Category: Corporations

How not to be a crap professor of business ethics, CSR or sustainability

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I sometimes show my students the Daily Show’s John Oliver interviewing a Columbia University professor of business ethics. In it he asks the professor what he is doing about the ethical character of business students in the light of the financial crisis. The professor outlines courses that teach cases about corruption and the choices people have to make. Oliver says “that’s great, when are you going to start teaching this?” The professor replies “Um, we’ve been teaching it for thirty years”. After a confused pause, Oliver asks “Would you say you are very good at your job?”

By treating business ethics as something one learns how to debate in the abstract, and the various different explanations people give for their actions, has done very little to build the moral character of graduates from business schools, at least according to the studies that show student values pre and post graduation. It also does little to equip them with the insights, evidence and approaches to lead ethical business, rather than simply respond to ethical dilemmas. So can sustainability, social responsibility and the like be taught? As there’s a debate on a Linked In group, and I’m in the midst of designing an MBA module for IE Business School on sustainability, I took the opportunity to clarify my insights on the matter. So, here goes…

Teaching social and environmental responsibility in business needs to focus on:
– both standalone courses and integration into existing subjects
– both critical as well as practical perspectives
– both firm-centred and issue-centred perspectives
– both “content” and “consciousness” i.e. where the latter is about how we perceive ourselves, our careers, our organisations, our societies, etc.
– both class-based and work/action-integrated approaches
– both lecture and facilitated group learning with reflective exercises, role play, etc.
– both insight from publications and the tutor’s personal professional experience (and/or those of guest lecturers)
– both case studies and cross-cutting analyses

I make these distinctions as much present teaching in this field is only standalone, practical, firm-centred, content focused, class-based, lectured, text-based and with case studies for light relief. Such teaching, on its own, without the other stuff I mention above, is largely useless at educating people. Worse, it can encourage people to think that this field is something one is proficient in by simply recounting various arguments and a few models – a superficial confidence that impairs real insight and change.

Therefore I recommend the “whole person learning” track of GRLI which has a free book to download, written by the late Bryce Taylor.

Towards Rio 2012

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In May 2012 Rio De Janeiro hosts a major UN conference, that marks the 20th anniversary of the first Earth Summit. In 1992 the Rio Earth Summit was the largest ever held, and helped spread around the globe the idea of ‘sustainable development’ as a common goal integrating environmental protection and poverty reduction. It also saw the UN and its member states calling on business and civil society to join in meeting the challenge, thereby encouraging more corporate responsibility and integrated approaches from nongovernmental organisations. Having discovered “sustainable development” in 1988 on the back of the Brundtland report, and just about to start a Geography degree at Cambridge Uni, I followed the Rio Earth Summit and was hopeful that it marked the beginning of a major change. I responded to the call, by working on and developing partnerships between businesses and NGOs in the following years. By 1995 I was helping develop market demand for wood certified under the Forest Stewardship Council system, and by 1996 developed an organisational concept for the Marine Stewardship Council, for WWF. In 1997 I then co-wrote a book about these novel ways of implementing the call from Rio.

Since then the field of innovation on responsible enteprise and finance for sustainable developed has grown and grown, and with that my workload, as an activist, analyst, and advisor. The FSC and MSC are now both massive organisations influencing the sustainability of forests and fisheries worldwide.

However, twenty years on, the statistics on environment and development are not particularly encouraging; consider the rising rates of deforestation, carbon emission, malnutrition and forced migration. Why? Partly because the focus on sustainable development was sidelined by a primary focus on trade liberalisation in the 1990s, on geopolitics and security in the 2000s, and because of an over-riding focus on increasing economic growth rates throughout. One reason for the lack of focus in 1992 on economic root causes of social and environmental problems was the exuberance and hopes after the end of the Cold War: discussing flaws of capitalism was seen as unhelpful and not hopeful. One reason for the focus on what non state actors can do, and thus not government, was the dominant influence of Western nations, who were embracing a laissez faire approach to state governance at that time.

Twenty years later the lack of major global progress towards sustainable development, towards true integration of environmental and developmental priorities, should make us question this lack of attention to economic systems and government roles.

In the last twenty years we have seen non state actors experiment in many new ways to advance the sustainable development agenda, with partnerships and voluntary standards emerging to promote responsible enterprise and finance. Its been exciting and exhausting. However, despite our enthusiasm, these experiments have also reached some limits of what they can achieve in promoting wider change. Leaders in business and civil society are therefore calling for government to become involved to help mainstream the innovations in sustainable development governance. If Rio 1992 was about governments calling non state actors to act, Rio 2012 may be about non state actors calling on governments to act in support of their innovations.

