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Travel has certainly become easier the past twenty years thanks to discount airlines and the web, but the effects are not always positive. Increased carbon emissions, more environmental degradation and the world’s cultural homogenization are amongst the results cited by those concerned about cheap and easy travel. But one emerging travel publisher is leveraging the latest technology with increased interest in responsible travel, and in turn aims to bring water to those who need it most: Ecoalsur.

Based in a coworking office in Montevideo, Uruguay, Ecoalsur is a group of travel writers, adventurers and techies who seek to inspire travelers to see the world in a more environmentally and socially responsible way. For now the ground Ecoalsur covers is Latin America, though the firm’s network of writers has started to write about Africa and more regions across the world are on the horizon. In addition to highlighting responsible travel opportunities from the Uruguayan coast to Patagonia to Chiapas, this social enterprise focuses on another task: bringing clean and safe water to South America’s Gran Chaco.

While most of Latin America is relatively water rich, the Gran Chaco is an arid region where water scarcity is the norm for many citizens. Spread between Argentina, Paraguay, Bolivia and Brazil, this area, about the size of Texas, is home to a population where as much as 47 percent of the population lacks reliable access to water. For Paraguayans living within this Gran Chaco, the percentage of people who lack basic water needs is as high as 64 percent. While crops that could be churned into biofuel such as jatropha and and switchgrass may offer economic opportunity in the future, the Gran Chaco continues to suffer deforestation—and its people, poverty.

Proceeds from Ecoalsur purchases fund water programs in the Gran Chaco, with additional regions to benefit in the future as the company grows. For now Ecoalsur is available on iPhones and iPads: the download itself is free, and various guides are an in-app purchase that cost US$7.99 and are available online. The company contributes 20 percent of sales to water access projects in the Gran Chaco. Guides are available in English and Spanish. For now Ecoalsur is working with three NGOs, including Sed Cero, a multi-stakeholder organization based in Cordoba, Argentina. Sed Cero’s goal is to raise awareness and fund community water projects that will benefit 100,000 people in the Gran Chaco by 2016.

Vera Tochetti founded Ecoalsur after what she described a 10-year personal and professional growth path. After working for several different publishing companies in Montevideo, she finally decided to take the plunge and launch Ecoalsur. “You have no idea how passionate I am about this project,” she told me when we met in Montevideo late last month, “and I want more travelers to feel excited about not only traveling more ecologically, but know that their purchase can do some good for people far away.” At a time when many travel guides, including the Lonely Planet, make you wonder if the writers have actually been there in several years, the guides I have downloaded are crisply-written, full of detail and offer new ideas on how to explore Latin America.

Image credits: Ecoalsur

After a year in the Middle East and Latin America, Leon Kaye is based in California again. Follow him on Instagram and Twitter. Other thoughts of his are on his site, greengopost.com.

NRG is a company with a clever name and marketing strategy. The company provides sustainable energy choices, including solar power, for consumers. It is also a company that has sustainable energy solutions installed at six stadiums that are home to professional teams. Those energy solutions provide a way for the company to let attendees of the games held at the stadiums know that solar energy and alternative technologies, such as LED lights, are choices. Information about solar and those other technologies is available at the six different stadiums.

The LED lights and electric vehicle charging stations installed at the six stadiums, plus solar power, serves as “real life examples of alternative energy solutions," as Elizabeth Killinger, president of NRG Retail and Reliant, said to me.  The company installs them in “hopes of educating the people who've visited those stadiums that solar is something they can consider for their homes and businesses, as well as some of the other alternative technologies whether that's electric vehicle (EV) charging or the LED lights.” In other words, the company can spread the word about sustainable energy solutions while putting their name in the minds of potential consumers. It's a brilliant strategy.

Sustainable energy solutions currently being installed at NRG Stadium in Houston

The latest sustainable energy solution is currently underway at NRG Stadium in Houston, Texas, home to the Houston Texans and the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo. NRG Stadium is one of the first professional football stadiums in the U.S. to install high efficiency LED lights on its field. The LED field lighting system, made up of over 65,000 LED lights, will use 60 percent less energy than the system it replaced. The LED lighting system is part of a sustainability master plan for the stadium, which also features an EV parking lot with six charging stations.

