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Think tank ResPublica has called for the introduction of an oath for bankers similar to the Hippocratic Oath in order to raise accountability and standards in banking.

ResPublica’s latest report, Virtuous Banking: Placing ethos and purpose at the heart of banking, argues that policy makers have pursued the wrong type of reform, ignoring the root cause of the banking crisis: an inherent lack of virtue amongst our banking institutions. Because of this, more of the same from Government and the industry will not be enough to stem the tide of scandal. Instead, virtue and responsibility must be encouraged through higher levels of banker personal responsibility, it maintains.

It argues that this is best promoted by developing a better sense of professionalism and ethics which includes requiring all members of the banking profession to affirm a new Bankers’ Oath.

In medicine, the Hippocratic Oath provides a centre-piece for personal responsibility in the profession. ResPublica believes that the Bankers’ Oath could perform a similar function in banking.

Phillip Blond, director, ResPublica said: “As countless scandals demonstrate, virtue is distinctly absent from our banking institutions. Britain’s bankers lack a sense of ethos and the institutions they work for lack a clearly defined social purpose. In order for us to have the banks we desperately need and the country deserves, bankers must recognise the good, do the good, and be good. The Bankers’ Oath represents a remarkable opportunity to fulfil their proper moral and economic purpose, and finally place bankers on the road to absolution."

 

Picture credit: © Sanjay Deva | Dreamstime.com
 

Overwhelming evidence of “systematic violation” of the right to human dignity suffered by Indonesian garment workers was found by a jury at a two-day public hearing in Jakarta.

The conclusion was declared at the People’s Tribunal, convened annually as a court to assess human rights in the garment sectors of Asian countries.

The tribunal, hosted this year by Asia Floor Wage Indonesia, a trade union grouping, to consider conditions in Indonesia, heard the jury emphasise that a living wage and freedom of association were vital human rights in a global garment industry.

Delegates were told that Indonesia’s laws make it easy to suspend the minimum wage. The average monthly minimum for garment workers anyway is only about €82 ($110, £65), estimated to be 31% of a living wage or one needed to support a family.

Emelia Yanti, secretary general of the GSBI, an alliance of Indonesian garment workers’ unions, said: “A living wage is the cornerstone of decent working conditions. Paying a living wage has a positive effect on the reduction of overtime and malnutrition.
“It means workers have the choice to refuse work due to unsafe working conditions and it means they can take time off for ill health.”

Other complaints at the tribunal concerned illegal compulsory overtime, unreasonable productivity measures, denial of social security payments and gender discrimination.

The jury acknowledged: “In recent years some progress has been made in tackling the challenges faced by workers in an industry dominated by a small number of buyers.”

However, jurors were gravely worried about “lack of urgency and transparency” among the brands.

The H&M representative said the company was working towards a living wage, though it had never tried to calculate a figure.
The representative of Adidas, the only other large customer present, upset delegates when he told a witness: “No factory is perfect.”

The tribunal’s message to global brands was that they must accept they are complicit in their suppliers’ rights violations and are responsible for conditions in the factories.

It is recommending action by trade unions, the International Labour Organisation, international brands, national companies, suppliers and the Indonesian government, officials and labour officers.

Mirjam van Heugten, public outreach co-ordinator of the Amsterdam-based Clean Clothes Campaign, the international group dedicated to improving conditions in the industry, said: “If garment workers are still living in poverty, which we know they are, no brand can claim that they are truly sustainable.

“The fact that brands have become ‘manufacturers without factories’ does not mean they can shirk responsibility for the human rights violations of the women who stitch their clothes.”
 

North Korea has joined the Asia Pacific Group on Money Laundering (APG) as an observer. The APG aims to prevent the funding of terrorism or for the development of nuclear weapons.

APG is the Asia Pacific unit of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) under the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).

FATF has 41 member countries including the U.S., South Korea, China, and Japan and observers that include countries such as Germany, France, and the UK, as well as 27 international organizations including the Asia Development Bank and World Bank.
As an observer, North Korea must follow a long list of rules and abide by APG resolutions. The resolutions include prevention of money laundering, nuclear terrorism and development of nuclear weapons. These are the opposite of policies followed by the North Korean government for many years.

The APG could raise North Korea from observer status to a member country after three years, based on its performance and following inspection visits.

