Bonus gem

I've been complaining about sustainability and CSR rankings a lot recently, mostly because they are inherently flawed. But now we get to try this on for size:

Apparently there's an issue in the software used to determine company scores on the Dow Jones Sustainability Index. And get this: it means some companies may have 'inadvertently been allowed' onto the index when they shouldn't have been.

Right. Considering that the DJSI is one of the most powerful determinents of investment strategy in the world, this is not good news. In fact, it's treacherous and nauseating news.

Maybe this can explain Halliburton's newly minted place on the ranking this year?

Gem of the day

Is it too much to ask to have a quiet Friday morning? Apparently, because in my innocuous daily foray into the New York Times about five minutes ago, I got hit with an ad for this .

That's right, this is not a joke. It's 'Paper Because', a new campaign from manufacturing giant Domtar. The corporation is the largest integrated producer of paper in North America, and the second largest in the world. Let me run some of the slogans by you now:

• "Paperbecause..Well-managed FSC certified forests guarantee that future generations will be able to experience nature, not just read about it."
• "Paperbecause...FSC-managed forests also help protect plant species, wildlife, and the increasingly endangered North American manufacturing job."
• "Paperbecause...Well-managed forests give wildlife more private places to populate."

This greenwash is truly extraordinary. In fact, I'd say it's giving Asia Pulp and Paper a run for its money--literally. No further analysis needed, this one speaks for itself.

I'd like to just call your attention to the brand of their primary FSC-certified product line, however:

Domtar EarthChoice^®

Bonus gem

FT Energy Source reports:

"Total’s top table was the place to be sitting at last night’s Oil and Money dinner at the Dorchester Hotel in London."

[um]

Wait! it gets better:

"Delegates kept wandering past to congratulate Andrew Gould (right), the chairman and chief executive of Schlumberger, for being awarded the Petroleum Executive of the Year Award – the first service company to receive this award."

Petroleum Executive of the Year? Can I apply?

"Recipients are chosen through a confidential peer selection process involving CEOs and other senior energy executives."

Yep, sounds about right--selection process based on, in essence, sheer nepotism. I guess I'll sit this one out.

Gem of the day

Candidate for best energy-related headline ever:

"Analysts Unimpressed by Early Lifting of Deepwater Drilling Ban"

Bonus gem

Are you ready for one of the worst CR thought leadership initiatives I've ever seen from a large corporation? Well, you're probably not, but here it is, courtesy of Emerson:

The campaign is titled 'It's Never Been Done Before' with the accompanying slogan 'Consider It Solved'. If that wasn't bad enough to cause you anxiety, fear and despair already, consider it in context. This is an ad which I encountered in Amsterdam airport recently:

"Turn the frigid waters of the North Sea into heat for an entire city with zero global warming impact. It's never been done before. Emerson: Consider It Solved."

Now, the company is pursuing a range of sustainability issues which it frames for this campaign as 'innovation stories'. They all seem decent enough--converting food waste to electricity in the US, reinventing heat pump technology in China.

It doesn't take much insight to notice the imagery Emerson is using in the above ad is total greenwash--a pure mountain scene with no evidence whatsoever.

But what really makes this campaign mind-blowingly destructive is the idea of saying everything is solved. And not just suggesting the problem has been solved--actually instructing public audiences to sit back and relax, because Emerson is at the wheel.

So can I go home and sip an iced tea now, Emerson? Are you on it? Sounds great, thanks.

Gem of the day

So how's it going at the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management in the US? It's a good time to ask, now that the offshore drilling ban has been lifted early.

Michael Bromwich, the new head of the bureau, has an answer for us:

"Mr Bromwich said on Tuesday that BOEM had “job notices out” for additional inspectors and that BOEM had a pending request for more funds for additional resources."

Wow.

Gem of the day

"Go Green, Hezbollah Guerrilla Chief Tells Lebanese" 

 No comment.

Gem of the day

So here's a funny one. Contrast this with the image above--see the issue? Right.

Gem of the day

So apparently in the context of offshore drilling and mining--basically in the major extractive industries overall--forest and natural terrain is referred to as 'overburden'. Yep--a burden on the industry, because it makes the resources harder to get to.

I've been thinking about what it must be like to work on an extremely risky, dangerous venture like an offshore drilling rig, recently. Or even a mine. Or one of the impossibly alienating E.ON coal-fired power stations. This infrastructure is all a relic of rapid industrialisation, designed without humans in mind. In fact, not just designed without them in mind, but specifically with the philosophy that losing a human life, or destroying the planet's natural resources, are both small prices to pay for energy that can fuel human progress.

Well, all I can say is, here's to the next generation of energy.

Gem of the day

Another mind-blowingly stupid move from the US: West Virginia (which, word to the wise, currently has a Democratic governor) sues the Obama administration AND the EPA over new federal rules on mountaintop removal mining. Witness the pallid justification:

“Over the past year and a half, we have been fighting President Obama’s administration’s attempts to destroy our coal industry and way of life in West Virginia,” Manchin said today. “We are asking the court to reverse EPA’s actions before West Virginia’s economy and our mining community face further hardship.”

