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  • Stefan Schmidheiny: sustainability hero or eco-villain?

    andrea 9:39 am on February 17, 2012 | 1 Permalink | Comment


     

    Of all the business leaders linked to environmental disasters, the most unlikely name is Stefan Schmidheiny. Yet this week, he was found guilty by a court in Turin, Italy over 3000 asbestos-related deaths and sentenced in absentia to 16 years’ prison and payment of substantial damages to victims and their families.

     

    The charges relate to his time at the helm of Eternit, at one stage the world’s largest manufacturer of asbestos cement products. He’s accused of failing to comply with safety regulations, “willful failure” to protect employees and residents and concealing knowledge of the hazards of asbestos.

     

    It’s a shocking outcome for the philanthropist, posterchild of the sustainable business movement and founder of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD). Schmidheiny was responsible for taking Eternit asbestos-free – a process that took nearly 20 years.

     

    Based now in Costa Rica, he is expected to appeal the decision. But as business leaders around the world prepare for Rio+20, it’s a timely reminder that what passes for business-as-usual today quickly becomes tomorrow’s environmental crime.

     

    The precautionary approach, always, is by far the wisest strategy.

     

     

     

    • april 6:36 pm on February 17, 2012 Permalink

      This is so strange and interesting – if we are going to pin environmental crimes to business leaders shouldn’t we start with some bigger fry? Did any corporate individuals get sentenced to jail over Bhopal disaster?

  • A slippery slope

    Amy 8:35 pm on February 8, 2012 | 2 Permalink | Comment

    Here in the US, the country is taking some solace from recent news that the economy seems to be rebounding. That would be cause for rejoicing, you’d think, on all accounts. But disturbingly enough, it seems periods of strong economic growth go hand-in-hand with relaxed ethical conduct, according to a report by the US non-profit Ethics Resource Center, which found that improved conditions and reduced focus on cost-cutting measures makes employees less fearful of violating ethics rules. According to the study, over the past two years, 45 percent of U.S. employees observed a violation of the law or ethics at work. Overall, the strength of corporate ethics is at its weakest since 2000, the report said. The percentage of businesses with weak ethical cultures, 42 percent, is at the highest level since 2000, which the ERC attributes to improving national economic conditions. “These are factors that historically indicate that American business may be on the cusp of a large downward shift in ethical conduct,” said ERC President Patricia J. Harned.

    That would seem to be the case in the public sphere, where a Washington Post investigation published Feb 7 found that 33 members of Congress have steered more than $300 million in earmarks and other spending provisions to dozens of public projects that are next to or within about two miles of the lawmakers’ own property, or in other cases, to companies or organizations where a family member was employed. These earmarks are not illegal, but they are not required to be disclosed, and therein lies the slippery slope. As the investigation continues to publish its reports, lawmakers defend their actions as perfectly legitimate, but undisclosed financial conflicts—whether in the private or the public sphere—mark a governance gap much like the one that helped tip the global economy into a financial crisis in 2008.

    The US Congress does seem aware that, in an election year, it’s not a good idea to be seen as weak on ethics. A narrowly tailored ethics bill won broad approval this past week of a more far-reaching reform package , The Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge (STOCK) Act that would impose new conflict-of-interest rules and mandate more transparency for lawmakers. These are changes that were not even considered five years ago when Congress last rewrote its rules with a bill from Sen Harry Reid, the Honest Leadership and Open Government Act of 2007.

    The STOCK Act passed in the Senate by a vote of 96-3. Most significantly the bill, which bans members of Congress from benefiting from insider stock trading, now covers the executive branch, as well, including the requirement that financial disclosure statements are now electronically filed to be available online and that the 30-day notice of stock or securities transactions also apply to a limited number of executive branch officials.

    “This is mass repentance for past sins,” Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (I-Conn.), who managed the floor debate, told The Washington Post.

    When we see evidence that the STOCK Act will have its intended effect, and that ethics can rebound along with the economy,  we’ll be in a better position to grant that forgiveness.

