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Editor’s Note: This post is an excerpt from the University of Wisconsin Sustainable Management blog. 

By Michael E. Kraft

In June, Pope Francis released a remarkable encyclical on “care for our common home,” the Earth. He called climate change a “global problem with grave implications,” and described our response to date as woefully inadequate. He called for aggressive efforts to reduce reliance on greenhouse gas-emitting fossil fuels and to promote cleaner and renewable sources of energy.

Adding moral dimension to the debate

The pope also offered a broad overview of how human actions are affecting the planet, and particularly the lives of the poorest among us, who are likely to suffer the most from a changing climate and environmental deterioration. His statement comes less than six months before the major international meeting in Paris in December, when the world’s leaders are to draft the next international climate change treaty.

The unique contribution that Pope Francis made to this debate was to add a strong moral dimension to the prevailing scientific and economic discussions of climate change and the environment. He highlighted humanity’s pursuit of continued growth in material consumption at the cost of planetary health and human well-being, which he found to be morally reprehensible.

Where the Pope went wrong

The pope was right to call for a more ethical sustainable development that can meet our economic needs while also protecting the environment. He was wrong, however, to fault reliance on economic incentives as a way to deal with climate change.

Most climate experts favor either a tax on carbon emissions or reliance on a market system for trading carbon permits, with a cap that declines over time. Both mechanisms seek to put a substantial price on carbon emissions as an effective way to change individual and corporate behavior in a market economy.

Pope Francis argues that markets often fail to bring out the best in us, and he is right about that. Yet moral injunctions alone cannot move societies toward a low-carbon future. Markets might just do that. The higher price of carbon-based fuels should discourage their use, promote the search for alternatives, and stimulate energy efficiency and conservation.

Such policies rely on market mechanisms that conservatives applaud, which makes bipartisan cooperation possible. Moreover, the Citizens Climate Lobby and others promote a revenue-neutral carbon tax with no net increase in taxes. Such a policy can be used in conjunction with actions such as setting national renewable energy goals, offering financial incentives for switching to non-carbon energy technologies, and establishing new regulatory standards.

Climate change policy gaining traction in U.S.

As is the case with most public problems, we can agree on the need to do something without necessarily agreeing on which policy alternatives are likely to work best or be cheapest. However, it is imperative to recognize the seriousness of the problem, and Pope Francis’s encyclical did exactly that by endorsing the scientific community’s findings that climate change is both real and hugely important.

In the U.S., the Obama administration is committed to adoption of a strong international treaty at the Paris meeting. Consistent with these goals, it has raised fuel efficiency standards, supported renewable fuels, and moved ahead with EPA’s Clean Power Plan. That plan will lower carbon emissions from existing coal-fired power plants and promote alternative fuels while giving each of the 50 states sufficient time and choice in deciding how to act.

Some states, most notably California, are embracing the challenge of climate change and setting ambitious goals for reducing carbon emissions. California is aiming for 50 percent reliance on renewable energy by 2030. It is convinced that this will help, not hurt, its economy. Unfortunately, many other states are doing little to change directions.

Recent surveys show that an overwhelming majority of the American public now supports action on climate change. They agree with Pope Francis. The issue remains low in salience. However, these polls indicate that political leaders can indeed garner public backing for tackling climate change.

Image credit: Flickr/Gaspar Sarrano

Michael E. Kraft is a University of Wisconsin Master of Science in Sustainable Management faculty member and professor emeritus of political science and public and environmental affairs at the UW-Green Bay. Michael wrote this guest post; the views expressed are his own.

We all realize that greenhouse gases are causing climate changes. Most of us want to help combat climate change in some way, and there is an easy way for us to do so. Switch to LED light bulbs.

One company, Ikea, is making it easy to only buy LED lights. By Sept. 1, it will only sell LED light bulbs and lighting, the retailer announced on Monday. The announced fulfills a commitment Ikea made in 2012. Since 2013, the retailer's U.S. customers purchased 7.6 million LED bulbs, collectively saving almost $3 billion in energy costs.

The announcement also marks Ikea's move away from the LED's energy-sipping cousin, the compact fluorescent (CFL) bulb. While CFLs last longer than incandescents and use less energy, LEDs perform even better while avoiding mercury woes.

“LED is a light revolution,” said Steve Howard, chief sustainability officer for Ikea Group, in a statement. “With household electricity bills continuing to rise rapidly and global energy consumption increasing, the LED lighting will have a big impact. Building on our belief that everyone should be able to afford to live more sustainably at home, we will make sure our LED prices are affordable for the many.”

The basics of LEDs

How much do most of us really know about LEDs? Did you know that LED stands for light-emitting diodes? They are semiconductor devices producing visible light when an electrical current passes through them. LEDs are more efficient, durable and versatile compared to incandescent bulbs, while using 85 percent less energy.

If 1 million people swapped just one light bulb for an LED, “this would be equivalent to taking 6,700 cars off the road or planting 17 million trees per year,” said Lars Petersson, Ikea U.S. president. The widespread use of LEDs could save about 348 terrawatt-hours of electricity, the Energy.gov website states. That is the equivalent of the annual electricity output of 44 large electric power plants and amounts to a savings of over $30 billion at current electricity prices. In other words, ditching conventional light bulbs can have a real impact on the environment.