South Korea and other APG members are puzzled by this unexpected move by North Korea, because it previously opposed joining the APG.

The action is particularly surprising because up until last year’s APG meeting, North Korea refused to join the organization because of the rule requiring members and observers to follow global standards. North Korea at the time argued that it would join the APG only after the agreement to abide by UN resolutions was taken out.

However, for now at least, North Korea has agreed to follow all regulations presented by APG.

A report by the US State Department this May designating North Korea as a country that is non-cooperative against terror may have prompted the change. The State Department cited North Korea’s failure to join either the FATF or APG in its report. Additional pressures on the North have come as sanctions imposed have steadily intensified.

One theory is that North Korea has joined the APG in an attempt to ease the sanctions imposed on it. However, there seems little chance that the country will give up its nuclear ambitions.

Although suspicious, neighbouring South Korea does not oppose the move by the North, since there are positive aspects such as better transparency of North Korea’s finances if it follows APG regulations.

However, if North Korea fails to follow the rules and loses its license as an observer, the sanctions against it will become more severe.
 

In these days of increasingly sophisticated social media it only takes one off-message supplier and a backpacker with a phone camera, to bring corporate reputations crashing down. So what steps can a responsible business take?
Miranda Ingram reports

 

Smart companies have already made supply chains sustainable and are active in CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility), and promote their initiatives on web sites and Facebook in order to build trusted brands and reputations.

Yet in these days of increasingly sophisticated social media it only takes one off-message supplier and a backpacker with a phone camera, or a disgruntled customer whose complaints are being ignored, to bring those reputations crashing down.
What is seen in Bangladesh today can affect sales in Glasgow tomorrow; bad news travels from Twitter to Newsnight in a matter of minutes.

And this is happening in a world where increasingly conscientious consumers don’t just want a great product or service but demand good behaviour and full disclosure as well. In addition to these consumers, activists (who may have no interest in your product or service), regulators, bloggers, stakeholders - even employees - are scrutinising corporate behaviour as never before.
In this instant and global world, “managing” corporate reputations is no longer in the hands of CEOs or communications teams - it is every and anyone’s business. If kids with smartphones can bring down governments in North Africa and the Middle East they can certainly destroy a corporate reputation.

Or, as Greenpeace put it: “targeting brands was like discovering gunpowder for environmentalists”.

Successful companies have already understood that to be a sustainability leader they need active CSR policies, blogs and tweets, irreproachable supply chains, social media monitoring teams and a crisis management plan in place.
But matters have moved on - again. Forget trying to manage your communications - the big shift, now, is towards managing behaviours.

“Behaviour” is the new buzzword, according Sally McGeachie, Head of Communications at GoodCorporation, the business ethics advisors and auditors who count giants like BBC Worldwide, l’Oréal, O2 and the FTSE among their clients.

Behaviour focus
“It is no longer a matter of having a crisis management plan but about prevention. Every aspect of the corporation should now be behaviour focused,” she says. “This starts with identifying behavioural risks such as bribery, fraud, corruption, human rights abuses. Your code of conduct must be embedded in the company and your employees absolutely clear what it is.”

Indeed, one impact of social media is that employees not only have a bigger voice than before but can also play a huge role in shaping an organisation’s reputation. According to research carried out in the US in 2012, nearly twice as many people trust information about a company that comes from an ordinary employee than from a CEO.

All the more important, then, that they know and believe in - even contribute to - their company’s vision which is why internal communication is now as vital as external PR work. “Your stakeholders, employees and suppliers must understand what is expected of them, your standards of behaviour must be instilled into them,” says McGeachie.

“But at the same time you must be looking at how you behave as an organisation: how quickly do you pay your suppliers? What are their terms and conditions? What are your anti-bullying policies?

“What about whistle-blowing? Do you have a culture where a disgruntled employee can bring a problem to management - and be listened to - or will they seek out a journalist?

“It is all about managing behaviour and if you have an ethical culture inside the organisation, and one which your employees and suppliers are involved in and passionate about, this will pay off in terms of your reputation.’

“Today, you have to ask not only “is it profitable?” and “is it legal?”,’ she says, ‘but also “is it right?” And don’t for one moment think you can cover something up and that “no-one will find out”. This is the biggest sin of all.”

