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!

We were recently invited by our friends at Trucost to moderate a webinar with the above title.  Our shared goal was to encourage more companies to start reporting their sustainability performance.

You can download the webinar from the Trucost site, here.  However, I thought I’d share a few of the things I learned from preparing for the talk and from the other panelists.

I started the webinar by sharing some figures from the CSRHub database.  I showed the audience that only 30% of companies in developing countries outside the US are using one of the three main reporting systems (the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), the Carbon Disclosure Project (now CDP), and the UN Global Compact or UNGC).  US companies lag far behind—with only about 10% of the companies we track reporting via these systems.

I didn’t spend a lot of time during the webinar bragging about this data.  However, I was pretty proud to see that our coverage has now grown to the point where we can start to make broad, worldwide statements about corporate social performance.  We currently cover more than 7,300 companies in 93 countries.  Other sources have claimed that “reporting is rising rapidly” and that “90% of large companies are reporting.”  If we take the term “large company” to include those over $100 billion in revenue, these statements are true.  However, when we look at companies between $100 million and $1 billion (which most people would still consider “large”), reporting remains quite weak.

The next speaker was Lorinda Rowledge, who is one of the founders of EKOS International.  Over the past 17 years, Lorinda has helped many large companies take their first steps towards reporting their performance.  Among other things, she offered this set of insights into the benefits of making an initial report.

Our third speaker was James Salo of Trucost.  Jamie uses Trucost’s proprietary models (some of which he helped build) to improve company understand of their environmental performance.  He showed the audience this great example of how a company could use the data it gathers through a reporting process to help visualize its competitive position.

After we shared our slides, we took questions and comments from the audience.  In particular, there remains confusion about new standards for reporting such as those being proposed by SASB and the IIRC.  We agreed that we are happy to see the quality of reporting improved by these efforts—as long as they don’t discourage or confuse companies who are just starting on their journey into reporting.

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 200 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.

Last week, the wine-making town of Sebastopol became the second California city after Lancaster to require that solar panels be installed in all new building construction.

Among the driving forces for Sebastopol’s solar are local realtors, who are going door to door, selling the program as a safeguard against power loss and rising prices. Sustainability is still a strong motivation for some in this liberal-leaning town, but it is resilience that’s motivating support from local business people.

The anti-solar forces supported by Heritage Foundation and Fox News’ claim that California will face more rolling black-outs from the state’s increasing reliance on renewable energy. But watching the two sides duke it out on Fox Business, it looks to this viewer like Fox’s tactic could backfire in the face of the very real resilience of renewable power.

I’ll bet you’ll hear more about “resilience.” In the past, the “sustainability” movement has struggled with language. “Global warming.” “Climate change.” “Rising Sea Levels.” And perhaps the most problematic, “Sustainability” itself.

An apt analogy can be found on the Internet.  In 1992, when I first started working with Cisco on language around its new field “Internetworking,” company officials were firm about building a business category around a term that underscored their technical elitism. Back then, Internetworking accurately described what was as obscure as rocket science. Cisco engineers literally scoffed at those who couldn’t understand their equipment’s technology.

Language was holding back the Information Superhighway even as the world was pushing them to build it.

When Cisco realized the market limitations that the whole “Internetworking” approach was putting on the company’s growth, they finally accepted their place as part of a “networking.”

Like “Internetworking,” “Sustainability” is cumbersome and hard to understand. It doesn’t speak to a problem real people have. It’s for the insiders.

So what is the environmental movement’s equivalent of “networking?” Is “resilience” the word that can expand “sustainability” beyond the movement’s core?

Kevin Dingle, President of Sustaining Structures, says that the buzz in corporate real estate is all around “resilience.” Business is booming. Legislation like energy benchmarking helps, as does the promise of lower energy bills. LEED construction and Energy Star for Buildings  are considered good for Corporate Social Responsibility, in other words, for traditional sustainability reasons.

But the key differentiator for renewable energy in buildings has moved on from Sustainability. Now the hot pitch is resilience.

Dingle credits Superstorm Sandy and other natural disasters for this shift. Power was out in downtown Manhattan for a full week in some places while a central station dried out and came back on line. Solar can provide an effective, on-site power back-up, or resiliency, that commercial and residential customers want.

In April, the American Solar Energy Society conference in Baltimore featured the idea of resiliency in their plenary panel “Climate and Resiliency.” The conference’s lead press release emphasized the same idea, “Renewable energy provides resiliency for communities in the face of climate-related weather disasters.”