Did you know that the use of LEDs by Americans is increasing? Ikea U.S. conducted studies in both 2012 and 2015 and found that consumers are more open to buying LED bulbs and lighting. In 2015, 64 percent of Americans bought at least one LED light bulb, compared to 49 percent in 2012. In 2015, 51 percent of Americans bought several LED light bulbs, compared to 39 percent in 2012.

There is room for more education concerning LED lighting, the Ikea studies found. A whopping total of 68 percent of Americans in 2015 didn’t know that LED bulbs can last an average of 20 years, and 34 percent didn’t know that LEDs use less electricity than other types of light bulbs.

Image credit: Flickr/Anton Fomkin

Less than half of businesses believe they have a duty of care to employee health, according to a new report from leadership training organisation Morgan Redwood, with only 46% of firms regarding staff health as an employer’s responsibility.

This is despite the fact that 82.8% of companies believe that business performance and staff wellbeing are connected.

The research is based on responses from the heads of HR departments or board director level from over 250 businesses. These have been drawn from across the UK and from a mix of sectors and a range of company sizes, with two thirds employing over 250 people, and none less than 50.

The statistic of 46% is in contrast to a previous Morgan Redwood study conducted in 2009, where 95% of businesses believed they did have a duty of care to the health of their employees.

Janice Haddon, MD of Morgan Redwood said: “The latest findings really do indicate a startling shift in employer opinion. A swing from 95% to 46% is a huge difference. What has caused such a sea change?

"In 2014 the CIPD reported that 40% of employers are seeing a rise in stress related absence and reported mental health problems, such as anxiety and depression, so the fact that companies are less inclined to see wellbeing as within their remit of responsibility is perplexing.”

Picture credit: © Fizkes | Dreamstime.com

The origins of financial services were good. Banks, insurance companies and investment houses used the power of the collective to pool and manage money, offering the customer a better deal than had they been acting alone.

The sector, back then, was on our side. Then along came what Bank of England Governor Mark Carney recently referred to as “ethical drifting”. The original banking ethos was replaced by a commitment to shareholders exclusively – and ensuring executive enrichment along the way.

“Now,” says Helen Wilson, Head of Responsible Business: Positive Future Plan at Old Mutual, “we have come full circle.”
Old Mutual believes that the future lies in the past, going back to its true purpose. ‘Our message is: we’re on your side and here to help you look after your money better than you can alone and we will deliver back to you, our customers, by investing funds in ways that will create a positive future for you, your families, communities and the world at large’.

The international investment, savings, insurance and banking Group Old Mutual was established in 1845 in South Africa and, with more than 17m customers worldwide and more than £319.4bn funds under management, is in the vanguard of the Responsible Business movement within the financial services sector.

“Up until the 2008 banking crisis the attitude towards financial institutions was pretty much: we don’t really know what you do but we trust that you know what you’re doing,” says Wilson. “People didn’t ask questions.”

By 2010 this attitude had turned on its head and the idea of trusting banks was a joke. Suddenly, everyone was asking questions: what have you been up to? What are you doing with our money? How can we believe you?

“At Old Mutual we commissioned an independent survey of all our stakeholders – customers, experts, NGOs, investors, shareholders – and asked them: what do you want us to do? How do you want us to behave?” says Wilson.

“The answers came back loud and clear: get your house in order, look at your governance, treat employees and customers fairly, respect the environment and, above all, ask us what we want - don’t assume to know.

“From this to-do list we identified our five pillars of Responsible Business: Customers, Responsible Investment, Employees, Communities and Environment. Now we want to be best in class and have identified two focus areas that we will look to lead in – financial wellbeing and responsible investment.

“We firmly believe, and we are lucky in that our CEO Julian Roberts was an early supporter, that business can be a source for good and that the financial services sector is uniquely positioned to be regenerative rather than destructive.”

Responsible business, says Wilson, is a world away from corporate social responsibility or social investment. “It’s not about charitable giving or sponsorship, although these still have their place, it’s not about avoiding socially irresponsible investments. Responsible business is about actively doing good, actively tackling issues like inequality, inclusion and environmental degradation.

“It involves a sea change in our thinking: caring about all our stakeholders not just our shareholders, and this has to be our strategic policy across the Group.

“For example,” she says, “we insure African farmers and at the same time invest in companies whose actions maybe exacerbate problems (think climate change) for those same farmers. How do we manage this loop and what is our role in breaking this cycle?”
“In South Africa, for example, we are investing in infrastructure and renewable energies – needs identified in the National Development Plan of the South African government. Thus, through our asset management we are contributing to the country’s energy security.”
“The key words are Financial Wellbeing and Responsible Investment, looking after the financial wellbeing of our customers while at the same time investing their money in ways that bring about positive societal outcomes.”

To date, by applying an environmental, social and governance (ESG) lens to its investment processes, Old Mutual judges that 60% of investments mostly comply with its aspirational Responsible Investment Standard, while 40% fully comply. The target is 100%.
Looking ahead, the Group is actively seeking investment opportunities that will build its leadership in responsible investment, particularly in its African-based operations.

Old Mutual is a member of the collaborative Blue Marble Microinsurance consortium, and it is here that it feels it can make a particular contribution in delivering to those who have not yet been reached, or been underserved, by the financial services market, in particular through micro finance and micro insurance and by partnering with those with on the ground knowledge.

