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Workforce volunteering has leapt 36% at automotive giant Jaguar Land Rover with more than 9,600 employees donating over 115,000 hours (or 14,400 working days) to support their local communities.

This record-breaking performance is an increase of 36% on employee participation and 45% in time donated compared to 2013, which saw 5,860 employees donate 63,400 hours

Around 85% of volunteers supported Jaguar Land Rover’s ‘Inspiring Tomorrow’s Engineers’ programme, which engaged 300,000 young people in the UK last year. Employees support Education Business Partnership Centres which run school visits and work placements at the company’s sites by helping develop curriculum materials, delivering presentations to groups, supporting external careers events or mentoring young people on work experience placements.

Jonathan Garrett, CSR director, Jaguar Land Rover, commented: "Employee volunteering plays a pivotal role in our Community Relations strategy and we are delighted that so many of our employees donated their skills and time to benefit others.

"As well as making a positive impact on young people's aspirations and attainment, our education activities also promote advanced manufacturing careers at Jaguar Land Rover and our supply chain as well as acting as a pipeline for young talent, which is essential for the business to achieve its ambitious global growth plans."

Jaguar Land Rover releases employees from the workplace for up to two days per year to support projects focussing on regeneration, education, young people, charity work and the environment. Projects are identified through a volunteering challenge database or are nominated by employees.

Car seat covers used in new Ford cars have received a glamorous new lease of life after being recycled for a unique fashion collection.

Emerging designers from Europe and Asia transformed the covers – and other materials and waste from Ford vehicle production – into dresses, jackets and skirts for The Redress Forum: Ford Design Challenge. Held during Hong Kong Fashion Week, the event was organised with sustainable fashion charity Redress to highlight sustainable design in fashion and automotive.

“Sustainability is a key element of Ford design and it is tremendously exciting to see material from our cars given a new lease of life on the catwalk,” said Emily Lai, manager, Colour and Materials Design, Ford Asia Pacific. “Designers have the power to affect environmental waste through their designs and the design process, and can minimise this total impact through the creative use of materials and other innovations. All the creations we have seen are innovative and thought-provoking, and we applaud each participant for rising to the challenge.”

Taking part were the 10 finalists of the Ford-sponsored 2014/15 EcoChic Design Award, including rising talents from Denmark, France, Sweden and the United Kingdom. Amandah Andersson, from Sweden, used felt and cloth from Mondeo and Kuga seats to help create the winning ensemble in just three hours.

“Waste-to-landfill is a big issue our planet faces and we at Redress work to raise awareness about how we can reduce this,” said Christina Dean, founder and ceo, Redress. “The Redress Forum: Ford Design Challenge was a great demonstration of how sustainable design thinking is as relevant for fashion as it is for the automotive industry.”

Since 2001, a dedicated team of Ford engineers has worked to incorporate sustainable materials into Ford vehicles, while upholding the company’s strict quality and performance standards. Today, the company uses recycled plastic bottles, shredded cotton, kenaf, wheat straw, soy beans and castor oil to help reduce consumer and industrial waste, decrease depletion of natural resources and lower energy consumption.

The all-new Mondeo and Kuga use a mixture of 50% kenaf and 50% plastic in interior door panels, reducing individual component weight by more than 30%.

HSBC, the UK-based bank accused of helping clients to evade tax, is now being investigated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA).

The FCA joins the Serious Fraud Office, the Bank of England and the UK Treasury committee in examining extensive media allegations of tax-dodging activities at HSBC through its Swiss subsidiary.

The bank, the world’s second largest after China’s ICBC, is already under criminal investigation in France, Belgium, the US and Argentina.

The UK investigators are examining allegations that HSBC colluded with clients to conceal accounts from their domestic tax authorities – which amounts to evasion – and allowed them to withdraw large cash sums in Switzerland, often in foreign currencies.

A wealthy family was said to have received a foreign credit card permitting undeclared cash withdrawals at dispensers overseas. In another example, HSBC was named as a co-conspirator in releasing $100,000 sums (£65,000, €88,400) to the surgeon Andrew Silva so that he could post them illegally back to the US.

