR in Canada. With case competitions, keynote speakers, various workshops, and plenty of opportunities to network, the CORE Conference provided a mutually beneficial and educational event for all its delegates.

 

 

 

Luvleen Malhans is the Director of Marketing for the Corporate Social Responsibility Society (CSRS) at the Schulich School of Business. CSRS is an undergraduate student run organization with the aim at educating and promoting CSR amongst the students and the business environment.

Luvleen is a fourth year BBA student at Schulich-York University in Toronto with specializations in Marketing and Strategic Management. Luvleen also attended an international exchange program at Singapore Management University in 2008.

Portable Wind Power!

“Wind Power Anywhere”

A Wind Power Generator that can be deployed almost anywhere? AND Deliver a steady and strong stream of Energy? If further testing is successful, the future of energy could be MARS.

Although Magenn’s Air Rotor System (MARS) is currently in its prototype phase (since April’08), we could see a backpack version of the system as soon as 5 – 10 years!

But what is MARS?

Essentially a ‘Floating Wind Power Generator‘, it stays in the air with Helium in very much the same way a Blimp floats in the air. 

At 500 – 1000 ft in the air, enjoying Consistent and Strong Winds, it generates 50% of its rated capacity. A significant improvement over regular ground level wind turbines that generate 20 – 40% of their rated capacity.

Changing Wind Directions? Not a Problem. A deflector disk will keep MARS pointed in the right direction all the time. 

Power Output? The prototype was rated at 2 Kw with production versions anticipated to be rated 10/12 Kw.

Accessible Price! With home sized units (4 Kw) expected to cost USD$10,000 and camping units (2 Kw) USD$2,000. Easy, renewable energy will be well within the reach of your average consumer.

We are very excited about this technology and will be sure to check out our closest demo unit once they become available! (Which could be as early as late 2009)

More: Magenn, AutoBlog, GizMag