A large part of this involves customer education. “Many African farmers live hand to mouth,” says Wilson, “and it is not unusual for them to offer two or three months of their harvest to creditors. However, these creditors would not necessarily care for the land as well as the farmers. We can show them a better route to managing their money than risking part of their livelihood.”

“In Kenya we are facilitators for a community-based lending scheme. This way we can teach people about managing their own money, budgeting and finance before going on to get a loan. We make sure they know how to read the small print and understand the terms and implications before using financial services organisations. If we can build the customer’s trust that we care both for their financial wellbeing and responsible investing, we have a partner for life.

“For our high net worth customers it is matter of finding innovative ESG investments such as in climate change or affordable housing funds and offering these right across our portfolio.”

Although the myth that positive social impact and high returns are incompatible is fast being disproved, in any conversation there is still one person who says: but you can’t do good and make a profit.

In fact, says Wilson, if you are acting in the long-term, which Old Mutual is, you can get a better long-term profit. In any case responsible business is the future of the international financial services industry.

In the, arguably conservative, US markets sustainable, responsible and impact investing grew more than 76% between 2012 and 2014. In the UK, some 80% of pension funds now demand ESG credentials of their investees and in Sub-Saharan Africa the Africa Infrastructure Country Diagnostic (AICD) says in excess of US$93bn in infrastructure development is required annually over the next 10 years.

“It’s a matter of understanding that the upside of risk is opportunity,” says Wilson. “The scale of change, both in your processes and in your thinking, is one of the big challenges of responsible business but those investment houses that show ways in which this is possible will reap the benefits. The innovation opportunities and the trust relationships that can result will create a significant competitive advantage.”

The benefits are not only financial but come from knowing that you are dealing with the differences you can make to people’s lives. “We try to ensure that our employees understand their role in this machine and that they are making a difference very day,” says Wilson.

To those who have not yet embraced responsible business, she says: “Be brave. Be courageous. It can be done. Ask for help; others will, and will want to, share with you what they are doing.

“At the very least, even if you are not ready yet, be part of the conversation around what is happening right now.” 

Since 2009 employee volunteers at Turner Broadcasting, have helped build schools and school buildings in Mali, Rwanda, Malawi, Ethiopia, Tanzania and Mozambique.

“Good schooling means that people can look forward to more than the simple life of their forefathers and we have already seen pupils going on to higher education and taking scholarships,” says Nick Hart, head of CSR for EMEA at the international broadcaster who runs the schools building programme as one of its main international projects.

“Working in partnership with ActionAid (and previously Plan International), Hart has co-ordinated a total of six volunteering projects. Hart maintains that an inclusive, responsible approach to business has always been the Turner way. A well-known philanthropist, media mogul Ted Turner set up Turner Broadcasting (now part of Time Warner) back in the 1970s and is the broadcaster behind pioneering 24 hours news channel CNN, kids’ channels Cartoon Network and Boomerang as well as Turner Classic Movies (TCM), among others.

As the producer of kids’ entertainment and a news channel Hart felt that working with children’s charities to aid developing nations was a natural fit.

The first building project began with Hart meeting with Plan International in 2008 to discuss ways the broadcaster could use its fund raising and volunteering initiatives to do something of long lasting benefit in EMEA. Between them they came up with the idea of building a school in Mali. Looking back even Hart admits that it was ‘bit of an experiment’.

“The first hurdle was advertising for volunteers,” explains Hart. He was inundated with 80 people applying for just 20 places. “While popular, I have to stress it’s not an easy option,” he emphasises. “People are required to work in very harsh conditions and temperatures, sometimes up to 45 degrees Celsius!”

The second part of the project involved everyone fundraising, not just to raise money for the build but also for school equipment and teacher training so volunteers each had the target of raising a minimum of £1000 as well as paying £600 towards their travel costs. The company donated the additional funds, paid the bulk of the trip costs and gave the volunteers five days volunteer leave.

Hart himself has been on all six trips and his previous career in entertainment PR has helped him a little along the way with fundraising (a number of celebrities have donated to the cause).

Hart stresses that the projects all use ‘proper architects and builders’ and that the volunteers are only allowed to do ‘safe’, if arduous, jobs like lifting bricks and mixing concrete.

Turner Broadcasting volunteers have just completed the building of a library in Mozambique with ActionAid. Their fundraising also helped furnish the library with books, furniture and equipment and it will serve over 130,000 people in the district.

Turner chose to work with ActionAid because their long term presence in the communities in which they work means that they are trusted and have an in-depth knowledge of local culture and the context to provide them with the appropriate support. Their local offices are staffed almost exclusively by nationals who are best placed to build strong relationships and they also work through local partners who are embedded in the communities, furthering the appropriateness and effectiveness of their projects. The projects are developed out of these relationships and formed in collaboration with the communities themselves to ensure their voices are heard and their priorities met.

What’s interesting is that while the Turner brands like Cartoon Network and CNN are well-known in many African cities, in the rural areas where they have built people generally have not had electricity or TV. Some may have mobile phones in remote areas but watching television is still a largely unknown activity. Hart believes the biggest challenge for the volunteers can be going to a rural village and seeing a lifestyle that tourists would never normally encounter. . “For some of the team it can be a big culture shock, but the payback for the volunteers is enormous,” he said. “The generosity of the people we’ve met is incredible. To see how people in other cultures live, to witness the lives of people who have never left their villages and have very different traditions, is eye-opening and very inspiring.”