Clients are reported to have included Hollywood stars, royalty, clothing merchants, heirs to huge fortunes and people implicated in African corruption scandals.

HSBC has been accused even of writing to clients offering ways to circumvent a 2005 EU directive aimed at ensuring tax payments on undeclared Swiss accounts.

The irregularities surfaced after revelations by a whistleblower, Hervé Falciani, and files obtained through an international collaboration of media, including The Guardian in the UK, the French daily Le Monde, the BBC Panorama programme and the Washington-based International Consortium of Investigative Journalists.

HMRC, the UK tax body, was similarly criticised because it had had evidence for nearly five years before alerting other authorities. Members of the parliamentary public accounts committee called HMRC’s response “pathetic”.

Margaret Hodge, who as the committee chair has been the scourge of UK tax-dodging corporates, said: “I just don’t think the tax authorities have been strong enough, assertive enough, brave enough, tough enough in securing for the British taxpayer the monies that are due.”

She retaliated to remarks by the Treasury minister David Gauke that no blame attached to Lord Green of Hurstpierpoint, who as Stephen Green was chief executive and then chairman of HSBC.

Hodge maintained: “Either he didn’t know and he was asleep at the wheel, or he did know and he was therefore involved in dodgy tax practices. Either way, he was the man in charge and I think he has got really important questions to answer.”

Lin Homer, HMRC’s chief executive, explaining why only one HSBC tax evader has been prosecuted, said most of the leaked information was incomplete or “dirty” data. However, £135m had been recovered.

Green, who became a government trade minister for nearly three years after leaving HSBC in 2010, replies simply: “As a matter of principle I will not comment on the business of HSBC past or present.”

He has now quit as head of TheCityUK, the independent national body for financial services.

HSBC itself has apologised to customers and staff in full-page newspaper advertisements.

Chief executive Stuart Gulliver emphasised that the Swiss subsidiary had been “completely overhauled”.

He said: “We have absolutely no appetite to do business with clients who are evading their taxes or who fail to meet our financial crime compliance standards.

“We must show we understand that the societies we serve expect more from us. We therefore offer our sincerest apologies.”
Crawford Spence, the professor of accounting at Warwick Business School, who researches tax avoidance, regretted that the policing of HSBC had to be done by computer hackers, investigative journalists and corporate whistleblowers.

In a separate action Swiss prosecutors have searched HSBC’s Geneva offices as part of a money-laundering inquiry. They said they were seeking “persons unknown for suspected aggravated money-laundering”. The bank said it was co-operating.

• Stephen Gulliver, HSBC’s chief executive since January 2011, has £5m ($7.74m,€6.8m) in the bank’s controversial Swiss arm. Gulliver’s Swiss account, set up to receive his bonuses, is controlled by a company in Panama. He says he has this arrangement for privacy reasons, not to dodge tax liabilities. There is no suggestion of tax evasion. The bank explains that Gulliver lives in Hong Kong, pays due taxes there, and pays all taxes required on income in the UK. Despite the concerns over HSBC’s tax activities, Gulliver is in line for a bonus of up to £1.3m this year but is under pressure from MPs and some shareholders to refuse it. In his capacity as chief executive Gulliver told the parliamentary Treasury select committee that HSBC’s Swiss arm had caused “damage to trust and confidence” in the company by helping clients to avoid tax. Both Gulliver and chairman Douglas Flint apologised to the committee for such “unacceptable” practices. Flint said the most culpable were the Swiss bank’s relationship managers, 30% of whom were still in office.  

In his first speech as chairman of Business in the Community, Barclays group chief executive Antony Jenkins, spoke about the need for a network of responsible businesses to come together to address the enormous challenges facing society.

Jenkins addressed an audience of 500 chief executives and business leaders at The Responsible Leadership Summit, an event held to mark the 30th anniversary of the Prince of Wales’s Presidency of Business in the Community.

In recognition of the complexity of the challenges facing society, Jenkins, emphasised the importance of business leaders working together and learning from each other, and acknowledge that no one business has all of the solutions saying: “Business in the Community’s unique convening power has built an extraordinary coalition behind the idea of business as a force for good, from large PLCs to SMEs, in every sector and region of the country.”

