Part 2 of a 5 part series

In a previous post, we laid the foundation for comparing a huge database on brand strength with the world’s largest database on corporate sustainability.  Our analysis follows for a strong correlation between the Brand Finance Brand Strength Index (BSI) and CSRHub’s overall sustainability performance rating (using the profile of the average CSRHub user).  The chart below shows this correlation for 1,079 companies.  It appears that about 22% of the variation in BSI can be explained by changes in perceived CSR performance.

CSRHub’s rating relies on four category ratings that in turn are based on twelve subcategory ratings.  When we perform a multivariate regression between the BSI and the twelve CSRHub subcategories, we get an even stronger correlation of 28%.

This level of correlation is much higher than those cited in previous studies.  There are three potential explanations for this correlation:

• One measure does not affect the other.  They just appear to due to random variation.
• Brand value and CSR performance could both be correlated with some other factor such as market capitalization.  As a result, they appear to be correlated with each other, but in fact just share a common driver.
• Brand value and sustainability are related and a company that seeks to do well in one area should consider also investing in the other.  As Edward Tufte has put it, “Correlation is not causation but it sure is a hint.”

Our next post will probe to determine which of these explanations is most likely to be true.

View:

Part 1  The Tie Between Brand Value and Sustainability is Getting Stronger

Bahar Gidwani is CEO and Co-founder of CSRHub. He has built and run large technology-based businesses for many years. Bahar holds a CFA, worked on Wall Street with Kidder, Peabody, and with McKinsey & Co. Bahar has consulted to a number of major companies and currently serves on the board of several software and Web companies. He has an MBA from Harvard Business School and an undergraduate degree in physics and astronomy. Bahar is a member of the SASB Advisory Board. He plays bridge, races sailboats, and is based in New York City.

CSRHub provides access to corporate social responsibility and sustainability ratings and information on 7,300+ companies from 135 industries in 93 countries. By aggregating and normalizing the information from 230 data sources, CSRHub has created a broad, consistent rating system and a searchable database that links millions of rating elements back to their source. Managers, researchers and activists use CSRHub to benchmark company performance, learn how stakeholders evaluate company CSR practices and seek ways to change the world.

JUNE 19TH AT 2:00-3:30PM ET:  LEARN ABOUT:

SEC ESG INTERNAL CONTROL SYSTEM LIABILITIES FOR THE C-SUITE, BOARD, & EXTERNAL AUDITOR; THE MATERIALITY/SUSTAINABILITY EVOLUTION; GROUNDBREAKING DEVELOPMENTS AT UN GLOBAL COMPACT & SUSTAINABLE STOCK EXCHANGE INITIATIVE

For Public Companies, Boards, Asset Owners/Managers, Risk Managers, Analysts, Auditors, and Attorneys

New York, NY — You are invited to attend the exciting Global ESG Regulatory Academy™
Spring 2013 Webinar Series live education–JUNE 19, 2013.

INFORMATION AND REGISTRATION:  Click Here.

All Registrants, whether or not you attend the live Webinars, will receive the archived Webinar recordings and the Webinar presentation slides to view at your leisure.

The archived Webinar recordings and presentation slides are now available for the first 3 Webinars in the Spring 2013 Webinar Series.  See the Registration page.

SPRING 2013 TOPICS include:

• SEC ESG Reporting and the Widespread Noncompliance Problem:  Root Causes, Consequences, Solutions, and Noncompliance liabilities for the C-Suite, Board, Auditor, and Asset Manager.
• What You Need to Know About Internal Control Systems:  SEC Requirements and Liabilities Triggered by ESG Issues for the C-Suite, the Board, the External Auditor, and the Asset Manager.
• Common SEC ESG Disclosure Omissions, including toxic chemicals and hydraulic fracturing.
• Current State of ESG Regulatory Reporting and ESG Voluntary Reporting around the world.
• Latest reporting trends and new developments under the GRI Framework, including the G4 Guidelines.
• The Materiality Evolution:  A profile of recent developments and future challenges in materiality and sustainability.
• Current ESG practices and perspectives of institutional investors and other market leaders.
• First-ever instruction and practical guidance on how to integrate ESG regulatory and voluntary reporting, to streamline the process and cut compliance costs.
• Groundbreaking developments at the UN Global Compact and the UN Sustainable Stock Exchange Initiative.

SEE PROGRAM AGENDA for full information.

