2.28.2011

Another non-environmental wonder

NY Times has a gem of an article today describing interactions between the White House trainer, Cornell McClellan, and Obama's staff. Tragic insight into the role he plays:

“Cornell knew better what was going on in the White House than most people who worked in the White House,” said Lawrence H. Summers, who recently left as one of Mr. Obama’s top economic advisers. “Who’s up, who’s down, which way things are moving. Everybody talked to Cornell.”

...and measurable impact:

“As a friend,” Mr. Axelrod said, the president “has always been on my butt about this, and as a result, my butt is a little bit smaller.”

2.25.2011

Bonus bonus gem

In one of those special windows into just how twisted the universe of consumer product development is, this is actually real:

Frito-Lay SunChips Case Study: When Sustainable Packaging Conflicts With Consumers’ Sensory Needs"

Uber-gem.

Bonus gem

Priceless update from the NY Times today on Palin's creepily bloodthirsty wildlife control methods in Alaska:

"Aggressive predator-control policies instituted during the tenure of Sarah Palin, the former governor, remain in place in Alaska and continue to stir controversy there. The baiting, snaring and killing of black and grizzly bears, and the gassing of wolf puppies in their dens with carbon monoxide, were both pushed for by hunting groups and authorized by Ms. Palin before her 2009 resignation."

Gem of the day

The shipping industry has occupied an awkward position in the CSR and corporate sustainability debate over the past decade. Well, here goes nothing for Maersk:

"Maersk Orders 'World's Greenest Container Ship'"

Incremental innovation in its finest hour. The hefty price tag for the 'most energy efficient ship' ever is $190 million, contributing to the ship's energy consumption and carbon output achieving half the industry average. Here's Maersk CEO Eivind Kolding on the context for this effort:

"International trade will continue to play a key role in the development of the global economy, but, for the health of the planet, we must continue to reduce our CO2 emissions."

Really? Is it about reducing CO2 emissions? Or is it about radically rethinking why and how we transport materials and goods around the world? Right.

2.22.2011

Bonus bonus gem

Another gem from the confused world of all things to do with rankings and ratings. This one comes to us courtesy of the Environmental Investment Organisation: The ET UK 100 Carbon Rankings.

The ranking has the objective of "creating public pressure through the spotlight effect" and is "specifically designed to reduce global corporate greenhouse gas emissions"--ah, ambition. So, we're using yet another ranking to make sure corporates are making enough incremental changes to cut their emissions? And we're spotlighting the ones that aren't doing enough? Fine.

But as always, here lieth the gems of the top 10:

  • #6: Imperial Tobacco
  • #10: RBS
Right, the one bank that no one should be investing in. And a tobacco company. Remind me again why this ranking exists?

"The Environmental Investment Organisation (EIO) is an independent non-profit body that seeks to improve the environmental "output" of the financial system."

Bonus gem

Watershed moment for biodiversity awareness? This morning I received my first-ever spam citing the 2010 CBD in Nagoya:

"I am Ruano Manuel, currently working as a Fund Director of Villar Mir Group Espana. An investment that work all the world. However, i received your contact from my wife who attended the International convention on Biological Diversity. I will like to work with you to be able to secure this fund which i have divert from our Russian Investor's Fund since 2007 but now i think the best thing for me is to invest this fund outside Spain and the fund is now with Spanish Central bank clearing House were we deposited the fund as a consignment, through the help of my wife who is working with Spanish Central Bank in Madrid Spain as a (Co-head International Transfer Dept)."

TBD whether the fund is sustainable, though.

Gem of the day

Who wants a slice? No, not pizza.

"East Africa used to be regarded as an oil industry backwater, a poorer relative to the continent’s resource-rich north and west. That’s changed over the past 12 months as majors and independents invest hundreds of millions of dollars in exploration and compete to snap up licences on the continent’s last hydrocarbon frontier."

2.17.2011

Another non-environmental wonder

You have to love the NY Times for publishing an article with this kind of heading:

"As US Agencies Put More Value on a Life, Businesses Fret"

So what kind of numbers are we looking at here? The EPA says it's about $9 million, up from $6.8 million during the Bush era. In the twisted world of the FDA, it's only $7.9 million, up from $5 million ever since they started putting scary cancer pictures on cigarette packages.

Behold the gist of the argument over a million here, a million there:

"Some industry representatives said assigning a value to life was inherently subjective, and that the recent changes were driven by the administration’s pursuit of its regulatory agenda rather than scientific considerations."

vs.

"Several independent experts, however, said that the increases were long overdue, noting that some agencies had been using the same values for more than a decade without adjusting for inflation. One office at the E.P.A. cut the value of life in 2004."

Ah, politics.