Jenkins was appointed Group Chief Executive in August 2012. He started his career at Barclays, where he completed the Barclays’ Management Development Programme, before going on to hold various roles in retail and corporate banking. He then moved to Citigroup, before rejoining Barclays as chief executive of Barclaycard.

Since becoming Group Chief Executive, Antony has taken the lead in the development of Barclays’ Transform programme, including the introduction of a new purpose and values, with the aim of making Barclays the ‘Go-To’ Bank for customers and clients. 

Harriet Kelsall, designer and leading figure in the jewellery industry, explains why 'clean gold' should be the definition of modern luxury jewellery

We believe the best approach in the luxury arena is to not present ourselves as an ‘ethical only’ company. While some customers pursue us for ethical reasons, there are many more who just like our brand but who have never considered the ethics surrounding jewellery or heard of Fairtrade. However, as we chat about the options, they very often choose the ethical route if they can. So rather than take a definitve stance, we choose to spread the word in a collaborative way, gently opening the door to ethics in the jewellery trade.

It isn’t difficult to explain ethical options because we find that most of our customers are intrigued by the complexities of ethics. As with all ethical issues, the right path forward is not a black and white / good or bad story. For example, it’s not a simple truth that it’s best to go to first world countries such as Australia and Canada for gemstones – because who then feeds the child in the third world country who previously benefited from the standard diamond trade?

Fairtrade gold is really important as it’s the only source of gold from mine to consumer where you know that the miners have been given a fair price and also the community have also been educated and supported and it’s been independently audited. However, even if every artisanal miner sold their gold through Fairtrade, it would still only satisfy about 20% of the world’s demand for gold. So we need to also make sure that we are doing what we can to influence the big producers.

Undertaking the Responsible Jewellery Council audits is one of the ways that we aim to do this – it’s something that’s quite demanding of a small business. We were the first UK independent business to pass this audit and wanted our visible participation (as a small business) to pressure the bigger companies to undertake it. It’s really important that small businesses are not left out of these important conversations surrounding ethics and production, because much of the jewellery industry is made up of small independents. It’s quite impressive to think that if we all banded together, we’d make up a greater proportion of the industry than the big multiples!

Taking the ethical path has never been in question for me. My father was a doctor, so I grew up with an inherent acceptance that other people’s needs are more important than your own. It’s a small step from there to integrating that ethos into your life. I took Ethics in design as an option at university back when this was an entirely new concept.

When I started making jewellery over 25 years ago it seemed natural to ask a stone supplier ‘how do I know which stone is better ethically?’ His response was extraordinary and vehement. Various efforts to humiliate me culminated in ‘you’re in the wrong industry for that hippy rubbish’! At that point, corruption was rife . But I kept asking questions, and a few other jewellers did as well, until suppliers were pressured into finding answers. They weren’t great answers at first, but they improved over time. Then Fairtrade gold was pioneered and we were lucky enough to be asked to help the Fairtrade Foundation to establish their process for bespoke jewellery as one of the first 20 jewellers to be licensed to use it.

And whenever anyone asks us why we have such a strong emphasis on ethics and Fairtrade, we reply - why wouldn’t you? There’s no doubt that the definition of modern luxury in jewellery these days includes the consideration of ethics involved in the creation of the piece.

More than 100 Ugandan farmers evicted to make way for palm oil plantations have filed a lawsuit claiming damages and the return of their land.

The smallholders received little, if any, compensation when their land was grabbed on the Islands of Kalangala in Lake Victoria in 2011.

John Muyiisa, one of the plaintiffs, said: “When I lost that land, I did not only lose my livelihood. I also lost my pension and a secured income for my children and grandchildren.

“I did all I could to get the land back. I even went to the office of the President of Uganda.”

Frank Muramui, director of the National Association of Professional Environmentalists/Friends of the Earth Uganda, complained: “This project was sold to the residents of Kalangala with promises of employment and a brighter future. But they were not fairly compensated for the loss of their livelihoods, and now without access to land they face a daily struggle.”

