CSR IN ACADEMIA
11/12/07 NYU Law School’s Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), in the tradition of John Banzhaf of GWU Law School or Bob Gnaizda of Public Advocates, is addressing the privacy issues involved in the Google-Doubleclick merger. Law School Professor Marc Rotenberg spoke on this issue to a packed hall at NYU's Stern School. EPIC opposes the merger on the grounds that the technologies of the two companies when combined will create invasive powers that will erode privacy boundaries.
11/1/07 The Haas School of Business, UC Berkeley was named by executive recruiters surveyed by the Wall Street Journal as No. 2 business school in CSR (after Yale) in 2007. The school as a whole moved up to No. 2 (after the Tuck School at Dartmouth, which won praise for instilling team spirit) from No. 5 in the Wall Street Journal's 2007 overall ranking of MBA programs by the executive recruiters. The full-time Berkeley MBA Program jumped seven places from No. 11 in 2005 to No. 4 in the world in the 2007 Beyond Grey Pinstripes survey, which reviews business schools' abilities to integrate social and environmental management into their teaching and research. The survey was published by the Aspen Institute on October 10.
OCTOBER 2007
10/26/07 Business Goes Green to Protect Rep, Not Help Environment, Says UK Poll, Edie News
10/29/07 GM’s New Spin: Buy a Hummer, Save Humanity, Ad Age
10/29/07 Groups Announce “Dump Soda” Campaign, Center for Science in the Public Interest and Common Dreams
10/29/07 Consumer Groups Shut Out of Congressional Hearings on Deceptive Meat Packaging, Food and Water Watch
10/28/07 The Unnecessary Suicide of the Organic Food Movement, Mallen Baker, Business Respect #115
10/28/07 October Newsletter, Alonovo ("The New Economy")
10/26/07 Business Goes Green to Protect Rep, Not Help Environment, Says UK Poll, Edie News
10/26/07 Princeton Faces Trial over Use of Gift Now Worth $880 Million, NY Times
10/25/07 Cap-and-Trade Bill Second-Rate, LA Times
10/25/07 Overhaul for a Bad [Mining] Law, NY Times
10/25/07 CEOs on Strategy and Social Issues, McKinsey Quarterly (Summary; longer version with free registration)
10/25/07 Cyberfamilias: Marie Antoinette, Is That You? NY Times
10/25/07 BENNY Awards Go to Greening of Harry Potter, Campaign for Safe Cosmestics and No Dirty Gold, Corporate Ethics International
10/24/07 Insurance Industry Faces Weather Risks, Ceres via Social Funds
10/22/07 National Survey Finds Corporate Execs Favor More Govt. Regulation of Business on the Environment, Grant Thornton
10/23/07 Ethics Now a Core Concern of Corporations (column on EIRIS Report), Mallen Baker, Ethical Corporation
10/23/07 Ethics Officers - Positions that Need Power, Ethical Corporation
10/23/07 Designing a Sustainable Future, BSR Conference, San Francisco
10/23/07 U.S., EU, Japan Eye Anti-Counterfeiting Pact, Reuters
10/22/07 Five Easy Ways to Go Organic, New York Times
10/20/07 Dissent on Global Warming, John Stossel, ABC
10/20/07 The Green Tax: Whose Tax Is Being Gored? Fred E. Foldvary, The Progress Report
10/19/07 Study Finds Greener Businesses Outperform Rivals, Business Green
10/17/07 CSR Certificate Program, University of Toronto
10/16/07 BSR Awarded $2 Million Grant to Promote Responsible Competitiveness in Central America
10/16/07 Ethical Sourcing Forum North America 2008
10/16/07 Gap Inc. to Host 1 Megawatt Solar Power System on West Coast Distribution Campus
10/16/07 Virginia Tech Launches Energy Efficiency Partnership to 'Green' Greater Washington DC
10/16/07 John McConnell, Earth Day Founder, Honored, UN Conference
10/16/07 Coca-Cola Wins Golden Peacock Award for CSR Reporting
10/16/07 Companion Systems Certified as a Women's Business Enterprise
10/15/07 SAI 10th Anniversary Conference (11/5), ASRIA
10/15/07 Branding Ingredients, HBS Working Knowledge
10/15/07 Responsible Business Leaders Convene in San Francisco
10/15/07 2007 Solar Decathlon Feature Alcoa Building and Construction Systems' Products
10/15/07 IBM Partners with Grameen Foundation to Expand Its Open Source Microfinance Banking Platform And Help Eradicate Poverty
10/12/07 Who Will be Working on Your Next CSR Report?, Reporting Partners Directory
10/12/07 The Community Reinvestment Act 30 Years Later, Conference in NYC
