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The unfolding scandals surrounding Volkswagen and FIFA reveal they have much in common, not only with each other but with many corporate scandals that have gone before. The fall-out follows a familiar pattern. Both saw immediate demands for the resignation of the institution’s head (although only one willingly obliged). Both are proving, as investigations progress, to involve far more than the isolated actions of a few ethically dubious individuals, writes Alexandra Stubbings, co-founder and director of Talik & Co,
the organisation development consultancy.


Often the first internal reaction in situations like this is to identify individuals to blame and then ‘excise’ them from the organisation. (Think Libor). All very well but what if the behaviour cannot be attributed to just one or two ‘bad apples’. What if the problem is deeper and more pervasive than that? What if the barrel itself is rotten?

The next level of response then is typically from the industry, with the intent to ‘close the loophole’ by tightening regulatory policies and enhancing compliance protocols. Unfortunately such a response is more likely to produce a compliance ‘arms race’ as innovative methods are found in turn to counter the new regulation. Witness the banking industry where more robust screening policies for customers have often been met with more ‘dynamic’ international workarounds. In all these instances as long as the underlying culture and values, the beliefs about what to prioritise and how to act, remain the same, nothing really changes.

In such circumstances how might Matthias Muller, new CEO of Volkswagen, go about changing the culture and values of the (currently) €50bn global company in any meaningful way?

He might start by not seeing the problem as a technical one. Sounds trite but too often we see engineers trying to apply a similar mechanical logic to leading their people as they do to producing widgets. From this mindset if a process can be reduced to a minimum (zero waste? zero defects?) standard the output will be the most efficient. The assumption is that behaviour change is the same. Hence the attraction of the ‘ethics’ workshop – often a one-day quick fix to remind staff how they should behave before sending them back to their desks.

Creating a healthy business culture with ethical values truly embedded is a multi-year and on-going process. It demands visible and immediate punishment of bad behaviour but more importantly it requires the continual reinforcement of positive pro-ethical behaviours through multiple parallel strands. These include leadership development, symbolic senior management actions and whole organisation engagement activities, surfacing and communicating stories of positive change.

The symbolic actions and stories illustrate to employees in the business and more widely to its stakeholders that positive behaviour is recognised and more critically rewarded. Conducting both the ‘soft and hard’ aspects of change in tandem serves to ensure the espoused values are supported by the company’s people systems and not experienced as inconsistent with them, a common cause of back-sliding.

Such change does not happen quickly. Consistency is key and the message has to be communicated many times at every level until it becomes part of the company identity. When it truly becomes ‘who we are’, and anything less than leads to being ostracized by your peers, you’ve probably made a good start.
 

Catch me on a bad day and I’m likely to be as critical as anyone of current formulations of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). Ironic, then, that I was invited to champion the ‘No’ side of the argument when a recent Barclays Debate addressed the question ‘Is CSR Dead?’ The event was chaired by Matthew Taylor, chief executive of the Royal Society of Arts—and it produced an unexpected outcome, writes John Elkington, co-founder & chairman of Volans.

 
The proposition that the CSR agenda is dead was advanced by #TeamMark: Mark Kramer of FSG and the Shared Value Initiative, and Janet Voûte, global head of public affairs at Nestlé. Tough competition. With the Volkswagen debacle hanging over our heads, it was hard to see this turning out well for #TeamJohn—featuring yours truly and, riding shotgun, Patrick Thomas, ceo of Covestro (the former Bayer MaterialScience).

When Matthew took an initial audience poll, it was calculated that the room was 51% to 49% in favour of CSR being alive—though the actual vote was a few points higher, to CSR’s advantage.

In summary, #TeamMark argued: While CSR is a wonderful concept, unfortunately the way it works in practice falls short. To create transformational change, where companies become vehicles for social progress rather than harm, you have to get to the core of the business, to the CEO, to the business strategy. CSR is very rarely aligned to the culture, purpose and fundamental strategy of the company.
They continued: We don’t have time to convince companies to bring in values that ought to be important but which are not yet truly valued by the market in financial terms. Shared Value says there is opportunity for real profit and improved bottom line by pursuing new avenues that address your environmental footprint and by developing products that meet social needs in the populations you serve.

And #TeamJohn’s response? CSR is a deep-rooted, ongoing conversation across sectors about the role of business in society. It has been with us for a long time already and, very likely, it will be with us for a long time into the future. That said, it certainly has its problems. You need only look at Volkswagen, or the Dow Jones Sustainability Index’s ranking of VW as a sector leader just days before the crisis hit. So does that wipe out the case for CSR? Hardly. A few failures are no reason to throw the baby out with the bathwater.

