Business For Good
From WikiForGood
Business Education
CasePlace.org offers a comprehensive selection of business case studies with social, environmental, and sustainability themes as well as background information.
Beyondgreypinstripes.org ranks top business schools on their social, environmental, and sustainability elements.
These sites are run by The Business and Society Program, an independently-funded policy program of the Aspen Institute. BSP is "dedicated to developing leaders for a sustainable global society."
Business Walking the Green Talk
"B" is for Beneficial: The B Corporation (22 May 08) is a certification for businesses that are “purpose-driven” and that want to create benefits for all stakeholders (employees, the community, the environment), not just shareholders. To become a B Corporation™, you have to do two things: First, meet comprehensive and transparent social and environmental standards via the B Rating System™. Second, amend your corporate governing documents to incorporate the interests of employees, community and the environment. Could this be the beginning of a more advanced form of capitalism that focuses on increasing quality of life rather than purely on profit?
The Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) has pioneered the development of the world’s most widely used sustainability reporting framework and is committed to its continuous improvement and application worldwide. This framework sets out the principles and indicators that organizations can use to measure and report their economic, environmental, and social performance.
The green mapping mashup, called Summer of Green, offered by Google is praised in this article from the Motley Fool (May 31, 2006).
The Writing is on the Wal-Mart...the retail giant goes green, and the impact is likely to be profound, via Grist Magazine (19 Jul 2006).
Corporate Culture
The purpose of the Corporate Culture Wiki is to call attention to organizations that have cultures that can serve as role models. If you know of a company with a great culture, you can write about it or a add a link to an article about it on the wiki. No organization is perfect, but we are hoping to provide examples of the good things that companies do in an effort to help other companies adopt these policies where applicable. Also, investors may be interested in learning about companies with great cultures.
Greener Beer
Greener Beer: Who makes the greenest beer of them all? The Sierra club shares some insight (March 19, 2008).
Green Washing
Greenwashing Index is the home of the world’s first online interactive forum that allows consumers to evaluate real advertisements making environmental claims. “Going green” has become mainstream for businesses large and small — and that’s a good thing. What’s not so great is when businesses make environmental marketing claims that can be misleading. The intent of this Web site is to:
- Help consumers become more savvy about evaluating environmental marketing claims of advertisers
- Hold businesses accountable to their environmental marketing claims
- Stimulate the market and demand for sustainable business practices that truly reduce the impact on the environment.
Investment Risks Related to Labor and Human Rights (LHR)
A RiskMetrics report (April 7, 2008) found that a fifth of all large cap companies have codes addressing their suppliers’ compliance with labor standards.
Microlending
Kiva allows you to make a loan as small as $25 directly to an entrepreneur in Africa. How cool is that! Why make a loan instead of a donation? Well, maybe you'll be more likely to keep giving loans as compared to donations.
Networking
GreenBusiness.net is a fee-based message board that allows green-minded business folks to network and generally help each other succeed.
Open Source Free Software
Open source free software isn't a business model in itself, but it encourages business models of directly helping people rather than developing or acquiring special access to a resource and charging for that– the difference between working for a living and living off others work, which is what you ultimately are doing even if you are the founder of a large corporation (which most executives and stockholders are not). Not surprisingly, many in the open source free software world are interested in doing good, see Drupal for Good.
BenjaminM (Disclosure: I work in an open source web development collective, Agaric Design)
Product Labeling and Certification Programs
According to an article, Fair Prices for Farmers: Simple Idea, Complex Reality in the New York Times (March 19, 2006), "As many as 137 food labels, from "salmon safe" to "ozone friendly," try to appeal to socially conscious consumers. Let's list and explain those labels on this wiki! Plus we can cover labels for products other than food. The following UK-based web site provides explanations of a number of labels in a non-wiki format.
Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) "is a non-profit organization devoted to encouraging the responsible management of the world’s forests. FSC sets high standards that ensure forestry is practiced in an environmentally responsible, socially beneficial, and economically viable way. Landowners and companies that sell timber or forest products seek certification as a way to verify to consumers that they have practiced forestry consistent with FSC standards."