SPRING 2013 SPEAKERS include:

• Linda Lowson, Esq., CEO and Chief Counsel, Global ESG Regulatory Academy™.
• Hank Boerner, Chairman, Governance & Accountability Institute.
• Louis Coppola, SVP and Partner, Governance & Accountability Institute.
• Brian Rice, Portfolio Manager and Sustainability Risk Management Team Leader, CalSTRS.
• Sanford Lewis, Esq., Counsel, Investor Environmental Health Network.
• Ted Grant, Director and Global Head of Research, AccountAbility.
• Marcy Murninghan, PhD., Senior Research Fellow, Accountability.
• Danielle Chesebrough, Manager of Investor Engagement, UN Global Compact.

3 REASONS WHY YOU SHOULD ATTEND:

• Exclusive, Authoritative Source and Venue for this Invaluable Global ESG Regulatory and Reporting Education:  This must-have knowledge and practical guidance is not available anywhere else.  CSR Insight™ conducted an exhaustive, independent 5-year, US$5.5 million Global ESG Regulatory and Reporting Research Program on the major global ESG regulatory and voluntary reporting regimes, including comprehensive drill-down legal, regulatory, accounting, and capital market analyses.  This is the future of financial reporting, affecting every global capital market participant.
• Gain Essential Knowledge to Avoid Serious Liabilities:  Whether you are a C-Suite, Board, Finance, Legal, Audit, Risk,Compliance, Strategy, Sustainability, Analyst, Researcher, Asset Manager, or Asset Owner executive, you need this knowledge and you need it now, to fulfill your job responsibilities and avoid serious liabilities and risks of which you may be unaware.  The current widespread SEC corporate noncompliance on ESG issues creates significant liabilities for thousands of market participants.  ESG regulatory reporting represents a whole new world of requirements and liabilities that is here to stay.
• Receive Important Guidance at a Nominal Cost to Fulfill Internal and External Stakeholder Expectations:  You will reap the benefits of our 5-year Global ESG Regulatory Research Program–quickly, conveniently, and at a nominal cost, including sophisticated technical analyses of both voluntary and regulatory ESG reporting frameworks, translated into simple laymen guidance on understanding, managing, and streamlining these two reporting worlds for maximum benefit and at lowest cost.  ESG reporting is now a strategic imperative.  Be proactive, not reactive, and you will reap the professional and financial rewards.

Webinars have limited capacity; early registration is recommended.  Webinars feature a live Q&A session.

Our archived 2012 WEBINAR SERIES is now available for a limited time at a 50% discount:  SEC ESG Compliance: Where the Rubber Meets the Road.  This Webinar Series provides the first-ever in-depth explanation and analysis of SEC ESG Requirements, Liabilities, and Risks for the C-Suite, the Board, the External Auditor, and the Asset Manager.  You will receive the archived Webinar recordings and the presentation slides.  Don’t miss it while it is still available!

FOR REGISTRATION, SPEAKER, AND SPONSOR QUERIES:

Contact Linda Lowson, Esq., HERE.

PLEASE JOIN US FOR THIS UNIQUE, EXCITING, MUST-HAVE EDUCATION!

Spring 2013 Speakers include:

MEDIA PARTNERS:

A recent post on TriplePundit compared two companies using CSRHub.

Thanks for looking at CSRHub, as part of your investigation. As you know, we bring together hundreds of sources of sustainability information on more than 7,300 companies in 93 countries. Our goal is to create metrics that will help improve corporate social responsibility (CSR).

Our site is not designed to help you pick stocks. It is designed to help you evaluate whether or not a company is transparent about its social activities, how well it treats its employees, whether or not it has taken steps to cut its carbon and improve its supply chain, and so on.

For instance, McDonald’s has reported its social performance using the Global Reporting Initiative framework–Chipotle has not. McDonald’s has won awards for supporting Hispanic suppliers, for its treatment of women managers, and it has joined the Sustainable Packaging Coalition. Chipotle hasn’t won these awards or joined SPC.

At the same time, McDonald’s product (e.g., its food), doesn’t get good ratings for its sustainability from Better World (McDonald’s gets a D- compared to an A for Chipotle). Both companies get decent scores on their human rights performance from Human Rights Campaign, but McDonald’s has a more balanced board structure, that probably provides stronger oversight than Chipotle receives.

From the above, you can see that if you want a more sustainable sandwich, you might choose Chipotle. If you want to eat in a place that  is friendly to Hispanics, you might choose McDonald’s. We believe that improvements in sustainability will be driven by a wide range of factors–and a wide range of personal views. We try to give you the data you need to make your own decision about which company you want to buy from, sell to, or work with–based on what is important to you.

