When participating in a seminar on partnerships sponsored by the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences, I noticed that people were using the terms “network”, “partnership” and “organization” inter-changeably.  This created a lot of confusion.  Consequently I developed the table below to help distinguish between the concepts and identify important implications for organizing.

Others may use the terms differently. Some may consider what are here referred to as “partnerships” as what I mean when I write “network”.  Partnerships are defined as task oriented – they have a relatively limited and well-defined objective such as producing a report or constructing a water system.  The main rationale behind them is to coordinate activities, resources and skills.  There are perhaps as many as a couple of dozen participants – a small enough number for people (or organizational representatives) to know each other and coordinate activities.  They are organized on a hub and spoke model, with a central coordinating committee or organization of some sort.

In contrast are inter-organizational networks that may have thousands of participating organizations and tens of thousands of people from those organizations participating – many more than can possibly know each other.  They come together because they are participants in a system that they want to move in a certain direction – they want to create greater “coherence” between their activities.  For example, the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) wants to move all stakeholders in the “forest and forest-product system” in a direction that supports sustainable forestry practices.  This includes forest companies, manufacturers of forest products, retailers of those products, environmentalists, the forest communities, consumers, financiers and others.

But the FSC’s success is not dependent upon its ability to engage every stakeholder organization as a participant.  In fact, building upon the “tipping point” theory popularized by Malcom Gladwell, FSC probably can achieve its goal with only a minority of stakeholder organizations participating.  Its goal is to influence the whole system by engaging enough stakeholders so that it can change the rules of the system and the way it operates.  The “system” is very diffuse, and does not have any particular organizing focus although many organizations would be sub-network nodes, such as commercial timber company associations.

Of course FSC doesn’t have any formal power to enforce the rules (standards), but as adoption of them grows organizations that don’t follow them will find themselves locked out of some opportunities such as access to some customers.  (Over 50% of forestry products consumed in the UK are now FSC certified.)

One important complication is that big networks like Global Action Networks (GANs) are inter-organizational networks, but they have many “partnerships” within them working on particular projects.  For example, the Global Water Partnership has local partnerships working on a particular water basin.  But a GAN also is an “organization” in the form of what is usually referred to as a Secretariat.  This central node has staff and a reporting structure that is no different from other traditional hierarchies.  Larger GANs also have similar regional “organizational” nodes.

This usually is confusing for GANs.  They must be networks, partnerships and organizations.  They must understand which is doing what, and why;  they must be able to apply the appropriate “organizing logic” in each situation.  They must be excellent at managing Secretariat staff, at coordinating partner projects, and creating coherence for the network as a whole.

You may also be interested in a book that was produced by the Dutch symposium: Partnerships, Governance And Sustainable Development:  Reflections on Theory and Practice.  The Chapter co-authored by me and Sanjeev Khagram is available here.

From an early age, most of us learned the value of switching off the lights when leaving a room, turning off the water faucet, keeping the refrigerator door tightly closed and walking instead of driving short distances. At Kraft Foods, “greener” office buildings are reinforcing these childhood lessons, making it easier for employees to reduce their environmental impact.

“Sustainability is an important part of our business strategy, and we want our workplaces to be a constant visible reminder to our employees,” said Steve Yucknut, Vice President, Sustainability. “Our greener offices are inspiring employees to think and act differently at work. And together, we’re changing behavior and getting results.”

Around the world, Kraft Foods has done the basics – reducing its office buildings’ environmental impact by installing motion-activated lighting and more efficient plumbing fixtures. The company is doing even more by adapting buildings so employees can work more sustainably and be more flexible, productive and mobile. With wireless tools to work at home, on the road or with a customer without being “at the office,” people use less energy in commuting, and there’s less need for office space.

Below are several success stories from Kraft Foods’ offices around the world:

UNITED STATES: Kraft Foods’ Northfield headquarters recently became ENERGY STAR qualified by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. It is in the top 8 percent of commercial buildings in the country for energy efficiency and uses 33 percent less energy than similar commercial buildings. As a result, it’s less expensive to operate and emits fewer greenhouse gases than its peers. The campus is surrounded by green space and walking trails for employees, and three lakes on site capture rainwater for reuse to handle half of the property’s irrigation needs. The building is even cooled by ice – recycled water is frozen at night, and fans circulate the cool air the ice generates.

