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News - Comment - Blogs - Quotes
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CRITERIA
2/12/08 CSR Rating Agencies Balancing Competition with Harmonization, Social Funds. Users of CSR ratings are interested in more consensus on criteria, but the producers of ratings are conflicted because they wish to retain a competitive edge.
LINKS
Theory and Practice of CSR
CSRNYC
Ecological Standards
Forest Stewardship Council
Rainforest Alliance
Rating Sites or Sources
alonovo
GreenCars
Standard Setters
Forest Stewardship Council
ISEAL
Rainforest Alliance
Social Accountability International
Workplace Standards
Social Accountability International
Workplace Spirituality
| 3/17/08 (HuffPo): Hops and Fears on St. Pat's Day. Rating the Beer Industry: The greenest beer. Hops are scarce and their price has been rising. Barley too. But you can't make beer without them. So be afraid of a beer drought at some small breweries. These fears are no joke says Alonovo. It's enough to remind you of Prohibition, the end of which was 75 years ago. From April to December 1933, the only legal U.S. alcohol was beer. For St. Patrick's Day, 2008, the question is: Which beer is greenest? Of the biggest three U.S. brewers, which has the greenest production? I think it's Anheuser-Busch. More: John Tepper Marlin, Huffington Post, Hops and Fears on St. Pat's Day. See also Beer Industry.
3/5/08 B Corporations. As described by Inc Magazine, B Corporations are social ventures - businesses with a social mission - that are certified based on a stakeholder approach in their articles of incorporation and a point system similar to LEED. They must achieve 40 out of 100 points on the B Rating System and pay 1/10th of 1% of revenue to B Lab. Two other similar rating systems are WISER and REVEAL. One difference between the B corporation and the certifications of SA8000 or Rainforest Alliance is that the B Corporation certificate is for the company whereas SA8000 applies to a facility (factory, farm, store) and Rainforest Alliance applies to a product and its source (farm), Comment: The hardest part will be to get this information in front of the public. A start is being made here.
1/16/08 CSR in Finance - Green Lending. One way banks can show their concern for a sustainable future is through environmentally careful lending practices. Ceres has issued a new report that grades large banks on climate change issues. It was released last week. The report puts European banks at the top of the list - HSBC (70 points out of 100 on Ceres' Climate Change Governance Checklist), ABN AMRO (66), Barclays and HBOS (61), and Deutsche Bank (60). At the other extreme, Bear Stearns gets zero points. Lehman Brothers released a report on the business challenges of climate change that received praise, but it scored a disappointing 26. Other banks active on this topic are
- Goldman Sachs, which invested $1.5 billion in clean energy in 2006 and scored 53.
- Merrill Lynch, which launched an Energy Efficiency Index in 2007, and scored 52.
- Morgan Stanley, which established a Carbon Bank in 2007 to help clients go carbon neutral, and scored 49.
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1/6/08 (Blogspot): Ecotourism in the Americas. Tourism can damage or (less often) restore the environment, depending on how it is handled. If you want to be part of the solution instead of part of the problem, look for a hotel/resort that supports local conservation of the environment - i.e., a place committed to ecotourism or sustainable travel. This kind of shopping for a better world is now easier with the second edition of Go Green! A SmartGuide to Sustainable Travel in the Americas. More: Blogspot, John Tepper Marlin, Ecotourism in the Americas. EcoTourism in the Americas.
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