It is a call that may be heard, because today there are non Western nations with more recent experience of strong government leadership that have greater influence in the intergovernmental arena. In addition, twenty years on we should be able to show more maturity in exploring how systemic flaws in a our economic systems could be changed to reduce pressures for poor social or environmental outcomes.

A debate is beginning to be had in both business and civil society circles about the type of economic system we need for a more fair and sustainable world. Although often rudimentary, and often misunderstanding what capitalism is, these debates show there is growing willingness to tackle issues at the depth and scale that matches their signficance to our planet and our humanity. If it was practical not to discuss capitalism in 1992, given the shortcomings of our progress towards global sustainable development since then, it would not be practical to avoid discussing it today. Consequently we will see an agenda for innovating collaborative economic governance for sustainable development emerge over the coming years. Rio 2012 could be a useful moment in helping to globalise that conversation. However, if it becomes a huge draw on our time and attention without getting to the root causes of our enduring social and environmental problems, it could be worse than useless.

For those of us who have worked hard heeding the original call of Rio, we would do well now to organise to influence people’s awareness of what we have learned through success and failure over the twenty years.

With that in mind, I have begun reflecting on those lessons, and on how they could be communicated and learned in ways that could influence the agendas of organisations that can implement change. Because, we must not lose sight of how such summits are not in themselves implementing mechanisms.. connections have to be made from the insights and hopes of such summits to the real institutions of national and international governance.

Therefore, here are some initial ideas on what we could do:

– clarify the lessons from the last 20 years and the accuracy of the narrative I have just described above

– communicate these insights and narrative to global civil society through networks such as the stakeholder forum for the Rio 2012 summit, and get buy in

-communicate these insights and narrative to business networks active on sustainable development, such as the WBCSD, which was born by the last Earth Summit, and the World Economic Forum, which subsequently saw the light and embraced the goal.. and get their buy in

– begin deliberations and research and a devise a plan of technical assistance for a collaborative economic goverance agenda that would seek to mainstream the last 20 years of innovations in sustainable development practice and sustainable development governance

-communicate these insights, narrative and the technical advice about how to implement a collaborative economic governance agenda to mainstream sustainable development innovations, to the various parts of the UN system that are involved in Rio 2012

– engage the Brazilian government, NGO and business communities on this agenda, as given Brazil’s emergence they will play a far greater role in shaping the agenda, messaging and outcomes of the summit than in 1992

– create powerful communications products, such as TV documentaries, popular books, and celebrity campaigns and concerts that sing from this hymn sheet, rather than a dumbed down and expedient narrative, as we have seen at past summits

– remind everyone that the impact of this summit will be in the way it influences other institutions such as WTO, IMF, WB, UNCTAD, UNDP, ECOSOC and so on, and that unless the connections are made to these agents of economic governance, the summit will be a global mirage of hope in a desert of statis and despair

If you agree, and can actually do something about them, please get in touch. Given my existing commitments to other work, my only plans for engaging in this process are some work Im doing for UNCTAD. However, I will find time to discuss other ideas if you have plans to act.

Reflections on a year promoting responsible enterprise

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Lifeworth Consulting is a social enterprise that promotes sustainable development through influencing enterprise and investment. We also run Lifeworth.com, the jobs portal for responsible enterprise. Reflecting on our year, in each of our specialist areas during 2010 we sensed people realising the need for far greater change than they currently seek in their own organisations, and some confusion about how to deal with that gap between awareness and action. We’ve been seeking to help.

We analyse, educate and advise on global changes in business-society relations and how to influence and respond to these changes in helpful ways (Enterprise Trends). Our activities and outputs in 2010 responded to this growing desire for transformation, working with the UN, GTZ as well as CSR networks in Asia to contextualise the key challenges for CSR and responsible investment in the coming years. We also analyse, educate, and advise on the specific practice of cross-sector relations, including partnerships between business and public interest organisations like the UN and NGOs (Engaging Change). We find that the desire to attempt transformational change counters some of the negative effects of growing demands for numerical scores on project effectiveness in challenging funding environment. Social change can be tough, and requires new ways to assess progress, although not ones that see a partnership’s existence itself as the goal. We brought that perspective to our work with UN agencies and NGOs during the year, as well as through the teaching of courses and publishing of papers.

Our third work programme is the focus of our corporate strategy advisory work, where we help high-end brands to develop their approach to achieving social and environmental excellence (Authentic Luxury). It is topic we were busy with in 2010, but mostly with research, lectures and media. The companies in this sector are not moving as rapidly as we had imagined they might, given the strong business case for prestige brands to out perform on social and environmental issues. We worked with a couple of companies on their CSR strategies, but are yet to see wider demand for support to develop and execute ambitious and creative approaches.

