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The American Credit Downgrade and Accenture’s Sector by Sector Report on Sustainability

06 Saturday Aug 2011

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Last year, Accenture co-produced a report with the United Nations Global Compact titled A New Era of Sustainability: CEO reflections on progress to date, challenges ahead and the impact of the journey toward a sustainable economy. The report focused on examining three main questions with 766 CEOs serving as respondents: 1) Sustainability is changing—how is your company addressing it?; 2) Next step: Taking it from strategy to execution; and 3) What’s ahead: Competing in an era of sustainability.

The BIG finding from the report: 93 percent of 766 CEOs surveyed believe that sustainability will be “important” or “very important” to the future success of their company.

CSR Journalist Aman Singh reports on Accenture's New Era of Sustainability Report

Now, Accenture has produced a followup sector by sector report that offers more clarity — and a wide disparity in this percentage — to the overarching aggregated data by doing a deeper dive by industry.

For example, 100 percent of executives in the automotive and consumer products industries see sustainability as critical to their success but only 68 percent of banking executives see sustainability as “very important” to their future success, and 63 percent reporting that “their company is integrating sustainability ‘much more’ than five years ago.”

As for the communications sector, the percentage of executives seeing sustainability as “very important” to future growth drops to a mere 22 percent.

From Sustainability Strategy to Sustainable Business Practices

As the above-mentioned three questions indicate, however, the 2010 report attempted to be forward-looking in its data. Indicating a wide disconnect between the perceived importance of environmental, social and corporate governance for companies, and how these play in business strategy, the report pointed out that “while the belief in the strategic importance of sustainability issues is widespread among CEOs, executives continue to struggle to approach them as part and parcel of core business strategy.”

The new, follow-up report, adds teeth to this initial observation by showing a disparate practice of sustainable business practices across industries.

While 80 percent of utility industries report embedding sustainability metrics to track performance, 83 percent of CEOs in energy and 81 percent in infrastructure say their “company measures both positive and negative impacts of their activities on sustainability outcomes.”

Is sustainability measurement finally becoming accepted standard practice?

While this aggregated data might indicate so, the reality, according to Accenture’s Managing Director for Sustainability Services for Europe, Middle East, Africa and Latin America Peter Lacy, is that there remain “major gaps remain between CEO ambition and execution.” As evidence, the report offers the automotive industry as an example:

“Ninety-five percent of automotive executives believe that companies should invest in enhanced training of managers to integrate sustainability into strategy and operations, but just 52 percent report that their company already does so.”

Analyzing Sustainability Enthusiasm In a Recession

When Accenture’s New Era of Sustainability report
 came out in June last year, I chose to go with a positive headline. I titled my detailed analysis as “Sustainability Moves from Discretionary Choice to Corporate Priority.”

Today, as we deal with a downgraded credit rating for the country of everyone’s dreams, a recession that might never have ended, and businesses once again returning to cautious growth, that optimism is hard to replicate. Troubled by debate after debate (subjects varied from accountability to Wal-mart, upstream recycling to upcycling, compensation limits, and much more) during the recent Sustainable Business Practices workshop held at the University of Vermont, several of the students jested that “Sustainability, after all, is a journey.”

I would add that it is also a mindset: A mindset that understands that business goals (profits, profits, profits) cannot be reached without taking into account the society and the environment you operate in and the human capital that helps you succeed. Will the rest of the sectors detailed in Accenture’s report follow through on their CEOs’ ambitions?

In coming months — and years — with America’s long-term sustainability as an economic power in question, all eyes will be on whether American businesses can pull up their socks and return their operating base to trustworthy status by using sustainability as a guiding principle. Where government fails, business steps in, right fellow #csrchat attendees?

Thoughts? Don’t forget to leave a comment or connect with me @AmanSinghCSR.

Next: Gib Bulloch, Executive Director of Accenture Development Partnerships discusses the report in Capabilities for the Convergence Economy.


Sustaining Timberland: An Interview with VP of CSR Mark Newton

02 Tuesday Aug 2011

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When one of the country’s few purpose-based and values-driven company announces new sustainability goals, chances are you won’t be as excited as you would be if it was BP, for instance.

Because we expect ambitious and aggressive goals from leaders, and at Timberland, this expectation is part of everyone’s job.

