SOCIETY

Community Development

National Grid supports Indian schooling

An education centre for underprivileged girls has been opened in Pune, near Mumbai, by National Grid, Britain’s biggest utility company, […]

TriplePundit

March 23, 2007

Community Development

Asian Development Bank backs enterprise

A grant of $1million (£520,000) has been promised by the Asian Development Bank’s Japan Fund for Poverty Reduction to improve […]

TriplePundit

March 23, 2007

Community Development

Mining company hits back over Philippines claims

One of the main mining companies operating in the Philippines has rejected trenchant allegations made in an international report that […]

TriplePundit

March 23, 2007

Community Development

Indian local government office goes down SA8000 route

A local government office in the Medak district of Andhra Pradesh State, India, has gained SA8000 certification, the standard that […]

TriplePundit

March 23, 2007

Community Development

Factory closes after Disney withdrawal

A Chinese factory where the manufacture of Disney products stopped after complaints about working conditions has now closed with the […]

TriplePundit

March 23, 2007

Community Development

Afghan company wins plaudits

Special recognition for excellence in corporate philanthropy has been paid to Roshan, Afghanistan’s leading telecoms operator, and the Aga Khan […]

TriplePundit

March 23, 2007

Community Development

From the Professor of Management, Politics and Philosophy at the Copenhagen Business School

Corporate Social Responsibility as a ‘business tool’ Thank you for sending me a copy of your new publication Ethical Performance […]

TriplePundit

March 7, 2007

Community Development

Delivering skills

Text books will tell you that the middle of a merger is not the best time to launch any major […]

TriplePundit

March 6, 2007

Community Development

Staying ahead of the game

It’s not immediately apparent what the world of electricity cables and gas pipes has to do with human rights. Yet […]

TriplePundit

March 6, 2007

Community Development

Making CSR pay

Traditional staff bonus schemes have usually paid employees in relation to their company’s financial results. But how would it be […]

TriplePundit

March 6, 2007

Community Development

Working together

Farah Shirwa came to Britain in 2000, fleeing civil war and oppression in Somalia and determined to create a better […]

TriplePundit

March 6, 2007

Community Development

Taking a holistic view

Imagine, for a moment, a company that is the world’s biggest supplier of a product for which demand is steadily […]

TriplePundit

March 6, 2007

Community Development

Building a new approach

A smiling Christine Tona beams out from the front cover of British Land’s employee newsletter. An events manager at Broadgate […]

TriplePundit

March 6, 2007

Community Development

Danone asks shareholders to back social fund

The French food group Danone is to invite its shareholders to use their dividends to create a business development fund […]

TriplePundit

February 28, 2007

Community Development

Bringing audits in-house is not the answer to supply chain woes

Reading the latest report on ethical trade auditing from the Ethical Trade Initiative (see analysis) companies might be forgiven for […]

TriplePundit

February 28, 2007

Community Development

Investors press Securities and Exchange Commission on pay

Institutional investors have urged the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to allow shareholder advisory votes on executive remuneration. Thirteen […]

TriplePundit

February 28, 2007

Community Development

Food firms are falling short

No leading food company has yet produced a comprehensive social responsibility programme on health and obesity, according to a new […]

TriplePundit

February 28, 2007

Community Development

Big names follow Nike lead on China labour reform plans

More multinationals have broken ranks with their industry associations by backing Chinese labour law reforms largely opposed by the associations. […]

TriplePundit

February 28, 2007

Community Development

Make more use of KPIs, reporters are told

Britain’s insurance industry has asked businesses to improve the quality of their disclosures through greater use of key performance indicators […]

TriplePundit

February 28, 2007

Community Development

‘high impact’ companies move into FTSE’s sights

Companies with a relatively heavy impact on climate change have been given just under a year to meet strict new […]

TriplePundit

February 28, 2007

Community Development

Swedish pension funds present a united research front

Four of Sweden’s state pension funds are to pool their research resources to assess the social and environmental performance of […]

TriplePundit

February 28, 2007

Community Development

Future of CSR Academy hangs in the balance

The UK government looks set to offload or even abandon its flagship corporate responsibility organization, the CSR Academy, which has […]

TriplePundit

February 28, 2007

Community Development

Blood Diamonds

Warner Brothers film.Cert: 15. 143 mins. dir: Edward Zwick Senior executives in the diamond industry will be mightily relieved that […]

TriplePundit

February 28, 2007

Community Development

Bank makes conscious effort to avoid ‘SRI’

A leading ethical bank is trying to distinguish itself from the socially responsible investment herd by eschewing the terms ‘SRI’ […]

TriplePundit

February 28, 2007

Community Development

Tyre firms look at their risk factors

The world’s ten main tyre manufacturers are to collaborate on a research programme to assess the social, health and environmental […]