CSR is not dead, we concluded, but there is a big question about whether it is fit for purpose. Values tend to drift. Think about Barclays itself, with its founding Quaker values, but recent travails have impacted both reputation and the bottom line. At its best, effective CSR delivers Responsibility, Accountability, Transparency and Sustainability—but the lead has to come from the top.
I suspect many CSR professionals were on tenterhooks when the final vote came, feeling that the Shared Value agenda must have made up some ground. But when Matthew gave the results from the room and the online audience, we were stunned to hear that the needle had swung to 75% in favour of our ‘Undead’ position.

In truth, the question posed is one where Mark and I were probably aligned from the outset. I see Shared Value as having a crucial role [in what/for what]. But as an approach that stresses Win-Win outcomes, rather than Win-Win-Win (Triple Bottom Line) outcomes, it by definition fails to deal with the Win-Lose challenges that are shot through the wider sustainability debate.

So, inevitably, the debate continues.
 

The ratification of the Sustainable Development Goals in September was a pinnacle moment for the engagement of the private sector with the development community, writes Louise Erskine, head of Programmes and Research at Career Volunteer.

Extensive consultation with businesses at global and local levels in the run up to formalising the goals was, itself, indicative of the progress made since the inception of the MDGs in 2000. At that time, there were little soundings or structure around the role of the private sector in achieving the MDGs and the goals practically ignored the parallels between sustainable economic growth and businesses.

Attitudes and actions have evolved since the nascent stages of the MDGs: it is now widely recognised that the fundamental way to drive the SDGs is through integrative approaches that address systemic issues. The private sector is finally accepted as a pivotal actor and facilitator of change within these cohesive partnerships.

UN Global Compacts’ depiction of shared values highlights the synergies between the SDGs of inclusive growth, social equity and progress and environmental protection with long term business goals of revenue growth, resource productivity and risk management. Concurrently, the UN Development Programme highlight that inclusiveness, sustainability and partnering are the cornerstones of private sector engagement. 

This is where corporate volunteering is key. Corporate volunteers have become somewhat superfluous to needs in recent times - delivering teams to build wells and paint schools whilst snapping up a photo opp have, sadly, become entrenched in the global development arena. Building capacity through grassroots development was misconstrued as a one-way flow of learning and transference. 

Yet the dependency debate has long since died and the time has come to address actual need and a shift away from normative ad hoc, unskilled transference of labour in a unilateral system. Acceptance that shared values don’t necessitate shared motivations is creating a landscape for corporate volunteers to impact on many of the key SDG fields, such as financial inclusion, governance frameworks, access to technology and resource sustainability. 

Deploying volunteers to learn about these aspects, particularly around innovation and industrialisation, helps to foster technological advancements as well as research and development. Businesses that are engaging in such a way are discovering research into new markets, opportunities for risk management, innovations with their products and services and, subsequently, increased confidence and loyalty amongst their customers and shareholders. 

The SDGs have inadvertently become a nexus to stimulate, inform and inspire the private sector to harness their human resources and expertise. The concept of reciprocal benefits is no longer as indecorous as it once was and, together, this paves the way for a new movement of corporate volunteers; one based on a mutual appreciation and understanding that will radically alter corporate engagement in developing and newly industrialised countries. Corporate skilled volunteering has the propensity to drive a transformative agenda in the post 2015 era. ‘Should we’ is no longer the nuanced question: ‘how do we’ is the new norm.

 

As part of its ongoing Journey to Sustainable Luxury project, Chopard, the Swiss luxury watch, jewellery and accessories company, recently teamed up with Eco Age, a brand consultancy that helps businesses grow by creating, implementing and communicating bespoke sustainability solutions, for its first jewellery range made from fair-mined gold. The Palme Verte collection – inspired by and named after the Cannes Film Festival Palme d’Or award – is crafted from fair-mined 18-carat yellow gold, and features a ring, earrings, necklace and bracelet (with prices ranging from £1,550 for the ring to £7,000 for the bracelet).

The Journey to Sustainable Luxury project was launched two years ago in Cannes, and resulted in a partnership with the Alliance for Responsible Mining in South America, whereby Chopard supports communities with fair-mining projects, not just buying their fair-mined gold. More mining communities have been certified ‘fair mines’ as a direct result of the partnership.