Our data probably won’t tell you which stock will go up and which will go down. Stock prices–at least in the near term–are driven much more by earnings and other corporate news than by what score a company gets from a ratings source. However, we believe your personal choice of a Chipotle meal rather than a McDonald’s meal–based on your understanding and knowledge of each company’s corporate social responsibility performance–should eventually make a difference in how each company behaves. Our goal has been to allow you to make more informed choices. We hope we’ve achieved that and given you reasons to probe further and to learn more.

Bahar Gidwani is CEO and Co-founder of CSRHub. He has built and run large technology-based businesses for many years. Bahar holds a CFA, worked on Wall Street with Kidder, Peabody, and with McKinsey & Co. Bahar has consulted to a number of major companies and currently serves on the board of several software and Web companies. He has an MBA from Harvard Business School and an undergraduate degree in physics and astronomy. Bahar is a member of the SASB Advisory Board. He plays bridge, races sailboats, and is based in New York City.

CSRHub provides access to corporate social responsibility and sustainability ratings and information on 7,300+ companies from 135 industries in 93 countries. By aggregating and normalizing the information from 230 data sources, CSRHub has created a broad, consistent rating system and a searchable database that links millions of rating elements back to their source. Managers, researchers and activists use CSRHub to benchmark company performance, learn how stakeholders evaluate company CSR practices and seek ways to change the world.

Part 1 in a 5 part series

Does a company that invests in sustainability increase its brand value?  What parts of sustainability performance seem to drive brand?  This is the first of five posts about a new, broad, multi-year study that shows that the connection between sustainability performance and brand value has increased dramatically during the past year.  The study has also revealed that some aspects of sustainability are more closely related to brand, than others.

Several groups have published studies that purport to prove a connection between sustainability and brand.  These studies are widely cited by both branding experts and sustainability professionals.  For instance, The Conference Board has published a three part series of Director Notes on the relationship between “real” ESG (environmental, social, and governance) performance and “perceived” performance as measured via a brand strength indicator.

These and other past studies have tended to focus on a few hundred top companies and on industries that are perceived to be brand-driven such as consumer products and business services.  Because most sustainability performance data sets were created to serve investors, they tend to cover only large public companies in developed countries.  There are few data sets that cover more than 3,000 companies or that extend back in time more than five years.

A New Study Using New Sources

We were recently able to combine data drawn from two unique sources that have never before been combined.  Brand Finance uses a proprietary methodology to calculate the brand value of more than 5,000 leading global companies. Brand value is driven by the size of the company and the strength of its brand.  Brand Finance’s Brand Strength Index (BSI) measures this strength factor and allows investigations of the relationship between brand and sustainability that strip out the size of company factor.  The Brand Finance data set extends back to 2005.  CSRHub currently rates the sustainability performance of 7,300 companies in 93 countries.  It uses data from more than 230 sources to track twelve different measures of corporate social responsibility (CSR) and a number of special sustainability issues.  The CSRHub data set is updated monthly and extends back to December of 2008.

Both companies have used consistent methods to evaluate companies over the period studied—2008 through 2012.  1,094 of the companies tracked by Brand Finance in its most recent report are also tracked by CSRHub.  As a result, we have been able to compare brand value and sustainability performance across 97 industries in 16 industry groups (see table) and 54 countries in 10 regions (see map and table).  While the study has a bias towards larger companies and those that are publicly traded, we have been able to include at least some smaller companies in our data set (see chart).

The Study Covered 16 Industry Groups

The Study Covered Companies In 57 Countries

Europe, Asia, and the US Were All Well-Represented

Our next post will look at what we discovered when we compared these two data sets.

Bahar Gidwani is CEO and Co-founder of CSRHub.  He has built and run large technology-based businesses for many years. Bahar holds a CFA, worked on Wall Street with Kidder, Peabody, and with McKinsey & Co. Bahar has consulted to a number of major companies and currently serves on the board of several software and Web companies. He has an MBA from Harvard Business School and an undergraduate degree in physics and astronomy. Bahar is a member of the SASB Advisory Board.  He plays bridge, races sailboats, and is based in New York City. 

CSRHub provides access to corporate social responsibility and sustainability ratings and information on 7,300+ companies from 135 industries in 93 countries. By aggregating and normalizing the information from 230 data sources, CSRHub has created a broad, consistent rating system and a searchable database that links millions of rating elements back to their source. Managers, researchers and activists use CSRHub to benchmark company performance, learn how stakeholders evaluate company CSR practices and seek ways to change the world.

