Towards an Investment Stewardship Council: Providing Credible Assurance of the ESG Assessments of Investment Products As the practice of specialist socially responsible investment and impact investing, on the one hand, and mainstream responsible investment on the other, have grown, so has the sector of analysts and raters of the environmental, social... Read more
TAGS: UN reports on emerging government roles for scaling CSRAlmost 20 years ago governments called on business and civil society to join the challenge of promoting sustainable development. Since the Rio Earth Summit in 1992, many companies, NGOs, unions and others worked together to create new standards for the social and environmental performance of business. The UN today reports that these are becoming influences... Read more
TAGS: What Business Can do to Reduce Disaster RiskAs the full tragedy of the Japanese earthquake and tsunami begins to be undertood, it is important to consider what business can do not only in response to disasters, but to reduce people’s exposure to disaster risk. As the costs of natural disasters increase, so the topic of “business continuity” has become more important for risk... Read more
TAGS: Long live accountability!If AccountAbility, as an organisation governed by its stakeholders, is “dead” then long live accountability! Because many lessons can be learned for how to create more democratically accountable organisations and societies from the changes at AccountAbility and the subsequent criticisms from its disgruntled stakeholders and former staff. The lessons... Read more
TAGS: accountability, The Corporate Responsibility Movement Lifeworth Annual Review and Preview 2010/11Lifeworth Consulting is a social enterprise that promotes sustainable development through influencing enterprise and investment. We also run Lifeworth.com, the jobs portal for responsible enterprise. Reflecting on our year, in each of our specialist areas during 2010 we sensed people realising the need for far greater change than they currently seek... Read more
TAGS: Managing the Pro-Development Impacts of Your BusinessLooking back on corporate responsibility in 2010, one of the topics that rose to the top of the agenda was the role of business in international development. In particular, this was spurred by the UN’s review of (a lack of) progress towards meeting the Millennium Development Goals. There are a range of initiatives to advance business contributions... Read more
TAGS: base of the pyramid, inclusive business, social enterprise, sustainable inclusive business Sustainability in the Wellness Sector – why now?What has CSR and sustainability to offer the wellness industry, and vice versa? That was the topic addressed by Lifeworth founder Dr Jem Bendell in a keynote for the Wellness Summit in Singapore on October 14th. The talk aimed to invite wellness professionals to take sustainability to heart and integrate it in what they offer clients and how they relate... Read more
TAGS: wellness CSR Disclosure Gets HotYesterday I chaired a session of the CSR Singapore Compact Summit on measurement and disclosure of corporate responsibility. It was the type of topic I skipped at CSR conferences in the past decade, as I headed off to things seeming more exciting and new, like leadership, partnership, finance or enterprise. But now matters of measurement and disclosure... Read more
TAGS: asian csr, disclosure, Jem Bendell, reporting Study finds CSR, ESG and social enterprise overlook the publicly and commercially critical issue of economic inequalityEconomic inequality is increasingly recognised as negatively impacting on the environment, poverty, crime, peace, health and even financial stability. As such, the rates of economic inequality represent both a public issue and concern for business and investment. A study published on September 24th in the the Journal of Corporate Citizenship, finds... Read more
TAGS: Responsible finance could do more for development than MDG charityThis week the world’s leaders meet in New York to discuss progress on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which were agreed ten years ago as time-bound targets for achievable reductions in poverty. The spin masters of global policy have already been busy framing this milestone in the media. But aside from the spin, the reality is very different... Read more
TAGS: development, MDGs, poverty