Killinger says that NRG included LED lights and EV charging stations to provide “some example solutions that we could put in place so consumers and visitors from wherever they come from could see first hand and experience sustainable solutions.” Most people have heard about EVs and LED lights, but they haven’t experienced them first hand, she pointed out. The EV charging stations and LED lights are “intended to give them real examples to give them the power to be free, which means they are free to generate their own power and make sustainable choices, and to then consider those sustainable choices for their homes and businesses.”

Solar power installations at NRG Stadium and other stadiums

NRG Stadium will also feature solar power. Over 700 solar panels will be installed at the stadium. The solar panels will be placed on four different canopies. One will be over the EV parking lot, another one over the ticket booth, and the other two will be over the bridges that connect the parking lots to the stadium. The power generated by the solar panels will only be a “small fraction of the energy of the park,” Killinger explained. However, they are “intended to be demonstrations sites.” Just as the EV charging stations and LED lights are good examples of sustainable energy solutions, so will be the solar panels being installed at NRG Stadium.

The five other stadiums with sustainable energy solutions designed by NRG also feature solar power. FedEx Field, home of the Washington Redskins has over 8,000 solar panels, enough power to meet the needs of about 300 homes in the metro D.C. area. The power generated is equivalent to over two and a half times the power consumed during regular season game days. There are also thin solar film lines on top of a 30 foot statue of a quarterback near the stadium entrance, known as Solar Man.

The solar installations at the six stadiums prove what Killinger believes: “It doesn’t what kind of business you have. You can consider solar for your energy needs.” And they also prove that if a stadium can contain solar, so can a home.

Image credit: Eric Kayne/Invision for NRG/AP Images

American cleaning and home care giant The Clorox Company is expanding its Safe Water Project, a public health programme that provides public bleach dispensers and health education in rural Peru. Over the next five years, the Safe Water Project will provide 400,000 liters of safe drinking water daily to 25,000 Peruvians.

According to the company, unsafe drinking water is a leading cause of illness, malnutrition and death for children under five worldwide. In Peru the issue is especially pressing, where one in seven people don't have access to safe water.

To raise awareness and additional donations, Clorox developed a first-of-its-kind Twitter-powered water fountain at this week’s sustainability conference, South by Southwest Eco (6-8 October).

Attendees at the event were encouraged to tweet with an event specific hashtag - #safewaterproject - to dispense water onsite. Clorox is donating $1 for each person who tweets, ($1 is enough to provide clean water for one Peruvian for more than four months).
 

Bonuses and champagne were lavished on staff at the UK bank Lloyds for selling complicated but risky interest rate swaps with small business loans, a whistleblower has claimed in sworn testimony to a national newspaper.

He maintained many business customers did not understand the swaps, and Lloyds side-stepped the safeguards intended to prevent mis-selling.

He said the swaps – financial devices aimed at limiting exposure to interest rate fluctuations – protected businesses when rates increased but trapped them in expensive contracts when percentages fell to record lows and imposed crippling break penalties for switching to cheaper deals.

The whistleblower, James Ducker, a Lloyds employee from 2004, recalled that salespeople who brought back individual contracts generating £100,000 ($163,000, €126,000) profits could receive bonuses doubling their pay and were given bottles of champagne. He reported that, by contrast, those who failed feared dismissal.

Ducker said the emphasis was on profits and “rarely, if at all, on ensuring the customers’ interests were properly protected”.

Consequently, Lloyds has had to earmark £580m to compensate small business victims of mis-selling. The UK banks collectively have set aside billions for this purpose.

Ducker made his statements in 2011 during a legal fight over the issue initiated by the property investment company Wingate Associates. Lloyds settled out of court, paying Wingate’s £8m break penalty and £1.5m for the contract but imposing a gagging order.

Wingate breached the order on the grounds that the selling was related to Lloyds’ Libor irregularities involving fraud and the agreement was therefore invalid.

The company is now claiming an additional £8m-plus for “consequential losses”, including legal fees not covered by the Lloyds settlement.

Lloyds said: “We do not recognise these alleged practices in our business.”

A Wingate company has already received an out-of-court payment from Barclays over swaps mis-selling and is threatening to sue Lloyds if it refuses to pay the second £8m.

Lloyds has now followed up its own Libor investigation by dismissing eight staff and cancelling the total £3m they would have received as bonuses. The bank said other bonuses could be affected.

Group chairman Lord Blackwell said the actions of those responsible for the Libor manipulation were “completely unacceptable”.