Externally, it is also a matter of studying and managing behaviour. What platforms do your consumers use and have you made it easy for them to complain effectively to the company rather than being forced to air your shortcomings on Twitter? Do you know how to communicate your CR triumphs in a way which engages your stakeholders?

And what about activists - how and where do they gather their information and are you making it easy for them to interact with you?

We live in a cynical age so it is no longer possible to slap a CSR statement on your website or to try and hide behind cloaks and screens, warns McGeachie. “Your behaviour, what you actually do, travels faster than your statements. It is when your actions underpin your words that you start to build trust.”

Of the social media platforms available to consumers, activists and stakeholders, Twitter is probably the most powerful, not least because most journalists (and politicians) use it. It is also a powerful tool in the hands of corporations - but handle with care, as these two examples quoted by the reputation management company Portland, illustrate.

Handle with care!
Clothing retailer Uniqlo, for example, created a great campaign with their Twitter page, the “Lucky Counter”. This featured ten items of clothing and the more people who tweeted about each one, the cheaper it became on Uniqlo’s website.
Starbucks, on the contrary, suffered a disastrous hashtag hijack when its UK tax avoidance was disclosed.
The company created its #sharethecheer tweet and displayed the messages on a big screen at the Natural History Museum. Unfortunately, they forgot to monitor the messages, leaving ‘tax dodging MoFos,’ and ‘Hey Starbucks, PAY YOUR ******* TAX.’ emblazoned across the London skyline.

More recently during the World Cup, both Delta Airlines, with their picture of a giraffe representing Ghana, where there are no giraffes, and KLM with their “Adios Amigos” departure sign, had to apologise for insensitive tweets.

Nevertheless, the worst corporate reaction to the digital media revolution is to live in fear of it. Yes, it has given the consumer a louder voice - thus altering the balance of power - and yes, it is forcing business to clean up its act, à propos employees and suppliers as much as consumers and activists.

But this is all to the overall good and even though it is impossible to control your reputation, if you imbue the company with an ethical culture and behaviour, this will go a long way towards building the trust good reputation you are after – as well as standing you in good stead in the case of an unforeseen disaster.

 

GoodCorporation’s Dos and Don’ts

Do
• Focus on behaviour: establish a clear code of conduct which states how the company will behave towards all stakeholder groups
• This approach should start with an overt commitment to establishing an ethical culture from senior management
• Ensure that the code of conduct is properly embedded and implemented through effective training and communication (e-learning can be a useful tool here)
• Identify the areas of the business that may expose the company to reputational damage and develop policies and processes to manage those risks
• Conduct internal and/or external audits of behaviour and conduct
• Create an open-door culture with a speak-up system that encourages malpractice to be reported and respond when it is
• Ensure that an effective and responsive customer complaints programme is operational
• Include a stakeholder feedback link on the website; monitor comments and respond promptly
• Provide clear guidelines for all staff on the responsible use of social media with examples of what would be considered misconduct and what is acceptable and appropriate
• Consider incentives for good behaviour, managed through the appraisal process
• Ensure a crisis management system is in place and understood.

Don’t
• Try to solve a problem by covering it up
• Assume that no one will find out
• Punish those who raise concerns
• Make promises that can’t be kept
• Make dishonest or misleading statements about company, products or services

 

Independent European financial services firm, Kepler Cheuvreux, reconfirmed its status this July as the leading local broker in Europe in the Thomson Reuters Extel/UKSIF SRI & Sustainability Survey for 2014 and beat off Société Générale (SocGen) and Bank of America Merrill Lynch (BoAML) - ranked in second and third places respectively - out of 25 firms.

The latest Extel annual survey, which represented the views of over 360 investment professionals from 27 countries (including 179 buy-side firms and 14 brokerage firms/research houses), also placed Kepler Cheuvreux top for Countries and within the Top 10 across eight equity sectors. The result for the leading Pan-European brokerage firm - SRI & Sustainability - mirrored the house’s top showing in 2013.

Laurent Quirin, ceo of Kepler Cheuvreux, described the firm as an “equity power-house that stands shoulder to shoulder with the global brokers” after the awards were handed out at an event hosted by Schroder Investment Management UK in The City. The results themselves were based on a weighted vote that was received from fund managers’ total commissions paid.

With the voting being conducted over a seven-week period from 24 March to 7 May 2014, the contributions were “slightly more extensive” than in previous years according to Steve Kelly, md of Extel at Thomson Reuters. It also makes it the most extensive assessment of socially responsible investing (SRI) in the European investment community.