The payback is big for the company too. He explains: “CNN regularly reports on developing countries and our staff create entertainment services for Africa so these experiences give our employees real insight into everyday life in countries that we serve.”
“It’s also important that we’re not just as an international company looking in from the outside and so spending time and leaving behind something really useful is good for everyone. The volunteering initiative also brings other benefits. “There are always a lot of talented photographers and videographers amongst the volunteers who take stunning images to cover the office walls and one year a team made a feature which aired on CNN’s Backstory show,” says Hart.

Hart believes that projects such as these are also good recruitment and retention tools. “Being a socially responsible broadcaster makes us attractive, particularly with younger people who are placing more importance on these aspects of a business,” he said. “It helps with our diversity strategy too which ensures that our services are popular and relevant for people from all sections of society by having staff as diverse as our audiences.”

The award-winning projects have huge board-level buy-in with executives across the company having already participated or planning to do so for the next project in 2016.

Each project is structured around a one-year cycle. So Hart will start advertising the 2016 project to employees this September and then volunteers will head out in March.

Details of the latest build are still under wraps but volunteers will be in full fundraising mode in time for Christmas. Hart has been impressed with the various ways staff have been fundraising, moving away from traditional sponsored events to using their skill sets instead. For example, selling their photography skills and one even exploiting their knowledge of London by instigating a series of ‘spooky walks’.

So far the programme has brought together staff from across EMEA who are located in offices from Stockholm to Dubai to Paris to Moscow who are thousands of miles apart and would never normally meet.

“In addition it throws together the most senior to the most junior people who have to live and work together in very basic conditions with almost no access to the outside world for a week, so ultimately the programme combines volunteering and corporate responsibility with staff development while providing an impressive and lasting legacy that helps the company establish deep roots in a developing market,” says Hart.

Now that’s the kind of CSR that needs broadcasting…
 

Bangladesh has a child population of 65m and more than a million are homeless. Very young street children can be placed in jails without protection or representation. Children can encounter justice systems as victims, witnesses, or because they are in conflict with the law. If held in detention, children can suffer violations of their rights - they are often detained with adult prisoners – and may be exposed to torture, physical and emotional abuse.

The scale of the challenge in Bangladesh is enormous but the situation is mirrored in many countries around the world, where justice systems do not include child-sensitive procedures due to lack of resources or political will. UNICEF estimates that more than one million children worldwide are deprived of their liberty by law enforcement officials (UNICEF, Progress for children, 2009).

DLA Piper and UNICEF’s ground-breaking child justice partnership has been established to help countries like Bangladesh implement solutions to better protect children. Child justice is an under-supported issue for UNICEF and DLA Piper is providing pro bono assistance through Unicef UK to the value of $5m to support work in countries worldwide.

“A global partner with the legal expertise and global reach of DLA Piper is in a unique position to understand and make a vital contribution to support UNICEF’s extremely ambitious but crucial objective of protecting all children,” says Lucy Scallan, Head of Partnerships Development at Unicef UK.

The firm is recognized as a leader in pro bono service delivery. In 2014, it donated over 200,000 hours of pro bono legal work globally, which makes it one of the largest providers of pro bono legal services in the world.

“We focus on priority areas such as human rights, poverty, juvenile justice, inheritance rights, and supporting nonprofits and charities,” explains Michelle Milnes, International Corporate Responsibility Manager at the law firm. “Our UNICEF partnership is an example of our global approach to ground-breaking pro bono support in action.”

Milnes maintains that the firm is committed to conducting its business in a way that is consistent with its values: “We look to realize the full potential of our global business to effect positive and lasting change in the communities in which we operate, as well as supporting justice around the world.

“A major element of the partnership is supporting a multi-tiered ‘Justice for Children’ project in Bangladesh, a key aim of which is to address the legal reforms necessary to align the country’s legislation with international child rights standards,” says Milnes. “The projects we are supporting are helping to put in place the legal, social and organisational frameworks that will better protect children for the future.”

The Government of Bangladesh has committed to policy and legislative reform for children. However, many of the rights guaranteed in the Convention on the Rights of the Child and other human rights treaties are not yet supported by national legislation and some laws and policies contradict them. In some cases when appropriate laws and policies are in place, they are often poorly implemented and enforced.

The ‘Justice for Children Project’ entails significant advocacy interventions and mobilisation of decision makers as well as communities. The project includes local child justice capacity building and piloted community interventions focused on rehabilitating and reintegrating children who come into contact with the law.

“The support of DLA Piper has been priceless. This is a terrific partnership which we hope will gradually expand in Bangladesh and in other countries around the world,” says Dr. Pascal Villeneuve, UNICEF Bangladesh.

In addition to the work in Bangladesh, DLA Piper is supporting comprehensive child protection projects around the world. The firm is currently researching Inheritance Rights issues in Zimbabwe and Cote d’Ivoire and the work is being expanded to cover a number of additional jurisdictions in Africa, Asia and South America. An estimated 17.8m of the world’s children have lost one or both parents to AIDS, with 85% of these children living in sub-Saharan Africa. DLA Piper lawyers are reviewing children’s inheritance laws across Sub-Saharan Africa, with support from in-house counsel at Barclays Legal to support UNICEF’s work to strengthen and protect the rights of children orphaned by HIV/AIDS. The firm also provides secondees to UNICEF offices internationally to offer specific legal expertise and project support.