The U.S. Department of Energy has initiated a program to improve electric grid reliability and resiliency in part through wind and solar.

A pro-solar web site is called Resilience.org.

Language creates our reality. Sustainability has been driving the environmental world for some years. Maybe I’m alone in this, but when I hear the word, my automatic reaction is “How long can we sustain this?” It brings to mind the phrase “Dark Optimism” coined by a UK environmental radical Shaun Chamberlin to describe the force he wants to corral to protest for climate change.

In stark contrast, the word resiliency is filled with light and hope, signifying a rebounding or springing back. Just when so many are so despondent about the environment, new language arrives to save us. It reminds us of the dawn of the Internet, when words like “internetworking” were slowing acceptance of what was to become a life-changing transformation.

Photo courtesy of  Dept of Energy Solar Decathlon via Flickr CC.

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 91 countries. By aggregating and normalizing the information from 200 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.

Companies commonly base executive compensation on performance, but a growing number of businesses have started associating top leaders’ pay rates and bonuses to achieving corporate environmental goals. In essence, initiatives such as reducing energy use can lead to higher compensation for those in the corner offices.

According to a 2013 joint report done by the Investor Responsibility Research Center and the Sustainable Investments Institute, 43 percent of Fortune 500 companies link executive pay to sustainability. These incentives are helping companies across the world accelerate green goals and reduce carbon footprints.

Caterpillar

In recent years Caterpillar, a worldwide manufacturer of construction and mining equipment, has dedicated itself to corporate sustainability. As motivation for senior executives to reach these goals, the company has started tying compensation to sustainability performance. In 2011, a reported 84 percent of Caterpillar’s executive officers had compensation tied to the company’s performance.

Caterpillar has lofty environmental goals, such as a 20 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions and a 25 percent increase of energy efficiency by 2020. But in some cases, it has already exceeded these goals. According to its annual report, the company has surpassed its energy efficiency goals by 22 percent by 2012. Part of this achievement is based on Caterpillar’s dedication to renewable energy resources. In 2012, 18.2 percent of the company’s energy was comes from green energy.

In addition, Caterpillar has made a commitment to follow LEED standards for all new construction worldwide. LEED is the international standard for sustainable construction, design and maintenance. These buildings will focus on energy efficiency as well as reduced waste.

Intel

In the world of technology, Intel is a leading computer and processor manufacturer. But in terms of the green movement, the company is leaps and bounds ahead of most companies in sustainability initiatives.

Intel has been linking sustainability and compensation for its CEO and top leaders since 2008. In addition, all employee bonuses are tied to its green goals. The company encourages its employees to find new ways to innovate sustainability at work and recognizes successful staff with its Intel Environmental Excellence Awards. Employees who received the award in 2010 collectively saved the company $136 million.

By 2010, the company reduced its emissions by 40 percent, saved more than $5 million through recycling programs and created more energy-efficient products for customers. To further limit its carbon footprint, Intel committed to purchasing 2.5 billion kWh worth of renewable energy credits, which will offset 85 percent of the company’s energy use. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, that’s enough clean energy to power 218,000 homes!

Shell

Though you may not think one of the world’s leading energy and gasoline companies would be green, Shell  has some impressive sustainability standards. The company makes the environment a performance evaluation criterion for its 87,000 employees worldwide, including upper level executives.  Shell’s employees are evaluated for individual and team efforts for accomplishing the company’s green goals. Their performance in these initiatives is directly related to their annual bonus amount.

As part of its sustainability commitment, Shell works to provide energy-efficient alternatives to its customers around the world. As a major producer of oil and gas, Shell has a significant investment in alternative fuels and research for renewable options. In the past five years, the company spent $2.2 billion to develop alternative energy. Additionally, the company has increasingly used natural gas as a cleaner-burning fuel than coal to create energy.

Shell is significantly invested in wind energy, with wind farms located in Europe and North America. The company estimates that its emission-free generation of electricity eliminates more than 1 million tons of carbon dioxide from entering the atmosphere.

Photo courtesy of AMagill via Flickr CC.

Keith Patterson is a copy writer for EnergySavings.com and freelance blogger on energy innovation and design for the greater good. Follow him on Twitter: @kcpatterson711

CSRHub provides access to corporate social responsibility and sustainability ratings and information on 7,000+ companies from 135 industries in 91 countries. By aggregating and normalizing the information from 200 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.

The CUHK MBA CSR Conference, “CSR as a Growth Model for a Sustainable Asia” is right around the corner, May 6^th in Hong Kong at the Hong Kong Convention & Exhibition Center. See the conference details  link for more information.