Before the boot maker announced its new set of revised sustainability goals earlier this week, I caught up with Timberland’s new Vice President for CSR Mark Newton on his new role, the goals, as well as their latest efforts at stakeholder engagement: Timberland’s new Communications Portal.

Sustainability: From Apple and Dell to Timberland

Newton, who has spent his entire career working on sustainability at electronics giants like Motorola, Apple, and most recently Dell, understands that the road ahead will be rocky as Timberland completes its merger with VF. VF owns several outdoor brands like The NorthFace, Wrangler, Jansport and Nautica.

We started with the new 2015 goals. What’s new about them?

“Focus,” said Newton. “Moving forward it is very important that we create focus for our companies, including a commitment to innovate from cradle to cradle.”

Timberland’s 2015 Sustainability Goals

Set in four broad categories of Climate, Product, Factories and Service; the goals are ambitious and aggressive, if not new or radically life-changing. I asked Newton the purpose of each category.

Climate: “This is a topical focus for us if not so much a functional one. But we’re not saying we’re going to be singularly focused on climate change but that this affects our customers and decisions and therefore, we must equip them with decisions and the right products.”

Product: “At some point we all want to start creating innovations that have a zero footprint. The idea is to move toward a vision of a closed loop product lifecycle. You can see where we are and where we want to go. It is directionally correct.”

Factories: “We have an obligation that is not just transactional to our suppliers, employees and other stakeholders. The whole idea of sustainability is to stay in business. In perpetuity, we cannot do that without treating our employees well and scaling our business properly.”

Service: “Timberland was founded on the idea of commerce and justice, of giving back and creating value. We offer our employees 40 hours to volunteer every year. Today we are asking what the impact of that workforce is. Where are we going with this, how do we prioritize our efforts and do it well?”

What underlines all of these goals and their success, however, is engaging and changing consumer behavior.

Changing Consumer Behavior: Timberland-style or VF-style?

Earlier this year, at the Annual GreenBiz conference, Timberland CEO Jeff Swartz said that sometimes companies have to lead consumers by taking a stand on what is right. “You cannot always wait for consumer demand to dictate your decisions,” he said.

Now with Timberland becoming a part of the VF family, are dynamics shifting? Will the merger bring a renewed and united effort in the apparel industry to shift consumer behavior or lead to inertia and inaction?

I put the question to Newton, who while new in his role, is a veteran in the consumer products industry. “We are having several conversations around this. We are Timberland and we will always be that. This is the reason people are interested in EarthKeepers and we will continue to move the needle,” he said.

What about Swartz’s inspiring declaration? Newton offered Timberland’s EarthKeepers product line as an example:

“The ultimate goal of every company that is working on sustainability is to be able to drive top line growth because of its sustainability efforts. It’s very rare to see top line growth associated with these things, many companies are running leaner and end up staying within compliance. At Timberland, our EarthKeepers product line is actually doing that with double-digit growth in the first quarter.”

Authentic Communications: Engage the Consumer, not Just Inform

With skepticism already high in the market, there is a fine line between selling more units and ensuring responsible consumerism. EarthKeepers seems to be clearly bucking the trend and providing a new, profitable way of doing business sustainably.

Was this growth the result of consumer education, eco labels, or increased communication?

“Authenticity. We’re finding success because it is authentic. We are intentionally focused on products that are environmentally friendly and socially conscious. And we are committed to continually communicating that. We’re not waiting for everything to become perfect, we’re putting it out there and calibrating it as it evolves,” he said.

Examples? Newton offered the eco-index, which Timberland was instrumental in creating and pushing out. “We are promoting the index so we can create real change and movement. That’s exciting and offers us a chance to drive real, calculable change,” he added.

What VF brings to the table then is scale. “VF has been a partner for years on making the process much more efficient. Now the merger will allow us to collectively drive things that Timberland alone simply cannot do. This bigger opportunity is huge for us,” he emphasized, adding, “It’s also not just forward-looking things and what we can do upstream. VF has a very efficient process in place because of their brands. We have had limited impact there but now we can have much more.”

Timberland’s New Communications Portal: CSR in Real Time

With Timberland already being aggressively visible and vocal in the consumer marketplace, why did Newton and team feel the need to launch a new CSR communications portal?