“We seconded a legal assistant from our Georgia office in 2013 to help UNICEF review and analyse Georgian legislation, international standards and best practices, and prepare specific recommendations for the protection of children. This year we seconded a human rights lawyer to the UNICEF Advocacy team in Australia, helping increase capacity to raise the profile of child rights issues, provide technical expertise and influence decision makers to adopt a human rights based approach to issues affecting children,” explains Milnes.

An important part of the partnership for DLA Piper is its role in employee engagement. “As lawyers, injustice experienced by children is an issue that resonates profoundly with us. Through working with UNICEF’s expert child protection staff our core skills as lawyers and our knowledge of justice systems is being utilised to promote the rights of children through law reform across nations around the world,” maintains Milnes.

“We have lawyers at all levels contributing to the partnership, from trainees, associates, senior associates and legal directors to partners and senior partners. In addition, the awareness-raising and fundraising aspects of our partnership engages staff from all areas of our business.”

Milnes is pleased with the progress to date: “So far, 35 offices have contributed pro bono work totalling over 8,750 hours. That equates to $3.3m in pro bono hours. Over 250 lawyers have so far been involved.”

Indeed, staff have raised $750,000 too through fundraising events and matched donations from the firm.

The three- year partnership has recently been extended as major global pro bono projects around birth registration and inheritance rights are only just underway.

“These projects have huge scope and potential for change, which we want to be able to support well beyond the original partnership timeframe,” explains Milnes. “We soon realised that when you embark on a global partnership tackling a major global issue, three years is a short time ”

Milnes says DLA Piper intends to continue, adapt and scale up the work it has already done to support UNICEF in this area, in particular widening the scope of its research work around inheritance rights and birth registration on a global scale and how it might continue to support UNICEF beyond the research phase.

“Our partnership with UNICEF has enabled us to explore the wider issue of child rights and business principles and this will continue to be an area of focus for the firm in forthcoming years,” she says. “Our pro bono work has already played a valuable role in contributing to real progress in understanding the opportunities to improve legal protections for vulnerable children around the world - and the existing barriers to change.”

By working with UNICEF to appraise national challenges at a local level, DLA Piper hopes to create a situation whereby significantly fewer children are vulnerable to exploitation and receive the protection they deserve to enable them to develop in a safe and supportive environment. “We believe that UNICEF’s work with children is integral to creating lasting change - on a global scale - by ensuring future generations have a positive foundation to develop in a positive, sustainable way,” adds Milnes. 

In order to build a truly sustainable organisation, global companies these days acknowledge that the umbrella of their stakeholders extends further than ever before.

Chris Librie, senior director, strategy & communications, HP Living Progress, says that global citizenship has been part of HP’s DNA from the outset. “It was part of our foundational values,” he says. “However, it wasn’t totally embedded in the corporate strategy. In true Silicon Valley fashion, we were very decentralized. Sustainability was initiated by individuals and teams, but it wasn’t communicated coherently,” he explains.

A more focused approach came from CEO Meg Whitman who joined HP in 2011. “Sustainability and citizenship were very much her focus,” says Librie. “She viewed them as one of the company’s hidden assets.”

Whitman was charged with turning around the tech giant - growth had been stagnating and it had fallen behind other Silicon Valley players – and she recognised the value of making sustainability both front and centre at HP.

And that’s how Living Progress (LP) came about. “It is a way for HP to take a holistic approach to linking the triple bottom line ethos to its strategy, making sure sustainability is at its core,” says Librie.

By linking its products, services and how it does business, it effectively knits sustainability into the business model, says Librie.
LP works across the three triple bottom line pillars, People, Profit and Planet—what HP calls Human, Economic and Environmental Progress – often in synchronicity. Take HP’s development of its Moonshot servers for example. Compared to traditional servers they use up to 65% less power, 90% less space and 98% less cabling resulting in energy efficiency (Environmental), as well as enabling better access to data (Human)—all while changing the cost profile of the data center (Economic).

Instigating LP was a huge undertaking. “Building a comprehensive framework took time,” he says. “We then had to get the word out internally through webinars and training materials.”

One of the key messages was to demonstrate to employees how the layers of Living Progress drove the business globally, linking its technology directly with global issues. A good example of this is HP’s work with Conservation International (CI). HP engineers partnered with scientists at CI to develop HP Earth Insights, which uses hardware and software to store and analyze environmental data on the biodiversity of different geographies. The resulting ‘big data’ analysis provides scientists with an early warning system for threatened species, generating near-real time insights that enable proactive decision-making to help protect species and tropical forest health.

“There’s a lot of data with that kind of conservation programme,” explains Librie. “We designed a platform that turned those data into insights. The software transformed a process that usually took months, and turned it into hours. We were able to turbo charge their data! It was a great example of how our technology is helping conservation and really connects with employees.”

Another example of LP in action is in its Matter to a Million programme with Kiva, in which the HP Company Foundation gives every employee multiple $25 loan credits to support entrepreneurs with microloans on the Kiva platform. When a loan is repaid, the funds can be used to provide a loan to another entrepreneur—expanding impact well beyond the initial $7m investment from the HP Company Foundation. “It’s evergreen philanthropy,” explains Librie. “Many banded together to loan a greater amount. It’s one of most successful employee engagement progammes ever for us with well over 50% of employees getting involved.”

