Results from the “BSR/GlobeScan State of Sustainable Business Poll 2011,” yesterday at the BSR Conference 2011, show that global businesses remain highly committed to sustainability. For the second straight year, more than eight in 10 respondents (84 percent) are optimistic that global businesses will embrace CSR/sustainability as part of their core strategies and operations in the next five years. BSR and GlobeScan surveyed nearly 500 business leaders drawn from BSR’s global network of nearly 300 member companies. ... lees meer

Tijdens de handelsmissie naar Vietnam heeft staatssecretaris Heemskerk een lezing gegeven over MVO op 17 maart jl. ... lees meer

Chucking a few dollars at the pet charity of the chairman’s wife no longer cuts it as corporate philanthropy, if it ever did. Nor does using corporate philanthropy as PR or window dressing to mollify critics, or even roping off a slice of profits to be dispensed for good works. ... lees meer

Corporate social responsibility has great momentum. All the more reason to be aware of its limits How wonderful to think that you can make money and save the planet at the same time. “Doing well by doing good” has become a popular business mantra: the phrase conjures up a Panglossian best-of-all-possible-worlds, the idea that firms can be successful by acting in the broader interests of society as a whole even while they satisfy the narrow interests of shareholders. The noble sentiment will no doubt echo around the Swiss Alps next week as chief executives hobnob with political leaders at the World Economic Forum in Davos. ... lees meer

In een toespraak voor Rotterdamse studenten op 31 oktober 2007 onderstreept minister Bos dat duurzaamheid een onlosmakelijk deel vormt van economie. ... lees meer

About one in every ten dollars of assets under management in the U.S. – an estimated $2.3 trillion out of $24 trillion – is being invested in companies that rate highly on some measure of social responsibility. That’s a $2.3 trillion wager that socially responsible companies will outperform companies that don’t engage a wide array of stakeholders, from shareholders and customers to employees and activists, in an ongoing conversation about what can be done better. Which is why Fortune, for the second year in a row, is ranking the world’s largest companies according to how well they conform to socially responsible business practices. ... lees meer

Europe’s social affairs commissioner and a British environmental leader clashed Friday over whether the European Union is succeeding in its push for more social and ecological accountability among big corporations. The exchange at a Prague conference for lawyers, business and public officials underscored a widening gap between defenders and critics of the “corporate social responsibility” (CSR) system launched in 2000 at the EU’s Lisbon summit. ... lees meer

Public relations used to be about simple events and publicity, but not anymore. Companies need much more than that. This is the era of corporate reputation management, media and crisis training, employee engagement, catalyst communications and corporate social responsibility plus sophisticated IT-driven media thinking. Very few public relations firms can perform all those functions with maximum effect. ... lees meer

UNILEVER’S office in the swanky TM Towers has the look and feel of an aggressive corporation with its computer chip-activated doors, glass panels, and other ultra-modern fittings. But managing director (foods retail) Bernadette Wake’s room departs from all that décor; her door being a gallery of heartfelt and colourful drawings by her eight-year-old son James while family photographs line the tables and walls. ... lees meer

Closing statement by Agnes van Ardenne-van der Hoeven, Minister for Development Cooperation. CEO Breakfast with Stuart Hart on “Base of the Pyramid”, 14 April 2005, ABN AMRO Headquarters Amsterdam. ... lees meer