“We’re segmenting the conversations on our website around products and around topics so everyone has a better sense of clarity. Even though our authenticity ensures that sustainability conversations become natural in all parts of our business and you don’t have to go to the CSR portal to have a CSR conversation, we felt that different stakeholders have different perspectives. You can still go to the products portal and have the same conversation as you would on the CSR portal, because the intentional design, how we conduct business with suppliers and community issues are woven into the product and the product description.”

Why then is the new portal necessary if sustainability is so intricately embedded into the work culture at Timberland?

“We are having conversations with a very vast and diverse spectrum of people, from wholesalers and retailers to direct consumers. They all come with very different demands and perspectives and we want to offer them the opportunity to engage in the language they understand best,” he explained.

Fully integrated with social media tools, the portal is designed for consumers looking for details on green products, interesting stories and much more. Not only can you go to the redesigned portal and discuss Timberland products, you can also discuss the team’s CSR efforts, join ongoing conversations through their Bootmakers blog, and chime in on more topical discussions around the Green index and climate change.

Admittedly, many companies continue to struggle with this balance between preserving the granular stuff and promoting more general conversations around products.

For Timberland, the answer was to lead in both.

“People can go granular as they want or stay as generalist as they’d like. What’s different about the portal is that we are not starting conversations by discussing one of our pillars or metrics but focusing on stories that matter and then getting to the things that are underneath those stories; this marks a fundamental shift for our website,” Newton added.

Being a communications geek, I can definitely attest to Newton’s excitement about this new portal. The ability to throw open your business practices and product lifecycle to your stakeholders takes gumption and a resolute belief in transparency.

The Timberland team knows that this throws the door open to endless questions and scrutiny but Swart’z recruits are used to that and know that open engagement is the only way to maintain authenticity and empower their stakeholders toward sustainability and a zero impact footprint.

This is mission critical for Timberland.

As Newton put it, “Regardless of what happens post-merger, we are all in this together. Our values are integrated into all of us and everyone who works here. Jeff Swartz might be the leader but you can expect to hear the same things from all of us.”

This is Timberland’s — and VF’s — opportunity to drive the apparel industry toward a more sustainable future. The 2015 goals are the means to an end, a future that VF and Timberland can now together impact much more powerfully.

Comments? Leave a comment, email me or connect @AmanSinghCSR.

How to Pursue a Career in CSR

01 Monday Aug 2011

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At a recent workshop on how to pursue a career in CSR, I asked students at the University of Minnesota how they define CSR. Some of their answers:

“Weaving sustainability, community responsibility, and diversity in any business role.”

“Considering all stakeholders (customer, employees, community) when making a business decision.”

“I define [it] as how the company does college student become a CSR practitioner?

While the essential job search in itself is undoubtedly important, identifying how you define CSR is more important for two reasons: 1) CSR jobs — or jobs with the specific title of CSR/sustainability — are scarce; and 2) The continuing lack of standardized scope and skills attributed with these jobs doesn’t make for a very structured job search.

This dual combination then makes it even more crucial that you understand which thread of CSR really interests you, because there are several.

Nancy Lublin from doSomething.org made an obtuse reference to this at the recent UN Social Innovation Summit, noting that most of the panelists with her were founders of something. “Everyone cannot be a founder,” she said. “It’s okay to join stuff.”

While Lublin was referring to social innovation, her comment applies to all of us: We don’t need to reinvent the wheel on responsible and ethical behavior—you just need to have a clear idea of where you stand on it, and how you can apply that to your job search.

Seriously.

So, how does a college student become a CSR practitioner? Here’s my two cents:

1. Define CSR: What does that mean to you — and your career?

If you are a great communicator and enjoy writing, then marketing would be a good fit. But if research, analysis and data are your passions, then working on CSR reporting would be a better fit.

And if working with people or organizing things is your deal, then HR or even community relations could prove to be better fits.

You get the idea.

2. Identify required skills

Now that you know what you would enjoy doing, evaluate your bucket of skills. Continuing with one of the examples above, if data gathering and analysis is your forte, here’s a few things that should be on your Skills Checklist:

  • • Understanding of what kind of data is used by companies in CSR reporting
  • • How this data is collected
  • • Industry standards
  • • Thorough knowledge of the structure and organization of CSR reports
  • • Certifications: One that instantly comes to mind is the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) standards, which many more companies — and universities — are starting to adopt.