     

     

     

    • Ron Pavellas 4:21 pm on February 9, 2012 Permalink

      First, I don’t care if an organization issuing findings and statistics is not-for-profit or “non-partisan”, I don’t’ accept their assertions without skepticism.

      Second, corruption will diminish in Washington, D.C. in proportion to the diminishment of the money/power it aggregates/expropriates from the people and the individual states. Read (a) Lord Acton and (a) Thomas Jefferson.

      (a) “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men.”

      (b): “When all government, domestic and foreign, in little as in great things, shall be drawn to Washington as the center of all power, it will render powerless the checks provided of one government on another, and will become as venal and oppressive as the government from which we separated.”

    • Amy 6:09 pm on February 9, 2012 Permalink

      Sounds like a page out of the Occupy movement, Ron. Power to the people indeed.

  • Is the WEF's Sustainable Consumption report credible?

    Fran 3:48 pm on January 24, 2012 | 3 Permalink | Comment
    Tags: ecocide, story of stuff, , , WEF

    Last week, The World Economic Forum published a report proposing a leading role for the private sector in scaling sustainable consumption. The document is clever but who, apart from companies, is going to believe it?

    More with Less: Scaling Sustainable Consumption and Resource Efficiency
    does a good job of setting out the challenges and opportunities. It points out that over US$2 trillion in global economic output to 2030 is at stake, and that business-as-usual won’t work in a resource constrained world.

    Business, it says, can play both a leading and an enabling role in scaling sustainable consumption by transforming:
    • Demand through interactions with the consumer
    • Value chains through new business models
    • Rules of the game through public-private partnerships.

    A thrusting and can-do proposal, but one that also suffers from tunnel vision. And without a broader outlook WEF has little chance of wooing partners and building the trust needed to deliver on sustainable consumption goals. The solution? Tackle a few uncomfortable truths head-on:

    1. Credibility. The enormous popularity of Annie Leonard’s critique The Story of Stuff (15 million views and counting) shows that many people see corporates as the perpetrators of unsustainable consumption. So how will businesses persuade consumers, NGOs and governments that they are serious about driving the turnaround?

    2. Laggards. If businesses want a lightly regulated ‘leading and enabling’ role in the transformation to sustainable consumption, they must show how they will manage their own slow-movers and laggards. They are currently way too silent and clubby on this topic. It’s time to break ranks.

    3. Lobbying. Too many companies promote sustainability publicly and then privately lobby governments for short-term economic gain. To be credible, leading companies must fight for sustainable solutions and make loud protests against unsustainable ones. That means standing firm against, for example, irresponsible tar sands exploitation –unanimously condemned as ‘ecocide’ at a mock trial at the UK Supreme Court last year. Are they ready to do that?

    4. More is more. Apart from mentioning Patagonia’s bold ‘don’t buy this jacket’ advert, the report fails to address the idea of how less consumption can be scaled, probably because most companies are just too uncomfortable with the notion. Nothing’s changed then in the 17 years since SustainAbility’s report Who Needs It? triggered similar reactions.

    5. Values. The report’s business case of cost avoidance, cost reduction, revenue growth and revenue protection shows how financial value can be captured in the switch to sustainable consumption. But the values case is absent from the report, even though it urges ‘emotional’ communication with consumers to get them to embrace sustainability. Shame.

     

  • Just 22 Titles To Sustainability?

    april.streeter 4:53 pm on January 11, 2012 | 1 Permalink | Comment

    If you’ve suspected lately that Amazon is the new Wal-Mart, you are not alone. While there are certainly places to live where you are not impacted by a Wal-Mart, those of us living in the world of Web (and these days, who isn’t?) cannot avoid Amazon. Either we buy from them frequently, seldomly, or not at all, but every Google search we do turns up something Amazonian.

