The world's best thinkers on energy and climate
Corporate Social Responsibility (“CSR”) has been a hot topic for the past few years, with numerous Fortune 500 companies announcing aggressive goals relating to their clean energy usage. To many of these companies, transitioning their energy usage into renewable energy sources plays an integral part in their sustainability goals. … [Read more...]
Increasingly chief financial officers are vital stakeholders in generating greater company value through corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives like clean energy procurement. The material impact that CSR initiatives have on corporate performance has resulted in a sea change. … [Read more...]
Happy New Year! And good riddance to 2011, a year during which we made little or no progress on some of the issues that I care most about: climate change, the long-term federal debt, social mobility (aka the American dream), and our dysfunctional Congress. Yet I remain an optimist. Texas drought 2011 I could write many words about our woes. Instead, I’ll try to be succinct. On the climate issue, global emissions of carbon dioxide from … [Read more...]
Jake Schmidt, International Climate Policy Director, Washington, DC The Australian government has just unveiled details of its new mandatory program to reduce carbon pollution from major polluters. This is another sign that countries are moving forward with actions to address global warming by taking the necessary steps at home to change their laws and policies. Australia previously had committed to reduce their emissions by 5% from … [Read more...]
Here are 10 companies that are putting real dollars behind their sustainability rhetoric: Kohl’s, Whole Foods Market, TD Bank, Swiss Re, Nordea Bank, Adobe Systems, Vestas Wind, News Corp., CLP Holdings and Deutsche Bank. They’re leaders in buying renewable energy, according to a new report from Vestas and Bloomberg New Energy Finance called the Corporate Renewable Energy Index (CREX) 2011. It’s available for download here. Those companies … [Read more...]
Where are you working, right now? If you’re in the office, would you rather be at home? Verizon sent me this infographic on tele-commuting, which the company calls telework: They also sent along this comment from a Verizon worker named Nena Faulkner who is part of their sustainability team. I really appreciate the flexibility that TeleWork provides. On a day that I work remotely, I typically log into the network before I would … [Read more...]
In the past few months I have written quite a bit about carbon pricing, both from the perspective of regions that already have it and are debating its future and regions that don’t but are considering implementation – in some cases in the midst of a political firestorm over the issue. This leads me to the newest publication by the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD), Carbon Pricing – The role of a carbon price as a … [Read more...]
In a speech in Georgetown earlier this week, President Obama restated his goal to cut oil imports by a third by 2025, and laid out a plan to get there: by increasing vehicle carbon pollution and fuel economy standards and expanding domestic drilling. (My colleague Deron Lovaas has pointed out earlier that expanding drilling ain’t gonna work, and the President agrees that “it’s not a long term solution to our energy challenge.”) Raising carbon … [Read more...]
Exelon CEO John Rowe addressed the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, DC, yesterday outlining an economic approach to energy policy for the 112th Congress. Rowe has always been forward-thinking on the issue of a price for carbon and action on climate change -- and his company remains committed to its goal of reducing, offsetting or displacing its entire carbon footprint by 2020. Here is a video of his speech: And here are links … [Read more...]
Amid the pre- and post-election haze here in the U.S and the taking of the World Series by the San Francisco Giants (first since 1954), comes ISO 26000, Guidance on Social Responsibility. This guidance document from the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) integrates international expertise on social responsibility (SR), detailing what it means, what issues organizations need to address to operate in a socially responsible … [Read more...]
Last week the socially responsible investment community equivalent of the Oscars – the annual review of the Dow Jones Sustainability Index (DJSI) was unveiled and for the first time SAP has taken the lead in CSR performance for the software sector. It’s certainly a cause for celebration but maybe it’s more an occasion for Sekt than Cristal. Although the software industry is closing ground, it still lags the technology sector and … [Read more...]
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