Below we summarise some of the activities, and more importantly, the resources we have produced as a result, most of which are freely downloadable via the links. In addition we highlight what’s coming next, and how it relates to the key responsible enterprise and responsible finance challenges of 2011.

Enterprise Trends

The contemporary incarnations of CSR and Responsible Investment have been around for some time. So what is its extent, worldwide? And what does it mean for the actual social, environmental and governance performance of companies and investors? It is time for some global analysis on these questions. So we worked with the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) to co-edit their first global overview of the state of CSR and RI communications. The main conclusion was that as commitments to CSR and RI are now so widespread yet communications on impacts so diverse and unclear, it is time to see more standardisation, with public interests in mind. I shared some insights from that at a session on the future of CSR communications at the CSR Singapore conference. During the year we conducted a study on the performance of environmental, social and governance (ESG) analysts and raters, speaking to leaders and stakeholders in this sector from around the world. My interview with UNPRI Executive Director, Dr James Gifford was recorded. In February we will publish the study, which identifies 9 flaws in current mainstream ESG practice, and makes recommendations for how to fix them, including the development of a multi-stakeholder code of conduct for ESG analysts and raters. The study will be serialised and open for discussion on the ESG Investing discussion group. In 2011 we will also continue our work with UNCTAD to map the progress of private standards for CSR and RI, and what the public policy implications may be.

2010 saw growing interest in the role of business in development. Our interest in development does not arise from companies and investors beginning to engage in this issue, but from a long standing interest in in cultural exchange, how societies progress or not, and shared global challenges. From that perspective we see potential, but also some gross assumptions from people coming at development from the business world. We released our study on this area, outlining the need for a new management system for pro-development business. That followed up a keynote at the launch of the first MDG Scan report by National Committee for International Cooperation and Sustainable Development (NCDO). We also published a major study on a key issue for social progress that has been almost entirely overlooked by CSR and RI until now – economic inequality. Given government spending cuts in many parts of the world, rising prices for basic needs, while banker salaries and bonuses remain high, matters of economic inequality are likely to gain more attention in 2011, and demand more attention from the private sector. In addition to this research work, we were pleased to help the UN, GTZ and ArcelorMittal in Liberia. My colleague Emma Irwin designed and facilitated a workshop to help executives to understand the financial and moral imperatives of integrating Human Rights into their management systems, as well as how to begin that process.

Aside from the rising interest in development, the six CSR trends I identified in my last book, The Corporate Responsibility Movement, appeared to strengthen during 2010. I presented these trends of standardising, mainstreaming, integrating, levelling, enterprising and yoyoing to special events hosted by CSR Singapore and CSR Geneva. The growing desire for transformational change inspired more people to explore ‘design thinking’ as a mechanism for developing products and business models that can help create fair and sustainable societies. My colleague Ian Doyle led an exploration of what ‘design thinking’ can offer CSR and sustainability professions, which we published in the Journal of Corporate Citizenship. I shared some of these ideas in a keynote at a workshop for youth on design thinking for social change, run by Syinc in Singapore. I reflected on how there is no magic bullet for social change, and that an ability to struggle with forces of inertia is key to our effectiveness.

If we seek transformation then we seek to understand the root causes of the problems we experience, and a vision of the kind of system we wish to bring into being. In looking back at 2009 we sensed that more people in the CSR and RI fields were having such discussions: and therefore capitalism was being debated. Our annual review of CSR was called “Capitalism in Question” and in it we offered a concept of economic system that integrates principles of capital and democracy. In 2011 we will share this further by an article in Singapore Management University’s Social Space, and in the book Healing Capitalism, to be published by Greenleaf in September, co-edited by my colleague Ian Doyle.

Engaging Change

Sensing what is needed is different from knowing how to bring it into being. A core theme of our work for decades has been the potential and pitfalls of cross-sectoral collaboration as one method for generating social change. Given the growth in cross-sectoral partnerships over the last decade since my last book on the topic, Terms for Endearment, I had decided to research the latest thinking and practice and share analysis on how to take partnering to the next level. Some outputs from this included a special issue of the leading journal ‘Business Strategy and the Environment’. Contributors to the special issue look at experiences of partnership from across the Asia-Pacific, and bring new insights into what really drives partnerships and what the future holds. With my co-editors Eva Collins and Juliet Roper, we identified a new ideology that partnership is always useful in creating change, and that struggle and conflict are unhelpful – something we termed ‘partnerism’. 2010 was also the 10th anniversary of the UN Global Compact, a cross-sectoral collaboration between business and the UN, and something I have followed since discussions with Georg Kell in 1998 about the initial idea of it. To coincide with the anniversary, the Journal of Corporate Citizenship published my reflections on how it must now address economic governance issues, which I then developed further into a series of proposals, after attending their Global Leaders Summit in New York.

