What is sustainability at your company? A laundry list of generic social and environmental initiatives, or a powerful driver of brand goals? Corporate sustainability can be much more than reducing carbon or water footprint. More than LEED and ISO-14001 certification. More than philanthropy and cause marketing… or reduced packaging… or a greener and more accountable [...]
When building a reputation as an ethical company, actions speak louder than words. Yet in most businesses, these actions are happening behind the scenes through employee, philanthropy and supply chain initiatives. If customers can’t see these actions, there’s minimal impact on perceptions, purchase and loyalty. If you want your good intentions and efforts to be [...]
From Financial Times today, a good article on how social responsibility is surviving the downturn. Cost savings and consumer expectations are the drivers that are keeping sustainability and fair trade high on exec’s priority lists. They have worked out how to make it pay. Many of their initiatives help to cut costs or sustain supplies. [...]
Last week I wrote about lessons learned from Liberty Mutual’s focus on responsibility. 24/7 Wall St provides some much better, albeit disappointing, examples in their list of top 10 greenwashers. GE, what on earth are you thinking? I have been searching for good examples of companies that are delivering corporate social opportunity (profitably aligning brand [...]
Whether you sit in marketing, CSR, supply chain, HR or the executive suite, you’re likely doing your part in ensuring your brand “does no evil” and perhaps even is doing some good. You can probably point to a laundry list of company initiatives from employee volunteer programs, fair labor practices, cause marketing, cradle to cradle [...]