In July Mark Carney, governor of the Bank of England, warned the Libor culprits could face criminal charges.
Another big UK bank has been fined £14.5m by the finance regulator for “serious failings” in selling mortgages without suitable advice.

The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) ruled that Royal Bank of Scotland and its NatWest business had failed to assess customers’ budgets when making recommendations, had given inadequate debt consolidation guidance, and had not advised applicants appropriately on mortgage length.

In one review of 164 sales the FCA found only two transactions met required standards.

The lenders are now contacting about 30,000 customers who received mortgage advice from 1 June 2011 and 31 March 2013.

RBS chief executive Ross McEwan admitted the failings were “unacceptable and should never have happened”. Staff have since been given extra training. The lenders point out, however, that only 1,200 of the 30,000 may have suffered financially.

RBS has already been fined £390m for its part in Libor rate fixing and has allocated £3.2bn to pay compensation for mis-sold insurance.
 

Listening to the dentist drill-like drone of the very first Formula E grand prix recently, it struck me that its aim to be about much more than just a new motor sport, “to help develop electric vehicle technology, accelerate interest and promote sustainability” was very similar to CR. CR is not meant to be a new way of doing business; it is the way, the only sustainable way, of doing business.

At the inaugural electric grand prix in Japan, everyone was trying their utmost to be upbeat about the new format – to claim that it really was as good as the regular Formula 1 version – but beneath it all many were secretly thinking that it really wasn’t quite as good at all. Yes, it was noble, it was a very good effort and backs needed to be slapped but was it really going to change business as usual in the Grand Prix stakes? Even with familiar names like Senna and Prost involved – and a dramatic crash to add to the excitement of it all – it was only truly enjoyed by those already convinced by its arguments – and actively taking part, ie the engaged audience. Where have you heard that before?

For example, where I heard a dentist drill-likebuzz, Jaime Alguersuari, a Formula One veteran and driver with the Virgin Formula E team backed by British billionaire Richard Branson, heard something completely different, describing it to CBC News thus : “It reminds me of a turbine from a jet plane. When you are in the car after a certain speed, you just hear the wind. You hear everything, the suspension movement, the floors when you are touching a curb, you hear tyres, all sorts of stuff where in other racing you just hear the engine.”

Yes, you see for the driver it was fabulous. There are plenty of other quirks to Formula E too, like the batteries can only last half the race so all the drivers have two cars and swap midway through the race — which lasts only one hour. Then there’s the mildly ridiculous ‘fanboost’. This entails viewers from home having the potential to bestow increased power to 180kw on their favourite racer. The three drivers who receive the most votes from fans before a race get given a five second “power boost” to use at any time of their choosing. An example of stakeholder engagement taken a step too far perhaps?

Big names in sustainability were attracted to Formula E, with Leonardo DiCaprio and Sir Richard Branson both fronting teams, just like we have big business heavily engaged in CR these days. But what about the smaller players? The Jones & Son Limiteds of this world which are the backbone of many an economy?

Interestingly new figures from Grant Thornton’s latest International Business Report (IBR), a survey of 2,500 companies in 34 economies, reveal that businesses leaders in emerging markets are more focused on the sustainability of their operations compared with peers in developed markets.

Nathan Goode, global leader for energy and cleantech at Grant Thornton, said: “These results highlight the fact that we need to change the narrative of the sustainability debate. Sustainability has traditionally been seen as a cost to business; the burden of supporting the common good. However our recent research shows that business leaders are increasingly motivated by the cost management benefits of moving towards more socially and environmentally sustainable practices. We need to start talking in language that resonates with businesses, stressing the benefits of action and the costs of inaction.”
 

There are so many wonderful, technical innovations and services available to help your company reduce its environmental footprint – from solar panels, voltage optimisation and LED lighting to green computing, building management systems and electric vehicles. But these technologies can only take you so far. The people in your organisation hold a lot of sway and through them you can make a big impact.

Unfortunately it isn’t as straightforward as buying and installing the latest widget – we need to persuade people to change their behaviour: to switch off their computer or lights as they leave; report potentially hazardous incidents; or swap from car or plane to bike or train. What is perhaps most surprising is that, considering we are all people (!?), we have remarkably little insight into what makes us act the way we do.

So many organisations seem to think that if they tell everyone everything – written and displayed beautifully – their audience will a) consume that information; b) understand it; and c) act accordingly.