The project has been carried out by Oil Palm Uganda, a subsidiary of Bidco Uganda, a venture formed by the agribusiness multinational Wilmar International and the investment group Josovina Commodities, both from Singapore, and the Kenyan company Bidco Oil Refineries. The backers include the Ugandan government and the UN International Fund for Agricultural Development, to which the UK is a large contributor.

Samuel Lowe, a land campaigner with Friends of the Earth, which is supporting the plaintiffs, said: “This case clearly shows we cannot expect companies and financiers to regulate themselves.

“We need binding regulations in Europe so financiers can no longer provide their services to companies engaged in land grabbing.

“Further, UK taxpayer money should not be funnelled into projects that damage the very people and communities the government claims to be supporting.

“Our government must carry out stricter monitoring of where the money is going.”
 

With public trust in big business remaining fragile, the IBE and CISI have relaunched Investing in Integrity (IiI) is a chartermark, founded in 2012, which enables an organisation to reassure its key stakeholders that its business can demonstrate a commitment to address conduct and behaviour risk and act with integrity at all times.

According to a recent study from the Institute of Business Ethics (IBE), the British public seems to have become less ambivalent about business behaviour. In 2012, 15% expressed no opinion, but in 2014 only 2% did not have an opinion on business behaviour. Tax avoidance and executive pay are still firmly on the public’s agenda as is exploitative labour.

And last month’s ComRes poll, commissioned by the Forum of Private Business, the small business membership organisation, showed that over three quarters (78%) of adults in Britain agree that big businesses are more likely to prioritise profits over high ethical standards.

In such a climate, the time is ripe for the relaunch of Investing in Integrity (IiI), the chartermark established by the Institute of Business Ethics (IBE) and the Chartered Institute for Securities & Investment (CISI), that demonstrates a company’s commitment to ethical behaviour.

Simon Culhane chief executive, CISI, comments: “Investing in Integrity is, I believe, very much in tune with the times and the needs of, not just the financial services industry but industry in general. Being able to publicly demonstrate a commitment to acting with integrity has never been more valuable.”

To achieve accreditation, an organisation must carry out a 2-step process. The first stage is a management self assessment survey; the second stage is an independent assessment carried out by an experienced assessor to verify the management survey. This assessment includes site visits, policy and procedure reviews, management interviews and an employee survey.

The second stage audit is carried out by GoodCorporation. Debbie Ramsay, Good Corporation’s business development director, explains: “Basically we’re looking for evidence of what companies are saying happens in stage one. We look at their policies and check that there is tangible proof. We talk to the people who are responsible for everything that’s said in Stage One, regardless of where they are.”

The type of questions asked tackle issues head on. For example, “Do you feel managers take poor behaviour seriously and discipline it?” And “Do you managers bend the rules ever to get the job done?”

“Stage one really gives companies a sense of how well they are doing. Stage two is about finding out how well embedded those values are. Once a company has gone through Stage One, they’ll see if they have enough in place to go onto Stage two,” Ramsay adds.

So far only five companies have achieved the chartermark. Supreme Group is one that has successfully negotiated the comprehensive 2-step audit.

An international organisation that offers logistic services in difficult to reach places - up until recently it was responsible for supplying all the food and fuel to US troops based in Afghanistan - it’s been a family business since the Fifties but has grown exponentially, through large contract wins, in the last 10-15 years. It works at government and country levels.

As its chief ethics & compliance officer, Emma Sharma explains that Supreme considers it best practice to verify its operations every 2-3 years. “So as an organisation you usually face the choice of using one of the big six firms which can prove fiendishly expensive,” she says. But while attending the European Business Ethics Forum she heard about the IiI – which she calls the ‘triple i’- chartermark.

Sharma acknowledges that Supreme has put a lot of effort into its ethics programme – it has a large ethics team of 9 - so she was keen to demonstrate that its investment was indeed making a difference.

Sharma likes the IiI approach to audit too. “It’s a multi-layer approach, if gruelling, which makes it more useful to show that the organisation is ‘on track’.”

Supreme completed both stages in 6 months. However, Sharma highlights that it required a very high level of commitment to do it within such a short time frame. Indeed, she had three team members working on it full-time.

Sharma believes that many companies have a tick box approach to compliance. They have the code of conduct and the programmes in place but that’s it.