Another non-environmental wonder

There's no question that everything Hunter S. Thompson ever published was pure genius. Gem after gem after gem. And so, unsurprisingly, now that The Ottowa Citizen has happened upon a 1958 cover letter Thompson wrote to apply for a job at the Vancouver Sun, we can once again revel in the magic of his extraordinarily incisive writing.

"As far as I'm concerned, it's a damned shame that a field as potentially dynamic and vital as journalism should be overrun with dullards, bums, and hacks, hag-ridden with myopia, apathy, and complacence, and generally stuck in a bog of stagnant mediocrity. If this is what you're trying to get The Sun away from, then I think I'd like to work for you."

Gem of the day

There's been plenty of hullabaloo, reflection, fear and loathing recently over the validity of ethical indices/sustainability ratings/CSR rankings/whatever you want to call all those organisations that give us wildly varying measurements of how well companies are doing on sustainability.

And so out of this chaotic buzz come the magical Phase Two results of SustainAbility's project, Rate the Raters. It's an impressive methodology they've undertaken: an inventory of over 100 sustainability ratings and their attributes, accompanied by a survey of over 1000 "sustainability professionals" on their perceptions of rankings.

Their conclusions?

• Of the ratings most prominent today, the vast majority have emerged within the last ten years
• More than 60% of the ratings in the inventory depend wholly or in part on information submitted directly to ratings organizations, thereby rewarding companies with the greatest capacity to respond.

Seriously? That's it? I wrote about these very issues a few weeks back, admittedly with no robust research to back up my claims other than my own subjective perception of how ridiculous rankings have become. But in all seriousness, I expect more from a major project of this scale than conclusions this tepid.

Bonus bonus bonus gem

This won't come as a surprise. Here goes though, it's still a gem:

Shell spent $4 million on lobbying in Q2 of this year alone. On what, might you ask? Ah yes, the usual suspects given the blowout, shall we say, since April: offshore petroleum drilling, clean energy legislation, shale gas drilling, and regulation of transportation fuels.

Let's place this number in context. It's nearly double the $2.57 million the company spent last year--that's right, the entire year, not just one quarter--and the $2.27 million it spent in the first three months of 2010.

Proactive stakeholder engagement or trying to prevent basic legislation that's a necessity to avoid future offshore drilling disasters? I leave it to you to decide. Enjoy.

Bonus bonus gem

Can somebody please explain to me the logic in this gem? Perhaps it's a simple case of the Tuesday doldrums, but I'm at a loss to understand the intellectual path that apparently leads from thinking a tree is disfiguring a man-made creation--a parking lot, no less--to reflecting on the importance of trees in nature. And, wait for it: the bold decision to refer to trees as a 'renewable resource' for the packaging industry. Truly incredible.

"On my way to work every morning, I pass a tree which appears to have suffered a lightning strike, and I admit I have questioned why anyone would leave such a disfigured, “half a tree” standing in an otherwise well manicured empty lot. Then I started to think about how important trees are to the environmental health of our planet as well as what a valuable renewable resource they are for the packaging industry."

Bonus gem

What's wrong with this sentence?

"The successful execution of sustainability strategy at Anglo American positions it among the leaders of the industry."

Gem of the day

Well, the world's first-ever census of marine life has arrived--and it comes with robust media commentary, including this statement describing the “yeti crab” from the Pacific Ocean south of Easter Island:

“It looks like it’s wearing big white mittens that look like they belong in Aspen during ski season,” Mr. Ausubel said.

Gem of the day

Sometimes the introductions to catch-all articles about 'green business' or 'sustainability' deliver unfathomable gems. Here's a good one:

"The challenges to achieving true global sustainability seem more insurmountable as the years roll on."

The actual article is not bad--it makes the case that reporting, in its current shape and form, is pretty much irrelevant and has questionable impact on the sustainability movement. But the author's solution--that most of the answers can be solved if all companies get real-time reporting dashboards--seems like a disingenuously simple remedy to the issue as he frames it:


"The vision of making disclosure on economic, environmental, and social performance as commonplace as financial reporting -- and as relevant to organizational success."

Bonus bonus gem

Brace yourself because this is actually happening. Unrelated to Deepwater Horizon, BP is being separately fined a record-breaking $15 million to resolve federal Clean Air Act violations at its Texas City, Texas, petroleum refinery.

Here's Dudley making the story complete with his assessment of what needs to happen at the company:

"...to rebuild trust in BP -- the trust of our customers, of governments, of our employees and of the world at large."

Bonus gem

Thanks to AccountAbility, now we know the fundamentals of how to map stakeholders. And yes it looks just like that. It's a Microsoft Office dream.

Gem of the day

How many times, when asked about BP's future commitment to renewables, can the company's new CEO say the words 'broadly' and 'long-term'? Quite a few, apparently. Check this out:

“Broadly, I believe the world is going to evolve over time to a lower-carbon energy world,” he said. “You will see BP committed to certain forms of renewable energy. Biofuels is one. We have a wind business in the U.S. that is successful and will continue to grow. Broadly, long term, the world is going to need every kind of energy, particularly with the growth in Asia.”