HP employees have so far made more than $9m in loans, already exceeding the initial funding by $2m in just the first two years of the five year program. The loans help farmers, teachers, doctors, and business owners grow their businesses and help their communities, and the numbers grow every day.

The Kiva project effectively drives economic progress as well as the human.

Librie is keen to point out that the pillars are only an organizing framework. “Many LP initiatives are cross-pillar. Yes, they may have their genesis in the environment say, but they also have impacts elsewhere.”

For example, Moonshot servers with their energy economies start off under the environment pillar but then also touch on the wider human and economic impacts associated with the benefits of big data.

“Our job is to solve the world’s toughest challenges and that’s an important part of LP,” says Librie. “I think marrying the three pillars to what we do is critical.”

HP is bringing LP to life in many different ways which helps to tell the story externally to stakeholders. “In supply chain we have an extensive programme of policies and activities to improve our standards for our workers and we’ve recently come out with industry-leading policies for migrant workers and student workers.”

HP was the first IT company to partner with Business for Social Responsibility (BSR) to engage its suppliers through the Health Enables Returns project (HERproject), a project which initially was health care focused but whose remit now extends to financial inclusion.

While such programmes are obviously the right things to do, they are also good for the immediate and long-term success of our business, says Librie. For example, HP factories that have implemented the HERproject in China have reported improvements in productivity and enthusiasm, as well as reduced absenteeism and turnover. Through a similar programme, one Bangladeshi factory saw a $3 return – through higher productivity, lower turnover and reduced absenteeism – for every $1 HP invested in women’s health.

There’s no denying that LP improves HP’s corporate reputation. Its plaudits from CDP, DJSI and FTSE4Good are testament to the fact.
Librie says that HP’s share price is only a blunt measure of LP’s success too. What counts, he says, is improved business results, creating innovation and the fact it differentiates HP in the marketplace: “We want to be a preferred supplier.”

In November, HP is splitting into two companies, HP Inc (at heart a B2C company focused on the company’s personal systems/products) and Hewlett Packard Enterprise which will focus on the B2B side of the business of data centres, consulting services and software.

Living Progress is going to live on at Hewlett Packard Enterprise, while HP Inc. will develop its own sustainability framework. However, says Librie, since both companies are deeply rooted in their founder’s DNA, sustainability will continue to be at the heart of both Hewlett Packard Enterprise and HP Inc.

For Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Living Progress will focus on the space and energy constraints threatening the current computing infrastructure. “The rallying cry for Enterprise is greater energy efficiency and for data to connect more people,” says Librie. “We must focus on meeting the data needs of the future—which drives human and economic progress—while protecting the natural resources of our planet to enable environmental progress.”

Indeed, the new corporate restructure will enable even greater momentum for Living Progress. “It’s difficult to imagine the data needs of our customers without thinking about sustainability. It reinforces the importance for us,” maintains Librie. 

Singapore-based property and hotel conglomerate, City Developments Ltd (CDL), has been leading the way in environmentally-responsible real estate since the mid-1990s when it adopted its ‘Conserve as we Construct’ ethos. It’s the firm behind Singapore’s first Eco-Mall, first Eco-Condo and also the first carbon neutral development in the Asia Pacific region.

With the ongoing environmental impact of the building sector remaining high - in Singapore, the building sector is the third largest contributor of carbon emissions – CDL is keen to spread the message of sustainability to its commercial tenants. “To achieve even greater energy efficiency, we need to put a stronger emphasis on changing the behaviour of building occupants,” explains Esther An, chief sustainability officer at CDL. “As one of Singapore’s biggest landlords, CDL is well positioned to work closely with our commercial tenants to achieve greater environmental sustainability.”

Since last September, CDL has progressively implemented a CDL Green Lease Partnership programme to engage, encourage and enable commercial tenants to proactively monitor and reduce energy usage so as to lower their carbon footprint. “Through various initiatives under the programme, our tenants have greater empowerment to drive energy improvements through behavioural change, green infrastructure and best procurement practices,” says An.

 “CDL has always believed that stakeholder engagement is key to the success of our sustainability drive. Through the CDL Green Lease Partnership programme, we bring on board our commercial tenants in a concerted effort to drive the need to manage and reduce their energy consumption. Not only will this help make our buildings more sustainable, CDL and our tenants can together achieve utility savings and cut down operating expenses. It is our way of greening buildings beyond just the infrastructure.”

 The CDL Green Lease Partnership programme is in line with the Building and Construction Authority’s (BCA, Singapore’s governing body for the built environment) third Green Building Masterplan, which places more emphasis on stakeholder engagement and collaboration, encouraging greater community involvement in sustainable development to create a future-ready built environment for Singapore. CDL’s efforts aim to complement Singapore’s vision to be a clean, green, sustainable and smart nation.

 “With the initiation of this programme, as an owner and landlord of numerous green properties, we are taking the lead to galvanise our tenants to pledge their environment commitment, to monitor, manage and reduce energy consumption,” maintains An. “Our green advocacy and product differentiation will put us in a position to help change mind-sets and capture the eventual rise of green consumerism. When this takes place, the tangible financial benefits will become more obvious.”

