On a recent in-flight experience, the airline’s CEO started off the safety video by saying in smoothly scripted terms that his company wants to make every passenger’s experience enjoyable and safe. Really? We had just stood in the jetway as “excess” carry on baggage was rerouted to be checked, after having waited at the gate as “an excess” of passengers were asked to forgo their seats in return for a voucher due to overbooking. These are admittedly First World problems, but they’re not enjoyable. Does the CEO know …

Here’s the crux of the sustainability dilemma: What researchers and nonprofits deem “important” to the long-term health of companies doesn’t coincide with information that investors consider “material.” That’s how one investment professional described the current “epic battle” to our company, SustainAbility, in an interview for the latest edition of our “Rate the Raters” research, The Investor View.

There’s a wide gap between what investors say is important and what they do with their money. For example, more than 1,000 investors, managing more than $30 trillion in assets, have signed on to the United Nations’ Principles for Responsible Investment….

I am perplexed by the fuss about integrated reporting. It seems obvious that a company ought to effectively measure and communicate aspects of its business that matter to key stakeholders, and to do it in a cohesive manner.

Why it wasn’t done well in the first place is a discussion for another time and place, but here we are in 2012 knowing what’s at stake if we don’t take into account the impact we have on current and future generations’ ability to thrive. Surely we are ready to move …

When we wrapped up phase four of Rate the Raters in July 2011, we expressed our desire to further understand how ratings were creating value for and being used by companies, investors and other key stakeholders. Throughout our research, we’ve heard a good deal from companies about the pain caused by ratings, and so we were keen to ascertain how much (if any) of this pain is worth it. We thus set off in phase five to explore this question of value, and spoke with individuals responsible for ratings at nearly 30 companies in the process….

In 2001 the International Business Leaders Forum and SustainAbility analyzed the power of corporate boards and identified steps for “mobilizing board leadership to deliver sustainable value to markets and society”. Boards operate with little transparency, so it is hard to tell which, if any, boards adopted those recommendations and the opacity of board activity limits our ability to characterize current good practice. However, it is terribly obvious when boards trip up, and the last decade has been characterized by momentous failures of corporate governance and corporations themselves….

Despite the growing number of corporate leaders that recognize the importance of sustainability as a long-term business imperative, major challenges persist in closing the “execution gap” between strategy and actual performance. Closing this gap will require leaders to …

Before the massive Rio+20 conference in Brazil earlier this month, Chris Coulter of GlobeScan, Dan Hendrix of Interface and I published Icebergs Near Rio? The article explored sustainable development progress since the original 1992 Earth Summit asked whether policymakers would seize the opportunity of the anniversary event to chart a future course capable of accelerating and scaling sustainability in the manner we believe necessary, or, like that fabled and fated ship, risk a Titanic …

Last week, leaders from government, business and civil society gathered in Rio de Janeiro for a United Nations summit—called “Rio+20” because it is now 20 years since the original Earth Summit in Rio—intended to address the slow pace of change on sustainable development and determine the best path forward.

At business side events leading up to the event, executives repeated a refrain: We have the science. We have the …

If you’ve been watching any of the news coming out of the Rio+20 Earth Summit, you would not be blamed for thinking that it will ultimately fail. Many have decried the final Rio outcome document as weak and watered down. Several leaders have spoken out against the final version expressing dismay that it does not offer a more ambitious agenda. United Nations (UN) Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, said in his opening remarks to the general assembly earlier this week, “Let me be frank: …

“You want us to produce one of those corporate socialist reports?!” This incredulous response, from the CEO of a large US conglomerate, may not be the typical reaction that we get from companies (a raised eyebrow is much more common in London), but it does belie a deep-seated misunderstanding about the role and value of sustainability reporting.

In case you’ve not been watching, sustainability reporting has become a sizeable industry. CorporateRegister.com, a consultancy that monitors the global output of reports every year, estimates that in 2011 there were approximately 6600 reports (including corporate responsibility, sustainability, environmental and other similar reports) – up from less than 1000 ten years ago and …

Back in September, I discussed in a blog post the fact that open data was one part of a move for technology to help us become more open, collaborative, participatory, and connected. Open data is but one part of a wider suite of technologies currently being adopted for accountability in the value chain. We discussed these in a recent Engaging Stakeholders webinar featuring Leo Bonanni of Sourcemap. These technologies include RFID, apps, mobiles, and a number of different codes – alphanumeric, barcodes and QR codes. Collectively, this group of technologies …

It is awfully tempting to ignore the Rio+20 Earth Summit.