Recycling
Recycle Bank pays some Philadelphia residents to recycle, and guess what? The residents recycle a lot more when they get paid! Not that that's the way it should be, but it is what the NY Times reports (February 21, 2006).
Social Entrepreneurship
Here is a big, bold conception of social entrepreneurship. "The job of a social entrepreneur is to recognize when a part of society is stuck and to provide new ways to get it unstuck. He or she finds what is not working and solves the problem by changing the system, spreading the solution and persuading entire societies to take new leaps. Social entrepreneurs are not content just to give a fish or teach how to fish. They will not rest until they have revolutionized the fishing industry." -- Ashoka Foundation
Bill Gates Issues Call For Kinder Capitalism (JANUARY 24, 2008) "Free enterprise has been good to Bill Gates. But today, the Microsoft Corp. chairman will call for a revision of capitalism. In a speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, the software tycoon plans to call for a "creative capitalism" that uses market forces to address poor-country needs that he feels are being ignored."
KickStart The tools to end poverty. KickStart is a non-profit organization that develops and markets new technologies in Africa. These low-cost technologies are bought by local entrepreneurs and used to establish highly profitable new small businesses. They create new jobs and wealth, enabling the poor to climb out of their poverty forever.
Sustainable Investing
Sustainable Investing, also known as: socially responsible investing (SRI) or Ethical Investing, refers to the practice of reflecting one's values in their investment choices. This typically includes one or a combination of the following strategies:
- Screening a portfolio of investments is akin to filtering. There are two distinct methods.
- Negative Screening refers to filtering out the "bad guys", or refusing to profit or participate in a company who's products or practices do not align with your values. You can create a list of companies that are involved in issue areas that you don't want to support (such as tobacco,alcohol, gambling, weapons manufacturers, etc.). This list is called a "do not buy" list.
- Positive Screening refers to the practice of favoring the "good guys", or investing more in companies who's products or practices align with your values. For example, an investor may own shares of several automobile manufacturers as part of a portfolio but may favor, or invest more in, Toyota because of their leadership in bringing hybrid cars to market.
- Advocacy
- Advocacy refers to exercising one's rights as a shareholder to influence a company. Shareholders of a corporation have certain rights, such as the right to bring a resolution to the board of directors, or to vote on certain issues. Historically, advocacy has taken to form of a group of significant shareholders organizing to bring a resolution to the board. Resolutions rarely, if ever, "force" a company to do something. However, they are reasonably successful bringing issues to the attention of the board and in raising public relations concerns, such that, in many cases the company will become active in addressing the issue.
- There are debates about the usefulness of advocacy vs. screening. For example, some say that refusing to own a company, or negative screening, does little to influence the company, and that the alternative strategy of activist ownership may have a greater impact on change.
- Community
- Community investing refers to allocating a portion of a portfolio to small businesses, entrepreneurs, and non-profits. This "bottom of the pyramid" investing assures capital is available to small players. Community investing takes many forms and may be local or global. Micro Finance is synonym for community investing. Many community investments offer less that market rates of return, but they are considered by many to be have the greatest social benefit.
- Links
- The Social Investment Forum is "a national nonprofit membership organization promoting the concept, practice and growth of socially responsible investing. They have a wealth of resources on this topic."
- Ceres The Ceres coalition of investor groups, environmental organizations and investment funds engages directly with companies on environmental and social issues. Ceres companies seek to attain long-term business value and to improve management quality through stakeholder engagement, public disclosure and performance improvements.
- Investor Network on Climate Risk "is a network of institutional investors and financial institutions dedicated to promoting better understanding of the financial risks and investment opportunities posed by climate change.'
- Sustainable Endowments Institute is engaged in research and education on the sustainability of higher education endowments.
Sustainable Palm Oil
Unilever Makes Sustainable Palm Oil Pledge to buy 100% sustainable palm oil by 2105 (01 May 2008). "Greenpeace welcomed Unilever's call for a halt to rainforest destruction in Indonesia which it said was wiping out orangutans and devastating the climate. The destruction of Indonesia's peatland rainforests contributes about four per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions."