This week, Cynthia Figge, Co-founder and COO of CSRHub (full disclosure: CSRHub is my sponsor), reported at Sustainable Brands that the correlation between CSR and brand strength has reached .28. (A perfect correlation is 1.0)

This number is truly remarkable!

First, look at it in absolute terms. In 2006, I organized the first study that proved a relationship between CSR and brand existed at all.  That study was considered such a breakthrough that I was invited to present the results at all the major sustainability conferences, from the Conference Board to SRI (Socially Responsible Investing) in the Rockies to the Wharton Sustainability Conference. All that excitement over a small, but significant relationship – a .05 correlation.

That 2006 study – conducted just six years before the CSRHub study – barely qualified for statistical significance. So the fact that the CSR/brand correlation reached .28 so fast is a very big deal. Of course, we used different databases back then. CSR outside the US wasn’t being tracked by US firms so our numbers were domestic only. The CSRHub study combined global data from Brand Finance, the UK brand value company, and CSRHub’s aggregated global information. Still, the rise was extraordinary.

In fact, so unbelievable that CSRHub’s CEO Bahar Gidwani, a self-admitted geek with degrees in physics and astronomy and a Harvard MBA, tested every permutation of statistical error. The numbers hold.

Look at the above chart again. 2012 jumps one and one half times over 2011. This is after years of languishing. Was 2012 the tipping point? If so, why?

After waffling around during the grim days of recession and climate change denying, something pushed us into a new age of CSR.

Maybe it’s just that CSR has finally traversed the natural path of innovation. The numbers from 2006 to 2012 form an almost perfect hockey stick-shaped graph of innovation adoption, starting from the 20 years or so before 2006 with consistently low level of “innovators,” increasing over five years through the “early adopter” phase and now blasting into the “mainstream.” But why now?

Figge reported on the subcategories that carried the higher correlation. As expected, environmental factors had robust correlation due to the ubiquity of sustainability reports and environmental crises. But employee issues exerted an even stronger influence. Social media accelerated the impact of greater employee engagement and the accompanying word-of-mouth.

The relationship between social media and the growing influence of CSR on brand is underscored in a recent study from Cone Communications titled “Social: Where CSR Brand Leadership Is Won Or Lost” which says —

“Social media is transforming the CSR landscape… Citizens are universally taking to social channels to learn more about issues, share positive and negative information and influence their personal networks.”

They call this conversion of CSR and social media “The Era of CSR.”

I would argue that something else is also at play: a shift in culture from one tilted towards competition and force to one based on co-operation and kindness. Thanks to the environmental movement, our perspective is becoming longer-term and focused on preserving the commons, or the natural resources that we all share, rather than competing for them.

Evidence of the shift is most apparent in the younger cohort. We’ve seen acts of violence drop by half since 1994 among 10-24 year olds. GenY is showing a preference for the “sharing economy” in industries from cars to hotels to homes. David Brooks wrote last week about a young hedge fund trader who lives on a grad school budget and sends the rest off to Africa to find a cure for malaria.

Shifts in older cohort culture are also becoming apparent. In a much-praised book called “The Athena Doctrine: How Women (and the Men Who Think Like Them) Will Rule the Future,” author John Gerzema concludes that “…the only way to succeed when everyone knows your business is to act in an empathetic, patient, humane, and scrupulously ethical way” — traits he ascribes to being “like women.”

Even Apple, once the poster child for a winner-take-all American corporation and the one activists loved to hate, has undergone a dramatic shift. As reported in this week’s Fortune, “Ma Jun, the noted Chinese environmental activist, says Apple has gone in a short period of time from being the most uncooperative of electronics companies to ‘one of the most proactive IT suppliers’ of all.”

Surely “The Era of CSR” is upon us.

Carol Pierson Holding writes on environmental issues and social responsibility for policy and news publications, including the Carnegie Council’s Policy Innovations, Harvard Business Review, San Francisco Chronicle, India Time, The Huffington Post and many other web sites. Her articles on corporate social responsibility can be found on CSRHub.com, a website that provides sustainability ratings data on 7,300 companies worldwide. Carol holds degrees from Smith College and Harvard University.

CSRHub provides access to corporate social responsibility and sustainability ratings and information on 7,300+ companies from 135 industries in 93 countries. By aggregating and normalizing the information from 230 data sources, CSRHub has created a broad, consistent rating system and a searchable database that links millions of rating elements back to their source. Managers, researchers and activists use CSRHub to benchmark company performance, learn how stakeholders evaluate company CSR practices and seek ways to change the world.

