Corporate Eye

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Chris Milton

Chris Milton

Five levels of corporate citizenship

One of the blogs I keep my little beady eye upon is “Civilising the Economy” by Marvin Brown, professor of business ethics at the University of San Francisco.  You can get  a measure of the man and his writing from the blog’s strapline:

My goal here is not to think outside the box but change the box we think in.

Anyway, a recent post he’s put up is about developing a new course on the ethics of social transformation from a global citizen perspective.  Whilst not directly linked to them, I thought it would be useful to share the several levels of citizenship he identifies and discuss them from the business and corporate citizenship perspective.

As we’ll see, the gap between business and global citizenship sharing the same bench is wider than you might think.

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Seven Best Practices for Sustainability Websites | Part 1/2


Last November Two Tomorrows published their 2012 Tomorrow’s Value Research report.

It was a bit of an eye opener.

The drive for transparency, the report concluded, is distracting businesses from tackling issues and many risk losing sight of the overall sustainability picture.

A telling statistic is that only half the Dow Jones Sustainability Index (DJSI) supersector members measured up to Two Tomorrows’ “leadership” criteria.  You would have expected these to be unanimously in the vanguard.

To try and galvanise the remaining companies, the report seized upon seven areas of best practices they had come across, which are repeated here with a website gloss on them.

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Are you a neo environmentalist?

“I am not a big fan of the prefix “neo”,” writes James Murray, editor of Business Green

“It makes me think of Nazis…

“Marxists …

“and Keanu Reeves in the Matrix.”

Granted, anything which reminds you of Keanu Reeves is generally worth avoiding, the Matrix doubly so because it’s got Hugo Weaving’s clodhoppers all over it as well.  He was a rubbish Elrond, period.

But I digress.

These words are the opening of a rather long editorial James Murray published in October last year.

In it he examines an outpouring from the long established environmentalist Paul Kingsnorth in which he rounded on “neo environmentalists” who believe that man can “act as Gods” and save the world through interventionist science and business practices.

It’s an interesting debate but I’m not going to knife and fork both articles .. it’s enough to note that James Murray gives as good as he gets with talk of “unreconstructed” sections of the environmental movement.

However, taken together, both articles raise five serious questions which will, at the very least, give you pause to ponder your own place on this new environmentalist spectrum.

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Banking For Everyone, Made In Heaven

Freddie Mercury Made In HeavenIf you’re of a certain age and plugged into social media, a certain milestone may not have escaped your notice during November: the 21st anniversary of the death of Freddie Mercury.  A cracking excuse to get the old vinyls out an give them a spin .. or browse over to YouTube, whichever takes your fancy .. all the way from the original Queen album through to Made In Heaven.

Made In Heaven.  A practically unique album, in that it was released posthumously with much of the engineering work also being done after Freddie’s death.  You may have realised I’m something of a fan (“nut” has also been used) and I still have a little difficulty listening to the album.

Something I don’t have difficulty with though is the Spanish banking group Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria, or BBVA for short.  Yes I know it’s a tenuous link but when I came across their CSR website, Banca Para Todas (Banking for Everyone), I really was mightily impressed by it.  It just so happens that I’m writing about it with Freddie very much in my thoughts… so there you go :)

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EU continues corporate governance reform

EU slow corporate governance reformLike a slow, inevitable, irresistible piece of origami, the EU’s plans on corporate governance reform in line with general CSR principles continue to unfold.  This latest instalment looks at corporate governance and follows on from a public consultation and green paper in 2011.

Sixteen areas have been identified and put into an action plan.  Some will require regulatory changes, all will be enacted during 2013 unless further investigation is required and all, with the exception of the SPE proposal, will apply to all listed companies across the EU.

Generally they fall into three broad categories: transparency, shareholder power and cross border ownership.

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Five Key Elements of Sustainable Supply Chains

green supply chains : five elementsOne of the hottest topics of debate surrounding business sustainability is how to introduce it in a broad ranging manner across all sectors.  Regulation seems to be one path, as will shortly be seen for greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, but business’ instinct is always to see if the market is flexible enough to bring about change without a change in the law.

Supply chains are one of the key players in this deregulated approach because they allow engagement with both upstream suppliers and downstream clients and neither of these crucial relationships should be forgotten.

However playing your part in a sustainable supply chain is about more than engaging with your business partners.  There are five key areas of a business which should be addressed to ensure your company’s link is forged with strength and resilience.

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