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Chris Milton

Chris Milton

Free Patents Release Business From Gollum’s Precious

Gollum: a dirty and warped creature whose bulging eyes, skinny fingers and obsessive behaviour are now synonymous with unfettered desire and greed.

It’s tempting for many of those who argue against Capitalism and the Market State to liken big business to a swarm of Gollums, all scrabbling around in the dark, clutching their own peculiar Precious.

However such a view may be confounded by a growing initiative launched by the World Business Council For Sustainable Development (WBCSD): the Eco Patent Commons. [Read more…] about Free Patents Release Business From Gollum’s Precious

Lehman Brothers: Why Real Business Leaders Do CSR

The blogs are buzzing and the papers burning: not since Diana has some many column inches been created by so many journalists and commentators. In fact (whisper it quietly) it may even surpass Diana’s death.

Of course, I’m talking about Lehman Brothers collapsing into bankruptcy, Merrill Lynch (where I once gave seminars on Desktop Publishing!) being sold to Bank of America and … who knows what about to happen to AIG.

Bad days, everyone one agrees. There’s no more ostrich-head sticking in the sand, no more “Nah .. it’s just a bad squall, it’ll pass.” No, this time it’s serious.

“A seismic event” which is “testing where the failure point lies”, according to commentators on Radio Four’s flagship “Today” programme. Note that word: FAILURE. Not often spoken even by financial pessimists. [Read more…] about Lehman Brothers: Why Real Business Leaders Do CSR

Even Gladiators Need Presentation Skills

With the roll of drums and the crash of cymbals, the gladiators for next year enter the arena. These are the global warriors of the Dow Jones Sustainability Index (DJSI).

They don’t bow or mumble strange sentences in Latin; instead they simply give themselves a hearty clap on the back and get on with the job in hand, bestriding the world as champions of business sustainability.

Every year companies from all over the world seek to qualify for membership of the DJSI. Each is measured against 12 criteria covering economic, social and environmental issues and those who score over a certain threshold are allowed in.

Which is all very well, but what about their websites? Well I have to admit I haven’t been through every single one with a tooth comb, but one caught my eye as worth highlighting. [Read more…] about Even Gladiators Need Presentation Skills

One View of the Best Green Investments

It’s the last weekend of the school holidays. After eight weeks, the circling sharks of my children close in for the kill. I give in to their pleading cherubic faces beaming up at me and say yes. Yes, we can go to a Theme Park.

Normally I hate the things:

  • lots of other people screaming for no reason – go mountain climbing if you want scarey exercise;
  • long queues waiting for something disappointing to happen – much like seeing the latest pulp Hollywood movie;
  • drinks sold at vastly inflated prices – you can get that at a shopping mall without having to pay the whopping entrance fee.

(I wonder, is my natural grumpiness showing yet?)

However this time I was pleasantly surprised. Yes, there were queues, screaming and overpriced drinks. But some of the rides were actually worth it, and I almost enjoyed the day out! [Read more…] about One View of the Best Green Investments

WBCSD Measuring Impact Methodology — A Brief Overview

WBCSD Measuring Impact Framework Frontsheet

In order for a form of measurement to be truly accurate it has to be implemented by a group, not a set of individuals. For instance, it’s much easier for a group of five people to measure a thousand paces (the old mile) than five people counting a thousand paces individually.

This is why the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD), in conjunction with the International Finance Corporation (IFC), has recently launched the Measuring Impact Methodology (MIM).

The flaw it seeks to address is one of the oldest in the book: how can different companies produce comparable figures open to close analysis if they all use different methodologies to do the measuring.

The area the framework aims to bring this rigour to is their impact among the most nebulous stakeholders: the communities within which they operate.

Stating the Outcome, Not Guessing the Result
Attempts have been made before to introduce mechanisms into business to measure their impact upon the wider community. The most widely known is the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA).

These have been around in one form or another for over 20 years. Their place has always been as part of the project planning process in an attempt to gauge the likely impact a project will have on the wider environment.

WBCSD’s Measuring Impact Methodology is different. It aims to measure the impact a business has had upon the wider community after the event.

In this sense it is a crucial part of the sustainability measurement and compliance jigsaw which is being built up. To date there has been no framework governing how companies do this, leaving the whole area open to interpretation and the spin of greenwashing.

Now, however, companies have a framework to work within when assessing and reporting the impact they have had upon the wider community.

Although only voluntary, companies who choose to operate outside this framework will always draw the cynical journalist who will look for the additional spin a company may be trying to introduce.

WBCSD Measuring Impacts
Four Stage Methodology

The 4×4 Solution
The framework itself is remarkably simple and rests upon four steps which a company should go through:

  • Set Boundaries; define the project in terms of the business activities to be considered and the geographic area in which they are occurring
  • Measure the Direct and Indirect Impacts; identify those impacts under the company’s direct control and those which are not but which are influenced by the company’s activities
  • Assess Contribution To Development; engage with stakeholders in the community in order to gauge how the company is supporting their development priorities
  • Prioritise Management Response; plan a response to the impact the company has had, based upon the risks and opportunities identified in previous steps

The framework also defines four classes of business activities which companies should report against:

  • Governance and Sustainability; the impact the company’s policies and procedures have on the wider community, including anything specifically targeted at environmental management
  • Assets; the impact anything “owned” by the company has, including premises and infrastructure and how products and services are created and delivered
  • People; the roles people fulfil within the company, their skills and training
  • Financial Flows; the financial impact a company has within it community, typically through procurement and taxation
WBCSD Measuring Impacts
Example Spreadsheet

Nice And Easy Does It
The framework includes a detailed explanation of the various activities a company needs to go through in order to complete each step.