CSE is a leading global sustainability (CSR) consulting, coaching, and training firm. CSE is offering a two day Certified Sustainability (CSR) Practitioner Training. This IEMA Approved challenging 2-day course enables participants to acquire the skills and competencies required to become qualified CSR practitioners. Learn more about the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) G4 new sustainability reporting guidelines!

On the 22-24 of May, CSE attended the Sustainability Leadership event of 2013, the Global Conference on Sustainability and Reporting in Amsterdam! At the conference the new global guidelines for Sustainability Reporting, namely GRI G4 were launched followed by 1500 leaders and practitioners discussing key challenges and opportunities in making sustainability practical reality!  CSE posted a blog discussing the impact the new guidelines will have on North American Companies.  A copy of this blog can be found here.

Over the past three years, executives from Fortune 500 companies, Local Governments and Universities have participated in CSE’s Global Certified trainings, including Supervalu, Unilever, ABM, Lockheed Martin, Baker Hughes, Noble Energy, United Airlines, Coca Cola, ITW, Stanford University, Walmart and Chevron.

CSE is also offering:

Certified Sustainability (CSR) Practitioner Training, Dubai, UAE, June 19-20.

Certified Carbon Strategy Practitioner Training, San Francisco, CA, September 12-13.
Certified Sustainability (CSR) Practitioner Training, London, UK, October 17-18.

If you haven’t already, register to attend CSE’s Certified Sustainability (CSR) Practitioner Training in New York today!

The first 10 people to register for CSE’s training and let us know will receive a 15% discount on a subscription to CSRHub. Contact sales@csrhub.com for the discount link.

See more upcoming CSR events.

Bahar Gidwani is CEO and Co-founder of CSRHub.  He has built and run large technology-based businesses for many years. Bahar holds a CFA, worked on Wall Street with Kidder, Peabody, and with McKinsey & Co. Bahar has consulted to a number of major companies and currently serves on the board of several software and Web companies. He has an MBA from Harvard Business School and an undergraduate degree in physics and astronomy. Bahar is a member of the SASB Advisory Board.  He plays bridge, races sailboats, and is based in New York City.

CSRHub provides access to corporate social responsibility and sustainability ratings and information on 7,300+ companies from 135 industries in 93 countries. By aggregating and normalizing the information from 230 data sources, CSRHub has created a broad, consistent rating system and a searchable database that links millions of rating elements back to their source. Managers, researchers and activists use CSRHub to benchmark company performance, learn how stakeholders evaluate company CSR practices and seek ways to change the world.

Cynthia Figge’s SB’13 Plenary speech “New Insights into the Correlation Between CSR and Brand Strength” follows.

Hello! I’m so grateful to be meeting with all of you, and celebrating my 7^th year at SB since New Orleans!!

Why are we all here? Because we believe that a company that invests in sustainability increases its brand value, right? I’m going to unveil some research that proves the relationship between brand and CSR is even more profound than we thought — around the world, across industry type, and company size.

Even more exciting, last year, that correlation more than doubled in strength.

My company, CSRHub, the world’s largest aggregator of global CSR information, ran five years of our data against the data of Brand Finance, the global brand analyst headquartered in London.

With our overlapping datasets, we analyzed over 1,000 companies, and  for 2012 we got a .28 correlation between brand strength and CSR. This seemed extraordinary.

So we tested the data. My co-founder at CSRHub is a self-admitted geek with degrees in physics and astronomy, and a Harvard MBA (where we met) and he knows his regression. He looked at F values. He split the data in two groups. Tested the combined effect of outliers. He tested for spurious relationships. He ran regressions with third factors such as enterprise value and market cap. Over all these trials, the correlation holds. 28% of brand strength is related to CSR performance.

Let’s dig in and discover which CSR factors may be driving brand strength.

We looked at each of the twelve factors in CSRHub’s model. This chart is ranked by the four categories employees, environment, community and governance. Look closely at the subcategories in light blue. One of the highest correlations is between brand and Environment Policy and Reporting. This is not at all surprising given the environmental crisis – and companies tend to communicate about this in their sustainability reports. They also tend to communicate about products and leadership ethics, the two bottom blue stripes.  But the highest correlated subcategories are all employee issues. Employee engagement and word of mouth seem to be extremely important in creating brand value.

Most astonishing to us was our analysis over time. When we looked back over five years of data, this is what we found:

Brand strength to CSR correlation has suddenly strengthened in the last year, doubling in 2012 over 2011. The relationship stayed relatively constant over the previous 4 years. Then in 2012 that correlation more than doubled.