But it doesn’t work like that. Even if you do get your audience to absorb that information (no mean feat) there is no guarantee they will then behave in the way you want them to. People are complicated – a myriad of factors influence how we behave – from ingrained habit to beliefs, mood and what those around them are doing. You need to tap into these motivations to get people to change how they act.

But it is possible – it isn’t that long ago that we all put all our waste into one bin at home. For many of us now that is unthinkable - waste segregation has become second nature. This hasn’t happened accidentally – it has taken a lot of hard work from councils, and environmentalists! They didn’t give us all the information they had, they didn’t waffle on about landfill costs or waste processing.

Each council told their residents exactly what they wanted them to do in their area: “Put mixed recycling in the silver bin and other waste in the black bin.” There was, and still is, some complaining and I’m sure some stick-in-the-muds still refuse to segregate their waste. However, while there is room for improvement, overall it has worked.

So before your next sustainability communications campaign think – what do you actually want people to do differently? “Be more sustainable” isn’t an acceptable response, you have to be very specific: “switch to using the train to get to London”, or “turn off the computer at the end of the day”. The focus should be on behaviour, not attitude. While it would be wonderful for every single person in your organisation to be 100% committed to sustainability, it isn’t a realistic goal – it would take far too long for a start.

Convincing them to adopt simple changes to their behaviour is, comparatively, far more straight-forward. To be specific about the behaviour you want to change, you have to know your audience and target your message. Be comfortable having different communications targeted at different groups - it is pointless asking the cleaner to switch his computer off at the end of the day, or the CEO to switch to a more a more environmentally friendly floor cleaner. You should also talk to people in a language they understand and respond to – so talk about money with the FD and staff retention with the HR director. It may be trickier than it first appears but it is a challenge that can pay dividends, so persevere.

Alexandra McKay is Sustainable Business Manager at consultancy M4C 

Astellas Pharma Europe announced its backing of a new €1.5m programme to tackle obstetric fistula in May. Ken Jones, ceo and president, gives Ethical Performance an update

The European arm of Japanese pharma giant Astellas is backing a new health programme in Kenya which aims to transform the lives of more than 1,200 women living with obstetric fistula.

An obstetric fistula is a hole between the vagina and rectum or bladder that is caused by prolonged obstructed labour when emergency care is unavailable, causing either fecal or urinary incontinence or both conditions.

Whilst virtually eradicated in developed countries, the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) estimates 3,000 new cases of obstetric fistula occur annually in Kenya, with approximately one to two fistulas for every 1,000 deliveries.
Obstetric fistula sufferers are too often subject to severe social stigma due to odour which is constant and humiliating, often driving the patients’ family and friends away.

Ken Jones, ceo and president of Astellas Pharma Europe, says that since the launch in May it has been working with the Fistula Foundation to validate the capacity of the programme and create the network. “We’re now hoping to double the capacity from training four surgeons to eight,” he said.

“Our involvement goes far beyond simply corporate giving and a grant. That would not leave a legacy. What we’re looking to do is create a sustainable model by training doctors who will stay in Kenya. Once we’ve established this model, hopefully it will expand.”

Jones explains that it is the first time the company has backed a training programme, rather than simply giving a donation. “As a business we were interested in getting involved in this programme because of our background in urology. We deal a lot with the condition of ‘overactive bladder’ so while there is no commercial interest in this area, we are familiar with many of the issues. It also has the opportunity to make a sustainable impact. We have the opportunity to make a huge difference, give back to the community and make a difference.”

In the longer term, Jones explains that the programme is in discussion with the Kenyan government because “ideally it should ultimately be taken over by the government”, he says.

“What we’re hoping to do is make this model work, increase the capacity, lower the risk and tackle the stigma.” 

NGOs no longer view corporates just as benevolent cash machines, they recognise they can offer a whole lot more than money.

Similarly companies are viewing NGOs not simply as some kind of philanthropic, right to partner-with organisation but a valued partner which can help them achieve mutual business goals. These are the findings of the latest Barometer Report from CSR consultancy C&E Advisory.

The report – the fifth in an annual series of practitioner-led studies drawing on a poll of 130 leading companies and NGOs – explores the drivers for, and barriers to, partnering, as well as future prospects for the corporate-NGO partnership agenda.