Other big brands also push their sustainability credentials. Earlier this year Tiffany, the prestigious ‘little blue box’ jeweler appointed the company’s first-ever chief sustainability officer, Anisa Kamadoli Costa, with its stated aim “to elevate the company’s sustainability strategy and accelerate progress against its social and environmental business objectives.”

Over the last 12 years, Costa has played an integral role in developing Tiffany & Co.’s corporate responsibility programme. Through her efforts, the company says that it has embraced a collaborative and stakeholder-driven approach to sustainability that includes engaging with civil society, mining companies, the luxury industry and local communities to shape best practices across the sector.
Under her guidance, the company has increased public awareness about environmental concerns such as the proposed gold and copper mine in Bristol Bay, Alaska. In addition, Costa established the company’s CSR metrics programme and process of external reporting, which has gained wide recognition for its quality and transparency.

Given that precious metal supply chains can be long and complex, it is not surprising that consumers – and retailers – traditionally knew little about the origins of the precious materials contained in their jewellery. Today that is changing dramatically. And smaller brands are making their presence felt.

Indeed, at last month’s London launch of the first ever supply of Fairtrade gold from Africa – it has previously only been sourced from South America - Josephine Agutta, addressed the audience and brought home the realities of life in artisanal mining today.
Agutta began working in a gold mine in Uganda at the age of 12. As the eldest of nine children, she was charged with fending for her family. “Before this Fairtrade project started, we were just dying in silence,” explained Josephine “We struggle to mine this precious metal - it’s a hard life, you work the whole day. It’s not easy. We’ve lost men, women and children in mine collapses – this is where the precious gold you wear comes from.”

She went on to tell about how her community had only recently learnt about the dangers of the mercury they commonly use in gold extraction through the Environmental Women in Action for Development (EWAD), Fairtrade Africa’s partner.

“When we were told that mercury was poisonous the whole room fell silent – we just didn’t know! We used the same bowls and ladles for cooking as we used for mining – pregnant women handled mercury with their bare hands.”

With one ton of ore, only resulting in 30g of gold, the amount of hard, dangerous work taken on by artisanal miners is phenomenal and artisanal mining is the second largest provider of livelihoods worldwide after agriculture.

According to Alan Frampton, of Fairtrade gold wholesaler and ethical jeweler CRED Jewellery, our desire for precious metals keeps 90m people in poverty. “We are all co-responsible,” he said.

He compared the jewellery industry to the grocery industry several years ago. “It took Justin King, then ceo at Sainsbury, to turn things around in grocery sector. This is what we’re trying to do in the jewellery industry. We have lots of independent retailers and supply chain management can be woeful. But we are trying to change things. Responsible supply chain management is the way forward.

“Fairtrade gold sales are one of the fastest growing areas in the jewellery industry, which is being driven by consumers as more people become aware of the choices available to them. 2015 has seen an explosion of media interest in Fairtrade gold products and the stories associated with it.”

Frampton is adamant that consumers want to know where their gold comes from. Judith Lockwood of Arctic Circle Diamonds and the Hockley Mint, both Fairtrade businesses, agrees. “Once the idea of Fairtrade is mentioned during the sale of a wedding or engagement ring, price doesn’t come into it. A 10% premium is nothing.”

Lockwood has seen for herself the difference Fairtrade accreditation of an artisanal mine makes. Some of the differences sound ridiculously basic to Western ears but signs like ‘Only People Employed by the Mine’ (restricting access) and ‘No children allowed’ are a huge step forward. The mine that Lockwood visited earlier this year in Tanzania has seen Fairtrade standards insist that the shaft is lined in hard wood, not the local soft wood, which lessens the risk of collapse. Also the area where the dynamite is stored is now sectioned off and protected.

Up until now, consumer awareness of Fairtrade gold has been as limited as the supply of gold. But the progress made by Fairtrade International in bringing more mines up to the standards required for them to gain Fairtrade acceditation means that there is now the possibility that any customer can walk into their local jeweler and commission a piece of jewellery made with Fairtrade gold. As more consumers ask for a Fairtrade alternative, the possibilities to provide real benefits and opportunities to more artisanal mining communities increases.

Just like it took years for the mainstream tea industry to go down the ethical trading route, the advent of Fairtrade gold from Africa could well prove the turning point for the jewellery industry…with tea-drinking Brits leading the world. 

 

Picture credit: Wedding Rings from Cred Jewellery, which has been at the forefront of ethical jewellery since it used the first ethical gold in 2004, brought in from a mining cooperative in Columbia called Oro Verde.

