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| Brands & Sustainability Saying / Doing Both Matter to Stakeholders We think the Sustainable Brands annual conference is one of the “must attend” gatherings of sustainability managers and service providers. This year’s theme was “How Now,” with focus on “how” companies can support, strengthen and innovate their brands [for sustainability] – “now!” (This was the organizations’ 15th annual conference.) Outstanding experts in branding and related fields share their wisdom and experience. The focus of this week’s Top Story, as originally published on the Huff Post platform, is: Sustainability is not what your brand says/it is what it does. Author Karen Monson, Senior Director of Global Citizenship and Sustainability at pharma company Janssen, shares her perspectives on the conference. She focuses on a graphic used by author Denise Hohn – “A Brand is What You Do and How You Do It” and expands on the theme. Janssen, she explains, explores new ways to address sustainability for people, planet and its business. Partnering as a “big company” with smaller, emerging healthcare companies, Janssen encourages these incubating entities to innovate. Janssen also invests in the local communities. Conferences like those staged by Sustainable Brands, she writes, helps her to learn about best practices, trends, and provide inspiration. But returning to the home office, she observes, you have to take action on purpose-driven issues…a brand is about what you do / not what you say. And she asks, what does your brand do? This is an insightful article worth reading. Our view: The brand is the logo, in ancient Greek language, meaning the “sign,”, the “word,” what goes before us to market and represent the values of our enterprise, to remind prospects and customers of the trust in our product or service, and the brand is an important part of motivating people (to follow, to buy, to be loyal to the brand). More and more, as we see in our extensive monitoring and analysis of volumes of corporate sustainability reports each month, the sustainability journey [of the business enterprise] is an important foundation for strengthening, protecting and projecting brand trust and brand value. It is the sustainability “doing” as well as the “saying” (disclosure and reporting) that matters to stakeholders. The doing and saying go hand-in-hand, in our opinion. If the doing does not match the saying, serious dissonance occurs – undermining brand value. What say you? Top Story of the Week Sustainability Isn’t What Your Brand Says; It’s What It Does
Sustainability in Focus Sustainability Offers Opportunities. Procurement Should Grab Them City releases final Greenworks progress report on sustainability plan Today’s buzzword: Sustainability Sustainability Initiatives Can Drive Corporate Revenue Growth and Innovation Latin America Has Uneven Record on Environmental Sustainability Isn’t sustainability your job? Why it’s time to be nice at work Is the energy system really ready for sustainable energy? Business Leaders State Sustainability Reporting is a Process That Drives Positive Change Enhancing investor engagement: why engage investors around sustainability? Geothermal heat below West Antarctic ice ‘SURPRISINGLY high’ Crude drops after Iran deal hit, hit oil stocks Justice Department warns food companies: Poison customers, risk prosecution What it will take for social finance to take off Gloom and Doom Not a Good Strategy for Climate Change Advocates Asset Managers,US Pension Funds, ESG Gaining Traction Among Pensions and Wealth Funds Public Employee Pension Funds Prepare for Year of Crappy Returns 5 Challenges for Socially Responsible Investing: BNY Mellon
Watching the Watchers Headquarters: New York, NY ESG/Sustainability Focus: Yes, focused on sustainability and global sourcing OVERVIEW/MISSION BACKGROUND STRUCTURE METHODOLOGIES / OPERATIONS Offering an open forum for discussing “social, economic and political effects of global sourcing arrangements.” The openness and collaborative aspects of GSC’s activity enables it to draw diverse discussants from around the world and develop ideas about best practices. GSC hosts speakers, conferences, and Webinars, and makes annual 3S Awards, recognizing sustainable and socially responsible sourcing. Engaging multinational companies “to establish strategic, harmonized outsourcing relationships with the various countries’ trade organizations.” Publishing newsletters and disseminating other information about global sourcing. GSC maintains an online Knowledge Center with links to publications about sourcing and related issues. GSC also plans to offer a certification program aiming to “provide tools for implementing principle of socially responsible sourcing (SRS) and to bring social responsibility into the core of outsourcing profession.” News Sweeps EQHO Globalization and Digital Divide Data Join Forces with New Multilingual Desktop Publishing Partnership Sourcing Matters: Becoming More Intentional About Your Business Spend John Magee
| Check It Out… G&A Institute Sustainability Update™Informative, insightful, thought provoking The Governance & Accountability Instituteblog focusing on the sustainable world evolving daily before our eyes. Read it, absorb it, question it and challenge.G&A’s Sustainability Update™ Insights & perspectives for your sustainable journey… RECENT POSTS Are Unilever, Nike, Wal-Mart, GE, and Many More Companies Really “Sustainable Multinationals?” Interview With John H Streur of Calvert Sustainable Products & Services — Growing Demand Driving Revenue Growth — That’s MONEY! An Important “Flash Report” About the S&P 500® Companies and Their Bedrock Sustainability Reporting… _______________________________ Sustainability & Corporate Responsibility Reporting G&A Institute is the Global Reporting
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_______________________________ _______________________________ Corporate ESG Performance Factors are important to financial analysts, asset owners and managers, and many stakeholders. The ESG framework or approach considers environmental issues and impacts, the company’s positioning and actions on social/societal issues, and important aspects of corporate governance. ESG key performance indicators are considered by investors as proxies for effective governance and management. Increasing numbers of of independent research and financial analysis firms monitor and measure these and advisie investors. The Sustainability HQ™ platform is an important profiling and monitoring resource for the G&A team, and for our clients and subscribers. ESG market players and corporate reputation influencers are profiled and monitored by G&A Institute. In these Highlights we provide some results of our continuous global scanning for ESG, sustainability and corporate responsibility news. The Associated Profiles indicated are in our Sustainability HQ™ platforms. For more information, please email us at info@sustainabilityhq.com
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Like us on Facebook| SustainabilityHQ Highlights is prepared by the Governance & Accountability Institute, Inc. based on continuous monitoring of trends and developments in Sustainability and ESG. Click here for more information on the Governance & Accountability Institute’s SustainabilityHQ resources. The SustainabilityHQ™ platform is available by subscription. Governance & Accountability Instiute is the “Sustainability Headquarters™” for clients in the corporate, investment, public and social sectors. Based in New York, G&A is a for-profit consulting organization providing a range of value-added strategies, services and resources related to ESG & sustainability to clients in the corporate and capital markets communities. The G&A services portfolio includes: SustainabilityHQ™ is managed and published by Governance & Accountability Institute, Inc. |