If you’ve been listening to the echo chamber of low expectations surrounding the summit, you can’t be blamed for doing so. Many companies and even some environmental NGOs are keeping their heads down.

But it’s not in business’ best interest to ignore the summit. We’re in the midst of a tipping of …

In March, a report from the Institute for Local Self Reliance was released, mentioning that Wal-Mart was nowhere near meeting the Big Hairy Audacious Goals (BHAGs) that it had set out in late 2005 – that is, to be 100% powered by renewable energy, create zero waste, and …

I did not think about it before sitting down this evening (January 16, 2012), but to write about leadership on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day is to feel one’s own limitations.

I am Canadian, and as such I am obliged to reflexively protest how different I am from the American cousins among whom I have chosen to live (and marry). But with King there is no protest. He is a sterling example of the inspiration the USA has periodically offered the world …

1. Transitions

In a year that saw an Arab Spring take hold and unseat entrenched autocrats in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya (TBD on Yemen and Syria), the withdrawal of the last American troops from Iraq, a European Union on the brink of transformative change (and potential collapse), a titan of technological (and economic) innovation pass away, and the growing acknowledgement (in the form of the Occupy protests), that the entanglement of the American political and financial system is a Faustian bargain that must be actively fought and protested against, the theme of transition feels all too apt.

So too in the sustainability field, where in a world of seven billion inhabitants and growing, the five most urgent issues on the sustainability agenda are all perceived less urgently than they were in 2009.

I was in Austin last week for a Sustainable Life Media (SLM) double-header. First a meeting of the Sustainable Brands Advisory Board, then the SLM Corporate Members meeting.

Hosted with aplomb by Dell, sessions included a tour of the Dell Social Media Command Center (a fascinating, real-time window into what everyone, everywhere is saying about their Dell experience), and an inspiring visit to the new LEED Gold certified offices of Lance Armstrong’s LIVESTRONG Foundation, with both proving there is more going on in Austin than music, football and great Tex-Mex like Guero’s (though those are fine too, with Guero’s servings proving again that everything is bigger in Texas).

For everything packed into the two days, I left thinking about a presentation by Simon Mainwaring, the best-selling author of We First …

Fast-moving industries involved in the production of consumer goods, food, apparel and precious stones have all come under pressure about the provenance of materials, components and products in their supply chains. Many companies in these sectors have responded by developing mechanisms to assure customers and consumers that products can be traced and sourced with environmental and social considerations in mind. Such traceability has reshaped expectations of corporate accountability and transparency.

Attention is now turning to oil and gas. The sector is already facing a reputational crisis following the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill, the WikiLeaks disclosures and recent events around the Keystone XL oil pipeline and controversy in the UK over the European fuel quality regulation means that it is likely inevitable that there will be growing demand for greater transparency. As in other sectors, traceability will be a key feature of the rising tide…

I recently had the pleasure of participating in the annual workshops of SustainAbility’s Engaging Stakeholders network. The theme for the workshops was “value.” That is, how companies can derive greater business value from their sustainability communications and engagement, and how they can deliver greater value to stakeholders and society via their efforts.

As SustainAbility’s new report, Signed, Sealed… Delivered?, explains, certification marks can help build trust in brands and influence consumer behaviour. But they are not universally successful, for all people, in all circumstances. What alternative approaches can be usefully employed? Business in the Community’s Simon Lee explains the findings from their recent report, Influencing Consumer Behaviour – A Guide for Sustainable Marketing.

Why aren’t people acting?

Trust marks undeniably provide a quick, easy method to communicate a company or product’s sustainability credentials to consumers. Yet…

Labelling has an important role to play in conveying information about sustainability to consumers, but it is by no means a panacea for all the ills of unsustainable consumption. Consumer awareness does not simply equate to consumer action; it must be accompanied by incentives, disincentives and, crucially, the phasing out of products and services that have the greatest impact.

This logic does not only apply to the issue of sustainability. Research consistently points to the need for multi-pronged approaches to changing consumer behaviour in areas such as nutrition, financial services, and pharmaceuticals, to name but a few. All the evidence suggests that point-of-sale information alone is not enough change consumer behaviour.