CSRHub members can enjoy 30% discount off the ticket price using promo code: CSRHub_discount when they register here.

The BMW Sustainability Hackathon was a great success!! 2 prize winners used the CSRHub API, Wastegram & GreenCuisine.

The BMW Sustainabilty Hackathons look for technical as well as non-technical people to build apps, mobile apps and hacks to address some of the most pressing problems in sustainability facing our future as a greener planet.

CSRHub was pleased to support the April Sustainability Hackathon. It was hosted by BMW Group Technology Office USA in Mountain View, CA. The event was a huge success, with 15 app submissions, and over $3000 given away in prizes!

Ronan Brennan from the BMW Group told us, “We surveyed the hackers and 2 submissions claimed use of CSRHub’s APIs and both were prizewinners!”
Wastegram : https://www.hackerleague.org/hackathons/sustainability-hackathon-mv/hacks/wastegram
Green Cuisine : https://www.hackerleague.org/hackathons/sustainability-hackathon-mv/hacks/green-cuisine

A full list of prizes and winners is here:

https://www.hackerleague.org/hackathons/sustainability-hackathon-mv/wikipages/511eb98b9989c5b204000016

CSRHub provides access to corporate social responsibility and sustainability ratings and information on 7,000+ companies from 135 industries in 91 countries. By aggregating and normalizing the information from 200 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.

CSRHub members can enjoy a 40% discount to the following conference by selecting the “BBB Accredited Businesses and National Partners, Event Supporters, and Charities” option when registering.“

Cancellation Policy: If you register, need to cancel, and wish to request a refund, please notify us in writing by email to hlayland@newyork.bbb.org no later than 5:00 PM on Wednesday, May 29, 2013. We regret that we will not be able to offer refunds after that time, and likewise, cannot re-apply registration fees for this event to other purposes. You may send a substitute attendee in your place if necessary; we ask that you give us advance notice of the change if at all possible, to ensure a smooth event check-in process for your attendee. Thank you!

FUTURE OF INTEGRATED REPORTING:
WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT
ESG REGULATORY AND VOLUNTARY REPORTING

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

DATES:  APRIL 11 (Recording and Slides Available), MAY 1, JUNE 4, and JUNE 19, 2013, all at 2:00-3:30pm ET.

TODAY ONLY:  50% DISCOUNT PLUS FREE $35 REPORT for all Registrants:

“SEC ESG Noncompliance:  Where the Rubber Meets the Road”, by Linda Lowson, Esq., published in the Journal of Applied Corporate Finance, July 2012 (fully annotated).

All Registrants receive the Webinar Recordings and Presentation Slides, even if you do not attend the live Webinars.

WEBINAR SERIES SITE:  Click Here

WEBINAR SERIES DESCRIPTION:

Our most exciting Webinar Series ever, these four Webinars will present:

• First-ever instruction and practical guidance on correlations and integration of ESG regulatory reporting and ESG voluntary reporting processes.
• Current regulatory compliance problems, issues, and resources.
• Current ESG practices and perspectives of institutional investors and other market leaders.
• Expert commentary on latest developments in global ESG regulation and ESG voluntary reporting frameworks.

SPEAKERS INCLUDE:

• Linda Lowson, Esq., CEO, Global ESG Regulatory Academy™.
• Pietro Bertazzi, Senior Manager for Policy and Government Affairs, GRI.
• Hank Boerner, Chairman,  Governance & Accountability Institute.
• Sanford Lewis, Counsel, Investor Environmental Health Network.
• Brian Rice, Portfolio Manager and Sustainability Risk Management Team Leader, CalSTRS.

3 REASONS WHY YOU SHOULD ATTEND:

• Exclusive, Authoritative Source and Venue Worldwide for This Global ESG Regulatory and Reporting Education: This must-have education is not available anywhere else.  CSR Insight™ is the only organization worldwide that has completed a 5-year research program which conducted the first comprehensive, drill-downlegal, accounting, and technical analyses of all major global ESG voluntary and regulatory reporting regimes.  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.  Be proactive, not reactive, and you will reap the professional and financial rewards.
• Receive Important Guidance at a Nominal Cost to Fulfill Internal and External Stakeholder Expectations:  You will receive the benefits of a five-year, US$5.5 million Global ESG Regulatory and Reporting 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.

Webinars have limited capacity. Early registration is recommended.

Webinars will feature a live Q&A session.

