Monthly Archives: February 2009

Sadly and truly, a lot of companies disrespect the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI).

I’m not talking about the organizations that ignore the GRI completely; I’m completely fine with them. Companies have been ignoring, and will continue to ignore, the GRI so long as the G3 guidelines are voluntary (and don’t expect that to change any time soon).

Rather, I’m talking about the companies that invoke the GRI in their sustainability reports, but fail to apply the G3 guidelines appropriately, if at all. The GRI implemented the application levels—A, B, and C—in 2006 precisely to keep this practice from happening.

Unfortunately, the application levels don’t seem to be helping.

Last week I had a chance to review “The Color of Our World,” Waste Management’s 2008 sustainability report, which the company released in January. It was a really enjoyable read. Waste Management does a nice job explaining their waste-to-energy and landfill gas-to-energy… More >

Along with your daily dose of dismal economic news, consider this: any economic stimulus package that Congress passes will carry with it an expectation that people spend a good portion of their earnings. On stuff. That expectation creates a conflict between the need to drive economic growth through consumption, on one hand, and environmental sustainability that depends on lower consumption, on the other. But as President Obama said during this week’s press conference, “This economy has been driven by consumer spending for a very long time. And that’s not going to be sustainable.” We need a better way.

Enter the concept of the experience economy, in which growth is fueled by spending not on goods but rather experience. In this scenario, government spending creates jobs to build not only transportation and energy but also cultural infrastructure, which includes theaters, museums, art galleries, libraries, parks, and, of course, schools. People… More >