The launch mid this October of the BlackRock Strategic Funds’ (BSF) Impact World Equity Fund, a liquid UCITS fund that aims to invest in “measurable” social and environmental outcomes, has been described as a new investment strategy will help move impact investing from a “niche to a core allocation.”

BlackRock, a global leader in investment management, risk management and advisory services for institutional and retail clients with assets under management (AUM) of US$4.721 trillion (June 30, 2015), is well known for its financial products including iShares (ETF’s) and mutual funds.

Now the new BlackRock fund, which will typically hold between 200 and 600 individual companies sits alongside other recently launched impact funds by the firm for US and Japanese investors, aims to generate “competitive financial returns” whilst meeting investors’ social and environmental concerns.

The fund’s launch comes as sustainable and impact investing strategies have been receiving a significant amount of interest and assets from investors. It should nevertheless be noted that ‘impact investing’ is a small but vibrant segment of the broader sustainable and responsible investing universe.

According to the Global Sustainable Investment Alliance (GSIA), a collaboration of sustainable investment organizations, sustainable investment assets expanded 61% between 2012 and 2014. It has defined impact investing as ‘targeted’ investments aimed at solving environmental or social problems.

Deborah Winshel, md and global head of impact investing at BlackRock, commenting said: “Demographic shifts, stakeholder advocacy, and government regulation are combining to create unprecedented demand for sustainable and impact investment solutions.”

She added: “Impact investing enables investors to do more with their money than simply achieving a financial return. Through transparent measurement and outcome reporting, impact investing allows investors to better understand how their money is being put to work.”

The latest fund, which is run by BlackRock’s Scientific Active Equity (SAE) team with over 30 years of experience leveraging systematic and quantitative techniques to build differentiated equity portfolios, seeks to deliver a portfolio that provides exposure to companies with a “positive measurable societal impact” whilst considering risk and returns.

SAE employs research processes to score more than 8,000 companies daily across three societal impact outcome areas: (1) Health; (2) Environment; and, (3) Corporate citizenship. In addition, the fund screens out certain companies or industries, including alcohol, tobacco and weapons manufacturers.

“This new investment strategy will help move impact investing from a niche to a core allocation,” said Jeff Shen, co-head of BlackRock’s SAE Investment Group. “We have designed a portfolio that combines innovative investing capabilities with a transparent and tangible set of social and environmental impact outcomes.”

The development of the new fund is claimed to further highlight BlackRock’s “commitment” in the space. The firm currently BlackRock manages in excess of US$200bn (c.£130bn/€175bn) of assets across environmental, social and governance (ESG) portfolios as well as impact investments.

GSIA’s research has also highlighted that while institutional investors currently account for 86.9% of global sustainable by AUM, increasingly women and millennial investors are placing a greater emphasis on sustainability and social impact in their investment decision making.

Evidencing that trend and according to the Morgan Stanley Institute for Sustainable Investing, 76% of female investors were found to believe that environmental or social factors are important considerations when making their investment decisions.
BSF’s Impact World Equity Fund’s standard retail ‘A’ share class has a minimum investment of US$5,000 (c.£3,243/€4,370), an initial charge of 5% and a management fee of 0.8%.

For more information on BlackRock Impact click here. 

Sustainability teams must work more closely with marketing if they are to realise the value of corporate social responsibility for their brands, says Michael Dickstein, director of global sustainable development at the beer giant Heineken International

Engaging consumers with stories of sustainability performance, practices, innovations and ideals has become an all-important part of corporate marketing and communications – not only in making sure that what a business deems to be important is aligned to the values of its customers, but also in mitigating the reputational risks attached to misleading consumers with bogus claims or being targeted by NGO campaigns.

Some are getting it right. Unilever’s so-called ‘sustainable living brands’ are best responding to increasing customer demand for responsibility and delivering stronger and faster growth – accounting for half the company’s growth in 2014 and growing at twice the rate of the rest of the business.

The outdoor clothing company Patagonia is another example of how high levels of engagement have built a loyal consumer base, fully-wedded to its anti-fast-fashion philosophy.

But examples are thin on the ground. And that’s because getting it right is tough, according to Michael Dickstein, director of global sustainable development at the beer giant Heineken International. “It takes time to initiate the changes required internally – to set up targets, introduce a governance structure and measure the impact of the work you are doing,” he says.