Also, if you missed our Fall 2012 Webinar Series, it is now available for a limited time at a 40% discount:  SEC ESG Compliance: Where the Rubber Meets the Road:  Click Here.  This Series provides the first-ever in-depth explanation of SEC ESG Requirements, Liabilities, and Risks for the C-Suite, the Board, the External Auditor, and the Asset Manager.

Don’t miss this unique, exciting, and important education!

For Speaker, Sponsor, and Registration Queries:  contact Linda Lowson, Esq. here.

MEDIA PARTNERS:

In March, I attended a pancake breakfast with residents of NYU’s Green House, a small dorm set aside for upperclass students who want to “shrink their environmental footprint.” I asked one future biochemist what she thought about NYU’s environmental program. Her bright young face turned sour as she complained that her environmental studies were dominated by disaster science. Where was the hope, she wanted to know?

Her complaint explained a lot of what I was seeing. Interest in climate change is low among the Gen X cohort. Environmental protests have fewer young people than older. Low demand for slots at environmental graduate schools holds acceptance rates at an average 50% of applicants. How awful to hear it confirmed by a current member of this cohort: the message of climate change urgency is failing.

In his article “Pessimism Is Impeding Environmental Advocacy,” Richard Matthews explains the phenomenon:

Decades of research show that appeals to fear can easily backfire causing recipients to reduce the fear without reducing the danger, perhaps by denying that there is anything to fear or concluding that the fear appeal was a manipulation attempt by an untrustworthy source.

 

Paul Bain (School of Psychology, University of Queensland) and his colleagues conducted a study that shows that informing people about the expected impacts of climate change had no effect on their positions. What did change the positions was thinking about how limiting greenhouse-gas emissions might promote interpersonal warmth and scientific and technological progress. …Bain’s research shows that approaches based on hope work far better than fear.

Sandy hit New York on October 25, 2012. The pancake breakfast was over four months later. It seemed at that moment as though all the attention brought to climate change by the Superstorm might be feeding fear and not, as we had hoped, igniting interest in remediation.

But then, just this week, the zeitgeist seems to have altered.

Maybe it’s only a series of coincidences, but all sorts of mainstream and even conservative media has jumped on the good news about climate change

Bloomberg released its projections for renewables, citing 230% growth by 2030. Bloomberg’s chief executive of New Energy Finance Michael Liebreich adds, “What it suggests is that we are beyond the tipping point towards a cleaner energy future.”

Forbes Magazine published a statement from Ceres President Mindy S. Lubber about how corporations are connecting sustainable models to their own long-term self-interest. She cites Ford as an example: “Ford is on the leading edge of the development of a new generation of hybrids and electric cars. It is challenging Toyota’s dominance in this market in part.”

A report released by Carbontracker warns investors of a carbon bubble: “Greater understanding of the uncertainty and risk around fossil fuels can help the redistribution of these funds towards alternatives more attractive.”

Even the left-leaning media seem more optimistic. David Roberts writing for Grist writes “Solar panels could destroy U.S. utilities, according to U.S. utilities,” quoting an electrical industry report that compares utility delivery of energy to phone wires and predicting a similarly rapid rate of consumer switching. Oregon Public Broadcasting reported that a Beaverton start-up has created a floating “lily pad” that uses solar-activated nanotechnology to break down water contaminants.

And the web site that straddles both profit and planet, TriplePundit, headlined its April 22 edition with this: “Climate Change is Finally Real for the American People.” I urge you to read it. The author, Rosana Francescato, buttresses her argument that we’ve reached the tipping point on climate change with facts from opinion polls and quotes from military and finance leaders.

All this change in less than two months? Of course not. As Francescato says, “Belief in climate change has been progressing for years. Now we’re at the point where some of our most sober institutions are on board to deal with it, and they’ll be backed by increasing public support. With all these sectors of society working on the problem, we have a much better chance of solving it.”

I hope the message is getting to young people like my Green House friend. Climate change will definitely be the greatest challenge of their generation and even more galvanizing than sending a man to the moon. They’ll certainly have my gratitude.

Photo courtesy of macinate via Flickr CC.

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 7,000 companies worldwide. Carol holds degrees from Smith College and Harvard University.

CSRHub provides access to corporate social responsibility and sustainability ratings and information on 7,000+ companies from 135 industries in 91 countries. By aggregating and normalizing the information from 200 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.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CSRHub and CRedit360 Announce Service Partnership

NEW PALTZ, NEW YORK and CAMBRIDGE, UK — April 29, 2013

Leading providers of sustainability information services CSRHub and CRedit360 are pleased to announce a new partnership. Through the collaboration, CSRHub and CRedit360 will provide an integrated service that allows CRedit360 users to incorporate organizational benchmarking data from the world’s largest database of sustainability ratings directly into their CRedit360 sustainability performance management solution.