TriplePundit

February 28, 2007

Community Development

Levi Strauss resigns over living wage spat

Levi Strauss has left the Ethical Trading Initiative after refusing to adopt the ‘living wage’ provision of the ETI’s base […]

TriplePundit

February 28, 2007

Community Development

Suppliers give support to end of nit-picking era

A ‘progressive’ new ethical supply chain monitoring regime that allows auditors to overlook minor legal infringements in order to concentrate […]

TriplePundit

February 28, 2007

Community Development

New coalition to draw up climate change metrics

Leading climate change organizations are to create what they hope will be a generally accepted framework for climate risk-related reporting […]

TriplePundit

February 28, 2007

Community Development

Businesses blast ‘ineffective’ social auditing firms

Companies have been urged to stop using third party social auditing firms to do their ethical supply chain monitoring because […]

TriplePundit

February 28, 2007

Community Development

Good government is about more than just regulation

Politicians have a role to play in CSR that extends far beyond introducing regulation, says Eric Biel In discussions on […]

TriplePundit

February 28, 2007

Community Development

CSR reports condemned for being short-termist

Too many companies take a short-term view in their annual CSR statements, according to the judges of this year’s UK […]

TriplePundit

February 28, 2007

Community Development

Beleaguered Siemens opts to quit Sudan

A second European engineering company has decided to quit the troubled African state of Sudan for humanitarian reasons. Siemens, Europe’s […]

TriplePundit

February 28, 2007

Community Development

Marketing execs urged to climb aboard CSR train

Marketing executives are being urged to take much greater account of corporate responsibility. The marketing specialists’ professional body, the Chartered […]

TriplePundit

February 28, 2007

Community Development

Ethical trade auditing: money for old rope?

Companies are starting to complain that supply chain auditors are failing to drive improvements. EP looks at a sobering assessment […]

TriplePundit

February 28, 2007

Community Development

Sustainable investment fund tops performance charts

SRI supporters celebrated a landmark last month when an SRI fund became the UK’s top-performing unit trust for the first […]

TriplePundit

February 28, 2007

Community Development

Paper reports get new life as web shows limitations

Signs are emerging that printed non-financial reports are making a comeback after a period of company experimentation with web-only publication. […]

TriplePundit

February 28, 2007

Community Development

Cambodia project under fire

Tensions appear to be rising in Cambodia over a five-year-old programme to improve working conditions in garment factories. The Better […]

TriplePundit

February 28, 2007

Community Development

Bank loans threat to irresponsible companies

Companies with poor environmental records in China now risk being rejected for bank loans. Banks are to adopt a more […]

TriplePundit

February 21, 2007

Community Development

Chinese politician puts down CSR marker

Further signs that the Chinese authorities are beginning to get to grips with the CSR agenda have come from a […]

TriplePundit

February 21, 2007

Community Development

Illegal plantations supply big coffee firms

Some of the world’s largest coffee companies have been unwittingly sourcing beans from illegal plantations inside an Indonesian wildlife sanctuary, […]

TriplePundit

February 21, 2007

Community Development

Japanese sustainability course proves popular

More than 100 students have enrolled on a lecture programme started by the non-governmental organization Japan for Sustainability. The programme, […]

TriplePundit

February 21, 2007

Community Development

Domini moves into Asia

Two socially responsible investment vehicles newly set up by Domini Social Investments are believed to be the first US-based ethical […]

TriplePundit

February 21, 2007

Community Development

ASB takes responsible investment line

ASB Community Trust, Australasia’s biggest philanthropic body, is to use the ten principles of the United Nations Global Compact as […]

TriplePundit

February 21, 2007

Community Development

Telstra supports disadvantaged children

Grants worth Aus$1.8million (£723,000) over three years have been announced by the Telstra Foundation, a children’s aid group set up […]

TriplePundit

February 21, 2007

Community Development

Daewoo and Kogas get warning on Burmese project

Companies working on the Burmese Shwe project to develop a huge natural gas field in the Gulf of Bengal have […]

TriplePundit

February 21, 2007

Community Development

China to train business leaders in ethics

Senior officials of the Chinese government and administrators from the country’s leading business schools have combined to create a far-reaching […]

TriplePundit

February 21, 2007

Community Development

Deloitte sets up safe water project

A 12-month corporate-backed programme to bring safe water to neglected communities will target Bangladesh, China, India and countries in sub-Saharan […]

TriplePundit

February 21, 2007

Community Development

SRI initiatives ready to join forces

The administrators of the Principles for Responsible Investment and the Enhanced Analytics Initiative have announced a ‘formal alignment’ which will […]

TriplePundit

February 5, 2007

Community Development

Engineering firm leaves Sudan – for time being

The Swiss multinational engineering group ABB is halting its work in Sudan because of the country’s increasing political and social […]

