On Sustainability

Vodafone’s Big(ish?) Adventure

James Farrar — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 18:04:07 +0000

It’s fun to think of similes to categorise the headlong rush towards CO2 reductions or at least the pledges for such. I think of Vodafone’s pledge of a 50% cut of the 2007 baseline by 2020 as a ‘Big Adventure’. They have not yet clearly identified how they will get there yet but get there they will, [...]

HP CSR Report: A Triumph for Transparency (but back slides on blogging)

James Farrar — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 19:44:13 +0000

Ground breaking stuff in HPs latest CSR report released last week - HP becomes the first in its sector to publish details of the major players in its supply chain. Now it seems the tech sector will follow the apparel industry on supplier transparency. The apparel industry tried to resist this for some time on the grounds [...]

What is a sustainable business anyway?

James Farrar — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 02:09:14 +0000

Once you penetrate some of the sustainability hype the key question at board level is this: what action are you actually prepared to take? For a problem like climate change, where there is no regulatory hurdle and action is voluntary though enlightened by self interest, what action is enough? In my aviation days we foreswore the idea of [...]

Edelman on Sustainability Reporting: Call in the PR Pros

James Farrar — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 19:36:15 +0000

It’s a conundrum every company faces when thinking about sustainability reporting - who reads this stuff anyway and do these reports actually assure anyone of anything? Sustainability reporting methodologies have grown up, for better or for worse, to ape financial reporting, replete with their own standards of assurance audit and verification. But is there not a [...]

Headaches in Armonk but will green lose out?

James Farrar — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 19:08:21 +0000

No doubt the IBM top team will be passing around the Tylenol today in Armonk as they figure out what to do next after their temporary exclusion from further contracting with the US Federal government. Sadly it is not an April fool’s joke - the US Attorney’s office for the Eastern Division of Virginia has served [...]

Facebook: Revolution, Weed and Philanthropy

James Farrar — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 08:31:56 +0000

At the risk of endlessly re boiling the cabbage on the now infamous Sarah Lacy interview of Mark Zuckerberg at SXSW, it is worth highlighting some pretty important things he had to say on Facebook & corporate philanthropy before the reporter became the bigger part of the story. The flippant style of interview was disorienting, one minute Zuckerberg [...]

The Cassiterite Crisis - How Tech Boom Fuels Human Rights Risk in Africa

James Farrar — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 20:03:35 +0000

A disturbing article this week in the FT reports how cassiterite sourced through the use of child and slave labour has made it into the supply chains of global electronic goods manufacturers. Cassiterite is a derivative of tin ore necessarily used in circuitry and its use has, ironically, enabled devices to become more eco [...]

Tech Sector Takes a Kicking in Ethics Ranking

James Farrar — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 22:52:43 +0000

Quite honestly it is hard to take too, too seriously sustainability ratings such as the CRO 100 Best Corporate Citizens of 2008 but they are kind of fun to pull apart none the less. Predictably these rankings generate a fair degree of false humility from the ascendant and gnashing and wailing from the descendant. Says [...]

PWC On Tech Sector Going Green: Efficiency, Ambivalence and Pretty Pictures

James Farrar — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 12:48:31 +0000

PwC is to be congratulated at the very least for the aesthetics of their latest report: Going Green: Sustainable Growth Strategies. This is a truly handsome report with pretty brown coloured text interspersed with striking images of wind turbines, sail boats, happy children, adults playing in autumn foliage and even slightly more obscurely, a flamenco [...]

McKinsey on Corporate Philanthropy: Mind Your Own Business

James Farrar — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 23:33:32 +0000

If only the Big 4 and the top consultancy firms could run on sustainability thought leadership white papers instead of free cash flow, 2008 would surely be a banner year. The latest epistle is from McKinsey who this week publish an insightful survey on corporate philanthropy. The study unearths some revealing contradictions between strategic intention and [...]