In addition to measuring key sustainability metrics and implementing ambitious sustainability initiatives, it is also important to measure sustainability performance against peers and competitors and across industries and geographies. CSRHub’s embedded tools and data allow for access to the ratings information of over 7,000 companies from 200 sources, including leading sources such as the CDP, EIRIS, Asset4/ThomsonReuters, GovernanceMetrics (GMI), MSCI, IW Financial, Trucost, and Vigeo.

With access to more than 20 million data points in CSRHub, CRedit360 users can evaluate and compare their external ratings to objectively assess where they are leading and/or lagging.

CRedit360 enables organizations to integrate all of their sustainability data into a single system with built-in accuracy checks, extensive audit capacity, powerful reporting functions and easy access from anywhere in the world.  This helps improve data quality, enables quicker and easier collection of sustainability data, and equips organizations to keep one step ahead of trends in sustainability.  The CRedit360-CSRHub partnership allows organizations to evaluate their ratings and those of their peers, and then use the information to improve their company rankings.

“CSRHub is excited to partner with CRedit360 to help customers improve their CSR and sustainability reporting and benchmark their performance.” said Cynthia Figge, Chief Operating Officer and Co-Founder of CSRHub.

“CRedit360 provides our clients with cutting-edge tools to manage sustainability performance.  We are excited to partner with CSRHub to enable organizations to monitor and compare ratings across the world’s largest corporate social responsibility and sustainability ratings and information database,” said Mark Shields, Managing Director, CRedit360.

About CRedit360

CRedit360 is a specialist provider of sustainability software. Founded in 2002 by a group of sustainability professionals and an innovative IT company, CRedit360 has developed software from the ground up to handle the complexities of managing sustainability data. We maintain strong client relationships and manage every aspect of product development and support with in-house technical teams and sustainability experts.

CRedit360’s vision is to help companies incrementally manage the full spectrum of sustainability issues in a single system. Companies aren’t limited to single issues, so neither is CRedit360. Supply Chain, Energy & Carbon, CSR, EHS, Compliance – we want to give our clients the 360 degree view of their sustainability performance.

For more information, visit www.credit360.com or contact Jeremy Fenderson, Marketing Manager, CRedit360:

jeremy.fenderson@credit360.com
or +44 1223 237 200
or +1-312-884-989

About CSRHub

CSRHub creates simple, direct comparisons of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and Sustainability performance among competitors and across supply chains, industry, and regions. It reinforces third-party standards and encourages transparency and responsible behavior. Our comprehensive database of CSR information provides a complete set of sustainability metrics and tools. We support and serve the decision-making needs of corporate managers, researchers and activists.

For more information visit www.csrhub.com or contact Cynthia Figge, COO and Co-Founder, CSRHub, Cynthia@csrhub.com.

# # #

A New Way of Doing Business is Emerging…

Business4Better (B4B) is a two-day conference and exposition designed to help businesses develop the knowledge, competencies and contacts to partner with nonprofits in ways that have a substantive impact on societal causes while creating stronger commercial value for your business – join the movement and learn how!

Building Partnerships that Matter

Business4Better features 200 innovative and creative nonprofits as the exhibitors in an environment that enables companies to find genuine opportunities for collaboration, bringing you from simple check-writing to a dynamic corporate social responsibility program that has lasting impact.

Cynthia is lending her expertise to two sessions:

Supersession: Measuring What Matters

Thursday, May 2, 2013, 3:30 PM-4:30 PM

Is there hard evidence that corporate community involvement moves the needle on social causes? Which business-nonprofit partnership benefits are hype and which are proven? How do you know if you are on the right path to showing measurable impact? This session has actionable answers to your metrics questions. Cutting-edge corporate community involvement programs collect hard evidence that they increase sales, customer loyalty, employee engagement and employee retention. They also show a positive business return on investment (ROI) and social return on investment (SROI). Learn the measurement best practices and take your measurement to the next level!

Breakout session: Benchmarking and Recognition Tools

Thursday, May 2, 2013, 1:45 PM-2:45 PM

Benchmarking your program and getting recognition for what you do is important. What tools can help you compare your community involvement program with other companies? And how can you be publically recognized for your program? Come to this session and learn more about the ins and outs of successful benchmarking and recognition programs.

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