How should public interest organisations attempt to have more systemic impact through their partnering with private sector? That is the subject of my next book, Evolving Partnerships, which is published by Greenleaf in April 2011. It provides tools for strategic review and planning so that UN agencies, NGOs and others can upgrade their partnering for greater social change. It should be available for ordering next month. I will continue to integrate these insights and approaches into my teaching and training on stakeholder relations and partnerships, including at the University of Geneva and Griffith University.

We are also applying our approaches to our training and strategic advisory for UN agencies. My colleague Ian Doyle led a seminar on private sector engagement for staff of the United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (UNISDR). As global value chains have become longer and more complex while natural disasters are increasing, so business continuity is becoming more important, and we believe there can be a convergence with reducing community exposure to natural hazards and increasing their resilience. We have also begun advising the International Labour Organisation (ILO) on its strategy for engaging the private sector in innovative ways. In particular we are looked at what can be done to encourage and support voluntary action against forced labour, a form of enslavement for over 12 million people today. Hopefully we will see some outcomes from this work during 2011.

The network Lifeworth Consulting co-founded, CSR Geneva, continued to bring together people from different sectors to discuss the role of business in addressing global challenges, with over 700 participants. Last year my colleague Janna Greve produced its first directory of members. In the coming year we will organise some events to help the international community better understand how to engage business, so sign up now to be informed.

Another collaborative network initiative that I helped to conceive, while at WWF-UK, gained momentum during 2010. The Finance Innovation Lab is promising because it provides a multi-stakeholder space to explore the systemic flaws and fixes of our financial system. In my advisory capacity to both the Lab the community currency charity CommunityForge, I helped CommunityForge engage the Lab, and create a new working group on the need for innovation in community currencies to promote a sustainability transition. The head of CommunityForge, Matthew Slater also happens to also be my web developer, and co-leader our innovation centre in Auroville (India) during the first part of 2010. In the coming year we will be publishing our study on why and how larger corporations can support and start using community currencies. I also hope to advise the Finance Innovation Lab on an effective approach to internationalising, given the global nature of the financial system.

Clearly we still believe in the power of partnerships, but in 2010 we were reminded of the pitfalls of attachment, where people’s sense of esteem becomes attached to the existence of a project, and the manner of its organising, rather than seeing it merely as a tool, and one that needs testing for the job at hand. No matter what tools, topics and resources are deployed, personal character is key to transformative action.

Authentic Luxury

High-end brands play a major role in the world, signalling what constitutes success and respectability, for many, across cultures. Asia continued to be the boom market for luxury brands during 2010, and thus grew their potential to shape awareness of sustainability challenges in a key part of the world. We have worked on CSR in the luxury sector since conceiving a project on this topic for WWF-UK in 2007 that led to the publication of Deeper Luxury, which stimulated a lot of media interest, including a TV documentary. In 2010 we saw the interest in this area grow steadily. Having introduced colleagues at Eco Chic Fashions and the UN with the idea for the UN’s first professional fashion show at its European headquarters, it was great the idea come together at the beginning of the year, profiling many ethical designers from around the world. I then joined the UN’s Biodiversity Platform, which is encouraging companies in the luxury sector to promote biodiversity conservation.

I was pleased to judge the Walpole British luxury association’s CSR awards, which were won by Six Senses Resorts, and give a keynote on sustainable wellness at the Wellness Summit in Singapore, which reflects how sustainability considerations are growing in the spa and wellness industries. A video of that talk is embedded below. The interest in these topics is global, as reflected by the world’s first Centre for Studies on Sustainable Luxury, in Buenos Aires, which I helped to launch. We will be working with them next year to offer courses on sustainable luxury in Latin America, launching the world’s first sustainable luxury awards, and co-developing the online professional Authentic Luxury Network.

I spoke about the future of fashion in Brisbane, at the Asia Pacific Centre for Sustainable Enterprise (APCSE), which I helped to found the year before, and they recorded it. As part of the research for a book due out in October, that I have been writing with APCSE on sustainable luxury, I worked with a fashion designer and sustainable materials producer in Southern India, to create a prototype of a form of high-end global sustainable luxury. The organic, hand woven, natural dyed denim sherwani we created appeared in Vogue and Marie Claire, by way of some great photos by award winning photographer Paulo Pellegrin, modelled by yours truly (no, not a career move). I wore the sherwani to the centenary fashion show of men’s luxury fashion house Ermengildo Zegna, and after Anna Zegna introduced me to the work of artist Michaelangelo Pistoletto, then ran a workshop on sustainable fashion for textile companies and designers in at his foundation in the northern Italian town of Biella. The sheer fun of working in Italy means I really hope their efforts to encourage CSR in high-end fashion take off in 2011 and that we are able to help further.