Its ceo, Manny Amadi told Ethical Performance, that what he found most surprising by this year’s study was the very high rating that both corporates and NGOs gave to senior leadership support for, and engagement in, strategic partnerships. “ This is, of course, important because leaders can create an enabling environment in which strategic, material partnerships can be nurtured and then thrive. My surprise is that previous (qualitative) information on the NGO side indicated that many NGO leaders either remained reticent about cross-sector partnering, took a narrow (cash-focused) view of them, or simply did not do enough to champion the necessary conditions internally in which great partnerships thrive. The strong vote of confidence given by NGOs to their senior leaders is therefore very encouraging.”

C&E Advisory found that both NGOs and corporates are gaining a greater understanding of the business potential of partnerships as organisations engage in multi-lateral agreements over longer timescales, leveraging each sector’s assets to maximise mutual benefit.

This year’s research has also seen a striking increase in the view that partnerships are changing business practices for the better. Around 59% of corporate respondents state that their NGO partnerships have helped them change business practices for the better (up from 46% in 2013) and 87% believe their NGO partners have helped their companies to better understand social and environmental issues.

Notably, 69% of business respondents believe that effectively harnessing their competencies and non-cash assets can make much more of an impact on their NGO partners than financial support alone.

And although a disparity remains between NGO and corporate perceptions of the value of non-financial support, this latest research reveals a narrowing gap as almost half of NGO respondents now acknowledge the impact that non-financial support, such as leveraging corporate competencies, canbring to the attainment of their mission (48%, up 12% on the 2013 figure).

When asked what factors were most likely to make corporate-NGO partnerships more important over the next three years, over 90% of all respondents state ‘increased recognition of the need to leverage each sector’s different assets in order to maximise mutual benefit’.

Amadi points out that the most common barrier to establishing successful parternships is internal communication. “This year’s Barometer established that companies and NGOs have some work to do in terms of engaging some of their internal colleagues – in particular finance and HR colleagues.

“However, as partnerships become more strategic and central to the purpose of NGOs and companies, practitioners will need to do more in terms of gaining year on year improvements in partnership performance. Direct experience at C&E Advisory tells us that even the most well-known and most successful partnerships benefit from proper mid-term reviews. Such reviews represent an opportunity for partners to learn what is working well and how to enhance these factors, whilst also outing the things that are not working well and identifying how to address these issues. We have seen the trajectory of partnerships shift very positively and markedly as a result of such reviews. The significant numbers of organisations that are not undertaking internal and ‘with partner’ mid-term reviews represent a barrier to the achievement of potential for strategic partnerships.

And what does Amadi believe are the main takeaways for NGOs and corporates? Corporates need to recognise that NGOs are increasingly ready to do business with business, he says. “They recognise the importance of strategic, mission-led partnerships that add strong value to business, whilst harnessing relevant assets on both sides. This represents an opportunity for companies and brands to think about, and activate, partnerships that can truly help them to change business practices for the better and support the realisation of greater financial, social and environmental value.

And NGOs need to see that the partnering agenda is increasingly important to business. Amadi maintains: “Savvy NGOs can use partnerships with the right corporate partners to reach greater audiences, and positively influence improvements in business understanding of social and environmental issues, as well as changing business practices for the better. A strategic, mission-led approach is critical for success – as is the need to act as critical friend (and not just unswerving mouthpieces) for their corporate partners. A certain creative tension is healthy in successful corporate-NGO relationships.”

You can download the full report here.
 

Transparency is a step beyond regular Corporate Social Responsibility - it means not just behaving ethically but showing how you’re doing it. Miranda Ingram reports

We’ve had Sustainability and now the buzzword is Transparency which, with consumers, investors and employees increasingly interested in companies’ social and environmental performance, is fast becoming a corporate necessity.

Think of transparency as your personal reputation. It is a step beyond Corporate Social Responsibility – it means not just behaving ethically but showing how you’re doing it.

Or, as Sally Uren, ceo of Forum for the Future, puts it: “When I talk about transparency, I mean full disclosure of all material, societal, environmental and economic risks and how a company is dealing with them.”

Which sounds so simple, but with lots of great Transparency statements on lots of great websites but how do consumers and other stakeholders sort the real thing form the PR blurbs?

Uren laughs. “I want to understand the degree to which the company is taking Transparency seriously,” she says, “which means a good description of what is going on in the supply chain and evidence that the company understands the sourcing of their primary ingredients, coupled with a willingness to give an honest appraisal of where they are at with their sustainability.”