AUSTRALIA: In Melbourne, the company’s new office is a more space- and energy-efficient location that’s strategically located to be walking distance to public transportation and hotels. The office has on-site facilities to encourage employees to bike to work – like bicycle parking, showers, changing rooms and lockers. It even has a rainwater collection system and graywater plant to recycle wastewater for on-site uses like landscape irrigation. The National Australian Built Environment Rating System gave the office 4.5 out of 5 stars by for its environmental performance.

BRAZIL: Kraft Foods’ Curitiba headquarters reduced its energy consumption nearly 10 percent in 2009 with creative ideas like shutting down some elevators in the evening and using “team cleaning” schedules to minimize lighting use after business hours.

Source

CSRwire

Full article

800×600 Normal 0 false false false EN-GB X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 CSRwire

CGAP, an independent microfinance center based at the World Bank, today announced a new partnership with the UK Department for International Development (DFID) to expand ongoing global efforts to use information and communication technologies (ICT), especially mobile phones, to increase access to basic financial services for the poor. In addition to a 2006 grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and CGAP funding, DFID will provide GBP 8 million to the CGAP Technology Program.

“Giving people access to financial services can help them lift themselves out of poverty. I am therefore pleased that the DFID-supported Technology Program at CGAP will work to improve poor people’s access to financial services such as payments, savings, loans, and insurance. The Program will also support the delivery of social protection payments in developing countries and make the transfer of international remittances cheaper and safer,” said UK Minister for Development Gareth Thomas.

Today’s announcement builds on more than six years of work on mobile banking and access to finance. In that time, CGAP has provided financing and technical advice to projects with more than a dozen providers in Asia, Africa, and Latin America to develop innovative banking solutions, and conducted in-depth policy assessments of 13 countries. CGAP has also published a series of white papers focusing on business models, client needs, and regulatory conditions, which can be accessed at http://www.cgap.org/technology.

“The idea that a mobile phone could replace a bank branch has gone from concept to reality at an amazing pace. Now with support from DFID and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, it’s time to get beyond the early excitement of the past few years and shift into the build-out stage for mobile money so that millions of poor people everywhere get access to formal financial services,” said Stephen Rasmussen, manager of the CGAP Technology Program.

Communication technologies such as point of sale devices and ATMs, but also notably mobile phones, are increasingly connecting poor people to the financial grid. With CGAP technical support and Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation funding, CGAP’s project partners in India, Mongolia, Pakistan and the Philippines have created the world’s first mobile phone-enabled savings accounts aimed at reaching poor, unbanked people.

“Savings is a highly neglected financial service available to the poor, and despite what most people may think, the poor do need a safe place to save money,” said Amolo Ng’weno, deputy director at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. “Mobile phones and other front-end technology solutions can bring low-cost financial services to poor people, giving them opportunities to build financial security and improve their lives.”

Source

CSRwire

Full article

Solazyme, a renewable oil and bioproducts company, has inked a research and development deal with Unilever to develop an algae-based oil that can be used in its soaps and other personal care products. This follows a year-long collaboration between the two companies that yielded successful tests of renewable algal oils in Unilever product formulations.

The two companies are developing a process to incorporate targeted algal oils into personal care products with a focus on producing the oil and biomaterials in standard fermentation facilities on a commercial scale.

Unilever is also looking at next-generation sources of renewable oil for use in its other products.

The company says looking at new sources of alternative natural oil is an important part of its sustainable sourcing strategy.

Unilever also pledged last year to exclusively use palm oil certified by the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil for its beauty products by 2015.

At the Copenhagen conference in December last year, Solazyme demonstrated its 100-percent algae-based fuel for vehicles.

Source

Environmental Leader

Full article

Lennar and KB Home, two prominent national home builders, have launched energy and water-efficient home lines that they are marketing as “green,” reports EcoHome Magazine.

Lennar’s launch of its energy-efficient PowerSmart line is designed to save up to 40 percent on energy use. The homes are built to Energy Star for Homes standards and the Environments for Living Certified Green standard.

KB Home, meanwhile, is certifying all its Northern California home communities to GreenPoint Rated standards, which is a third-party certification program from Build It Green, a green building program.

The GreenPoint rating is said to be broader and more stringent than California’s Title 24.

The rating encompasses efficiency in energy consumption, carbon dioxide emissions and water use.