Why? Perhaps we are reaching critical mass. Consumers are more aware of sustainability. It’s been in the press more. More sustainability websites like CSRHub are out there. NGOs are talking more about the role of corporations in their success. My son just graduated from college and he takes sustainability as a driver of business success for granted.

Why is this important?

You’re the one audience that really gets the implications of this data. CSRHub and Brand Finance have proved a deep link between CSR and brand strength. There is DRAMATIC ROI for sustainability. And that ROI is increasing rapidly. My take is that more companies see sustainability as the breakthrough platform for strategic advantage.  After strategic sustainability consulting for 17 years I believe we may be at the edge of big shift.

An interview with Cynthia Figge and 3p’s Nick Aster at SB’13.

Cynthia Figge is a forerunner, thought leader and speaker on the corporate sustainability movement. As the co-founder and COO of CSRHub, Cynthia’s team provides free corporate sustainability ratings on over 7,300 publicly-traded and private companies worldwide. In addition to CSRHub, Cynthia is the co-founder of EKOS International, one of the first consultancies to integrate sustainability and corporate strategy. She has crafted corporate sustainability strategies for a host of major organizations, including BNSF, Boeing, Coca-Cola, Dow Jones, and REI. Cynthia also serves as an advisor to SNS Future in Review, Board Director of Compassionate Action Network, and served as President of the Board of Sustainable Seattle. She has an MBA from Harvard Business School. Prior speaking engagements in corporate responsibility have included SRI Basecamp, Future in Review, Sustainable Brands, and SRI in the Rockies.

FUTURE OF ESG REPORTING AND KEY ACTORS:
WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT
GLOBAL ESG REGULATORY AND VOLUNTARY REPORTING

For Public Companies, Boards, Asset Owners/Managers, Risk Managers, Analysts, Auditors, and Attorneys

JUNE 6 & JUNE 19:  CHINA ESG REPORTING; GRI REPORTING DEVELOPMENTS; MATERIALITY EVOLUTION; GROUNDBREAKING UN SSE DEVELOPMENTS

New York, NY – You are invited to attend the exciting Global ESG Regulatory Academy™ Spring 2013 Webinar Series live training–JUNE 6th & JUNE 19th.

FULL DETAILS AND REGISTRATION:  Click Here

The archived Webinar recordings and presentation slides are now available for the April 11th and May 1st Webinars–see Register tab.

A 50% REGISTRATION FEE DISCOUNT IS AVAILABLE FOR A LIMITED TIME.

All Registrants, whether or not you attend the live Webinars, will receive the archived Webinar recordings and the Webinar presentation slides to view at your leisure.

SPRING 2013 TOPICS include:
 
•  SEC ESG Reporting and the Widespread Noncompliance Problem:  Root Causes, Consequences, Solutions, and Noncompliance liabilities for the C-Suite, Board, Auditor, and Asset Manager.
•  What You Need to Know About Internal Control Systems:  SEC Requirements and Liabilities Triggered by ESG Issues for the C-Suite, the Board, the External Auditor, and the Asset Manager.
•  Common SEC ESG Disclosure Omissions, including toxic chemicals and hydraulic fracturing.
•  Current State of ESG Regulatory Reporting and ESG Voluntary Reporting around the world.
•  Latest reporting trends and new developments under the GRI Framework, including the G4 Guidelines.
•  The Evolving Conversation on Materiality:  A profile of recent developments and future challenges in materiality and sustainability.
•  Current ESG practices and perspectives of institutional investors and other market leaders.
•  First-ever instruction and practical guidance on how to integrate ESG regulatory and voluntary reporting, to streamline the process and cut compliance costs.
•  Exciting New Initiatives at the UN Global Compact, and groundbreaking developments in the UN Sustainable Stock Exchange Initiative.

SEE AGENDA TAB FOR FULL PROGRAM AGENDA.

SPRING 2013 SPEAKERS include:

•    Linda Lowson, Esq., CEO and Chief Counsel, Global ESG Regulatory Academy™.
•    Hank Boerner, Chairman, Governance & Accountability Institute.
•    Louis Coppola, SVP and Partner, Governance & Accountability Institute.
•    Brian Rice, Portfolio Manager and Sustainability Risk Management Team Leader, CalSTRS.
•    Sanford Lewis, Esq., Counsel, Investor Environmental Health Network.
•    Ted Grant, Director and Global Head of Research, AccountAbility.
•    Marcy Murninghan, PhD., Senior Research Fellow, Accountability.
•    Danielle Chesebrough, Manager of Investor Engagement, UN Global Compact.