10/12/07 Sustainable Business Special Report, Financial Times
10/11/07 BSR Expands Women's Health Commitment in Supply Chains at Clinton Global Initiative
10/11/07 NeighborWorks America Encourages Homeowners to Take Energy Conservation Steps
10/11/07 Microfinance Pioneer Launches Boston Seminar Series
10/10/07 Reporting on CSR by Largest Companies in Eastern Europe Improves
10/10/07 William Reilly and Fred Krupp on Private Equity and Environmental Protection, WEC Washington Sustainability Forum
10/10/07 GM Promotes E85 Ethanol Infrastructure in Pittsburgh
10/10/07 Principal Financial Group Named a 2007 "Best" Employer for Working Moms
10/10/07 USAID and World Cocoa Foundation Sign Agreement to Support Education in West African Cocoa Communities
10/10/07 Aspen Institute Releases its Alternative Business School Rankings
10/4/07 Analysis: How Buying Practices Impact Workers' Rights, Just Style
10/1/07 Encouraging Dissent in Decision-Making, Harvard Business School
10/1/07 Sustainable Reporting Survey for Awards, Global Reporting Initiative
| CSR IN ACADEMIA
12/26/07 (Blogspot): NYU Stern School Names Alice Tepper Marlin Its Fifth Citi Distinguished Fellow. Celebrating the fifth anniversary year of the Citi Leadership and Ethics Program, NYU's Stern School of Business has focused on Global Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). Stern describes Alice Tepper Marlin as "one of the true pioneers in the field [who] has been called the 'architect' of CSR." She is the founder and current president of Social Accountability International (SAI), an organization that created the SA8000 workplace standard to address the ethics of supply chains. Alice Tepper Marlin was also the founding president and CEO of the Council on Economic Priorities (CEP), the first organization to research and publish information on corporate ethics for consumers. Its consumer handbook, Shopping for a Better World, sold more than a million copies. (She was astonished at receiving more than 100 congratulatory emails and phone calls when her appointment as Citi Fellow was announced.) More: 12/26/07, Blogspot, CSRNYC, NYU Stern Names Alice Tepper Marlin.
12/26/07 (Blogspot): CSR in Academia, December 2007. Postgraduate CSR Certificate, University of Geneva, Switzerland. The course, in English, starts January 2008, runs six months. It is held monthly from a Thursday evening to a Saturday evening in Geneva, aimed at three groups: (1) company executives who wish to improve and refine their CSR skills; (2) those who wish to enter the CSR field from NGOs, government institutions or international organizations; and (3) postgraduate students who wish to gain knowledge and skills in this area. For syllabus, see course brochure, visit the University of Geneva website or query info@mhcinternational.com. Register by January 7, 2008. Scholarship grants are available under certain conditions. Other stories about Aspen Institute, College Sustainability Survey, University of Toronto Rotman School of Management. 11/26/07 Blogspot, CSRNYC, John Tepper Marlin, CSR in Academia - December.
WORKPLACE
12/26/07 (Blogspot): The Cocoa Verification Board. The Board is a multi-stakeholder body created to validate government surveys of labor in cocoa production. Comment by Rodney North questions whether the chocolate companies are doing enough, fast enough. 12/26/07, Blogspot, CSRNYC, John Tepper Marlin, Cocoa Verification Board - Willy Wonka Cares. Rodney North is author of Child Labor in the Cocoa Industry,
Haas Business School, UC Berkeley, San Francisco. Recent Haas activities: (1) Students manage a socially responsible investment fund, created through a $250,000 gift from a Haas School alumnus and his wife. (2) With an initial $2 million gift from the Dow Chemical Foundation, the Haas School's Center for Responsible Business, with the Berkeley College of Chemistry, is encouraging students to design sustainable products and solutions. (3) This fall, Haas is offering Two New MBA Courses on Social Enterprise and Social Investing. (4) A team of Haas School undergraduate students took first place at the Third Annual Gap Inc. Undergraduate CSR Case Competition. (5) A team of second-year Haas MBA students, attended the 2007 Skoll World Forum on Social Entrepreneurship at Oxford University.