3. It’s time to think: Brand Awareness

Start building your personal brand. Blog: write about your passion, why you want to work in the field, your motivations, etc. (It might be for free but you’ll get a better-than-decent ROI if you’re seen by the right people.) Write for publications and websites, both mainstream and niche. Meet with like-minded students who are pursuing similar interests. Join your local Net Impact chapter. Arrange informational interviews with the faculty.

These conversations will go a long way towards helping you decide whether to pursue what you are passionate or change course: Either way, a huge benefit.

4. Get practical experience

Internships: Incredibly important. Pursue as many as possible in your four years at college because that’s the time when you have the least to lose.

Internships will give you the hands-on experience that no number of years spent in college can provide. But use these opportunities responsibly because there aren’t many out there. Network, approach each day as a new lap you need to complete, seek out projects, volunteer, focus on demonstrating your skills, and share your opinion.

And learn to fail.

When you do (not if), pick up the pieces and continue on, or start over—both are perfectly okay. Failures later in life will sting a lot more, so fail early and learn well.

5. Social Media: Learn to be a bystander and listen

Another skill that I just cannot overstate the importance of. While you build your personal brand–whether through blogging, research papers, tweeting, commentary on Facebook or the college newspaper—be sure to share it with others. And demand feedback: the good and the bad.

Listen to what is being written about the subject, who the prominent speakers are, the movers, the exemplified, the ridiculed (you’ll learn from both, trust me), the practitioners.

In the end, use your skills to guide your job search. Once at a company, let your passion guide you in creating the change you want to see happen. We can no longer afford to stand outside and point fingers.

Constructive Consumerism: Why Buying Less Won’t Eradicate Poverty

28 Thursday Jul 2011

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“What do people mean when they say ‘Think globally, act locally’? It’s utter nonsense. They create nothing but confusion in the public’s mind,” said University of Vermont Professor Saleem Ali at a recent workshop on campus.

Also the author of recently released Treasures of the Earth: Need, Greed and a Sustainable Future, Ali comes across as definitely informed, deeply academic, a bit eccentric, and somewhat at odds with the developed world. His advice: “Life is complicated, the world is complicated, get used to multi-tasking.

Desires vs. Needs

Surprisingly, I found myself nodding my head in agreement as he discussed the premise of his book and why he wrote it. “Linear narratives have destroyed us. It’s not about choice or constraint. The dialogue is about infinite desires as well as needs. Glossing over either is wrong,” he said.

Citing Gandhi who said, “The Earth provides enough to satisfy every man’s need, but not every man’s greed,” Ali, a Pakistan-born, American-educated scholar, asked the room full of students, professionals and faculty to free their minds and connect need with greed. “At one level I agree [with Gandhi]. If you have infinite desires, you won’t have sustainability. But the fact that there is a connection between need and greed is glossed over in this argument.”

How are the two connected? “Because geology hasn’t given us all a fair share of resources.” And so the premise of his book: Would the world be a better place if we curbed our desires for material goods?

The answer, at least for Ali: No.

How Do You Consume Less When You’re Already Surviving on the Bare Minimum?

His analogy: What social workers, have for decades, advised the developing world: Consume less to be more sustainable.

For decades, nonprofits have visited the rural areas of India, for example, and offered this apparently simple piece of advice to millions who continue to live below the poverty line and remain bereft of the simplest technological gadgets. According to Ali, this approach doesn’t work because “you cannot simplify the desire to want more.”

In a community where bare necessities are a struggle, continued Ali, consuming less doesn’t stick, let alone make sense. “People want to innovate so that they can have more, not so that they can reduce their consumption,” he said.

“We need more pluralism to come out with a sub-optimal solution. Take a look at what happened at the U.S. economy for example. In 1790, 90 percent of the U.S. economy was farming and extractive in nature. Today, our largest industries are technology and information enterprises.”

“We have more teachers, more bloggers, more artists today because its easier! Because we don’t need as many farmers and producers,” he continued.

His mantra: We have to look at livelihoods more holistically. We have to think of resources in a cyclical way.

Creating Shared Value: Constructive Consumerism

Before you leap to conclusions about Ali’s sermon, understanding his entire argument on what he calls “constructive consumerism” is important.

For the everyday consumer, who has more choices today than ever before, not to mention picking between green, organic, fair trade, socially responsible, etc., Ali’s dictum is clear — and mind numbingly simple.