Other key highlights from this year’s Thomson Reuters Extel/UKSIF Survey revealed that thematic reviews and ideas are the “most critical SRI/ESG research services” as far as buy-side institutions are concerned. Indeed, in excess 80% of those responding rated these as “very important”.

Simon Howard, UK Sustainable Investment and Finance Association (UKSIF) chief executive, speaking after the Law Commission’s recent view that fiduciaries “should take financially material factors into account” and citing ESG (environmental, community, other societal and corporate governance) elements as an example of those factors, said: “This highlights how SRI and sustainability thinking is relevant to the mainstream. These awards showcase the financial sector’s successful integration of sustainability and ESG across the value chain, from brokers through fund managers to companies.”

Elsewhere in the survey, 34% of asset managers looked for all SRI/ESG research and insights to be integrated into all analyses they receive from brokers; and, sustainability is a growing element in remit and discussions of Investor Relations (IR) teams at companies, with 56% now including it as integral to their IR outreach.

Not to be outdone SocGen ranked as leading brokerage firm for SRI research - up from third in 2013 - with a team comprising Carole Crozat and Yannick Ouaknine based in Paris, Niamh Whooley in London and Rohit Malpani in India. The house beat last year’s winner Kepler Cheuvreux into second and BoAML in third.

BoAML analyst Sarbjit Nahal was voted leading brokerage individual for SRI research from SocGen’s Carole Crozat, while Kepler Cheuvreux emulated its top rank from 2013 as leading brokerage firm for corporate governance research thanks to the house’s Robert Walker ranking as top analyst in the category.

HSBC ranked top broker for integrated research on climate change, with the house’s Zoe Knight top analyst in this segment. Finally, L’Oréal took the spoils for the leading corporate in sustainability communication, followed by Eni in second and Carrefour in third.
 

The £6.31m Guinness Alternative Energy C fund yet again surpassed its peers in the UK Registered funds sector in the year to 30 June 2014 with a +28.34% cumulative return versus a less than spectacular past three- and five-year performances of -7.10%/179th and -17.53%/153rd, respectively.

Craton Capital Renewable, Alternative & Sustainable Resources A fund came in runner up on the past one-year horizon (+27.60%), ahead of the £66.13m Triodos Sustainable Pioneer K Retail fund in third spot (+25.45%) and Royal London UK Ethical Equity Inst M Inc fund ranking fourth top on +22.20%. Iveagh Wealth EUR X Acc fund took the sector’s wooden spoon over the past one year with -15.23% and a 205th rank.

MAP Clean Technology Fund I beat Economie Durable A fund by a long chalk amongst European funds over the past 12 months posting +133.65% and performed well over one- and three-year time horizons with respective performances of +66.47% and +71.47% - ranking it second top both times. MC02 New Energy FEIF fund bottom ranked out of 1,095 funds in the sector and was equally weak over the past three years on -73.14%/1,013th.

Within the US Mutual funds sector, which displayed the best peer group average at +97.33% over the last five years versus all other sectors in Morningstar’s analysis, the $19.02m Firsthand Alternative Energy fund outpaced peers on a past one-year horizon yet on an improving +53.08% versus a rather meagre +4.62%/172th rank over the past three years and +17.20%/159th rank over past five.

The $25.03m Guinness Atkinson Alternative Energy fund dropped one spot to third over the previous month’s analysis on +43.27% over the past year versus -9.17%/177th over the past three-years horizon and -23.44%/163rd over the last five.
The $724.12m Eventide Gilead N fund ranked fifth top on the past 12-month view (+34.87%) but top ranked over past three years (+75.75%) and came fourth over the past five years with an outstanding +178.19% performance. Pacific Financial Fth & Vls Bsd Mod Inv fund, a relative newcomer, bottom ranked out of 193 funds in this sector.

While the UK Individual Pensions sector posted the best peer group average over both one- and three-year periods against all the other sectors analysed at +27.37% and +38.43%, respectively, it lagged all other sectors with +37.02% for the past five years and was significantly distant from the European funds sector peer group performance at +58.37%.
 