One of our strategy clients in 2010 was a high jewellery brand based in London. That helped us to deepen our understanding of the challenges and opportunities facing the jewellery sector, which I discussed on the radio. My colleague Ian Doyle presented his insights from our research on jewellery at the Paris 1.618 sustainable luxury fair, the Atelier for Sustainable Luxury (now the Sustainable Luxury Forum), and at De Beers’ stakeholder consultation. After interviewing dozens of experts about key issues, benchmarking 10 high jewellery brands on their CSR, and identifying leading innovations, we will publish a report responsible jewellery in March.

Also in March we begin teaching the world’s first MBA module on sustainable luxury, at the leading IE Business School, in Madrid. I hope the large luxury brands will be ready to hire the students to transform their companies. However, the luxury industry is not the most innovative and efficient sector that I’ve experienced, and the current commitment from large incumbent brands has been inconsistent. Perhaps the students would do well to establish or join the kind of niche luxury brands that are in the Authentic Luxury Network – the one’s that emerge from the Zeitgeist, rather than repackage the old.

In addition to our consulting business we maintain a CSR jobs and events portal. We’ve designed it in a way that means its full of jobs and events, a useful free one stop shop. But we haven’t designed it in a way where it makes money. So in 2011 we will need to reflect on where next for the portal, after 10 years of providing CSR jobs info to the emerging CSR movement and profession. In 2011 we will open a Geneva office again, based at the new Geneva Hub. We will remain a boutique consulting outfit, only seeking a few clients in the year, working where we can plant seeds that may have a lasting positive impact. We will likely continue to do pro bono work where we get excited about the change potential. We have been doing that by staying small and limiting both overheads and financial expectations. In such a company, what is key is the creative dedication of people who believe their work should be about more than money, status or fun. Therefore I’m grateful to my colleagues who see life that way. Thanks to Ian Doyle for his consistent focus and adaptability, to Janna Greve for her positivity, Hanniah Tariq for her insights, Emma Irwin for her professionalism, Nicky Black (now with De Beers) for her voluntary support, Anne Ellersiek for her phenomenal brain and Matthew Slater for his reliability and moral inspiration.

Each year for the past nine, we have published an annual review of CSR. Not any more – the developments with web2.0 mean that we will provide commentary on an ongoing basis with our RSS feed. In addition, our next book, Healing Capitalism, will review the last few years in CSR and RI.

I believe that this year we will see many more questions raised about economic fairness, about the ethics of the use of power, and we will see increasing cynicism about how business behaves, and a growing spirit of critique. Consequently, there will be more calls for corporate accountability, and a clearer understanding that a responsible business is one that seeks more systematic transparency and accountability from business as a whole. We will also see ISO26000 becoming referenced as the definition of CSR, for good or ill. The implications of Web2.0 for business-society relations will unfold further, with particular implications for fashion brands. We will begin to realise that these new communications tools mean that everything in commerce has an alternative. Even the currencies we use.

Thanks for your interest in our work, and I hope you have success in making waves with your own. You can follow me during 2011 on twitter @jembendell.

Jem Bendell, Director, Lifeworth Consulting.

Here is that keynote on sustainable wellness:

http://www.vimeo.com/16553604

Good Cause Trouble

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Keynote at Syinconnect, October 16th, Singapore…

I’m pleased to be here as I’m in Singapore because the world is changing fast. You are the fasting growing economy in the world and have the 4th highest GDP per capita. The people who have traditionally taken a role in global affairs and addressed social and environmental problems around the world, whether rightly or wrongly, are mostly Europeans and North Americans. That’s going to change. And that can be a good thing, but only if we see more globally responsible leaders coming from places like Singapore. We need to see more compassion and action on the state of the whole world, from newly emerged powers. So I think inititives like Syinc are so important, as they are helping you, future leaders, to explore ways of contributing to your community, and then hopefully beyond.

We’re here at the weekend. Its a saturday morning and none of you have to be at work, and your lecturers dont have to be. The 2 day weekend is a great idea, a good social innovation. Any idea where it came from? I think it important to reflect on how change happened if we are to get insights into how to make it happen. So I looked into the history of the 2 day weekend. In the early 1800s in the UK, where Im from, the was a mostly a one day weekend…Sunday, the sabbath, and it was meant to be spent observing religious ideas. But there was a problem for the religious leaders, and also the growing breed of industrialists. As it was the only day off, a lot of Brits were doing what they like to do – getting drunk. So this made them bad church goers, and also meant they often skipped Mondays because they were hungover. So the church and industrialists got together and decided to give people a half day off on saturday, so they could get drunk then, and snooze their way through church on sunday, and be ready for work on Monday. So the half day Saturdays that I hear you had as you weekend here in Singapore until about a decade ago, you can thank the drunkard Brits for.