However unlike many others the methodology includes a macro-driven Excel spreadsheet. This gives the methodology two advantages in usability over many others.

Firstly it provides a readymade electronic reporting application so the company doesn’t need to produce its own, spend extra money buying one from a consultancy or print out an onerous amount of paper detailing all the check boxes and comment fields..

Secondly it allows personnel to learn about the framework in a very hands-on manner, reading about the steps and going through them in a hypothetical example at the same time.

Indirect Impacts
Overall this is a very welcome addition to the growing armoury of methodologies being published to help companies understand and improve the sustainability of their business processes.

It also breaks new ground in that it measures the impact of company activities after the event, rather than trying to project them and then measure how a company has performed against that target.

In addition, the inclusion of a multi-functional spreadsheet in the methodology is also welcome and one has to wonder whether other organisations will start to provide similar tools as part of their methodologies.

After all, business lives by the rationale that competition between different organisations in products and services is healthy for society. There’s no reason providers of schemes and standards should be any different!

Digging Deep for First Impressions

“Great Uncle ‘Erbert’s coming for dinner!” called my Mum.

“Not Great Uncle ‘Erbert!” yowled her children. He was old and grizzled with white facial hair which seemed to clump together for warmth in random places before hibernating up his nostrils every night.

The wind whistled around the gaps in his misshapen teeth and there was always that strange smell which I later came to associate with men’s public toilets. We tried to avoid him whenever possible.

In the same way, environmentalists avoid the mining industry whenever possible.

This is not surprising: an industry which digs large holes in the ground and then sloshes toxic chemicals all over the contents is unlikely to go down well with the green movement.

What is more mining companies, unlike Great Uncle ‘Erbert, are not fictional. In fact, they operate predominantly in developing countries and so should have a lot to say about their sustainable practices on their websites.

Wide Ranging Content
Anglo American is one of the largest mining companies in the world. Their operations stretch across the Americas, Europe, Africa and Australia and include household names such as De Beers and Tarmac.

Like any good corporate website, it has a link from its top banner to its sustainability section. This immediately places the issue on the same footing as Investor and Media Relations.

Anglo American Homepage

In addition, this link automatically expands to be a menu, allowing the visitor to gain access with a single click to topics ranging from Anglo American’s sustainability reports to its approach to HIV/AIDS.

Within the section here are links to a whole slew of policies, speeches and presentations, a discussion of “Good Citizenship” and descriptions of the eight international schemes Anglo American plays a part in.

There’s also a page dedicated to the sensitive issue of the transfer of a share of ownership, management and benefits of business interests in South Africa into the hands of those previously excluded under apartheid.

Most intriguing of all is the Anglo American’s Social-Economic Assessment Toolbox (SEAT). This methodology has been deployed in over 16 countries to support and engagement with local communities.

This will be covered in more detail in a future post.

Burying The Facts
Antofagasta is another FTSE 100 mining company. Formed from the Bolivian Railway Company, it mixes railway and water interests in South America with being one of the largest copper producers in the world.

On the corporate website sustainability is part of the Investor Relations section, accessible throughout the site from drop down menus from the website’s title bar.

Antofagasta Sustainability Page

But the single page isn’t much to look at on arrival. Two links to extracts from the Antofagasta’s Annual reports and, a little bizarrely, a link to the Spanish-language website of one of its mines in Chile.

This means the content does have one thing in common with the Anglo American site: both are devoid of any firm figures concerning their sustainability measures.

This is a shame because the PDF documents both supply are stuffed full of the kinds of facts and figures which analysts love to pore over.

In addition, the Anglo American sustainability report contains 16 Key Targets covering environmental, governance and social aspects of the company’s performance.

Similarly, the Antofagasta report contains details of various awards the company’s installations have won alongside their progress towards ISO 9001 certification.

No need for Mining
These are almost unforgivable errors in a major company’s web-based presentation of its sustainability credentials.

It may be too much to hope all companies will have data-mining tools implemented on their websites, allowing analysts to investigate their raw data as best they see fit.

However, one of the traditional ways of presenting your best side is to publish a table showing progress towards a static target. Both companies have missed a golden opportunity of doing this.

Companies need to get wise to the data they have within their control and use it as effectively as possible within a web based environment.

Visitors to the Anglo American website would leave with the distinct impression of “all fluff and no substance”; those to the Antofagasta website may think the company just didn’t care.

These first impressions last. Great Uncle ‘Erbert may have been a leader in particle physics, but because he never told us we simply think of him as a smelly old man.

Similarly companies, especially those involved in naturally unsustainable past-times such as mining, need to be careful. Otherwise the truth may be lost to bad first impressions.