“Integrity isn’t at their core. At Supreme are serious about embedding our ethical values. Gaining IiI accrediation means that we can show, and not just say, we’re ethical,” she says. 

As sustainability issues become increasingly complex, companies are realizing that they can’t make the necessary impact acting alone.
 

In the 2014 Sustainability Report, new research by MIT Sloan Management Review, The Boston Consulting Group and the UN Global Compact, shows that a growing number of companies are turning to collaborations - with suppliers, NGOs, industry alliances, governments, even competitors - to become more sustainable. The research found that as sustainability issues become increasingly complex, global in nature and pivotal to success, companies are realizing that they can’t make the necessary impact acting alone.

Based on a survey of more than 3,795 executives and managers from 113 countries, the research found that 61% of executives whose companies participated in sustainability-related partnerships view these collaborations as “quite” or “very” successful.
But collaboration is not yet common practice. While 90% of respondents recognized the importance of sustainability collaboration - only 47% of respondents reported their companies were actively collaborating.? ?

The research finds that because sustainability collaborations often bring together diverse stakeholders, there is often a learning curve for companies. For example, among respondents whose organizations currently have one to three sustainability collaborations, 43% say these collaborative ventures are “very” or “quite” successful. Of those that have engaged in more than 50 collaborations, 95% report the same degree of success.?

The complex nature of collaborations these days is exemplified by German chemical giant BASF’s recent launch of Creator Space, a programmeme of events and activities to celebrate its 150th anniversary.?

The activities and events will take place around the world this year “to celebrate and to co-create” – bringing in the ideas and collaborative energy of BASF employees, customers, scientists and members of the community. It comprises three parts: the Creator Space tour, Creator Space online, a global internet platform, and three Creator Space science symposia, in Ludwigshafen (smart energy), Chicago (food) and Shanghai (urban living).

Elise Kissling, is project leader of the Creator Space programmeme, which took a year to pull together and involved reaching out to many partners. BASF’s 125-year anniversary in 1990 had been predominantly a German affair so for the 150 year milestone, the company wanted to celebrate on a global scale. “The programmeme upholds the company’s corporate purpose ‘to create chemistry for a sustainable future’,” she told Ethical Performance. “It’s about making innovations relevant. We need to understand the challenges faced and design solutions and turn them into potential products or business model innovation.”

“The co-creating is based around three themes and the celebrating will take place within the co-creation process. Celebration is based around the power of connected minds and about addressing societal challenges.”

The whole programmeme is also designed to expand BASF’s global network. “It’s about learning with others to find solutions which may, or may not, be commercial. But they’ll all be linked to our three pillars of sustainability. Some may be pure corporate citizenship or social business models, ” Kissling said.

One of BASF’s partners is Save the Children. The two organizations will pool their expertise to develop solutions including improvement of water accessibility and quality in Mumbai, and livelihoods and food security in the Turkana region of Kenya.
This project development partnership will employ a co-creation methodology known as “empathic design”, a research and development technique which fosters in-depth problem observation and interaction with target groups. Using this method, the partners aim at developing better solutions for the most pressing challenges in the target communities in Mumbai and Turkana, Kenya.

Kissling says that BASF did an internal and external benchmark on innovative formats and one which inspired was ‘empathic design’. “We didn’t create it. It’s widely used in the B2C market and we’re exploring and developing a B2B model.”

As part of the programme, a group of experts from BASF, BASF Stiftung (a German charitable foundation) and Save the Children will interact with community members in middle- to low-income households in different parts of Mumbai for one week, contributing to solutions for water challenges. The programme will continue in Kenya, where the team aims to develop solutions to improve the nutrition situation of agro-pastoralist communities in Turkana, Kenya.

“We very much welcome the commitment and leadership of BASF to share its knowledge and expertise to create interventions that can improve the living conditions of marginalized groups in Mumbai and in Kenya,” said Dr. Sudeep Singh Gadok, Director, Programmemes, Save the Children India at the launch of the partnership.

“Every man, woman and child should have access to safe water and healthy food, now and in the future. By pooling our expertise, influence and resources and by listening to the people impacted, we have the chance to create interventions that achieve wider positive effects in the communities we work with.”