So where did the 2 days come from? There was one Cotton mill around 1900, where half the staff were christian, so took sunday off, and half were jewish, so took saturday off. The christians got upset with other people working on sunday, so the owners said sod it, we will close both saturday and sunday. Then, in 1926 the great car maker Henry Ford decided to give his workers 2 days weekends. He realised he needed to not only pay his workers enough for them to afford the cars they made, but also that they needed reason to buy a car. If they were only ever going to work on the bus, and then to church on a sunday, why would they need a car? However, if they had a whole day free to be able to go to the beach, or countryside, or visit relatives and so, then of course theyd want a car, not just a faster horse! So there was some enlightened self interest there. But many other industrialists werent happy with Ford. And so it took a the radical Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America to start a campaign for it in 1929. The history of trade unions is such that this campaogn meant people would have been harrassed, fired, beaten up, and certainly frowned upon by some. There was a struggle for weekends to become normal. But then the depression hit and so industrialists gave in, because there wasnt the cash flow to warrant full production. The innovation in 2 day weekends then spread around the world due to international business, trade unions and the International Labour Organisation, which had been established in 1919. Thats why it was the international firms in Singapore were the ones who in past decades gave staff 2 day weekends not the 1 and a half that local firms gave until recently. So, the history of the weekend, a major social innovation, which enables you to be here right now, shows that social innovations are often messy. They come about because of fudges between institutional interests, some enlightened self interest of elites, often a lot of struggle and strife, and then champions and advocates – all types of action were involved in getting the 2 day weekend to become normal. In that process some people will have been praised, but its important to see how many people will have had to suffer in that process, at the very least, losing their job or losing approval of their parents or peers for being activists. Its a theme Ill return to.

I’ve been asked to say a few words on why get active on social issues. So why get active? Well, first up, because there’s issues. Second, because they arent being addressed in ways that will sort them out, mostly because they are being caused by the normal way we do things, think of things. Third, because u can achieve things if u choose to. Fourth, because when trying u will sometimes hurt and fail, and thats important in life. Fifth, because to be active on matters of the world is a normal way to be, its about being conscious, alive, connected and not boring. I act not to save the world, but to make my species seem worth saving and my life worth living.

So what are the problems out there? Im writing a new book and decided to shrink some issues down into one day, so produced some statistics. They’re a bit depressing. In the last 24 hours, 80,000 acres of tropical rainforest have been lost. In a day, over a million tonnes of toxic waste have been released into our environment. In just the last 24 hours, 98,000 people on our planet died of starvation, tens of thousands of them children. In one day, 137 species have been driven into extinction. These problems, these people, are calling out for our action.

The second reason to get active is because these problems are not being addressed in ways that will sort them out, mostly because they are being caused by the normal way we do things, think of things. Traditional ways of organising to address problems have been undermined by globalisation. Governments now focus on being competitive in international markets, and so look at that beyond other issues – social and environmental issues can only be afforded within that framework. This means leadership is often lacking. Our money systems mean that more cash gushes up to elites than trickles down to the many. We have market fundamentalism where everything is about making money. We have hyper modernism where anything new and techie is great, so we dont easily stop and question whats the purpose of our rushing around. We have a mass media thats jingoistic and superficial about its news, and is celebrity obsessed, so kids now want to be famous when they grow up – for whatever reason doesnt matter, they just want fame.

Then forms of action that have a strong tradition in many parts of the world – protest – dont seem to work anymore. A million people marched in London against the war in Iraq before it started and when Blair was still saying all we needed to do was put pressure on Saddam so war was not inevitable. People didnt believe it.. a million people.. we had not seen that before. But it achieved nothing. Its unclear whether online activism is much of a substitute. Its easy to say you like or dont like something, through a tweet or status update or clicking like, but its much harder to actually do something about it. So in that context we need to be much more imaginative and creative about how we act on social issues. Its not a lost cause because we are an ingeneous species, and can come up with new ways of acting.