An highlights an important extra benefit: “ More importantly, from experience, we know that the programme will eventually better prepare our tenants for increased environmental legislations, which is expected in the future. Today, there is greater emphasis on Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) concerns both on the political and corporate agendas. We believe that ESG management would largely shape the future of businesses.”

Under its Green Lease Partnership Programme, CDL has a dedicated team of Green Lease Ambassadors to reach out to commercial tenants and bring them on board. The Ambassadors also advise tenants on energy and water conservation, waste management, as well as how to green fit-out their premises by embracing environmentally-friendly designs, materials, fittings, equipment, lighting fixtures and the use of indoor greenery.

To enable commercial tenants to adopt sustainable practices, CDL introduced an automated meter reading portal (AMR), jointly developed with Tuas Power, that provides half-hourly updates of tenants’ energy consumption. Conveniently accessible via mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets, the portal enables tenants to better keep track of their energy consumption and in turn, reduce electricity usage.

As of May 2015, more than 80% of CDL’s commercial tenants have signed the Green Lease Memorandum of Understanding under the programme, pledging their commitment to monitor, manage and reduce energy consumption.

CDL operates several other green tenant programmes. Project Eco-Office is a campaign in conjunction with the Singapore Environment Council, which aims to encourage office workers, including CDL tenants to cultivate eco-friendly habits and manage precious resources in offices. CDL provides its new tenants with a Project: Eco-Office Kit to promote the 3Rs – reuse, reduce and recycle. Designated corners with segregated waste disposal bins are strategically located in CDL buildings to promote recycling.

Through a comprehensive distribution exercise of Eco-Office kits, a dedicated online platform and numerous awareness campaigns, Project: Eco-Office has reached out to thousands of office employees working in buildings within and outside the CDL group.
Since 2005, CDL has also been tracking the paper recycling rate across its commercial properties. In 2013, CDL achieved a total tenants’ participation rate of 94% and all its investment properties collaborated with Global Lamp Recycler (SG) Pte Ltd for the recycling of lamp tubes. Over 6,700 kg of lamp tubes have been diverted from landfills. In 2014, CDL’s City Square Mall launched e-waste recycling and to date, over 400 kg of e-waste has been collected.

In 2007, CDL kicked off a “1oC Up Programme” which involves raising the air-conditioning temperature in offices by 1oC, to reduce energy consumption and raise eco-consciousness amongst its tenants. So far CDL has achieved a 100% tenant participation rate and this programme has also achieved energy savings of 2,080,000 kWh annually.

Since 2009, CDL started providing a green fitting out kit to tenants in phases. This kit comprises guidelines and checklists that pertain to fitting out works, and during the tenants’ operation at the premises. The guidelines cover environmentally-friendly designs, materials, fittings, appliances, lighting fixtures, waste management, energy and water conservation measures and use of indoor greenery.

“At CDL, we believe that the real estate sector can and must play a significant role in sustainable development. As a major developer and landlord in Singapore, we recognise our unique position and the opportunity it affords us to share the practices of our industry and to encourage greater environmental and social stewardship amongst stakeholders and our supply chain. Sustainable development has became the cornerstone of our business,” concludes An. 

Chicago-based Jones Lang LaSalle, the leading financial and professional services firm specialising in real estate, operates in 80 countries across the Americas, Europe, the Middle East , Africa and Asia Pacific managing some three billion square feet, $56bn of assets and nearly 60,000 employees.

The company has won a clutch of sustainability, energy efficiency and corporate responsibility awards including being named one of America’s 100 Most Trustworthy Companies by Fortune Magazine, one of the 100 Best Corporate Citizens by Corporate Responsibility Magazine and, in March this year, one of the World’s Most Ethical Companies by the Ethisphere for the eighth year running.

Now, the company has taken the unorthodox decision to highlight the bad stuff that goes on. To publish, publicly, details of its own ethical breaches.

“I’m not sure if what we are doing is unique,” says JLL General Counsel Mark Ohringer, “but it’s certainly pretty unusual.”

The Ethics Everywhere Programme encourages employees to report violations of the company’s Code of Business Ethics without fear of retaliation. These, which could be anything from inappropriate internet use or fiddling expenses to theft or improper vendor/client payments, are investigated by the company’s Ethics Officers and, where appropriate, action is taken, from extra training to sackings and prosecution.

Of course, there is nothing surprising about a company running such a programme internally. But publishing the results, in very comprehensive detail, on the website sounds like transparency gone crazy?

“We’d been feeding the results of the programme into a tracker database for ten years or so,” says Ohringer. “This was an early data mining effort to try and understand hotspots we needed to focus on, what issues we were commonly facing, which countries posed which problems.

“We communicated the information internally, which was a way of making it clear that we take breaches seriously, we do investigate and there are consequences. It was designed to have a sobering effect.”

But over the past five or six years, clients, like clients everywhere, started asking more questions about governance and ethics, sustainability and supply chains. JLL realised that the information they were collating internally would be useful to its clients.

“Of course there’s the fear that if you tell about the bad things happening in your company you could get a negative response,” says Ohringer. “But our clients are adults, many of them are big companies themselves. They know that no-one is free from these kind of issues. If we say we are ethical it means that we go to great lengths to try and keep as clean as possible and to deal with any breaches.

“We trust our clients to appreciate our candour. And they do – some of them say they’re getting information about us that they’re not even getting about their own companies.”