    After a long e-mail exchange with colleagues over Amazon’s relative “sustainability” I was left feeling uneasy. A lack of bricks and mortar gives Amazon some real advantages in overall carbon footprint. And while it’s not definitive, conventional sustainability wisdom says driving your car to the mall is a lot less sustainable than having the man or woman in brown drop cardboard boxes on your doorstep.

    A 2009 report by Cleantech determined that the wildly popular and fast-selling Kindle (it’s Amazon top-selling product of all time; one million flew off the warehouse shelves each week in December) is also a greener way to read. If you keep your Kindle, new or old, and download 22 books a year, you are having less of a carbon footprint than those of us that ride our bikes to independent local bookstores to get our reading fix. Or so says Cleantech. It would be nice to see a more updated study that follows people’s real Amazon habits vs. their car trips.

    In any case, why won’t this seemingly green behemoth report to the Carbon Disclosure Project, give us some benchmarks about the Kindle’s footprint, or respond to the F and F+ it has received in 2009 and 2010 on its Green Grades’ report card(for paper use policies) from Dogwood Alliance and Forest Ethic?

    Amazon certainly has green initiatives. Wouldn’t it be nice if when you googled ‘Amazon’ and ‘sustainability’ your first hit was their report detailing future aims and goals?

     

    • Compensation objectives 1:34 pm on February 4, 2012 Permalink

      Being a culture we have been paying attention more on conditioning. Along with residing lengthier, healthier lives, the need for physical rehabilitation along with rehabilitation keeps growing. In …stluczka w uk

  • The Sultan of Spring

    Astrid von Schmeling 8:35 am on January 3, 2012 | 0 Permalink | Comment

    Last year I spent Christmas in Egypt. This year: Oman. Both were scenes of Arab Spring protests last year and are textbook examples of the importance of building a sustainable business climate in times of change. While the youth of Cairo are still protesting at Tahir Square, in Oman, demonstrations petered out almost before they began.

    Unemployment. Inequality. Exhausted by catering to a corrupt system. I could see the desperate need for change in every person I met on the streets of Egypt’s Sharm el Sheijk last year. In Oman last week, the people I spoke to were proud, open and enthusiastic about their benevolent Sultan. On the other hand, they have to be; it’s against the law to be anything but supportive.

    Beyond the not-so-insignificant issue of freedom of speech, the countries are on polar opposites of Arab nations.

    • Egypt is the most populated of Arab nations with 79 million inhabitants; Oman is one of the tiniest, with close to three million.
    • Oman ranks 57th in a 2010 World Bank index of per capita purchasing power while Egypt ranks 127th on the list of 215 countries.
    • On Transparency International’s 2011 Corruption Perceptions Index on public sector, Oman has a rating of 4.3 on a scale of 1-10 (10 ranking as very clean), among the best rankings in the Middle East. Egypt scored 2.9.
    • In Egypt, unemployment among young people was at 25% last year. Omani unemployment rate is 15%, and higher among younger people. The country has a young population – 43% are under the age of 15.
    • Egypt’s gross domestic product will fall from 5% to 1% in 2011. In Oman, on the other hand, it is expected to grow by 3%

    In Spring 2011, 500 Omani protesters demanded more jobs and greater democracy. Sultan Qaboos bin Said recognized the urgency of the problem of disenfranchised youth, and took to heart learnings from neighboring Arab states. He injected money into infrastructure, created 50,000 new jobs, raised stipends for university students by between US $65 and 234 a month and replaced six ministers in a cabinet reshuffle. He freed protesters almost immediately after arresting them at demonstrations. Things have been pretty quiet since.

    The Sultan has also been slowly modernizing the business climate, too, with stronger focus on higher labor standards and anti-corruption measures. The country entered into an agreement with the ILO in 2010, called the Decent Work Country Programme, which covers both the interests of nationals and migrant workers.