After earning an MBA at Yale, Christine Bader spent nine years with BP as manager of policy development creating social programmes to aid workers and local residents as the energy giant built petrochemical plants and liquefied natural gas operations in remote areas of the world. In her new book, The Evolution of a Corporate Idealist: When Girl Meets Oil, Bader presents issues she and other corporate idealists confront as they work to improve business social and environmental practices. Now a lecturer and advocate, Bader says the needle has been moving incrementally, but more needs to be done.

 

Before BP you worked for nonprofits, what drew you to the corporate world?
After college, I served as a corps member with AmeriCorp’s City Year programme that aims to keep at risk children in school, and saw corporate sponsors donate time and materials. It was my first view of companies doing good works and made me aware of the role of business in society. While at Yale, I became intrigued with BP when CEO John Browne came to speak on greenhouse gas emissions, and shared his view that companies are not separate from the communities where they work.

During an assignment in Papua, Indonesia, you relocated 127 families. How did you approach that?
We acknowledged what we didn’t know and realized that we needed to go out and look for world-class experts for the myriad challenges we faced —in this case the World Bank’s top resettlement expert. Humility and being open to other peoples’advice served us well. We learned from horrible situations around other extractive projects that the best and most secure perimeter around a project is not a big fence, but a community that is involved and has a vested interest in stability. The best way to ensure smooth operations is to engage the local community and try to find that sweet spot between the interests of business and the interests of the community.

At one point one resident lobbied to use brick in the new houses, believing it was what all modern societies had —but not a good material for that climate because it retains heat. The World Bank expert admitted we were in a bind: If we’re truly listening to their desires, what should we do if the choice they desire is a bad one? None-the-less we facilitated three more months of consultations about the availability and suitability of brick, and after three months had consensus to go back to wood.

You also were involved in developing support programmes for a joint venture petrochemical plant in China that brought 15,000 migrant workers into a village of 30,000. Tell us about that.
One of the biggest challenges on that project was ensuring that the temporary dormitories for those migrant workers met international standards for health and safety, like having smoke detectors and limiting the number of people in a room. Beyond the dormitories, the influx of so many workers could put strain on the town’s water supply and hospitals, spawn brothels and cause food prices to soar, all of which could make local residents and party officials resent the joint venture.

You mention a particularly startling revelation with your partner Sinopec, about mortality expectations during construction. Can you elaborate?
My first week in China, I learned that our partner company had projected eight worker deaths, based on past experience with projects like ours. I was horrified! We made it clear that the target was zero — and managed to achieve zero fatalities on-site during the construction period. Migrant workers are away from their families and want to maximize earnings. But long hours working with heavy construction equipment can lead to unsafe conditions.

You were working with the UN on development of the Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights document when BP’s Deepwater Horizon explosion happened. Still, how did it impact you?
The BP that emerged in the various hearings and investigations in the months that followed that tragedy is what compelled me to write this book. It didn’t reflect the company I thought I knew so well — which in my experience went above and beyond what was required by law anywhere to protect people and the environment — but rather was projected as reckless and callous. I started speaking with others doing comparable work in other companies, and realized we face so many common challenges. I wanted to shine a light on the people deep inside companies, and ask why we fail and what we need to succeed.

What have you learned?
We are making progress, but still have a long way to go. The Business & Human Rights Resource Centre keeps a running list on companies with a human rights policy statement: It is still fewer than 400. Walmart alone has 100,000 suppliers!

One challenge with this kind of work is that no one gets rewarded when something doesn’t happen, and our success often means the absence of bad things.

Those of us who care about ethics and corporate responsibility can get preachy; but all of my interviewees agreed that evangelizing to our colleagues is not helpful. Figuring out how our work supports theirs is.
 

Christine Bader spoke to Laura Klepacki
 

Consumer scepticism and expectation of institutions is at an all-time high, and prominent brands are under more pressure than ever to do good… and prove it, writes Andrew Pederson.

As BP and Nike have learned, anybody with a creative idea and a few spare minutes can create a brand manager’s social media nightmare, and companies like KFC and Chevron have found out the hard way that consumers are increasingly likely to punish companies for missteps, even (perhaps especially) when the brand’s intentions are “good.”

The standards are now higher, and there is good reason to take a second, third and fourth look at the rapidly multiplying efforts to follow Bruce Burtch’s now famous exhortation to “do well by doing good.” But how do we know whether or not a cause marketing campaign will pass critical public examination? The six qualities below are good litmus tests to see whether a campaign is more “marketing” than “cause.”