Supply chains, as Uren points out, are not easy so it is essential that a company shows that it has a clear grip of the complexities. It is also important that they focus on their key material issues. “I’m not interested in how many fewer plastic bags a retailer, for example, uses compared to where they source they products.”

A great example of a company which has taken the step from sustainability to full-blown transparency is worldwide parcel delivery service UPS. Short of delivering parcels by donkey, UPS is bound to have a carbon footprint and might be expected to shy away from talking about it. Instead, the company has won a clutch of awards for its sustainability initiatives and goals which are both rigorous and convincing.

They include the introduction of a proprietary IT system which provides drivers with optimal route advice which last year saved over 1.5m gallons of fuel and avoided 14,000 metric tons of CO2, the continued expansion of alternative fuel and advanced technology vehicles and active encouragement to customers to reduce their packaging.

Then last year UPS became one of the first US companies to sign up to the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) G4 framework and report at a “Comprehensive” level, the most rigorous option available.

But even with sustainability software packages such comprehensive reporting is expensive and time-consuming, admits UPS Head of Sustainability for Europe, Middle East and Africa Peter Harris. So why go the extra mile?

“We asked ourselves: what is the end game? and the answer is to become more sustainable over the long term,” says Harris. “Transparency helps us achieve this in three ways. Firstly, it’s essential that you can measure your sustainability in order to manage it. Secondly, being open about how we are doing encourages us to do even more. And, thirdly, we recognise that we can’t do this on our own - we need to bring our stakeholders with us on the journey and we can only do this by being thoroughly transparent.”

On top of this, says Harris, being transparent is also a way of encouraging others to do the same. “Even if UPS were to be 100% sustainable, if the global environment is not sustainable, our contribution would be worthless. There is little point being sustainable in an unsustainable world.”

Transparency needs to engage at three levels: employees, investors and customers. The enthusiasm of UPS employees, carefully nurtured by staff roadshows, surveys and competitions, proves the validity of a recent US survey by marketing consultants Interbrand which showed that two thirds of all US workers are happier in their jobs knowing that their employers are helping to protect the environment and that nearly six in 10 actively seek out employers who share their ethical standards.

But while investor demand is a factor driving the shift towards transparency, there is work to be done in helping investors understand the key issues, says Uren. “Often, they do not have a clear understanding of material and ethical risks so they are dealing with known unknowns when we talk about the scarcity of water and resources, climate and environmental issues. Companies can be nervous of being too transparent if investors don’t know what to do with this information.”

The final challenge is customers. While all of us, individuals and companies as well as the planet, stand to benefit from more ethical companies the impetus, likewise, needs to come from all of us which means that ethical companies need to engage with customers so that customers can respond to company behaviour.

“At least we are moving away from niche green brands which is good as this gives the impression that green behaviour is a niche issue,” says Uren. “But when it comes to driving demand for ethical behaviour, customers are still ambivalent.”
In this challenge, Uren sees a big role for brands. “There is a limit to what you can put on your packaging and website information is often confusing.” The way ahead, Uren believes, is for companies to integrate their ethical message into their core messaging.

One example is H&M’s much trumpeted “Conscious Collection”, a 2011 line of separates made from organic cotton and recycled polyester. In trumpeting its sustainability aspirations into its brand the company, which frequently surveys its clients, is showing confidence that customers are interested in the ethics of fashion.

H&M then went further to position the brand as an industry leader in sustainability by committing to sourcing all of its cotton from more sustainable sources by 2020 and taking a lead in sustainability reporting - transparency - by becoming one of the first and largest companies in the world to make its supplier factory list public.

“Now we are taking this even further by expanding the list to include all of our first tier supplier factories – covering 100% of our production volume,” says H&M’s Ulrika Isaksson. “We believe that a transparent supply chain can be a catalyst for positive change and hope that this will continue to promote transparency in our industry in general.”

H&M’s transparent sustainability strategy is widely praised but there are critics who point to the company’s leading role in creating today’s fashion industry’s high-turnover, cheap-throwaway culture.

Transparency must, crucially, be whole hearted and comprehensive. Otherwise, says Uren, don’t bother – unconvincing transparency is counterproductive. “You will communicate to your customers that you are not serious and then there is a danger of cynicism developing towards the whole concept,’”she says.