3 REASONS WHY YOU SHOULD ATTEND:

 
• Exclusive, Authoritative Source and Venue for this Invaluable Global ESG Regulatory and Reporting Education: This must-have knowledge and practical guidance is not available anywhere else.  CSR Insight™ conducted an exhaustive, independent 5-year, US$5.5 million Global ESG Regulatory and Reporting Research Program on the major global ESG regulatory and voluntary reporting regimes, including comprehensive drill-down legal, regulatory, accounting, and capital market analyses.  This is the future of financial reporting, affecting every global capital market participant.
• Gain Essential Knowledge to Avoid Serious Liabilities: Whether you are a C-Suite, Board, Finance, Legal, Audit, Risk,Compliance, Strategy, Sustainability, Analyst, Researcher, Asset Manager, or Asset Owner executive, you need this knowledge and you need it now, to fulfill your job responsibilities and avoid serious liabilities and risks of which you may be unaware.  The current widespread SEC corporate noncompliance on ESG issues creates signficant liabilities for thousands of market participants.  ESG regulatory reporting represents a whole new world of requirements and liabilities that is here to stay.
• Receive Important Guidance at a Nominal Cost to Fulfill Internal and External Stakeholder Expectations:  You will reap the benefits of our 5-year Global ESG Regulatory Research Program–quickly, conveniently, and at a nominal cost, including sophisticated technical analyses of both voluntary and regulatory ESG reporting frameworks, translated into simple laymen guidance on understanding, managing, and streamlining these two reporting worlds for maximum benefit and at lowest cost.  ESG reporting is now a strategic imperative.  Be proactive, not reactive, and you will reap the professional and financial rewards.

Webinars have limited capacity; early registration is recommended.  Webinars feature a live Q&A session.

Our archived 2012 WEBINAR SERIES is now available for a limited time at a 50% discount:
SEC ESG Compliance: Where the Rubber Meets the Road.  This Webinar Series provides the first-ever in-depth explanation and analysis of SEC ESG Requirements, Liabilities, and Risks for the C-Suite, the Board, the External Auditor, and the Asset Manager.  You will receive the archived Webinar recordings and the presentation slides.  Don’t miss it while it is still available!

FOR REGISTRATION, SPEAKER, AND SPONSOR QUERIES:

Contact Linda Lowson, Esq. here.
PLEASE JOIN US FOR THIS UNIQUE, EXCITING, MUST-HAVE EDUCATION!

Spring 2013 Speakers include:

MEDIA PARTNERS:

Our Co-founder and COO Cynthia Figge will speak at the opening of the event on June 4. Cynthia will present “New Insights into the Correlation Between CSR and Brand Strength.” Cynthia will be making a special announcement you won’t want to miss!

We look forward to seeing CSRHub members at SB’13!

For more information and to register, click here.  CSRHub members can enjoy a 20% discount off current pass prices by using NWSPKSB13 code when registering.

Cynthia Figge is a forerunner, thought leader and speaker on the corporate sustainability movement. As the co-founder and COO of CSRHub, Cynthia’s team provides free corporate sustainability ratings on over 7,300 publicly-traded and private companies worldwide. In addition to CSRHub, Cynthia is the co-founder of EKOS International, one of the first consultancies to integrate sustainability and corporate strategy. She has crafted corporate sustainability strategies for a host of major organizations, including BNSF, Boeing, Coca-Cola, Dow Jones, and REI. Cynthia also serves as an advisor to SNS Future in Review, Board Director of Compassionate Action Network, and served as President of the Board of Sustainable Seattle. She has an MBA from Harvard Business School. Prior speaking engagements in corporate responsibility have included SRI Basecamp, Future in Review, Sustainable Brands, and SRI in the Rockies.

As previously seen at EcoPlum.

By guest blogger, Silvia Milanova

 If someone ever told you that a handful of people can’t make a difference, he or she hasn’t met the five hardworking moms who started the Food and Tray Waste Composting Pilot in District 3 schools on the Upper West Side of New York City. What began with the moms’ concern for making their own children’s schools more environmentally sustainable has evolved into a citywide effort to reduce waste and educate future generations.