KB Home is installing Energy Star appliances, energy efficient HVAC systems, water-conserving irrigation and home foundations that utilize recycled content.

KB’s PowerSmart homes will come with a DOE EnergySmart home scale rating to illustrate the efficiency of the home and the savings impact on the electric bill.

The green building sector could get a shot in the arm as legions of Baby Boomers ease into retirement. While survey respondents indicate a desire for more green homes, there is a disconnect between desire and willingness to pay.

About 37 percent of potential buyers said they wanted an “environmentally friendly” home but just 12 percent said they would pay extra for one, according to the survey “55+ Housing: Builders, Buyers, and Beyond.”

Source

Environmental Leader

Full article

eBay has launched two green initiatives aimed at positioning itself as a conservationist in the eyes of consumers. The online marketplace has unveiled a new green shopping hub that will help consumers find millions of green products, and launched its eBay Green Team Challenge that commits the online giant to save up to a quarter of a million acres of rainforest for consumers who reuse.

Starbucks also has a new marketing effort that will generate funds for rainforest preservation.

For the first 250,000 people that pledge to reuse on eBay, the company, in collaboration with Team Earth, will protect an acre of rainforest in their name.

Green products sold at the new green shopping site can be pre-owned, vintage or refurbished; made from sustainable materials or energy or other resource saving products. In 2008, eBay launched its first green marketplace for shoppers of environmentally friendly and fair-trade goods in partnership with fair-trade company World of Good. It launched its expanded “green team” the following year.

To promote eBay’s new challenge and gain more consumer awareness, eBay is partnering with Hearst Magazines for its month-long “30 Days of Green” program. eBay will run a three-page ad insert in the April issues of all 15 Hearst magazines, reaching more than 74 million readers.

These ads will feature a variety of eBay products and educate consumers about the green attributes of buying used, along with highlighting eBay’s core sustainability principle that the greenest product is often the one that already exists.

eBay worked with Cooler, a company that specializes in carbon footprint calculations using financial data, to determine the carbon footprint of reusing products found on eBay in comparison with that of comparable items purchased new.

Starbucks also has implemented a program to save more forests. In collaboration with Conservation International, the coffee house chain is launching a new Starbucks Card made with 80 percent post-industrial recycled materials. Starbucks will donate 5 cents to Conservation International to help save forests each time consumers pay with the “Preservation” Card from March 9 to Dec. 31.

Both the eBay and Starbucks campaigns will allow consumers to support the Team Earth challenge to “protect an acre” of rainforest.

Source

Environmental Leader

Full article

A new trend emerging in the bottled water market is bio-plastic bottles made 100 percent from plants, as opposed to the mixed composition bottles that came out in recent years. The latest eco-bottles come from Green Planet Bottling and Keystone Water Company.

Green Planet launched a new water brand in a 100-percent plant-based bottle that is toxin-free and carbon neutral, compared to popular plastic bottles containing petroleum and BPA, according to a press release. They are also reusable, recyclable and compostable in 80 days.

The company says for every 72 plant-based bottles produced, they save one gallon of oil. The bottles also use 65 percent less energy and fuel to produce.

As for the water, it is vapor-distilled for purity and when possible sourced within 500 miles of its destination to lower its environmental impact. Green Planet water is currently available in a 16.9 oz. bottle. One liter and 12 oz. bottles will be introduced this spring.

Similarly, Keystone Water Company unveiled its re:newal premium spring water, which features a 100 percent plant-based bottle and label, nationally at the Green Products Expo in New York City.

The bottles are made from Ingeo plant-based plastic from NatureWorks. The plastic, also known as PLA or polylactide, emits fewer greenhouse gases and uses less energy than other plastic bottles, according to Keystone. It’s also recyclable and compostable.

The company just completed a successful pilot across the state of Florida and the Southeast United States, where the water is sourced and bottled. The company attributes part of the success to the state’s voluntary ‘green lodging’ program to help businesses transition to a more eco-efficient model.

Other companies such as Nestle and PepsiCo are also moving toward renewable plastics but aren’t quite there yet. As an example, Nestle announced several goals in 2008 that call for the development of a bottle with up to 25 percent recycled PET by 2013, and bottles made entirely from recycled materials or renewable materials, such as bioplastics, by 2020. Nestle’s re-source natural spring water is packaged in a bottle made from 25 percent recyclable plastic and is 100 percent recyclable.