The Creator Space summit in Mumbai resulted in many ideas, she said. The discussions at the Creator Space Summit in Mumbai centered on improving access to water that is both safe and affordable. Possible solutions include change in technology, policy and behaviour, alternate decentralized water sources in Mumbai to ensure equitable distribution, and monitoring the quality of water along its journey through the water pipes.

“These will then be reviewed by a panel, vetted by an internal jury and ultimately go before the board of directors. Some will be financed to go through to ‘phase gate’ which is the first stage of a possible product innovation or new business model. We might not harvest all the ideas. Some may be more interesting for our partners to develop due to the limited potential for chemistry to contribute,” Kissling explained.

One of the KPIs of the entire Creator Space programmeme is that every employee will be involved. “No stone will be left unturned,” smiles Kissling. “For example we are conducting jamming sessions and other activities in all our regions.”
It’s not all work and no play though. Celebrating 150 years will also mean a huge party at BASF’s HQ in Ludwigshafen, attended by over 40,000 employees…

Indeed, the importance of engagement at ground and board levels should not be forgotten when examining the success of partnerships.

The MIT, BCG and UN study also explored the role of board engagement as a driver of sustainability success.

Overall, 86% of respondents believe that the board of directors should play a strong role in driving their company’s sustainability efforts. But only 42% of respondents see their boards as “moderately” or more engaged with the company’s sustainability agenda. This disconnect affects performance: in companies where boards are perceived as active supporters, 67% of respondents rate collaborations as very or quite successful. In companies where the board is not engaged, the reported rate of success is less than half that.? ?

So while the study finds much progress, it also indicates that many business leaders have some distance to go to understand that the path to sustainability success is best travelled with others. BASF is certainly well on its way.

Further reading:
http://marketing.mitsmr.com/PDF/56380-MITSMR-BGC-UNGC-Sustainability2015.pdf?cid=1

http://www.creator-space.basf.com
 

In a bid to boost the growing desire of consumers to buy ethical goods, especially fashion, Brothers We Stand was set up by 25 year old International Development graduate Jonathan Mitchell. He was recently named one of 2degrees’ top 25 under 25 working in sustainable business.

How did you get into ethical fashion?
I’m really passionate about business and how it can positively impact on people and the planet. I want to maximize that impact.
I don’t have a background in fasion but I did an internship at a boutique in London’s Shoreditch so I saw the day to day side of online retail. I’d also started to notice menswear designers who were promoting a sustainable ethos and as I learned more about it, I became fascinated with the fashion industry.

Who inspires you?
Lots of the luxury brands – like Kering – are now taking sustainability very seriously. As is Nike. They’re pioneering the sustainable material index. The obvious example is Patagonia… We are working with smaller brands but who are also exploring new processes and materials. We work with brands in this conscious evolution in new ways of doing things. Its great seeing designers start to look at the impacts of a garment.

Are the big boys of the industry doing enough?
It’s encouraging to see big brands being some of the early adopters. They’ll get better as more and more consumers demand change. There’s still a long way to go though despite recent research saying that 45% of global consumers aspire to purchase sustainably. The fashion industry really needs to take a firm grip on its supply chain and all brands need to embrace that. They also have the ability to take things to scale.

Why choose the name Brothers We Stand?
I believe we are all brothers and sisters in humanity and this venture is about making a stand for ethical fashion. We are promoting the idea of common humanity. The sentiment towards ethical fashion has tangibly changed in the last couple of years. It has become something desirable and exciting and we want people to join in and be part of transforming an industry. This business is for Ruyna the seamstress in Dhaka, Bangladesh and Ali the cotton farmer from Tamil Nadu, India

What’s your USP?
We’re an online retailer but take a curator approach so it’s a really special collection. We offer good quality that’s better than the high street, at really accessible prices. We want to provide a window to the world on ethical fashion and we have a strict criteria to be included on the site. We currently have 14 designers who all combine well-designed, aesthetically pleasing, functional garments with an ethical stance. All the brands have to have something game changing about them. They could be progressive in their approach to working conditions in factories abroad or they could be working with novel new, sustainable fabrics.