UPS’ Peter Harris agrees. “If I were giving advice to companies considering adopting transparency initiatives I would say, first, think it through very carefully and do it correctly, not on a whim.”

There are four key points to bear in mind, says Harris. “Firstly, be comprehensive: make sure there are no holes in your policy because if there are they will quickly be spotted and be detrimental to the entire undertaking.

“Secondly, be comparable: as far as possible follow a global framework so that your Transparency can be compared to others’. Third, be credible, which means, ideally, getting a third party organisation to monitor your achievements so you know they are really working, not just working for you.”

Finally, says Harris, think materiality. “Focus on the important issues – too much unnecessary or useless information is difficult for others to follow and stops your message getting out.”

“Those who take a step towards transparency find that their stakeholders like it and that gives them the confidence to do it more.” says Uren. Nevertheless, many business leaders still fear that greater public disclosure will leave them vulnerable to criticism.

“Be afraid at your peril,” says Uren. “Radical transparency is coming and if you think you can hide under a stone you are kidding yourself. We live in a hyper-connected world with GPS and crowd sourcing data and we can shine a spotlight anywhere so it is better to engage now.

“But above all, be positive. See transparency as an opportunity and use your customers for their invaluable input.” 

S&P Dow Jones Indices, part of McGraw Hill Financial and the world’s largest global resource for index-based concepts and data, and RobecoSAM, the investment specialist focused exclusively on Sustainability Investing, this September announced the results of the annual Dow Jones Sustainability Indices (‘DJSI’) review. 2014 also marks DJSI’s fifteen-year anniversary since the first global indices tracking the financial performance of leading sustainability driven companies were launched.

 The DJSI review, which provides an integrated assessment of economic, environmental and social criteria with a strong focus on long-term shareholder value among ‘best-in-class’ companies, applies a rules-based methodology and uses primary research.

 Guido Giese, Head of Indices, RobecoSAM, commenting in the wake of this year’s review said: “In fifteen years, the total number of companies we assess has more than quadrupled. We have also developed new sustainability benchmarks for investors such as country and regional indices.” David Blitzer, Chairman of the S&P Dow Jones Index Committee, noted: “Both the importance and the understanding of sustainability has grown dramatically over the past decade and a half.”

 For 2014 a total of 3,395 companies were invited to participate in RobecoSAM’s Corporate Sustainability Assessment, which provides an in-depth analysis of financially material economic, environmental, and social practices. The total number of assessed companies analysed was 1,813 - comprising 830 completed questionnaires and 983 completed assessments based exclusively on public information.

 The three largest additions by free-float market capitalisation to the DJSI World index, which comprises 319 constituents and is one of seven indices in the DJSI family, were Amgen Inc., Commonwealth Bank of Australia and GlaxoSmithKline Plc, while Bank of America Corp, General Electric Co, Schlumberger were the three biggest deletions.

 Effective 22 September 2014 DJSI World saw 32 additions versus 46 deletions, while Dow Jones Sustainability Europe - the second largest index in the family of seven with 154 components - saw 11 additions and 35 deletions.

 A total sixteen companies were recognised for having been DJSI World members for all of the past fifteen years including Bayer AG, BT Group Plc, Deutsche Bank AG, Diageo Plc, Diageo Plc, J Sainsbury Plc and Unilever NV.
The latter is Robecco SAM’s 2014-2015 industry group leader in the food, beverage and tobacco sector (according to GICS developed by MSCI).

Among key changes to the current year’s assessment over 2013, the social and environmental reporting criteria were opened up allowing companies to fill in information on their public reporting on the environmental and social issues most material to them.

A 28-page DJSI 2014 Review Results document explained: “The ‘Materiality’ question was updated to focus on whether or not companies clearly define their most material sustainability issues and how these link to their business objectives.”
The ‘Quantitative Indicators’ question was also updated to assess “what indicators companies are using to report on these material issues, whether or not targets exist and whether companies are reporting on the progress towards these targets.”

A new criterion, Tax Strategy, was created by RobecoSAM with three new questions that “assess whether or not companies have clearly defined tax policies that guide their approach to taxation, how detailed companies report on taxes in the countries and regions in which they operate and whether or not companies are aware of potential business and financial risks related to taxes.”

Assurance of the review’s assessment process was undertaken by Deloitte.