Thousands of companies issue sustainability reports each year – but who reads them? What do these readers think of reports? Do reports meet the needs of communities, investors, employees, customers, journalists, and non-governmental organizations? The GRI Readers’ Choice Award was designed to find answers to these questions and give all sustainability report users worldwide a voice on sustainability reporting today. After extensive preparations by the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) and their partners – all leaders in the field – the first world wide online sustainability reporting awards scheme is close to launch. Mark your calendar for 1 October 2007.
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Global sustainable investment specialists EIRIS today published The state of responsible business: Global corporate response to environmental, social and governance (ESG) challenges which provides a snapshot of the state of responsible business around the globe.
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De resultaten van de jaarlijkse review van de Dow Jones Sustainability Indices zijn bekend gemaakt. Voor de Nederlandse ondernemingen zijn de wijzingen beperkt: Wolters Kluwer is toegevoegd aan de Dow Jones World Sustainability Index. Océ is helaas verwijderd uit de Dow Jones Stoxx Sustainability Index. Akzo Nobel heeft het stokje overgenomen van DSM als “supersector leader” in de Dow Jones World Sustainability Index.
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Brown-Wilson Group’s newest “Black Book of Outsourcing” reports that businesses are including more environmental factors when choosing suppliers.
Companies, shareholders and other stakeholders are asking for suppliers to follow stricter environmental standards. The Brown-Wilson Group, an outsourcing industry consulting firm, finds that corporations are shifting their responsibility for environmental concerns to the supply chain in their “Black Book of Outsourcing: 2007 Green Outsourcer Report.”
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The rapid acceptance of Green products by mainstream consumers has created an unprecedented flood of companies competing to get their “Green” message heard by a growing number of journalists. From biofuels to organic baby food, media outlets are being tasked with explaining and exploring the significance of a variety of subjects related to this movement, all while separating legitimate Green companies and products from “Greenwashing” imposters.
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Eurosif (European Social Investment Forum) publishes today two reports covering social and environmental challenges for companies in the Food Production and Insurance sectors. These are the fourth and fifth such notes in Eurosif’s series of publications aimed at raising awareness among a wide European audience on the nature and understanding of social and environmental issues, as well as related business opportunities potentially affecting long-term returns and productivity within these sectors.
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About 80 percent of the businesses surveyed in seven countries have executed some type of corporate social responsibility (CSR) practice, says a Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) study. In addition, because the importance of CSR has increased over the past few years, SHRM is forming a new special expertise panel on CSR.
The study-2007 Corporate Social Responsibility: A Pilot Study-surveyed HR professionals in Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, India, Mexico and the United States. About 80 percent of HR professionals in those countries said their organizations participated in practices that could be considered socially responsible and that ranged from donating to local charities to monitoring global fair labor standards, the report says.
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While a majority of North American firms in the survey (almost 60 percent) have a documented corporate-level sustainability strategy, just over one-third (36 percent) have adopted a formal sustainability strategy for the supply management organization-a crucial step in ultimately being able to deliver on their sustainability promises.
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Chief information officers are failing to seize the opportunity to play a bigger role in corporate social responsibility initiatives across their organisations, according to new research.
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More than 100 institutions from 51 countries have submitted entries to the 2007 FT Sustainable Banking Awards, run in association with IFC, underlining the program’s role as the leading global awards recognizing best practice in triple bottom line banking.
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This briefing aims to inform NGOs and other civil society
organisations about the ISO Working Group on Social
Responsibility. This Working Group is currently developing
an international standard that will give guidance to
organisations on social responsibility: the ISO 26000
standard. The Working Group initiated its work in 2004 and
is expected to deliver the guidance standard in the second
half of 2009. The authors of this briefing argue that it is still
worthwhile for NGOs and other civil society organisations
to start participating in the development of the standard.
At this stage of the process, there are many possibilities to
influence the drafting of the standard significantly.
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The increase of social and environmental responsibility by business, linked to the principle of corporate accountability, represents an essential element of the European Social Model and of Europe’s strategy for Sustainable Development, according to the European Parliament which adopted an own initiative report by Richard Howitt (PES, UK) on Corporate Social Responsibility.
The report underlines that Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) policies should be promoted on their own merits, neither as a substitute for appropriate regulation in relevant fields, nor as a covert approach to introducing such legislation. Agreeing with the Commission of the term, the EP defines CSR as “the voluntary integration of environmental and social considerations into business operations, over and above legal requirements and contractual obligations” The Commission is called upon to encourage dissemination of good practice resulting from voluntary CSR initiatives and believe that the Commission should also consider establishing a list of criteria for enterprises to respect if they claim to be responsible.
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