At risk campaigns:

• Spread resources too thinly over a large number of unrelated activities
• Expect a huge sales return instead of intangible brand equity
• Provide an initially high level of support that cannot be sustained over time

Many organizations simply try to do too much with too little and communicate too much about too many different things. This is risky when many might disagree with the fundamental premises of a brand’s underlying business, i.e., that it exploits non-renewable resources, produces large amounts of carbon or hazardous waste or contributes to obesity or exploitation. Before beginning, it is important to ask, “Does this activity address the root cause of an important issue linked directly to the brand?”

Further, many campaigns attempt to define success by linking the amount of money raised to the number of products sold. This is wasted effort, as the campaign should focus on addressing the root cause of an important issue rather than fundraising or selling more product. If the effort is sincere and successful, count on those who benefit to promote the brand when and where it’s appropriate.

As well, campaigns that rely on large upfront cash commitments are often simply trying to do damage control or hedge against future risk rather than make a considered and intelligent investment to make significant change in the world. Once the issue becomes less prominent, initial goals can fade into the background, only to become liabilities once more in the future. As a final check, it’s important to ask, “Does this campaign set achievable goals over a reasonable time frame?”

While cause marketing has been in vogue for a number of years, IEG projected earlier this year that corporate spending on cause sponsorships will slow to 3.4% YoY growth to an expected $1.84 billion in 2014. This slowdown is likely due to difficult lessons from less successful campaigns and the high costs of quality campaigns. When successful, however, the results are enviable, as Charity Water and RED’s respective celebrity-studded breakthroughs show.

Like Charity Water, successful campaigns:

• Report directly from the field, linking specific individual examples and general trends
• Focus on one strategically relevant and proven intervention that can scale
• Engage reputable experts in the field

Corporate transparency and reporting are still very new and underdeveloped practices, and though most consumers don’t yet have the patience or desire to comb through hundreds of pages of .pdf reports, mobile devices will soon transmit the current reality of any part of any supply chain to whoever is interested in viewing it. Well-designed cause marketing programs with nothing to hide will be able to adapt easily, while competitors who rely on traditional brand communications and mass-media-driven fundraising will be exposed.

No single organization can unilaterally solve even one complex social problem completely, and yet brand and corporate commitments often spread time, money and other resources thinly across a broad portfolio of geographies and topics. Focus, whether on a smaller number of more effective implementing partners or on a single direct investment, is critical to get the most out of scarce resources and avoid later disappointments. Rather than spread smaller contributions across a vast array of nonprofit grantees or field initiatives, campaigns should focus on one relevant issue, ideally the root cause of a significant issue directly related to the production or consumption of the brand’s product.

Cause marketing campaigns often lead companies out of their areas of core competency, and nobody is expecting major brands to become experts in poverty reduction or water policy overnight, if ever. Patagonia’s approach, for example, covers every aspect of their core business, garment manufacturing, yet does not stray into lofty discussions about poverty reduction or infrastructure development. Quite the contrary, brands should find the most capable person or organization in the desired field, let them lead and provide all the necessary support rather than attempt to implement in the field.

Charity Water is an excellent case study in all these respects, and this high standard is what every other cause marketing campaign should strive for.

If a brand is unable to step up to these expectations, then it should step back and let others lead. Coca-Cola, are you listening?
 

Flooring that converts footsteps into renewable electricity, a house built almost entirely from waste products and Sky’s Rainforest Rescue campaign with WWF were among the winners at the recent 2degrees Champions Awards.

The University of Brighton’s “Waste House” won both the Building or Property Project award and the Waste & Resource Management award. It has proven that it is possible to build a house almost entirely from waste products.

Pavegen won the Energy & Carbon Man-agement (Long-Term Payback) award, for its innovative flooring tile that converts the kinetic energy from people’s footsteps into renewable electricity. Installed successfully at sites around the world, including the 2013 Paris Marathon and London 2012 Olympics, the Pavegen flooring tiles are designed to encourage communities to engage with a tangible and people-powered solution, and help them recognise the opportunities for an innovative off-grid energy technology.

The External Communications Campaign award was given to Sky for its Rainforest Rescue campaign. It is an integrated partnership with the WWF UK, WWF Brazil and government of the state of Acre in Brazil, delivered over four years. Sky’s research shows that 40 per cent of its customers are now more aware of the issue of deforestation and now understand why it is important.