    Corruption is perceived as an issue among local businesses. In a survey of Omani businesses published by the ILO in 2011, almost a fifth of those surveyed believe that corruption and bribery strongly affects the performance of Omani firms and only under a third believe the Government is very committed to addressing the problem (p. 73). But small steps have recently been made and the cabinet reshuffle included reorganizing some of the government institutions prone to corruption.

    Some improvements in human rights are visible too. The US State Department reports that in 2010 the Omani government has respected the human rights of its citizens and has established a quasi-independent human rights commission.  Key issues include discrimination of women in the workforce (although there is a law for equal pay for equal work), and cases where migrant workers were forced into labor or abused. Oman is wholly dependent on its ex-pat laborers. In fact, foreign workers constitute at least 50% of the workforce and as much as 80% of the private sector workforce, according to human rights NGO Freedom House.

    I’m not saying that the Sultan of Oman is the poster boy for sustainable business climate–far from it.  But is there something that Egypt can learn from them? Oman’s investment climate will continue to grow in 2012. Meanwhile, in Egypt, the number of tourists was down by a third in 2011. Bankruptcies increased by 26%. The value of securities traded on their Stock Exchange fell by 67%. The number of companies started last year fell by 13%. A major acquisition by Standard Charted of the Egyptian unit of Greek bank Piraeus fell through. If the Egyptian government is not seen to heed the best interests of the people, this trend is bound to continue.

    There is some indication of positive change ahead, though.  HSBC stated in a recent FT article that they are confident political change in north Africa will foreshadow economic renaissance. In the short term, demand for Egyptian labor increased by 10 points year-on-year in November 2011. The number of newly founded companies in December rose 27% compared to November. During the year, Egyptian investments and acquisitions were announced by Intel, Electrolux and US Oil and gas supplier TESCO, despite concerns of the market.

    Like in Oman, anti-corruption measures, public investment and reforms to distribute wealth and human rights more equally among its people will be the linchpin for fulfilling business opportunities in Egypt. Here’s hoping that the winners of the Egyptian elections now ongoing are the same quick learners as Oman’s Sultan Qaboos.

     

     

     

     

     

     

  • Rolling stone

    Fran 11:11 am on December 8, 2011 | 0 Permalink | Comment
    Tags: one_stone, ,

    Ta da! We are delighted to introduce you to One Stone’s new website. It’s up, running and ready for interaction.

    Why not click through to see how we’ve grown up? Our new site has better navigation, rolling updates and accessible information about our offer and inspirations.

    The way we were:

    The new us, an evolution of our stones and circles theme, this time with movement and hidden interest:

    We had fun contributing our own stony pictures to the stie. After all, we take our inspiration from our name. ‘One Stone’ embodies sustainability – a natural resource and humankind’s first tool. With stones you can build, create, connect, communicate. Stones are enduring. They symbolize the planet: the Earth is our stone and we only have one.

    Many thanks to Christine Nelsen, project manager, and the entire One Stone team for developing text and tirelessly contributing comments and ideas. Also designers Rupert Bassett and Alex Bray for bringing life to our new shop window.

     

  • Dancing with Goliath

    Fran 10:33 am on November 18, 2011 | 1 Permalink | Comment
    Tags: creative disruption, Jonathon Porritt, Julie Meyer, ,

    Sometimes it’s simply better to be there in person. Websites, blogs and twitter feeds are efficient, carbon-lite and immediate, but with a topic like creative disruption, real conversation wins hands down. Which is why people who attended Green Strategy 2011 in London on Wednesday were happy they didn’t spend the day answering e-mails.

    Julie Meyer, founder and CEO of Ariadne Capital gave the presentation of the day. Describing her business model where entrepreneurs – the drivers for creative disruption – back new entrepreneurs, she caught our imagination with her focus on market transformation. And as a World Economic Forum Global Leader of Tomorrow she knows a bit about that, having founded, then sold First Tuesday and backed and advised a host of game-changing companies. It’s time, she said, to forget the big/small business dichotomy and for David to dance with Goliath.