The company, which owns brands including Amstel and Strongbow, has been talking about responsibility for years now. Launched in 2009, its ‘Brewing a Better World’ strategy covers energy and water use, sourcing and encouraging responsible drinking, among other issues. But it is only in the last couple of years that the business has attempted to link its key sustainability messages to the consumer, admits Dickstein.

So, what changed? Well, he and his colleagues in the sustainable development team had to understand that brand communications on sustainability had to be consumer-relevant and support brand equity. “In the 40 markets where we launched our responsible drinking campaign ‘Sunrise’ our business was viewed as the most responsible beer brand. With our ‘Dance More, Drink Slow’ campaign our brand equity rose by 9%,” he says.

“You can see the progress we have made. Now we more effectively link our marketing and sustainability specialists together and are able to bring the story to life for consumers.”

But talking about drinking cultures is one thing. Talking about green issues like waste, energy and recycling, is something altogether different. Dickstein says that there’s a real need to “understand how brands satisfy consumer needs.” He nods to Heineken’s Dutch wheat beer brand, Wieckse. For the last three years, it has been positioned it as being “brewed by the sun” against a backdrop of the 3,600 solar panels on the top of the brewery that produces the beer in the Netherlands.

Similarly, the cider brand Strongbow had a campaign last year which focused on the naturalness and quality aspects of the apple orchards it sources from.

As part of Heineken’s commitment to source 60% of its apples from sustainable sources by the end of the year, it has positioned Strongbow’s sustainability story with quality and regionality aspects to create messaging that really resonates with consumers. “Each of our 250 brands worldwide is positioned differently – and you have to play into the DNA of the brand and work out which CSR aspects are most relevant.”

To make it work, sustainability teams must work more closely with marketing, he adds. With a legacy of having to “fight the perception of CSR people being ‘police agents’” internally, Dickstein says that the key to winning hearts and minds in a company is to “understand the needs of marketing and the language they use”.

And the proof points offered by the likes of the ‘Dance More, Drink Slow’ campaign help too. “The first results of the responsible drinking campaigns gave our marketing teams more confidence. Now those programmes are owned and embraced by marketing.”

Dickstein also believes in the power of partnerships in supporting ongoing consumer engagement. Earlier this year, Heineken announced it was teaming up with the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) to focus on renewable energy in Africa, water stewardship initiatives for its breweries in water scarce areas and local sourcing. “In the past, companies looked at how to improve things on their own. Nowadays, in a world of Sustainable Development Goals, working in partnership, with peers, government, NGOs, and international organisations like UNIDO becomes crucial to resolve some of the issues we are facing.”

What about the opportunity to better engage with a new, Millennial generation? All of the evidence points to the fact that more and more people do care about corporate responsibility – not just about how much pollution a company creates, but also how it treats its workers or whether it pays enough tax. The latest BBMG and GlobeScan research claims that consumption is being redefined by a growing group of ‘Aspirationals’ – people who are just as interested in shopping, style and fashion as they are in responsible consumption and demanding that the brands they know and love act in the best interests of society.

However, Dickstein is cautious about the supposed opportunity presented. “Consumers still vary from market to market. In Austria, beer consumers have a different perception to those in France, Brazil or Singapore,” he says. “While consumers are very favourable about sustainable products as such, the percentage of consumers actually paying a price premium for sustainable products is somewhat lower.

“And if you talk about millennials, a report just came out that the reason they might not necessarily go out of their way to buy sustainable-friendly products, is because they expect big companies and brands to do this – so in fact their expectations have risen.”

By Jonas Allen

For several months the Green Electronics Council (GEC) has explored with TriplePundit more than a dozen issues at the intersection of sustainability and electronics. From e-waste and 3-D printing to water use and closed-loop design, some of the sector’s brightest minds and most respected companies are making great strides to advance the greening of electronics.

GEC, operator of the EPEAT green rating system for electronics, convened many of those stakeholders in September to discuss the next meaningful steps on this shared sustainability journey. Their conversations shed light on three areas for continued focus, both because the areas hold great promise for the sector’s ever-evolving sustainability, and because they have implications for each of us. They also happen to represent the important convergence of people, planet and profit.

The cloud

For more than a decade, the term “Green ICT” has been the de-facto phrase used to describe environmentally preferable electronics. Technologies and form factors have changed dramatically during that time, ushering in the question of whether “Green IoT” is now a more appropriate term. The Internet of Things is practically synonymous with electronics, and that won’t change anytime soon. It’s estimated there will be between 26 billion and 41 billion connected devices by 2020.