The Solution of the Year Award (pictured above) was collected by Vegware for its range of compostable food packaging, while Pukka Herbs won the Supply Chain Management award for encouraging its supply chain to adopt the FairWild Standard.
The Sustainability Champion of the Year was named as Eldad Umenjoh, who has successfully changed the attitude of palm oil farmers in Cameroon, and the Social Value award was given to Carbon Solutions Global for its project which teaches local farmers in Hungary the importance of using environmentally sound fertilizer.

For a full list of this year’s winners visit www.2degressnetwork.com/awards/winners 

Last month, we discussed the implications of indoor air quality (IAQ). We asked why you should care, and came up with a number of answers focused on health. If that weren’t reason enough, there is another reason that IAQ should be of particular interest to business owners: employee productivity.

A number of credible studies have shown that indoor air quality can have a significant effect on employee productivity. And we’re not just talking about air that’s so bad that you can’t see or breathe. Generally speaking, OSHA takes cares of those (though I could tell you a story about an agricultural processing job I once worked in Arkansas). What we're talking about here is much more subtle than that.

For example, a series of laboratory studies at Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory (LBL) examined typing speed and accuracy, as well as addition and proofreading error rate, with and without a section of 20-year-old carpet present in the room. The carpet, which was known to emit volatile organic compounds (VOCs), was hidden from the subjects. (VOC s are used and produced in the manufacture of paints, adhesives, petroleum products, pharmaceuticals, dry cleaning agents and refrigerants.) Results found a 4 percent improvement in speed and accuracy when the carpet was absent. The amount of ventilation used also had a significant impact. Results above were achieved with 20 cubic feet per minute (CFM) per person being blown into the room. Dropping that down to 6 CFM per person led to an additional 4 percent decrease in performance. Increasing the ventilation to 60 CFM per person achieved the same result as removing the carpet.

Another study found the presence of CRT monitors led to a 16 percent increase in typing error rate. A similar study found a 10 percent improvement in call center talk times when additional fresh air ventilation was provided. In many of these studies, the inhabitants made no complaints and were unaware of any issue with respect to the air quality.

Another extensive study performed at the Technical University of Denmark had similar results: A series of 8-week-long intervention experiments in call centers found performance improvements in the 6 to 9 percent range. While these numbers may not seem particularly high, they could be achieved at relatively low cost, or, in the case of new facility construction, built-in at the outset.

When you consider the fact that 90 percent of the total operating cost of a commercial office building goes into the salaries of the people working inside it, a simple change like improving the ventilation can yield substantial dividends. A Swedish study found that a 1 percent improvement in employee productivity was enough to offset the increased cost of proper ventilation.

Finally, a paper prepared by the Environmental Protection Agency makes a case for IAQ management in schools: The agency cites not only health impacts, particularly asthma, but also academic improvements. One cited study found that students in classrooms with higher ventilation rates scored as much as 14 to 15 percent higher on standardized tests than those in rooms with less ventilation.

UL Environment has developed a number of new test methodologies for indoor air quality. The company also released a study on the impact of paint on school air. In that report, researchers found that half of the nation’s 115,000 schools have issues with indoor air quality. Focusing initially on paints, they evaluated various paints -- both those that emit low VOCs, as well as others designed to pull VOCs out of the air. The study identified paints of both types that were effective in reducing VOCs in the classroom, particularly in the days and weeks after application, which is when the problem was most prevalent.

We’re just beginning to understand some of the impacts of air quality on our health, wellness and ability to perform tasks. The picture that is now emerging shows us that we need to be concerned about air quality, indoor and out, and that we can improve that air quality by understanding the impact that man-made processes and products can have on our air.

Image courtesy of UL Environment

RP Siegel, PE, is an author, inventor and consultant. He has written for numerous publications ranging from Huffington Post to Mechanical Engineering. He and Roger Saillant co-wrote the eco-thriller Vapor Trails. RP sees it as his mission to help articulate and clarify the problems and challenges confronting our planet at this time, as well as the steadily emerging list of proposed solutions. His uniquely combined engineering and humanities background help to bring both global perspective and analytical detail to bear on the questions at hand.

Follow RP Siegel on Twitter.