    Flickr Creative Commons HikingArtist.com

    Flickr Creative Commons HikingArtist.com

    While Julie propelled the sustainability audience outside it’s comfort zone, Jonathon Porritt provided some rocket fuel for the journey. He praised Marks & Spencer’s Plan A and Renault/Nisssan’s US$ 4 billion electric car bet, but made clear that even they are not doing enough. Businesses, he says, have an urgent obligation to share and drive the sustainability challenge with investors, consumers, politicians and the 1%. Rousing stuff, and something of a conundrum. The power and reach of a progressive commercial sector offers a sustainability motor, but does it have the will to change our fundamentally flawed financial system? Unlikely. So, with Western governments in paralysis it looks like the onus is on NGOs to turn up the volume and for David and Goliath to own the dance floor.

     

  • Anti-Corruption, bribery and gifts – the thin end of the wedge

    andrea 2:23 am on November 11, 2011 | 0 Permalink | Comment


    Two recent events in Sydney bring the importance of good business conduct into much sharper focus, but grey areas remain.

    On Friday 4th November, Global Compact Network Australia held the inaugural meeting of its Anti-Corruption Leadership Group for Business, followed, just days later, by Transparency International Australia’s Expert Panel on Anti-Corruption.

    As well as an overview of Australian Anti-Bribery laws, both events detailed recent developments overseas – in particular the entry into force of the UK Bribery Act on 1st July 2011.

    Described as “the FCPA[1] on steroids”, the UK legislation goes beyond existing anti-corruption regulations to extend the notion of extra-territoriality, introduce as an offence the ‘failure to prevent’ bribery, and prohibit facilitation payments made to obtain business advantage.

    It raises the ethical business bar worldwide and companies wanting to minimize business risk will be aligning their global operating standards and compliance frameworks with it – wherever they’re based.

    What the Act doesn’t do is shed light on perhaps the greyest area of all – the ‘gift’. Whether giving something to a customer or business partner is appropriate all depends on ‘context’. If it’s to thank them for doing business that may be okay, but if they’re about to make a purchasing decision that probably isn’t.

    The giving of gifts is part of our custom. It spreads goodwill, strengthens friendships, builds relationships and shows appreciation. But as any good social scientist knows, the gift also brings obligations – it’s a social transaction with a tacit message: you owe me one. The basic principle of reciprocity means the receiver of a gift is beholden to the giver.

    Does that constitute ‘business advantage’? For now, companies will have to work this out for themselves, as regulations give little guidance here. What’s clear is that wherever there are grey areas, there’s also business risk.

    My recommendation? Find better ways to build relationships – through greater transparency, effective partnerships, shared goals, strong trust and fair business dealings. It’s probably only a matter of time before grey becomes black and white.

     

    [1] The US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act 1977

     

     

  • Environmental impact in 1000 words

    andrea 11:04 am on October 30, 2011 | 2 Permalink | Comment

    A picture’s worth a thousand words. From bauxite  to aluminium, coal to oil, pulp to fertilizer, aerial photographer J Henry Fair takes a bird’s eye view of the environmental footprint our thirst for resources leaves behind. His latest book The Day After Tomorrow: images of our earth in crisis is available here.

    See more at http://www.industrialscars.com/

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

    • christine 1:46 pm on November 10, 2011 Permalink

      It’s hard to admit that destruction can be so beautiful.

    • april 9:24 pm on December 20, 2011 Permalink

      Yeah, but it’s only beautiful when you simply look at colors and shapes – as soon as you realize it’s earth forms and destruction, it looks…well, destructive.

  • The crude crusade

    Astrid von Schmeling 8:44 am on October 25, 2011 | 6 Permalink | Comment

    Canada is on the warpath, and its cause is far from  a noble one. On Sunday, the country warned it will defend its interests if the EU goes through with its Fuel Quality Directive, which essentially rates energy deriving from Canadian oil sands as a highly polluting fuel.