The Pilot team, comprised of green moms from four different schools, Lisa Maller, Jennifer Prescott, Emily Fano,Laura Sametz, Pamela French (pictured left), were each a leader of the Green Teams in their children’s schools. They were able to convince their parent-teacher associations (PTAs) to raise funds to replace the cafeterias’ standard foam trays with compostable sugar cane trays. Styrofoam, or polystyrene foam, a petroleum-based plastic, is non-biodegradable, non-sustainable and non-recyclable; it’s also a big air pollutant and a possible human carcinogen. When used with food, especially with hot or acidic items, polystyrene can leach into the food and affect the reproductive system. Side effects include headaches and fatigue.
But despite the moms’ efforts, the compostable trays were still being thrown in the garbage. That’s when they decided to find a way to compost the trays.

They explored their options: to ask the city to collect the organic waste (food and trays); to get a grant to pay for private collection; or to form a partnership with the local Whole Foods market and piggyback on their organics collection. While they brainstormed, they were fortunate to meet Laura Rosenshine, a composting entrepreneur. Laura was advising IESI, a private waste solutions company, on how to expand their organics business. Together with Laura’s help, the moms negotiated to have the trays collected and composted for four months free. As long as they were going to collect and compost the trays, IESI agreed to pick up all of the schools’ discarded food waste too. This included fruits, vegetables, meat, dairy, bones, pasta, sandwiches, and any other type of food the kids and the kitchen staff threw out.

The composting pilot program began in February 2012 in eight schools (4 buildings) and ran through the end of the school year. For the first few weeks of the pilot, the moms spent time in their respective school cafeterias guiding the students in the new program. They took it upon themselves to teach the students which foods they could compost by making easy-to-read signs. The kids enthusiastically embraced the opportunity. It was also a great way to re-educate them about the existing blue bucket metal/glass/plastics recycling program.

For one week each month during the pilot, the moms, along with student helpers, weighed the garbage, compost and recyclables, to gather data and see if the program was successful. And the waste reduction was significant. Together the four pilot buildings reduced their cafeteria garbage from 54 bags a day to just 8 bags; an 85 percent reduction by volume. An average of more than 400 pounds of food waste and 1,900 foam trays were diverted from the waste stream daily. The program has saved both garbage from going to landfills, and money for the city. The moms estimate that annually, just the eight schools alone would save $3,000 on garbage bags and more than $3,000 in garbage disposal fees. Multiply that by 1,200 public school buildings citywide, and the potential savings are major.

“When we started the pilot, we expected it would ultimately be successful by the end of the fourth month, but we never dreamed that it would become so obvious so quickly how significant the impact would be,” said green mom Lisa Maller.

In addition to the schools reducing cafeteria waste by 85 percent, one of the biggest payoffs for the moms has been the kids’ enthusiasm for the composting program and their willingness to help the environment.

On the second day of the program, a third grade boy brought in vegetable scraps from home to add to the collection bins. The student came up to one of the moms and asked if he could throw the scraps into the new food waste bin. Knowing they could be composted, he simply felt bad throwing them away in the garbage at home. Now, that is making an impact.

The green moms’ own children have also taken their knowledge home.

“Being so involved in educating the kids in the school cafeterias, we all are now so much more aware of the food waste we produce in our own kitchens, “said Maller. “ We can’t ever throw out even the leafy top to a strawberry anymore without thinking—this can be turned into compost. If we forget, for sure our kids remind us.”

And the impact of the green moms’ efforts doesn’t stop there. In September 2012, after recognizing the success of the District 3 pilot, the NYC Department of Sanitation agreed to take over collection of the trays and food waste in these four buildings. It expanded the collection to 21 buildings on the Upper West Side (Manhattan), and 20 in Brooklyn.

Recently, in his last State of the City address, Mayor Bloomberg announced that the school food waste composting program will continue to expand next school year, ultimately being citywide. His goal is to increase the city’s 15 percent* recycling rate, eliminate food waste, and save the city some money. New York City spends around $86* to send one ton of trash to out-of-state landfills, or more than $300 million annually to ship 12,000* tons of trash each day. And the costs go up almost every year.

Driven by an urge to make a difference in their children’s schools, the original five green moms created the pilot program unaware of how successful it would be. Or if it would work at all. But they never gave up on making a change, and their hard work has paid off.

“We are thrilled that City officials recognized the success of our pilot and the potential to replicate it citywide,” said Maller. “We are proud to have been the model for the future citywide program.”

For more information on the pilot composting program, visit www.greenschoolsny.com.

*These numbers are estimates.

This article is part of a profile series EcoPlum is running for the entire month of May called Ecoplum Salutes Green Moms.  Please submit your own story about a green mom who inspires you!  Photos, Videos and short blurbs can be posted on our EcoClipz page.  For longer stories, please send them to submissions@ecoplum.com. Looking forward to hearing from you!