Last year, for example, ethics violation investigations led to action being taken in 83% of cases including 130 terminations of employment and four employee arrests. The number of cases of inappropriate behaviours continued to fall but instances of property theft, misuse of company assets, personal conflicts of interest (such as the undisclosed hiring of a relative as a vendor) and time-card fraud increased substantially in 2014 compared to 2013.

“Ethics statistics are difficult to interpret,” says Ohringer. As he points out, an increase in the number of complaints could mean that the ethical environment has deteriorated or it could mean that employees are more comfortable communicating their concerns. “As the percentage of complaints requiring action has remained fairly steady we believe that the latter is the case.”

Another gratifying statistic is that while there are various avenues open to employees to report concerns, from anonymously, direct to the company’s Ethics Officers, or within their own workplace, last year 83% of employee concerns were raised directly and internally. This, says Ohringer, shows that employees feel safe speaking out and understand that it is better to say something if they feel uncomfortable than suffer in silence. “Our aim wasn’t to become some sort of Big Brother, spying on employees and encouraging them to tell tales,” he says. Nevertheless, he is aware of different cultures in different countries. “In Europe, for example, compared to the US or East Asia, there is a stronger privacy culture. US employees expect less privacy, like having their emails monitored, for example.”

And, inevitably, there are abuses of the system, but very few. “You might get a couple who have split up and are trying to get each other into trouble. Or a worker who fears they are about to be disciplined trying to get in a preemptive strike against the boss. But these instances are relatively easy to spot – our Ethics Officers are very experienced. They have good noses.”

The key to the success of the programme is that employees understand the benefits of working in an company that takes ethical behaviour seriously, both in terms of the enhanced reputation of the company and client trust as well as a sense of pride in working for a trustworthy organisation and being able to pursue your career goals in a work environment based on mutual respect.

On a practical level, the Ethics Everywhere Programme involves employee complaints being assigned to an individual Ethics Officer who then feeds their results into the database tracker, explains JLL Legal’s Global Knowledge and Communications Manager, Mary Wahlen, who has been running the database for 10 years. “Then we meet twice a year for a metrics report.

“Every concern is investigated and our annual published report shows the nature of the complaint, the results of the investigation and what action was taken or why no action was taken.”

While this involves a significant investment in human resources, the cost of something going wrong – theft or, worse, reputational damage – is impossible to quantify, says Ohringer.

“We’re trying to create a virtuous circle. The fact we take ethics seriously sends out a good message to all our stakeholders. It helps us get clients, which is good for our employees, and it reassures our shareholders that we are a well-run corporation.

“Transparency is good for us. I understand the idea can scare people – talking about the bad stuff – but no smart company is going to deny that ethics abuses happen everywhere. Our message is that you can stay on top of it, you can do something about it.

“It’s when breaches get out of control that people forget how to behave and corruption becomes systematic. Then you’re dead. You’re facing government investigations, police investigations and lawsuits and managers have to spend all their time defending themselves rather than being out there making money. And that is bad for all the stakeholders.

Even if a programme like ours sounds daunting, you can do something. And that is better than doing nothing. We didn’t do everything at once. We used internal software and resources rather than making any big purchases. We took baby steps, learning as we went along, tinkering with the system, adding to it. We learned from our little mistakes rather than waiting to learn from a big one.

“Getting on top of the situation means, hopefully, that there will be no big surprises. That’s what we’re trying to do: avoid the big surprise.”
 

With all the talk about organic, fair-trade and slow fashion, one thing has been overlooked: hangers.

Starting next month, billions of one-use, virgin plastic hangers now going into landfills each year will be replaced by greener hangers through an innovative shipping and retailing program called Garments on Ditto, the outcome of a partnership between green product design company Ditto and supply chain leader OIA Global.

While sustainably minded clothing-makers and retailers have focused on innovating sustainable apparel, building LEED-certified stores and even launching garment take-back programs, little attention has been paid to what clothes actually hang on.

“Apparel companies typically focus on the clothes themselves – they don’t think about the hanger as part of the product, even though it is,” Gary Barker, Ditto’s founder and CEO, told 3p. “It’s been a blind spot. But we’re starting to bring hangers into view with our work.”

Made from 100 percent FSC-certified recycled fiberboard and soy-based inks, Ditto hangers are free of chlorine, formaldehyde and heavy metals found in conventional plastic hangers. Even more, these hangers can reduce shipping and warehousing costs by up to 20 percent, fit up to 27 percent more clothes in shipping cartons, and fit about 40 percent more clothes on retail store racks than traditional plastic hangers.

Companies such as REI, Adidas and Gap have already piloted the use of Ditto hangers in select stores.

“People think plastic store hangers are used repeatedly, but once the garment is sold, there’s no reuse,” Barker said. “With the single-use plastic hanger actually costing almost 10 cents more per garment to ship, sell and dispose of, retailers are paying a premium to send tons of plastic to our landfills.”

According to various studies, 85 percent of retail plastic hangers are thrown in the garbage – resulting in a staggering 34 billion hangers going into landfills annually, enough hangers to fill about 20 Empire State Buildings.

Ditto hangers are made of at least 70 percent post-consumer waste and are recyclable, compostable and biodegradable.

With programs like Garments on Ditto, apparel retailers can rethink the entirety of their environmental impact, as well as embrace new levels of circular economy thinking.

Image courtesy of Ditto Hangers