11/12/07 (Blogspot): Laggard Companies. The Ethical Corporation has a comment on laggard companies. I would like to add my own. The focus of much CSR commentary and debate is over the leaders, who are carving out and paying for new levels of compliance with higher standards of environmental care, workplace quality, fair trade or the reporting thereon. Activist groups tend to focus on the leading brands because the media are more interested. If you have a problem with "blood diamonds", for example, go after the leading jewelry companies. This is common sense, because the best-known brands make better headlines. However, there is a danger in the focus remaining solely on the top brands' raising their standards. More: 11/12/07 Blogspot, John Tepper Marlin, Basic Standards for Laggard Companies.
OCTOBER
10/22/07 Blogspot, Using Tech to Grow Givers: DonorsChoose.org (Stern CSR Alumni). If you watched the Colbert Report last week, you know something about DonorsChoose.org, created to foster innovation in public schools and at the same time encourage individual philanthropy for that cause. School teachers submit ideas for experiences and materials that their students need to learn, using a form. The proposals are then put online and anyone can choose to fund a project, using a gift card to a teacher or family member. A former student in the CSR elective course at NYU Stern, Kari Hayden, is now Director of Corporate Partnerships.
10/21/07 Blogspot. Word for the Day: "He Meant Well". Stern requires all MBA students to take a course in professional responsibility and offers electives on CSR and other related topics. Its interdisciplinary Markets, Ethics and Law (MEL) program is responsible for teaching and research on professional responsibility and CSR. The MEL faculty in the fall of 2007 are meeting at weekly or sometimes twice-weekly seminars to strengthen the program's foundations, discussing ethical issues in a business context. The series began with John Stuart Mill's Utilitarianism and moved on to Kant, Rawls, Nozick. A discussion is scheduled of Robert Frank's What Price the Moral High Ground? More: 10/21/07 Blogspot,
10/21/07 Blogspot, SAI 10th Anniv. Conference, Nov. 5 in NYC. Social Accountability International (SAI) will have its 10th anniversary conference on Monday, November 5 at the Harvard Club of New York City. It's not just sentiment that will bring me there. It's a tremendous opportunity to hear stories from around the world from people with a variety of perspectives who share the common goal of improving the quality of their workplaces and the environment. My special regional interest is in Turkey, which will be well represented. ...
10/19/07 Cited on Slate Blog Roundup: "[T]he best hope for calming this crisis," says John Tepper Marlin at the Huffington, is "a combination of a serious effort to contain the Kurdish rebels while joining the U.S. voice with that of the EU, which has also warned Turkey against violating Iraq's territorial integrity. The grave danger is that in the frayed international environment of 2007 Turkey will sooner or later respond to its very real domestic pressures and defy western wishes on the bet that they can continue to get away with going it alone."
10/19/07 Blog on Huffington Post, John Tepper Marlin, Turkey and the Rebel Kurds: Next Move "President Bush's response to the Turkish Parliament's declaration of war against the 3,000+ rebels of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) in oil-rich northern Iraq was muted because the United States needs Turkey. The Kurdish administration in northern Iraq seems unable to control the small number of PKK separatists, while labeling in advance any Turkish forays to strike at PKK camps as a violation of Iraqi sovereignty. Such forays would immensely complicate the war in Iraq and destabilize the region. Turkey's economic needs might give it pause. ..."
10/17/07 Blog on Huffington Post, John Tepper Marlin, The Growing Price of U.S. Debt, "The U.S. public debt is currently $9 trillion. That's an average debt for 303 million U.S. residents of about $30,000, or for 135 million U.S. taxpayers of about $67,000. (The numbers are about six times bigger if we add unreported U.S. liabilities.) This debt is being financed by our children and by the rest of the world..."
9/11/07 Blog on Huffington Post, John Tepper Marlin, Turkey's Economic Straddle. "Turkey's program of straddling its Islamic past and its economic future is being pushed, watched and challenged. It is being pushed by the government and watched by the EU, which Turkey wishes to join, and by its own army. At the same time, Turkey's employers are being challenged by low-wage competition from the country's near neighbors and European buyers concerned about labor conditions. ..."
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