Category Archives: Sustainability: Issues, Reporting & Finance

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The Oil Crunch

People tend to think of oil as the stuff you put in cars, buses, trains, aeroplanes, lorries, etc. They don’t think of all the ramification that hydrocarbons have for the whole economy. You know, fertilizers made from oil, our goods and services that we buy in shops have a have huge oil input into them. So, if oil becomes more expensive. Then we get to a situation where all businesses are impacted.
~ Will Whitehorn, Virgin Group

In the video below, An Introduction to the Oil Crunch: a wake-up call for the UK economy, Will Whitehorn (Virgin Group) and John Miles (Arup), both belonging to the UK Industry Taskforce for Peak Oil and Energy Security, look at the implications of the oil crunch on the UK and why there’s an urgent need for government action.

This is echoed in this ABC TV Science video – Catalyst: Oil Crunch, where Dr Fatih Birol, Chief Economist, International Energy Agency, warns that “the time is running out, the oil is today our lifeline, it is everywhere in the economy, if the prices go up or if there’s a supply disruption this will be definitely very bad news.” And you know the situation is worst than what you think it is when he concludes that “it would have been better if the governments have started to work on it at least ten years ago.”

Sustainable Reporting – SGX

Singapore Issues Reporting Guidelines. (2010). Business & the Environment with ISO 14000 Updates, 21(10), 6-7.

This short write up reports that Singapore Exchange Ltd. (SGX) has started sustainability reporting for listing companies on August 28, 2010, the first securities exchange in Asia to do so.

Click here to read the full text.

Click here for the Proposed Policy Statement and Guide to Sustainability Reporting for Listed Companies by SGX.

Engaging stakeholders in corporate environmental governance

Backer, L. (2007).  Engaging stakeholders in corporate environmental governance.  Business & Society Review, 112(1).  Accessed October 18, 2010, from EBSCOhost database.

Abstract: “The article examines how has Shell responded to institutional pressures relating to corporate environmental governance and what does such corporate response imply for the conceptual understanding of the politics of secondary stakeholder influence. Theories of organizational decision making will be discussed. An analysis on how Shell has changed its corporate environmental decision making in response to the growing institutional pressures relating to corporate environmental governance is presented.”

Nestle’s own goal

McNamee, D. (2003).  Nestle’s own goal.  Lancet, 361(9351).  Accessed October 18, 2010, from Ebscohost database.

Abstract: “Reports that Nestlé is demanding from Ethiopia the return of money the company feels it is owed. Discussion of Nestlé’s purchase of a German company which the government of Ethiopia had nationalized; View that the demand is a public relations blunder on the part of the company; How Nestlé says it will invest the proceeds received in programs to help Ethiopia including safe water programs and antidiarreheal medicines; How the furor resulted from an Oxfam press release.”

The Kasky-Nike threat to corporate social reporting

Hess, D., and Dunfee, T. W. (2007).  The Kasky-Nike threat to corporate social reporting.  Business Ethics Quarterly, 17(1).  Accessed October 18, 2010, from EBSCOhost database.

Abstract: “In the recent case of Nike v. Kasky both sides argued that their standard for distinguishing commercial speech from political speech would create the better policy for ensuring accurate and complete disclosure of social information by corporations. Using insights from information economics, we argue that neither standard will achieve the policy goal of optimal truthful disclosure. Instead, we argue that the appropriate standard is one of optimal truthful disclosure balancing the value of speech against the costs of misinformation. Specifically, we argue that an SEC-sanctioned safe harbor available under a closely supervised system for social reporting will bring about optimal truthful disclosure. The scheme is intended to enhance stakeholder confidence in corporate social and political commentary, while at the same time encouraging corporations to provide accurate information in a fair playing field of public debate.”