Which is the third reason for getting active on social issues – because we can have an impact. And that is why Ive been asked here, having taken unusual paths to prompt some largescale changes. I left Uni and went to work for WWF UK immediately when I was 23, just slighly older than most of you. I joined the Forest Unit and worked with a group of companies that had committed to sourcing all their wood and wood products from sustainable forests. The group was key to developing market demand for a certification system for sustainable forests, which is called Forest Stewardship Council, or FSC. WWF had been pressuring governments to agree to do something about tropical deforestation for years, and hadnt got anywhere, so along with other NGOs they had turned their attention towards companies that were buying the products. Some NGOs attacked the companies, and WWF positioned itself as a partner to help the companies ensure their wood was from good sources. It was an open plan office, and a chap from the WWF International endangered seas campaign was there and was overhearing the work I was doing. We had a few lunches and decided to see if the same idea of certification could be applied to fisheries, and so I helped develop the concept for the Marine Stewardship Council or MSC. Today forests certified under the FSC framework are 134,595,610 hectares. 4,000 seafood products are now available with the MSC ecolabel, sold in over 60 countries around the world. I decided this was all rather important work, and so cowrote a book about it when I was 24 yrs old. That book got in the hands of the head of Kofi Annan’s office at the UN, and they decided to do the same thing at the UN, and created something called the UN Global Compact, which is the largest corporate responsibility initiative in the world now, with about 10000 members. I didnt play a useful role in these developments because im well connected, I wasnt, and didnt achieve things because im super organised, rather, other than luck, which is always important, I think its because im a bit odd – Im rather fanatical about what I do. Although I was fairly shy back then, when it came to my views on what was wrong and how we need to act, I was very bold. But that is a double edged sword.

I got sacked from WWF. I ruffled feathers and didnt play the long game. I was always thinking about how could our impact be maximised. And always wondering about whether the NGO was being compromised. I wasnt in there to get on, it didnt occur to me. I saw that the size of the group of companies that were working to buy wood from sustainable sources was limited by the resources of wwf, which were basically me and an older consultant, who had a background in Shell. It had been an interesting career change for him. He was working 3 days a week from home and managed the membership of 40 something companies. I didnt think it would be right for the companies to pay fees to WWF to cover the costs of membership, as this would compromise the independence of WWF. But I didnt think the group should not grow. I thought we should go to a thousand companies, why not? So, I suggested to my colleagues we accredit an independent consultancy to run the group, and deal with the companies, and that WWF would inspect the operations of that consultancy to ensure the standards were being upheld. The consultancy could charge a fee per member company. This was one in a number of ideas that I was putting forward, way beyond my station as a lowly newby doing data support and analysis. As Id been doing the WWF International work on the MSC I was probably a little cocky about my ideas. Because I didnt have a personal agenda I was confident in my views being good for the organisation. Well, the older consultant didnt like this from me, I was becoming a worry for him. He liked his part time job with a small group of companies. So maybe thats why he exploded one day over something very minor, and then said to our boss he couldnt work with me anymore. The boss, an ambitious guy, always travelling, much younger than the consultant, had bigger things to focus on, didnt get involved to sort it out, so fixed the problem by letting me go. Maybe that was the best decision for him and the project given other priorities. At the time it energised me even further, and I set up a consultancy and wrote the book and various articles that then helped the wider movement of corporate responsibility.

Change isnt always easy or funky. Even creatives say that. Francis Ford Copolla, the famous movie director, says the best work you do will get you attacked the most, and probably fired. The same things that made me succeed also made me fail. But thats the fourth reason to get involved in social change – to push things as far as you can until you fail. Because you need to fail in other peoples eyes sometimes to be part of a movement of people creating something new. You have to be able to take risks, not do this for your own advancement but for a bigger cause. And set backs teach you and energise you. But I do wonder whether that set back may have energised me TOO much, and made me even more fanatical about creating change, putting the other aspects of my life, and other people, to the background. Thats something you have to watch for as you get passionate about a cause.

The fifth reason to be active on matters of the world is that is a normal way to be, its about being conscious, alive, connected and not boring. I act not to save the world, but to make my species seem worth saving and my life worth living. I say that because we dont know if its too late with cliamte change. Its most likely too late for us to avoid major suffering. Unfortunately because pride and profit have shaped our response we have launched an approach to climate policy which is fundamentally flawed, called carbon markets, and will take another 5 to 10 years to be more widely accepted for the nonsense that it is. So Im not in this field with a goal attachment – save X species, stop climate change, and then go on holiday. Its about being fully engaged in life, and learning along the way. Ive had to face up to how things I considered successes might even be failures. For example, despite those grand stats I mentioned, less than 12% of global forestry is part of any certification scheme, and it has been a massive distraction for forest campaigners from other activities to try and prevent deforestation. Were we misguided? What could have been achieved if we had put all that time an effort into another approach? We dont know, but we have to keep asking the questions, and unless we do that courageously, rather than in a way that seeks to justify our selves, our choices, our nice lifestyles, then we are not really engaged in social change, we are just profiting from others concerns for that.