Enabling those always-on devices is the cloud, an amorphous network of servers, storage and other equipment that processes, crunches and returns data at a moment’s notice. High-performance server farms like Amazon’s and Facebook’s are incredibly energy efficient, yet they account for just 1 percent of all global data centers. Small- and medium-sized data centers, the type owned and managed by millions of small businesses and individuals, account for 49 percent. Combine all data centers’ energy use, and the energy footprint would rank as the 13th largest country in the world.

And energy is just one aspect of data-center environmental performance. Clearly the sector has an opportunity, if not an obligation, to improve the cloud’s global sustainability and reinforce everyone’s role in contributing to that outcome.

Mobile devices

Though powerful, the millions of individual servers that comprise the cloud are useless without a device to connect to them. Fortunately for enterprises betting on the cloud, those 26 billion to 41 billion connected devices predicted by 2020 will keep the cloud relevant for years to come.

According to Ericsson’s latest Mobility Report, mobile devices will continue to account for most of those connections, with 80 percent of all mobile data traffic expected to from smartphones five years from now. This represents both a powerful opportunity and a significant challenge.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency estimates that Americans disposed of more than 152 million mobile phones in 2010. That translates to approximately 350,000 phones per day. Those of you reading this article likely have a smartphone; maybe you’re even reading this on one. Before you purchased that phone, did you consider its use of recycled material or whether it had a reduced amount of harmful materials?

Several leading manufacturers have made environmental progress on these fronts, and select wireless carriers have recognized their efforts. With their continued support, the mobile space represents a significant opportunity for future environmental innovation. And that’s critical: If the mobile devices that connect to it aren’t making their own sustainability gains, the cloud will forever fall short of being “green.”

Ironically, one of the most significant sustainability challenges for mobile devices isn’t the finished product, but the voracious rate of device consumption. Already there are more mobile phones on Earth than people, and while the worldwide population grows 1.2 percent annually, the number of mobile devices multiplies five times faster. This unprecedented consumption comes with undeniable environmental costs, from an escalation in e-waste to the rapid depletion of resources.

Fortunately, as computational power moves to the cloud, innovations like Circular Devices’ PuzzlePhone are showing device hardware can far exceed the 18-month lifespans we’ve been conditioned to expect. This holds promise for reducing the use of energy and materials in production, slowing the e-waste epidemic, and contributing in a meaningful way to the sector’s overall sustainability.

Reduce, reuse, recover and recycle

Well before “Green ICT” was even coined, the phrase “reduce, reuse, recycle” had gained widespread adoption. As electronics have proliferated, a fourth step – recover – has been added to the mix, and more attention has been paid to reuse by extending a product’s life well beyond the original user. If “Green IoT” asks us to change how we think about greening electronics, then having four Rs presents us with a complete re-imagining. Fortunately there’s a strong business case to support the change.

Recovery and recycling rates for electronics remain surprisingly low worldwide, and low commodity prices have pushed the electronics-recycling industry into near crisis. However, by increasing the focus on recovering precious and finite materials, the entire electronics sector could generate substantial environmental benefits while reaping financial reward.

For instance, data from Umicore shows that recycling 1 ton of used cell phones – a mere 6,000 handsets – can recover up to 340 grams of gold. By comparison, 1 ton of mined gold ore contains just 6 grams of gold. Research from Trucost looks at this through a financial lens and presents an even more dramatic picture. Trucost found that if the recycling rates for gold (15 percent), silver (15 percent) and platinum (5 percent) were all increased to 100 percent, the electronics sector could realize $12 billion in financial and natural capital benefits. The closed-loop recycling of plastics, metals and other materials further increases that figure.

The topic of green electronics is no longer a purely environmental discussion. As these products continue to touch every corner of the globe, an increased focus on their sustainability presents new opportunities for technological, environmental and financial progress.

Likewise, as the number of connected devices we use continues to increase, it becomes increasingly critical to understand that we all have a role – consumer, corporation, manufacturer or recycler – in the environmental progress of electronics. It’s wholly appropriate that this is the case. After all, each of us has a vested interest in a successful and sustainable outcome for our planet.

Image credit: Pixabay

Jonas Allen is Director of Marketing for the Green Electronics Council.

Generation Z, the first generation born in the 21st century, is being shaped by a world at risk. They were born into global terrorism, the Great Recession, social inequality, climate change and, too often in the United States, living in a single-parent household. Their combined experiences have made them fiscally conservative, socially tolerant, environmentally aware and urgently engaged.