PepsiCo continues to reduce the amount of plastics used in its beverage bottles. One of the newest is Aquafina’s half-liter Eco-Fina plastic water bottle that is made with 50 percent less plastic. In 2008, Pepsi cut the amount of plastic used in its 500ml non-carbonated beverage bottles by 20 percent.

Coca-Cola last year began testing its plant-based PET bottle earlier this year on the U.S. West Coast, under the Dasani water brand. The bottle is made from a blend of petroleum-based materials and as much as 30 percent plant-based materials in the U.S.

Since then, Coke’s Plant Bottle has been rolled out to other brands.

Source

Environmental Leader

Full article

As prospects for a U.S. national climate change bill looks less and less promising, five U.S. states and Canadian provinces are moving forward with plans to establish a regional cap-and-trade market in 2012 for reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, reports Reuters. The market would be about a tenth of U.S. emissions.

California, with the eighth-largest economy in the world and plans to cut emissions 30 percent by 2020, New Mexico, and the Canadian provinces of Ontario, British Columbia and Quebec will work together to establish a system that will be about four times larger than the U.S. cap-and-trade system in the Northeast — the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, according to the article.

The Western Climate Initiative initially had more participants but Arizona dropped out and Washington and Montana failed to get necessary legislative approval, reports Reuters.

Business Week is also reporting that the Utah Legislature just passed a resolution to pull out of the Western Climate Initiative. Plus there is some disagreement across the states as to whether cap-and-trade will actually drive job creation and what kind of impact it will have on the economy.

One of the biggest concerns is the price of carbon, reports Reuters.

The Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative is trading carbon at just above $2 per ton, while a 2008 analysis pegged the carbon price at $24 per ton in the western U.S. A revised projection is expected, according to the article.

Source

Environmental Leader

Full article

I don’t think I have ever seen any large financial company boldly step out and say that they value people over profits…but check out USAA’s homepage and you’ll notice this inspirational claim.

In a day & age when public financial companies routinely cut corners & people (though they might even be profitable) in order to meet Wall Street & shareholder expectations, USAA boldly claims that they are a company of, by, & for the people.  In fact, USAA proudly notes that they are not beholden to Wall Street in the “about” section of their homepage; I’ve listed a blurb from the site below:

USAA is not a publicly traded company, so we don’t answer to stockholders - we answer to our members. They rely on us to suggest products and services that meet their financial needs. In fact, some of our best advice costs absolutely nothing.

USAA?  Why haven’t we heard more about these guys?

USAA is a private financial services company headquartered in San Antonio.  They have $119 billion in owned and managed assets and 7.3 Million members.  They are the 23rd largest bank in the US and compete with the likes of Citi, Geico, etc.

In 2008, a year when most financial services companies posted record losses and the S&P 500 Index total return dropped by 37%, USAA earned $423 million in net income and generated positive investment income.

So why hasn’t the American public heard more from the USAA CEO on CNBC over the past couple of tough years?  Here was a financial services company that successfully navigated the crisis by staying focused on people and the military community they serve.  Shouldn’t we have heard more from them?  Shouldn’t they have been held up as a case study in excellence for the all too often greed infested financial services world?

CNBC finally covered USAA and its community focused banking success model last month (Feb 2010).  Click here to see the video where Joe Robles (CEO) says that his company truly puts people first & focuses on building trust in the community it serves.

I’ve been a USAA customer since the early 90s and I have generally had good experiences with the group over the years–until I had to make a couple of claims.  Obviously, insurance companies are not going to satisfy everyone.  USAA will definitely need to ensure their customer service is impeccable going forward as they seek to live up to their people over profits message.

Customer service can be a strategic differentiator and USAA is putting their focus squarely on people as they seek to become a shining light in a sector that needs fresh thinking.  So, hopefully the Financial Services 2.0 charge USAA is leading will catch on.  Good luck to USAA & the others out there seeking to create a service that works for real people and the real (not speculative) economy.

Details

• Place: Bloomsbury Hotel, London, UK
• Date: 25-26 May , 2010
• Cost: £999+VAT – early booking discounts apply
• RSVP contact: info@london-business-conferences.co.uk
• More information or registration: www.lca-sustainable-supply-chain-europe.com

Description

A new line-up of CSR and Environment Directors, from leading companies including BASF, BT, CADBURY, SONY ERICSSON, DOLE, TWININGS and UNILEVER will discuss how Life Cycle Analysis can work as part of an overall sustainability strategy.