“Think about what you buy. Don’t buy less. Boycotting luxury goods isn’t necessarily helping the problem,” he explained. For example,he continued, “ Botswana’s economy is primarily dependent on one single product: Diamonds.” It is because of this one export that everyone in Botswana can enjoy health care and free education till the PhD level, he said. Of course, how this is implemented on the ground in a traditionally male-dominated society is a question many continue to struggle with.

“The same thing with roses. I find people being all self-congratulatory by deciding not to buy roses. Save it, because you are being myopic,” he commented. Kenya’s primary export is roses.

So, what is the academician’s advice?

  • Don’t think local is necessarily better;
  • Don’t carbonize everything;
  • Resurrect ecological efficiency;
  • Choose responsible consumption over unfettered consumerism; and
  • Don’t do away with foreign aid; insist on fair and targeted trade.

Ali ended with one final thought on the role of culture in our lives and decisions.

Responding to a question from the audience on what he thought about the erosion of culture in the Amazon and other places in favor of modernization, he said, “Culture isn’t always a good thing. It has given us female infanticide and child abuse. Culture is not by nature a positive. Destroying culture then isn’t always a bad thing.”

Comments? Thoughts? Perspective? Leave a comment, email me or connect with me @AmanSinghCSR.

*Originally published on Forbes CSR blog.

Introducing Singh on CSR: A Journalist With a Purpose..and an Opinion

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*Updated July, 2014

Most recently the Editorial Director at CSRwire, a digital media platform for the latest news, views and research on CSR and sustainability. Along with leading content distribution, social media strategy and CSR/sustainability reporting services for CSRwire members, I also led Talkback, CSRwire’s aman singh, csrwireCommentary section, with over 250 contributors and increased traffic 35% – 50% year to year.

The channel featured several influencers and thought leaders – John Elkington, Hazel Henderson, Wayne Visser – as well as authors – Frances Moore  Lappé, Bob Willard, Carol Sanford – researchers, activists and CSR/sustainability professionals – AMD’s Tim Mohin, Campbell Soup’s Dave Stangis, Sustainability leader Peter Graf, John Edelman – and served as a platform to push the needle on critical topics, learn from each other and constantly crowdsource new ideas, partnerships and best practices.

While at CSRwire, I’ve had the pleasure of working with numerous Fortune 500 companies as well as the country’s leading nonprofits and academic institutions on creating and implementing communication strategies focused on stakeholder engagement and behavior change, including Unilever, Verizon, Aramark, SAP, Campbell Soup, Nestle Waters North America, McDonald’s, General Mills, HP, Mars, Avon, Sodexo, EarthShare, Points of Light and others.

Our Stakeholder Engagement Campaigns – including live Twitter chats and webinars as well as content series and multimedia – generated millions of impressions, hundreds of participants and provided our members with critical feedback, important partnerships and a pulse of their stakeholders’ concerns.

I’ve also been an active journalist for almost 15 years, including stints at The Wall Street Journal, The Villager, Tehelka.com and Vault.com, where I created, designed and managed the recruitment industry’s first CSR channel aimed exclusively at engaging, debating and discussing corporate social responsibility, sustainable (and unsustainable) business practices, responsible (and irresponsible) leadership, diversity and the lack of it, the role of workplace culture in our lives, social entrepreneurship, the newly-minted term ‘intrapreneurship’ and much, much more.

Careers in CSR and Sustainability

Vault’s CSR Channel

Skepticism is second nature to me and I’m most comfortable asking [mostly the right] questions, facilitating dialogues, editing copious pages of text, refining even the most academic articles into easy-to-read blogs and thrive on the opportunities extended by a new world of social media and access to organizations and change makers.

This is my space – to question, analyze and discuss.

I’ll examine the latest CSR report and debate how we’re faring in our pursuit of materiality and creating a new economy built on wellbeing and shared value. No question is small enough, no development unrelated. And no topic unworthy.

From careers in CSR to the future of GRI reporting, from analyzing the do(s) and don’t(s) of sustainability to the latest in impact investing and our search for materiality; from social media etiquette to transparency in this new hyper-connected world, from work/life balance to gender and age discrimination, from effective communication strategies to the immensely irritating term “greenwashing”; and much much, more, join me for a promising and thought-provoking ride.

-Aman
@AmanSinghCSR