This is the generation that will collaborate among themselves to demand sustainable solutions from businesses and government using their buying power and votes. Their collective procurement of sustainable solutions, along with their entrepreneurial pursuits, will reshape the world’s economy. They will be the generation that realizes a global Green Economic Revolution by making corporate social responsibility (CSR) a core criteria in deciding what to buy and who to buy from.

Defining Generation Z

The millennial generation is the last generation born in the 20th century, and this year they became the largest employed demographic group in the U.S.

As a reminder: Generation Z is the first generation born in the 21st century. Their ages range from 2 to 19, and they represent about 25 percent of the U.S. population. Today they have approximately $44 billion in annual buying power.  If businesses and governments thought they had to change to adapt to millennials, then they should appreciate this: Gen Z is already working to change their world.

Generation Z’s behaviors are shaped by their digital devices and social media. This is the generation with the Internet in their pocket! Key metrics include:

• The smartphone was their first electric device


• They crowdsource information through their social media


• They spend a higher percentage of their money online than any other generation

They hold a global perspective enabled through digital connectivity. Generation Z members have a high affinity with fellow members in other countries. Generation Z members in Beijing, New York, Mexico City and Paris will typically feel they have more in common among themselves than with members of other generations in their own countries.

They are also highly entrepreneurial with a strong sense of urgency. Pioneering members of this generation are already starting businesses. While the millennial generation was focused on getting a college education to secure a good job, Generation Z plans to take entrepreneurial action to control their own destiny.

Generation Z uses CSR to choose what to buy and who to buy from

As fiscal conservatives, Generation Z views the sharing economy as an efficient utilization of their limited financial resources. They also view it as an environmental solution that “costs less and means more” in terms of less waste and pollution.

This generation questions ownership of things. They ask: Why buy something when access is the desired goal? Their economics is shaped by downloading, renting or sharing. Their procurement path will be a crowdsourcing process that relies on the experiences of others in their generation drawn from around the world.

Generation Z views corporate social responsibility as a core brand identifier for products and businesses. This generation rejects gender, ethnic, or sexual-preference intolerance and discrimination. They expect businesses to deploy green supply chains that prudently use resources to limit environmental and human-health impacts. They expect the products they buy, rent or share to align value with values. These expectations will be global. A business that does wrong on the other side of the world will be exposed via social media through Generation Z’s global connectivity and aligned values. CSR will be this generation’s foundation for evaluating what companies they will work for and do business with.

Ford futurist Sheryl Connelly On Generation Z

Sheryl Connelly is Ford’s futurist. She leads Ford’s publication of Looking Forward With Ford that annually highlights ten future trends. The first trend listed in the 2015 publication is “Make Way For Gen Z.”

This exclusive interview conducted at the Sustainable Brands 2015 conference is a must-watch, three-minute video on how Generation Z has started down the path of reshaping the world -- and your business opportunities.

https://youtu.be/DXdA4Spi8o0

Image credit: Pixabay

This fall, all eyes are on Paris, which will host COP21 - widely expected to be our last chance to set a global commitment to halt climate change. We recently started a new column on TriplePundit dedicated to the "Road to Paris," and the case for the responsible business leader to be involved in the upcoming climate negotiations.

Here's where you can get involved...

Alongside coverage of the latest news concerning COP21, we're hosting a continual conversation on Twitter at #GoParis. Share your questions, concerns, comments, news and ideas at #GoParis. We'll be listening!

Every week, we'll pose a new question of the week (or QOTW in twitter-speak) around COP21, with hashtag #GoParis. The conversation's already begun!

 Previous Weeks' Questions: 

• What do you think are the prospects for #COP21? Feeling optimistic? #GoParis


• Heard of @Novozymes? They've made the biz case for #COP21. Would their strategy work in the U.S.? #GoParis


• Why are science based #COP21 targets so important? #GoParis

This Week's Question: 

• What's your fave off-the-shelf clean tech? #cleantech #GoParis

Check back soon for upcoming #GoParis questions! 

Ready to participate? Head to Twitter today and give us your thoughts at #GoParis. 

Image credit: Akuppa John Wigham, Flickr    

Traditional corporate philanthropy, as the average consumer has come to know it over the past several decades, consists of making donations to charities in order to create positive societal impact, while engendering goodwill among key stakeholders like consumers, shareholders, advocacy groups and employees.