Day One of the European Summit will look at how to account for impacts throughout the life cycle and creating transparency through standards, while Day Two will look into specific areas of the life cycle and show how companies have been successful in reducing their impacts in those areas.

Benefit also from a dedicated regulatory panel session where European policy-makers and government bodies will outline the future plans on sustainability legislation and their initiatives to harmonize the standards, including the EU Eco-label.

Free webinar March 17.  Visualizing Complexity to Realize Change:  Comparative mapping methods. Click here for more information.

Spied over at CSRwire today was this interesting little video from CNN on the B Corporation phenomenon. For those who haven't run into this before (and we have to admit that included us until recently), B Corporations are, in the words of their inventors, "a new type of corporation which uses the power of business to solve social and environmental problems."

Hmmm, doesn't sound very new to us. Sounds suspiciously like CSR, or maybe social enterprise, or social business as Muhammad Yunus likes to call it. Well yes, in a way B Corporations are pretty much like these existing forms, except there are a couple of new twists. And it's these new features which account for some of the interest - both good and bad - that B Corps are beginning to stir up.

The first big difference is that B-Corporations are certified. As a company. To a single set of standards. Not a ranking. Not a product or site certification. A full company certification. Yes, you heard it right. This is a certification that once and for all seeks to distinguish the good companies from the bad. Or as the B Corporation website puts it, to "distinguish good companies from good marketing" 

Second, and this is where things start to get really interesting, B Corps are required to "amend [their] corporate governing documents to incorporate the interests of employees, community and the environment." Shareholder primacy out. Stakeholder governance in:

"The B Corporation legal framework specifically expands the responsibilities of the corporation to include these stakeholder interests.  By redefining the legal purpose of the company this framework makes it easier for good businesses to make decisions that support their social or environmental missions.  The framework also allows them to attract mission-aligned capital and maintain mission as they grow, scale, and even plan succession.  We believe that by creating B Corporations within existing corporate law we are providing a market-driven solution today for good businesses." This is a novel idea. Working within the legal framework of corporate law to redefine the purpose of a company on an individual basis. So, the logic goes, even if the company draws in outside investment in order to grow, the founding ideals can be institutionalised and protected. Well that's the plan. As far as we know, the legal status hasn't been tested yet in the courts, but with an amended charter, signed off by the board, and approved by shareholders/members/partners, it looks pretty compelling.

B Lab, the nonprofit behind the initiative is lobbying for fuller legal recognition of B Corporations and has pushed for legislative changes in a number of US states, with votes on the proposals coming up sometime this year in several jurisdictions. The purpose is to establish some legal recognition for an enterprise that stands somewhere between a company and a nonprofit. Yes, a social enterprise, if you will.

From our point of view, the initiative is a much needed one - especially in a country like the US which, as with many others, doesn't yet have formal recognition for alternative organizations of this type. B Lab's rating system, though, however good it might be, is bound to have its critics. In our view, it is just too ambitious to try and rank a whole company in this way. A more focused approach that simply started with whether the product or service had a net social benefit would have been better. However, the legal twist is an exciting development for the CSR movement which too often gets bogged down in the shareholder-stakeholder battle. No surprise then that more than 285 US companies acrosss 30 or so industries have already joined the initiative and changed their articles of incorporation or partnership/membership agreement. We'll be watching closely to see how the courts respond. And if you want to hear more about the companies involved, here's another short video from the Little Films group on B Corporations.

Serena Lilly White is the Mining Advocacy Coordinator for Oxfam. In this interview with Dr Wayne Visser, CEO of CSR International, she discusses role and effectiveness of the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises. The interview was conducted at the ACCSR conference on 19 February 2010 in Melbourne, where Serena was a speaker.

We can easily be overwhelmed by the complexity of large networks where there are  many different organizations and people involved. Clearly “seeing” relationships between organizations, people, and key concepts is important for successful network strategies.