2.15.2011

Gem of the day

So Chevron just got hit with an $8.5 billion fine for devastating Ecuador back in the '90s, and unsurprisingly they're not taking it sitting down. In fact, they've already sued the defendents in the case--which has been dragged out for 18 miserable years--claiming fraudulent litigation. Witness their reasoning:

“The Lago Agrio plaintiffs’ lawyers’ aim has been to extort a multibillion-dollar payment from Chevron through fabricated evidence and a campaign to incite public outrage,” said R Hewitt Pate, Chevron general counsel.

Wait--so Chevron is upset because the plaintiffs have been able to mount an effective public campaign to support their views? Hmmm.

2.14.2011

Gem of the day

Average writing about sustainable development like this makes my stomach turn.

"While these consumption-driven economies have created a comfortable lifestyle for many, e.g., allowing citizens to have large homes and time for relaxation and recreation, these economies have also resulted in significant pollution to our surroundings. Thus there is an imbalance in the big picture."

2.11.2011

Gem of the day

The Guardian's article on impending doom for a UK push to cut the EU's emissions 30% by 2020 is an effective barometer of the landscape for all things climate and energy right now. (Not to mention, indicative of how these issues are being covered by the media). Witness:

"Environmental groups strongly supported the higher target, warning that the current goal was too weak to give the world a chance of fighting climate change."

And the counterargument:

"The CBI, the UK employers' organisation, along with its Europe-wide counterparts, said it would jeopardise jobs and growth. Several EU member states including Italy and Poland also oppose the plan."

Poland and Italy, no wonder--the coal-churning capital of the EU and the country that doesn't seem to care about anything related to the environment.

Gee, I wonder which argument proved more compelling for policymakers and business leaders?

2.10.2011

Gem of the day

Lisa Jackson received a thorough grilling in yesterday's House Energy and Commerce sub-committee hearing on the ingeniously titled 'Energy Tax Prevention Act'. Here's a gem from the NY Times' coverage of the shameful debacle:

Another Republican, Representative John Shimkus of Illinois, asked Ms. Jackson whether she believed in the law of supply and demand. Ms. Jackson, who holds a graduate degree in chemical engineering from Princeton University, replied, “I was trained in it.”

Awkward.

2.08.2011

Gem of the day

Another day, another ranking announcement. This time it's from our friends at Covalence, which produces annual ranking called 'EthicalQuote'. In their words, the ranking serves as:

"...a barometer of how multinationals are perceived in the ethical field”

Leaving aside the awkward use of the label 'ethical field'--since when is the way everyone should act, i.e. ethically, a 'field' rather than a standard for behaviour?--and the fact that its website appears to be little more than an empty shell spewing big news, the biggest issue with Covalence is its ranking methodology. Here's how they describe it:

"Inspired by stock quotes, EthicalQuote integrates thousands of positive and negative news items found among media, companies, blogs, NGOs and other online sources. The documents are coded, quantified and synthesized into curves and volumes. It is a barometer of how multinationals are perceived in the ethical field."

Basically, Covalence spends some time Googling the hell out of these big corporations, generating a bunch of random articles, and then weighing how the talking points to see if they have an 'ethical reputation' or not. And their treatment of the vast number of potential sources they could include in this calculation is as follows:

"Covalence does not see some sources as more reliable than others. Any source is considered equally. Covalence does not validate information sources, neither the content of information."

I'm hard-pressed to think of a more useless way to decide whether or not a company is 'perceived' as ethical, let alone whether it actually is acting in an ethical way (which I'm a lot more interested in). First of all, the ideal of an objective treatment of sources is impossible. The way data in itself becomes information is by giving it context and making it subjective in some way--otherwise it's just numbers.

More importantly today, there's an unprecedented wealth of clearly validated sources available on sustainable development. There are reams of consultants. There are increasing numbers of scientists who are good communicators on what should be done and when. Even major campaigning NGOs, such as Greenpeace, that were once loathe to come to the table are producing their own solutions specifically to benefit policymakers and corporates to make decisions on critical issues like deforestation, the future of our oceans, and our global energy supply.


To produce a ranking which gets picked up in the media as a measure of how companies are perceived, without giving any weight to sources which are so obviously available for comment, is not only inane. It's yet another barrier to pushing corporates to actually deliver on what they've committed to doing, let alone what they haven't committed to.


Productions like EthicalQuote aren't worth the paper they're printed on. They shouldn't be printed at all.

Another non-environmental wonder

My favorite headline from the past three days, without a shade of doubt:

"Cheney Defends Mubarak"

No comment.

2.04.2011

Gem of the day

Industry stalwart Greenbiz published their annual State of Green Business Report this week. With a focus on the US, the report usually provides a good overview of how the corporate landscape of sustainability commitments is looking, if not a demanding assessment of what they actually mean. Here's the four corporate commitments they highlighted this year as evidence of progress:
  • Proctor & Gamble made a commitment to power all of their factories with renewable energy within the next ten years;
  • FedEx committed to improve vehicle fuel efficiency by 20 percent by 2020;
  • Walmart pledged to sell $1 billion of fresh produce sourced from 1000 small- and medium-sized farmers;
  • Hasbro promised that 75 percent of its paperboard packaging will come from recycled materials in 2011
The problem is that none of these approach transformational innovation. They all represent laudable ways to do better within their current business models, but just cutting emissions, improving packaging and using renewables ain't gonna cut it in the future given the global challenges we're facing.