While such contributions are well-intended and not to be dismissed, this approach brings with it certain risks -- namely that a promising project relying upon a company’s donation can go by the wayside if and when the funding runs out and there are no resources or people left on the ground to maintain it. The corporate philanthropy of tomorrow seeks to be more strategic and focused on issues material to the business – where brands are highly engaged, so as to create lasting, collaborative partnerships and generate impact that can stand the test of time.

https://player.vimeo.com/video/140175174

KOMBIT: THE COOPERATIVE from Impact Farming on Vimeo.

"Kombit: The Cooperative," a film by Found Object, documents how one company, in partnership with a local nonprofit, sought to test whether this type of engagement could truly be successful in practice. The film shares the journey of a five-year collaboration between Timberland and the Smallholder Farmers Alliance (SFA) to reforest Haiti. This creative private-public partnership has not only reached its original goal of planting 5 million trees, but it has also transformed into a 3,000-member smallholder farming cooperative that is now entirely self-financed and self-sustained.

When a massive earthquake struck Haiti in 2010, just as this project was getting underway, Timberland questioned whether it should continue on with the plan as is, or put its resources toward immediate disaster relief instead.

Two-thirds of Haiti’s working population subsists on small-scale agriculture, and the earthquake had put many smallholder farmers’ land in shambles. This was adding insult to injury, as Haiti was already facing serious challenges including deforestation, soil erosion and lack of local farming infrastructure support many Americans take for granted (think: agricultural extensions). Haiti also has only 1.5 percent of tree cover left, making it one of the most deforested countries in the world.

Trees are crucial to farmers’ livelihoods because they provide a living border and shade for their crops. So, Timberland decided that by rebuilding the landscape through the restoration of tree cover, farmland productivity would increase along with household income over time. With long-term earthquake recovery in mind, Timberland stayed the course.

Paying it forward, farmer style

The next question became: How do the partners get small-scale farmers to plant trees? SFA co-founders Hugh Locke and Timote Georges addressed this question during a Q&A session and viewing of the documentary at SXSW Eco 2015, saying the organization realized it needed to devise a way to give trees value in order get the farmers invested.

“When Hugh and Timote came to us with their idea, it was based on paying the farmers to plant trees," said Margaret Morey-Reuner, director of strategic partnerships, business development and values marketing at Timberland. "We said, 'That all sounds well and good, but what happens when the funding runs out?' If we could develop a sustainable model, then we would be on the right path to address the deforestation problem in Haiti and other places throughout the world."

This led Timberland and SFA to focus efforts on providing a way for farmers to earn high-quality seeds for their crops, farming tools and training.

“Farmers have a lot of opportunities ... But there is no structure to help them use what they have. We need to teach them what to do and why,” Georges said.

How it works

Farmers volunteer to manage a network of 19 nurseries that grow a million trees per year. In exchange, farmers are given training, crop seeds, seedlings and tools needed to restore tree cover, while increasing their own crop yields and profit. Seeds are returned to the seed bank, and proceeds are used to train and provide seeds and tools for even more farmers during the next planting season.

This sustainable agroforestry model produces tangible results. Since 2010, 3,200 farmers have increased their farmland productivity by an average of 40 to 50 percent, thereby increasing household incomes by up to 40 percent. Associated benefits have also come about, including increased access to healthcare and education; it’s estimated that an additional 3,400 school children of families who are SFA members have been placed in schools since the program began.

Morey-Reuner cautioned companies exploring this type of collaboration to do so thoughtfully:

“You must be in it for the long-haul because you may not see return for your business in the short term.”

Next on the horizon

Timberland, SFA and the Clinton Foundation are teaming up to develop a sustainable export model for moringa, a little known 'super food' plant. Through U.S. brand Kuli Kuli, a SFA women’s cooperative in Haiti will process the leaves into powder, which will then be exported to the U.S., made into Moringa Green Energy Shots and sold at Whole Foods stores starting in January 2016. Timberland is also exploring replicating the Kombit model with projects around rubber and cotton, both commodities key to Timberland's supply chain and that of its parent company, VF Corp.

“’Kombit’ is a Haitian Creole word for ‘a community working together toward a common goal,’” Georges explained. “This is exactly what happened over the last five years in Haiti as a result of Timberland’s vision. The farmers have found their voice; they have renewed their passion; they feel completely empowered and are eager to continue building the cooperative. I personally can’t wait to see what we do next.”

Visit www.KombitFilm.com to view the film. All net proceeds from the film will go to Impact Farming to benefit SFA in Haiti.

Image credits: Timberland, used with permission