To vastly enhance and speed understanding of these relationships, I’ve worked with various forms of “mapping”.  Network maps are diagrams of lines or arrows (representing connections) and nodes (representing individuals, organizations, ideas) that can visually communicate tremendous amounts of information much more easily than volumes of text.  Here are some approaches I’ve found useful:

Web crawls

This approach maps and analyzes relationships between URLs.  This gives a picture of how organizations and issues are connected virtually that is increasingly important in any strategy.  Since URLs are usually associated with organizations, crawls quickly identify organizations working in a particular issue system.  The crawls maps links on one web-site to another webs-site.

Example: Working with a tool developed at the University of Amsterdam, we did crawls to identify networks in the global finance system for the Global Finance Initiative in order to identify key organizations and people to develop a change strategy.  Map 1 is of NGOs engaged in the global finance debate;  it suggests that surprisingly they do not have well defined relationships with perhaps the most influential players in global finance, including the Bank for International Settlements and the Financial Stability Board.

Map 1:  Web Crawl

(Click on map to enlarge view.)

Social/Organizational/Inter-Organizational network analysis (SNA/ONA/IONA)

This is classic social network analysis applied specifically to understanding relationships within and between organizations. The existence and relative importance of relationship, connections or communication flows between individuals and organizations is described by these approaches.

Example: When the Global Reporting Initiative considered its strategy for developing a South African network, we used social network analysis.  This produced Map 2, which shows distinct groups of organizations.  This emphasizes the importance of weaving the groups together, and the value of working with organizations that are well-connected in the groups.  Another product was a guide on how to initiate a network.

Map 2:  Inter-Organizational Social Network Analysis

(Click on map to enlarge view.)

Value Network Analysis (VNA)

Key roles and value outputs in an issue system are defined through VNA, helping to shift stakeholder mindset toward a network perspective beyond their usual organizational or institutional focus.   This approach has been developed by Verna Allee. It is available for immediate access and applied use at http://valuenetworks.com/.

Example: When the European Commission wanted to understand how to enhance the process of innovation, we applied VNA using the ValueNetworks.com application to produce a report with four archetypes (models) for moving from an academic idea to a product for a consumer, with important policy implications.  Verna emphasizes the importance of including both contracted tangible exchanges such as money, and intangible ones such as information.  This is illustrated in Map 3

Map 3:  VNA map of innovation

(Dashed lines are intangibles, solid lines are tangibles.  Click on map to enlarge.)

Strategic Clarity Mapping (SCM)

SCM generates a mutual understanding among diverse players’ of their respective strategies to address an issue – including their mental models about change strategies.  This approach has been developed by Jim Ritchie-Dunham of the Institute for Strategic Clarity.

Example: When CARE in Guatemala pondered the increasing poverty, despite its best efforts for many years, we used SCM to change the strategic relationships of CARE, and shift it from project-level to system-level strategies (from building wells to creating a system to build wells).  Map development is documented in a learning history I wrote.

Another examples is with Youth Employment and Sustainability (YES), a Global Action Network.  Institute for Strategic Clarity Vice President Luz Maria Puente worked with YES’ Latin American region, to support the region’s and the sub-countries planning.  It revealed both distinctions between the countries’ strategies to help them learn from one another, and identified weaknesses and strengths of their strategies.  Map 4 shows how Chile and Mexico develop entrepreneurial skills, so young people can start their own business, by providing them support through an incubator system.  This work with YES is described in a Working Paper just published today.

Map 4:  SCM Complex view of poverty

(Click on the map to enlarge.)

A key contribution of these mapping approaches is their ability to generate strategic discussions.  People can see links that they can question, and discuss how to strengthen them in a very strategic manner.  They identify key leverage points — points that will help “move” the entire system because of their connections to other points.

Web crawls are definitely the easiest to undertake.  SNA and VNA and SCM in particular are best developed collaboratively with system participants.  With this approach, even the SCM insights and outputs are well understood.  You can find a paper comparing these methods here. And join me for a free webinar March 17 to further explore these methods;  you can find more webinar information here.