    Is the EU right to direct their attention to Fort McMurray’s tar sands? Absolutely! Average emissions for oil sands extraction are 3.2 to 4.5 times that for conventional crude oil.

    I got the chance to witness Canada’s line of defense firsthand at an event organized by Ethix SRI Advisors and hosted by the Canadian Embassy in Stockholm last week. As Swedbank’s head of SRI investments Anna Nilsson stated there: ”No company can extract oil from tar sands in a sustainable manner,” and has withdrawn their SRI investments from companies that try.

    Very little tar sands oil reaches the EU shores. What is getting the Canadian government’s knickers in a twist is that it claims unfair bias compared to other CO2-intensive crude from Venezuela and California; countries with even lower compliance levels to environmental laws. And they fear this jurisprudence will catch on in other important markets.

    Industry representatives at the Edmonton/Stockholm symposium I attended touted that oil sands mining projects have reduced per barrel GHG emissions intensity by an average of 29% between 1990 and 2009 and are working towards further reductions. But in absolute terms, oil sands emissions have doubled during that same period—and the pace of extraction is increasing exponentially. Energy think-tank Pembina Institute’s Jennifer Grant put it all too well when she said that the industry’s environmental performance is way behind its growth rate and is in a game of never-ending catch-up.

    Canada is responsible for about 2% of global emissions and Alberta’s oil sands contribute about 0.15% of the world’s GHG outputs. So what is the big deal? It’s where we’re heading that is my concern. The country’s oil reserves are second (some say third) in the world behind Saudi Arabia. In China’s quest to quench its thirst for energy, it invested $4.7 billion in Syncrude last year. BP, Shell, Statoil all are all putting their stake in the ground and the Keystone pipeline promises to make the Northern Albertan oil an even more lucrative endeavor.

    Canada’s boontown mentality will muddy their ability to demonstrate leadership in anything connected to climate change for a long time coming. How to redeem their flagging reputation? Two things would be a small start: Commit to an emissions reduction target consistent with a fair Alberta future scenario’s contribution in Durban. Support legislation that is trying to trigger change rather than screaming foul play.

     

    • phiwin 10:48 am on October 26, 2011 Permalink

      Thanks Astrid! You’re highlighting the sort of government-sponsored hypocrisy that is too prevalent and that is fuel for OWS movements.

      One Q – do you recall if Anna Nilsson mentioned whether she thought oil could ever be be extracted sustainably? From any source? Oh yeah – I guess the Beverly Hillbillies did, sort of.

    • Debbie 3:21 pm on October 26, 2011 Permalink

    • mwbrownlie 8:32 pm on October 28, 2011 Permalink

      I’m glad you’re highlighting Canada’s hypocrisy. Ever since Ezra Levant labeled the oilsands “ethical oil” the Canadian government has focused more on where oil is produced and less on how. The Harper government knows where they have their most solid support — Western Canada — and they’ll do nothing to lose it. I can’t see them committing to a reasonable GHG reduction target. Right now, the Alberta and Canadian governments are taking a defensive fortress mentality on all matters oil sands, which does nothing for improving performance.

    • Astrid von Schmeling 9:01 pm on October 28, 2011 Permalink

      Ethical oil? Makes you think. A representative from the Canadian SRI firm NEI, stated that investments in R&D among tar sands companies was disappointingly low. I hope the Canadian government is using the carrot and stick to raise the innovation rate, rather than turning their attention entirely to the defensive fortress mentality you were referring to.

    • Astrid von Schmeling 9:47 pm on October 28, 2011 Permalink

      Interested readers may also want to check the Council of Canadians media release. The Council is an award-winning organization that raises awareness on issues relating to social, economic and environmental justice, and on Monday its release urges the EU Parliament to ignore Canadian lobbying, and protect fuel quality directive from Canada-EU trade deal.

      Check out the link here.

    • Maulana 9:21 pm on February 13, 2012 Permalink

      It isn’t cpeaher and producers now will not care if its sustainable, that can only matter when we use up other fuels.

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