Corporate sustainability reporting has to become mandatory in order to reach sufficient progress towards sustainable development, writes Paul Hohnen, a consultant and Associate Fellow of Chatham House, in the Guardian. Governments should agree on globally valid guidelines of how companies are to report on sustainability aspects – the upcoming Rio+20 conference being perhaps the best … Continue reading
Accountants should assume a more active role in helping companies improve their sustainability performance, the Financial Times recently wrote. Not only is sustainability reporting – often the first step to action – gathering importance and momentum, it is also spreading rapidly through supply chains and logistics infrastructures. Who, if not the accountant, could cope with … Continue reading
With the years, leading for sustainability has become more and more an intimidating task. More complex the issues, more complex the proposed solutions. And many questions. How could one possibly expect business leaders to pursue the path to sustainability in times of economic turmoil and political uncertainty? Where to put the focus in a global … Continue reading
It’s not easy being green. Kermit the frog knows it, we all do. New Zealand‘s political and business leaders do, too. After all, much of the country’s success is built on a ‘clean, green’ reputation, nurtured by the idea of a pristine environment. Surely they’ll do anything to maintain and protect this USP, priceless as … Continue reading
There shall be transformation, or so goes the dictum of this year’s World Economic Forum – the annual meeting of the powerful, the smart and the wealthy in Davos, Switzerland. Never, it seems, were times as dire as now, resources that scarce and solutions so urgently needed. Even in the darkest of times, however, there … Continue reading
With all the writing about sustainability trends, there is one topic that just won’t go away. To the contrary. The discussion about the future of energy generation – and consumption – is getting a sense of urgency difficult to ignore. Just a few days ago, the International Energy Agency warned that “without a bold change … Continue reading
Sustainability should be embedded throughout the supply chain to give weight and credibility to a company’s sustainability credentials, writes Jill Poet, managing director of the Organisation for Responsible Businesses (ORB), in the Guardian. “Larger organisations are increasingly accountable to shareholders and the government for their social and environmental impacts, but invariably the bulk of that … Continue reading
There’s been a lot of talk lately about how our daily routines affect the climate, and vice versa. Take travel, for instance. Tourists – our economy depends on them – have to fly long distances to get to New Zealand, which means a lot of carbon emissions. But even those of us who aren’t here … Continue reading
2012 is going to be a very special year for humankind. Not only does the Mayan calendar predict a change of time and directions (rather than the end of the world, as some claim), it doesn’t take much to realise that the social and economic systems on which we relied for generations are in deep … Continue reading
Just like conservation was the buzzword for the 60s and 70s and sustainability from the 80s on (becoming increasingly mainstream recently), resilience might become the next dominant environmental discourse, Tony Jupiter argues in a recent blog post at the Guardian Sustainable Business Network. As he puts it, having been lurking for some time, “resilience is … Continue reading
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