Content

• M&S Product Portfolio to be 100% ‘Eco’, ‘Ethical’ by 2020 (Environmental Leader)
• Asda, Tesco, Sainsbury’s to Cut Packaging Carbon Footprint 10% by 2012 (Environmental Leader)
• With dcarbon8, Deloitte Angles for Environmental Expertise (Environmental Leader)
• South Africa Struggles to ‘Green’ World Cup Venues (Environmental Leader)
• Wal-Mart Pushes Energy Efficiency on Chinese Suppliers (Environmental Leader)
• 3bl TV: The First CSR Web Video Channel Now Live (SustainabilityForum)
• The Running Shoe Leading the Race to Sustainability (GreenBiz)

Download

CSRI News Digest (Week 1, March 2010)

About CSRI News Digest

This Digest is prepared by CSR International as a free service to its subscribed members, with articles selected from variety of sources, including CSRwire and SustainabilityForum.com. The Digest should not be reproduced or forwarded without the permission of CSR International. The views expressed in this Digest in no way reflect those of CSR International, nor does CSR International endorse or vouch for the quality or accuracy of any third party research included. For more information on CSR International, membership or the Digests, please go to www.csrinternational.org or email info@csrinternational.org.

If you get the chance, check out Hello Rewind.   This young group takes old T-shirts and turns them into cool laptop sleeves.

After my house was recently broken into, I had an incentive to throw all the rest of my old stuff out (what was left of it anyway).  In the process, I realized that I had a lot of old T-shirts that had sentimental value…but were on their “last legs.”  So, why not turn them into something like a laptop bag?

Fast Forward a couple of years

I really like the T-Shirt Art recycling idea.  Admittedly, I already have a functional laptop cover, but I could think of loads of ideas for old T-shirt products.  I’m hoping that Hello Rewind gets some traction & then moves beyond Laptop bags.

And a good cause embedded as well…

Hello Rewind is working to employ victims of sex crimes in the production of the laptop bags.  The team works with women formerly sex trafficked in New York City so they can learn new skills and support themselves.

By purchasing a Hello Rewind laptop sleeve, you help sustain their mission.  So, if you are in the market for a laptop bag, check these guys out!

Related articles by Zemanta

• Hello Rewind transforms old shirts into swank laptop sleeves, helps humanity (engadget.com)
• your old van halen t-shirt gets a new life and gives new hope to women… (modernest.wordpress.com)
• Company Transforms Your Old T-Shirts Into Laptop Sleeves [Custom] (gizmodo.com)

I was pleased to see my friends James Gifford and Nandita Das have been selected as Young Global Leaders by the World Economic Forum. I’m not sure if they asked them first, but as the Forum is networking nirvana, I presume they’ll consider attending the party. Five years ago I wrote about James as an example of the kind of the leader that we need to achieve a systemic transformation of economy and society. “The transcending leaders of today are not necessarily charismatic figures in positions of institutional authority. There is often a mistaken assumption that leadership is about being a boss. Today’s transcending leaders are those who cross boundaries to influence society for the better, and operate at all levels of organisation or none. When I think of people who exhibit these qualities, I do not think of senior people within the United Nations system, with which much of my recent work has been. Instead I think of people like James Gifford, who came to the UN as an intern and quietly developed a responsible investment initiative that is helping shift trillions of dollars of assets behind the sustainability transition.” [http://www.lifeworth.com/2005review/introduction.html]

I only met Nandita last year, but was inspired by her approach to life, where she spends as much time on social work as acting or director. James and Nandita can seem quite different, as one runs an investor initiative and the other is an actress/director and social-worker. But those are just labels. One similarity is that they are both following their passion for what’s important to do, as part of being true to who they are, and not bothering about traditional career paths. Most of us are too scared to focus our working lives on what we perceive is most important, and our most creative response to that awareness. We might start out with that hope, but end up trapped in a rut of churning out the crap that’s expected of us, whether its corporate reports that skirt around the issues, top-tier journal articles that no one reads, or new fashion items that embody nothing of real meaning. The list could go on – it all arises from people wanting to see external signs of ’success’, status and, really, subservience to a world of lives half-lived.

Having said all that, a few of the other Young Global Leaders appear like mid-career corporate lackeys, who haven’t shown outstanding creative service to humankind. Could it be that the corporate sponsors of this programme get some of their key staff into the networking-nirvana and build relationships with the true greats of our time? There has to be some sort of corporate kick-back, as it is the WEF. Nevertheless, congratulations James and Nandita.

Here’s an interview I recently did with James, which looks at what he’s been doing, and how it came about. I also asked him about leadership.