2.03.2011

Gem of the day

Whenceforth for the behemoth industry that turns the wheels of CSR reporting? Greenbiz tosses us a gem:

"There are a number of perceived risks for companies putting together CSR reports. One attendee put it succinctly: 'The spouting whale gets harpooned.'"

2.02.2011

Bonus gem

Michael Levi, who writes a great blog on the Council for Foreign Relations, has a must-read post yesterday discussing the new oil industry talking point captured in a NY Times article on energy subsidies. Piloted by our friend Jack Gerard, head of API, it's a direct response to the challenge leveraged on lawmakers by Obama in his SOTU speech last week.
Gerard leads with the patriotic jobs declaration as usual:

"If the president were serious about job creation, he would be working with us to develop American oil and gas by American workers for American consumers."

Yawn. But here's where it gets really awkward:

“The federal government by no stretch of the imagination subsidizes the oil industry. The oil industry subsidizes the federal government at a rate of $95 million a day.”

Wow. As Levi points out, this 'subsidy' is royalties and taxes. By which count, most American authors--well, the successful ones--are also 'subsidizing' the government.

This level of profoundly illogical and misleading arguments leads me to Ken Cohen's latest post on ExxonMobil Perspectives blog which he frames as an opportunity to put the corporations gargantuan earnings in context. Here's his take:

"While much of the coverage focused on the headline earnings of $30 billion, I want to share some other key numbers to help put it in perspective. For example, it cost more than 10 times our earnings – a total of $330 billion – to run our business last year, buying goods and services and employing thousands of people around the world...Here in the United States, our tax expenses were $9.8 billion – nearly two and a half billion dollars more than we made in this country."

If those numbers are actually supposed to mean anything to the average person, we're essentially led to assume that Exxon is going bankrupt in the US because its tax obligations far outweigh its profits. But wait, that's not true.

Ah propaganda, the essence of oil industry communications.

Gem of the day

Chris Blackhurst, a London Evening Standard columnist, offers up nothing less than a Total Davos Smackdown today. The trigger for his extremely well-delivered commentary? This declaration from JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon:

"My interest in the world is not banks, it's making it a better world, a better place for everyone."

Here's a few of the choice responses Blackhurst levels at Dimon [and his peers'] visionary BS:
  • How many of you have appointed directors who, despite the love you declare for hearing opposing views in the thin mountain air at Davos, you know will not challenge you in the distinctly less heady atmosphere of your boardroom?
  • How many of you have told your lawyers to drag out a legal action for as long as possible and to not settle, in the hope that the litigant, who has a solid case, will give up because he or she cannot afford to pursue it?
  •  How many you have lobbied against changes to the law and regulations which are intended to benefit society as a whole, but make your cost of doing business slightly more expensive?

2.01.2011

Bonus gem

Ever wondered what the sustainability vision for a company like Bacardi (yes, the people who make rum) would look like? No, me either. But here it is, courtesy of this year's CSR report:

"Our Purpose at Bacardi is to have Spirit of Life in everything we do."

Right. This winsome statement accompanies their four values--Trust, Caring, Passion and Excellence.

Honestly, sometimes I wonder why companies even bother making grandiose statements and creating pseudo-values that are that generic.

I suspect they were drunk when they made this report.

Gem of the day

In the space of merely two days, two new inter-industry initiatives to promote corporate leadership on sustainability. The Stewardship Action Council (great name, eh?) throws down the gauntlet with what you might deem a fairly ambitious slogan--"Creating a sustainable world"--and is focused around six "work groups" which are intended to help its founding members in their quest of "driving towards excellence." (Considering these include the companies BMW and Michelin, I'll assume for SAC's benefit that this pun is unintentional).

Back at UN headquarters, a competing initiative was unveiled with the flourishing of 54 CEOs: Global Compact LEAD will push a select group of high-performance Compact signatories to follow the UN Blueprint which was unveiled last year (and is designed, literally, on blueprint paper--the UN is so cute sometimes). Here's Global Compact director George Kell on how this new program will complement the existing program:

"[Global Compact LEAD] responds to the critical need for these leaders to scale up their efforts so that we can achieve tangible impact on global challenges."

From a performance--not to mention PR--standpoint, it makes sense to create a more challenging tier for Global Compact signatories (who include every major company and their best friend) to rise to.

But the casual observer can hardly be blamed for questioning why, oh god why, we would need yet another inter-industry platform, initiative or standard in the mix. The world of corporate sustainability efforts is already complex and twisted enough to navigate, from the GRI to GreenXchange to ICLEI to CDP. What we need is more collaboration and more transformational innovation, not more commitments and competing platforms.

So TBD on these two--not to mention TBC.