Monthly Archives: October 2009
As alluded to in the BSR conference theme: “Reset Economy. Reset World.”, we’ve entered a brief period where business and society is re-examining core assumptions about how we live and work. There’s a realization that the concept of sustainability is vital and relevant, and that sustainability integration is a business imperative fundamental to innovation, profitability, and ultimate long-term survival.
But it’s not as easy as pressing a reset button (there is no sustainability CTRL-ALT-DELETE key sequence!) In a sense, what we’re talking about is systems redesign. Embedding sustainability is very difficult, not least because of the fundamental culture change that accompanies efforts to integrate and operationalize sustainable business practices. Join that with barriers to implementation ranging from existing political frameworks, lack of scale, and an entrenched system of investor valuation that excludes most social and environmental factors, and the true nature of the challenge becomes apparent.
The BSR conference… More
The Business for Social Responsibility (BSR) conference in San Francisco is in full swing today, and the opening plenary yielded some early insights as to the shape of the event.
Aron Cramer, President and CEO of BSR, highlighted three areas critical for both business and planetary survival in a reset world:
Innovation
System redesign (with the first test of whether we can adequately reshape global systems to be determined in Copenhagen in just a few short weeks)
Leveraging the power of networks
Ernst Ligteringen, Chief Executive of the Global Reporting Initiative, added his own thoughts on the challenge of reshaping systems and economies. He stated that creating a business case for action can be very difficult, as it requires that we justify a transition to a new economy based on current economic fundamentals… something akin to trying to explain quantum physics using Newtonian… More
Social Media and Sustainability Oct 2009 Newsletter
Everywhere we turn, the term “social media” seems to dominate the sustainability conversation. This month, we take a deeper dive into this evolving world to find out whether those hours spent blogging, tweeting, responding to posts, virtual-networking, and otherwise sharing your company’s content and opinions with the world are time well spent.
Special thanks to our guest editor, Averill Doering, a brand and social media strategist specializing in sustainability communications and the Founder of Cause Communication Strategies, for her contributions to this newsletter!