[vimeo]http://www.vimeo.com/9670817[/vimeo]

Details

• Place:London, UK
• Date: 29 April 2010
• Time: 09:30-18:30
• Cost: £40 academics; £60 public/nonprofit sector; £80 business
• RSVP contact: Stuart Sanford Brunel Business School, Stuart.Sanford@brunel.ac.uk
• More information or registration: Website

Description

The symposium is calling for creative approaches to address previous criticisms of cross sector social partnerships centred on the global social good. It invites insights from both academics and practitioners in order to bridge the previously fragmented literatures in a number of disciplines such as management, political science, public administration, non-profit management and sociology within both theory and practice.

Recently, I had the good fortune to spend some time with Shanaka Fernando*, founder of the Melbourne based restaurant chain, Lentil As Anything. Shanaka is one of those rare pioneers who are prepared to live by their convictions, flaunt social convention and challenge the status quo.

After a failed stint as a Buddhist monk in his home country of Sri Lanka (he fell in love with a nun, had a torrid affair and got kicked out), he came to Australia and dabbled in law studies. It wasn’t fulfilling, so he gave it up to travel on a shoestring around the third world for six years, learning about culture and community along the way. When he returned to Australia, Shanaka started a business importing saris made from recycled fabrics, which made him enough money to start his current social experiment – Lentil As Anything.

I call it a social experiment, because the business goes beyond simply being a social enterprise. Like other social businesses, Lentil As Anything embraces the entrepreneurial spirit while it “seeks to have a significant, positive influence on the development of the community”. But there is something more unique, more challenging, more sublime and more subversive – because it gets to the heart of human nature and the essence of Western capitalism. I am talking about generosity and money.

Through Lentil As Anything, Shanaka is trying to foster a culture of generosity. What would happen, he wondered, if there were no prices? What if people only paid what they could afford, or what they thought the food was worth, or what they were inspired to pay? Is there enough generosity left in Western society to run a viable business on the principle of giving and sharing, rather than profit maximisation? Would the ‘free rider’ problem kick in, with people taking advantage of the ‘free’ food?

According to Shanaka, all kinds of interesting things happen when people are faced with ‘the magic box’ – the treasure chest that people can place their donations in as they leave. A few (very, very few) take advantage. Some, who genuinely can’t afford to pay, offer to chop vegetables or do dishes. Others make their own assessment of what is a fair price to pay. Some are quietly generous, while others make a theatrical gesture of placing their donation in the magic box.

But it goes beyond the money. Other unexpected things happen too. As you look around, you notice that this is not a ‘people like me’ experience, where you are surrounded by those from your own socio-economic or ethno-cultural strata. Lentil  has succeeded in mixed it up, cutting across traditional divides. And because of the philosophy of the place, you may find a wealthy businessman striking up a conversation with a subsistence artist.

When you create these kind of creative connections, it is a potent recipe for innovation, for rediscovering what it means to be human. Shanaka insists that Lentil is first and foremost about good food (interestingly, vegetarian food, because that is the most inclusive, making concerns about halal or kosher or meat-based preparation irrelevant). But it is clearly more than that. It is an invitation to restore our faith in the essential goodness of humanity and the wholesome nature of community.

What, you may ask, has all this to do with CSR? Well, I believe it is entrepreneurs like Shanaka that are at the forefront of the CSR 2.0 wave. If we subject Lentil to the 5 tests of CSR 2.0, it scores well: 1) Is Lentil creative? (yes), 2) is it scalable (not sure), 3) is it responsive (extremely), 4) is it glocal (yes, it thinks globally but acts locally), and 5) is it circular (mostly, yes, local production and recycling are part of the philosophy and practice).

Even on scalability, Lentil gave me pause to think about what I mean by that. If we accept the ‘Long Tail‘ approach to scalability (popularised by Chris Anderson), Lentil doesn’t have to go from 4 to 40,000 restaurants to be scalable. It could be that 10,000 independent restaurants – inspired by a similar philosophy – pop up all around the world and turn the generosity experiment into a global movement.

As the world recovers from the Age of Greed that culminated in the global financial crisis, it is refreshing to be reminded of the rightful place of money in society. Money is always a means to an end; never the end in itself. Melbourne – and indeed the world – would be a poorer place if brave experiments like Lentil As Anything were allowed to fail**. Let us make sure that, in the battle of generosity versus money, generosity wins hands down.

* You can listen to Shanaka tell his own story in this brief video interview that I conducted with him.

** You can find details on how to make a donation to Lentil As Anything are on their website.