Give some examples of your game changers.
Idioma t-shirts and sweatshirts use organic cotton made in a wind powered factory in India; ECOALF’s goal is to create the first generation of recycled products with the same quality, design and technical properties as the best non-recycled products to show that there is no need to use our world’s natural resources in a careless way. It makes jackets and bags out of recycled materials.
Elvis & Kresse make bags, belts and wallets from upcycled fire hose and military parachute silk. While Lily and Albert’s wool jumpers are hand knitted by small family based groups in Northern Portugal. It is a tradition rooted in the local culture and many of the cable patterns were originally developed to remember fishermen lost at sea.
But our products aren’t just worthy, they are curated, brilliant products. If people make brilliant products that are also sustainable, people will want them. A sustainability label will not put people off. Sustainability can be exciting and I want to excite people about what’s possible.

What’s your current goal?
Our vision is to grow consumer options, to offer great menswear, ethically made. We want to transform the fashion industry. It is possible!

What should we look out for?
We’re working with the London College of Fashion on an online fitting app for our website. Getting the right fit when buying clothes online has real environmental impacts (especially if you’re having to send items back). 

A report from MSCI ESG Research, a provider of research and analysis of the environmental, social and governance-related (ESG) business practices of companies globally, has suggested that that if 2014 was any guide to go by “there is a shortening lag between when ESG issues emerge and when markets and regulators react.”

The new 16-page ‘2015 ESG Trends to Watch’ report written by Linda Eling Lee, MSCI’s Global Head of ESG Research, was published just a matter of weeks before a fossil-fuel divestment campaign was stepped up this February in a global day of action by Fossil Free campaigners targeting UK banks to sell off their toxic assets. Their campaign was mirrored by similar actions in Australia, South Africa and other countries.

Highlighting matters the UK’s big five banking groups put some £66 billion (bn) into fossil fuel extraction in 2012 alone, while UK universities are estimated to have invested an estimated £5.2bn invested in fossil fuels.

To date the Go Fossil Free campaign has persuaded 180 institutions including local authorities, universities and churches to divest their investments in coal, oil and gas, which are worth $50bn (c.£33bn).

Eling Lee commenting in MSCI ESG’s latest annual edition stated: “Whether it is shifting regulations targeting the tax gap, a new market benchmark to define green bonds, or the adoption of low carbon investment solutions, our 2014 ESG Trends to Watch report highlighted areas where institutional investors showed growing appetite to address longer term risks and opportunities.”

Against the cacophony of renewed geopolitical fault lines, juxtaposed against a return to growth in the US, emergence of the next generation of tech darlings and the upcoming [UN] climate talks in Paris, MSCI ESG examined which ESG trends will be “most top-of-mind” among investors in 2015.

In terms of aligning to fuels of the future and whether institutional investors are positioned for the transition to renewable energy, the report posited: “In 2015, we foresee that widespread adoption of de-carbonization tools will be followed by interest in aligning portfolio exposure to our future energy technology.”

Institutional investors globally have come on a “tremendous learning curve” over the past year in understanding their exposure to carbon stranded assets said. MSCI ESG.

Indeed, the report noted: “Whether catalyzed by a concern over mispriced fossil fuel assets or pressure from a persistent call for divestment, investors have begun to scrutinize the carbon-related risks embedded in their portfolios.”

The options have certainly multiplied for investors. From a simple snapshot measurement of companies’ current carbon emissions, investors can now adopt “a total portfolio accounting of current and future emissions, measured against clear market benchmarks.”

According to MSCI ESG Research’s data on the planned future capacity of all companies in the MSCI ACWI Index, which consists of 46 country indexes, nearly 10% of power generation companies will increase renewables capacity by at least 10% over the next five years.

In terms of seeking scalabale social impact, the report asked whether investors can find large scale exposure to positive social impact through listed equities.

Certainly investors large and small are looking around for ways to “steer capital” toward positive social impact, but MSCI ESG pointed out: “Despite the tremendous need globally - 870m people suffer from chronic diseases and 4bn people lack digital access - very little of this willing capital is finding its way to address these needs.”