TriplePundit

February 5, 2007

Community Development

Heat: how to stop the planet burning

George Monbiot. Allen Lane. 278 pages. Hardback. £17.99 How do you like your gurus? I like mine well informed, brilliantly […]

TriplePundit

February 5, 2007

Community Development

Sainsbury's and Waitrose go bananas on Fairtrade

Two of the UK’s biggest supermarket groups are to stock only Fairtrade-certified bananas. In separate announcements, Sainsbury’s said it would […]

TriplePundit

February 5, 2007

Community Development

Burger chain switches to ethical coffee

McDonald’s is to serve ‘ethically sourced’ coffee at all its European outlets. The fast food giant started by switching to […]

TriplePundit

February 5, 2007

Community Development

Fund managers need to move into political arena

Investors must make it clear they require governments to take the lead on global warming, says Rory Sullivan Climate change […]

TriplePundit

February 5, 2007

Community Development

GRI hits back over gripes about world domination

Senior figures at the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) have defended their organization from criticism that it is becoming too commercial […]

TriplePundit

February 5, 2007

Community Development

Advice lines would help in gift dilemmas, firms told

Companies developing socially responsible policies on the acceptance of gifts and hospitality should provide an advice line for employees who […]

TriplePundit

February 5, 2007

Community Development

Firms make new year resolutions on carbon

2007 is already shaping up to become a year of action on climate change for business, with a plethora of […]

TriplePundit

February 5, 2007

Community Development

Private equity is discovering that it too needs a licence to operate

Private equity firms never tire of boasting of the stellar returns their backers enjoy. Gone are the days when private […]

TriplePundit

February 5, 2007

Community Development

Small is beautiful in the world of responsible business

Giants have much to learn from the minnows when it comes to corporate social responsibility, new statistics suggest. An analysis […]

TriplePundit

February 5, 2007

Community Development

Two monitoring bodies move a step closer

A transatlantic alliance has been formed between two organizations involved in ethical workplace monitoring. US-based Social Accountability International (SAI), which […]

TriplePundit

February 5, 2007

Community Development

Toyota shuns CSR scheme

The difficulty of raising international standards in an intensely competitive industry sector has been highlighted by the efforts of a […]

TriplePundit

February 5, 2007

Community Development

Spanish focus on MDGs

Eleven Spanish multinationals have established a campaign to support the United Nations’ millennium development goals, which set targets on issues […]

TriplePundit

February 5, 2007

Community Development

Private equity finds itself in the unwelcome glare of publicity

Private equity’s success has invited greater scrutiny and the sector is now facing demands for disclosure of its record on […]

TriplePundit

February 5, 2007

Community Development

M&S sets the pace in the supermarket sector

Marks & Spencer has produced an ambitious 100-point five-year plan on social and environmental issues that, among other things, aims […]

TriplePundit

February 5, 2007

Community Development

Tories look at new CSR deals

Proposals for government-brokered ‘responsibility deals’ committing companies to CSR measures in return for a lighter regulatory regime are being considered […]

TriplePundit

February 5, 2007

Community Development

OFR may be dead, but reporters are using the guidance

British companies are having so much trouble working out what to put in forward-looking annual business reviews required under last […]

TriplePundit

February 5, 2007

Community Development

Big retailers aim to create standard to suit everyone

A group of multinational retailers is to attempt to develop a single global standard for ethical supply chain management that […]

TriplePundit

February 5, 2007

Community Development

CSR combatants dig in for the battle of Wikipedia

An unlikely conflict has blown up over the phrase ‘corporate social reponsibility’ on the internet reference site Wikipedia. Contributors to […]

TriplePundit

February 5, 2007

Community Development

Loan for Sakhalin II project bites the dust

A high-profile loan sought by the business consortium developing the controversial Sakhalin II oil pipeline in Russia has failed to […]

TriplePundit

February 5, 2007

Community Development

Nike rift with AmCham reveals growing tensions

Nike has taken the unusual step of publicly disagreeing with the American Chamber of Commerce – of which it is […]

TriplePundit

February 5, 2007

Community Development

Analysts witness birth of new SRI approach

A new investment style has emerged during recent months, say two leading analysts. Meg Brown and Mike Tyrrell, sustainable investment […]

TriplePundit

February 5, 2007

Community Development

Another 200 'free-riders' are cast aside by Compact

A further 203 signatories to the United Nations Global Compact have been de-listed for failing to issue an annual report […]

TriplePundit

February 5, 2007

Community Development

Nissan unveils carbon reduction plan

Reduction of carbon dioxide emissions is the main theme of the newly announced Nissan Green Programme 2010, which is intended […]

TriplePundit

January 25, 2007