Change requires trouble makers. The world isnt so sorted, people havent got all the answers. So its ok to cause a little trouble sometimes. After all, that’s probably what got you your weekend, so we can be here now, working out how to push things forward some more, meeting social needs in innovative ways.

Getting Ambitious About Partnerships

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Cross-sector partnering for sustainable development has been around a while now.. its 13 years since the first book on this came out, that I co-wrote with David Murphy, and 10 years since the first edited collection on the topic, which I rather artistically but confusingly titled “Terms for Endearment”.

To mark the 10 years, but also to kick start some reflection, I asked some of the contributors to Terms to provide reflections 10 years on. They all talk about how partnering became a key part of the landscape of civil society, of corporate responsibility and of sustainable development policy, but how its not achieving enough, and not as much as what we felt it could when we got excited enough to focus our time on it, as either practitioners or analysts.

That’s not to knock cross-sector partnering and the work we have done in the past or what partnerships are achieving today.. for instance, helping create the Marine Stewardship Council remains one of my career achievements, even though it was still my first year after Uni (not sure what that says about the subsequent years!) The MSC, a sustainable fishery accreditation council, is doing well, but it wont save the world’s fisheries, and so we have to reflect on what these partnerships can achieve in future to meet the scale and urgency of the challenges we face. We will be hampered in those reflections if we fall into a trap of what I call “partnerism” in a special issue of “Business Strategy and the Environment”. By “partnerism” I mean a belief, a mood even, that partnering with others is good in and of itself, so people favour being convivial and forever hopeful to keep the partnership going, rather than critically reflecting on whether it is delivering sufficient change on the ground (or in the water).

To help with that, and call for more ambitious partnering, later this year my 3rd book on the cross-sector partnering topic comes out. It seemed about time, 10 years after the last, as teaming up on the world’s problems still seems to make sense to me, and many other people, but now we really have to team up to change the rules of the game, and level the playing field…. excuse the metaphors… I borrow them from one chapter in Terms for Endearment, by Uwe Schneidewind. Back then he was writing about the need for partnerships to create coalitions for re-structuring economy and society, rather than seeing these are entirely voluntary initiatives that wouldnt impact on regulations.

Uwe is now President of the Wuppertal Institute. Indeed, the contents of Terms for Endeaarment reads like a Who’s Who of innovative thinkers in the sustainable business space, with Georg Kell now Head of the UN Global Compact, Kumi Naidoo now head of Greenpeace International, and Professors Crane, Newell and Ali all leading analysts in their field. These 3 academics, along with the world’s leading advisor on social change networks, Steve Waddell, have all provided reflections on partnering to mark the anniversary. You can read them on my consulting site:
Critical thinking on partnership: Free chapters mark ten years and
Reflections on 10 years of cross sector partnership/

You can also get a copy of the book for half price until the end of the year, as well as accessing a number of the chapters for free.

Unfortunately the first book on the topic is now something of a collectors item, if the prices on Amazon are anything to go by… Ill see if I can put in online by the end of the year.

My new book wont go over old ground, so read up on this older stuff first! Sean Ansett, who was CSR boss at Gap at the time and now has gone upmarket, with a British Luxury brand, thinks that Terms is still very relevant today…

“Ten years after Terms for Endearment was published it continues to be groundbreaking, as it provides a more nuanced analysis of cross-sectoral partnering than many studies on the subject, and maps out an agenda for corporate citizenship that continues to inspire us today. A decade ago Terms for Endearment was critical in helping me to realize the power of partnerships and that in order for sustainable development to be effective collaboration by stakeholders from distinct sectors sharing their respective experience, expertise and resources was the only way forward and that we could no longer go it alone. The partnership examples where invaluable to formulating our approach.”
– Sean Ansett

The Future of the UN Global Compact – New York Inspirations

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Empire State of Mind
Empire State of Mind, sung at UNGC summit

The UN Global Compact is a UN initiative that invites companies to sign up to voluntarily being more socially and environmentally responsible, and making a positive contribution to sustainable development. As Ive worked in corporate responsibility and partnerships for 15 years and with the UN on and off for about 13 years, this initiative is something Ive followed from the start. Recently I went to their Leaders Summit in New York. My highlight was the Alicia Keys number at the end of the conference, sung by a woman from a Harlem group that performs to raise funds for social work. That made me realise maybe Im a bit “conferenced out” and need to go to some more concerts! For 4 days, going back and forth to Times Square I couldnt stop singing “Concrete jungle where dreams are made of, there’s nothing you cant do, now your in New York….. etc… lets hear it for New York, New York”, so it was a fine finale.

I did a video message at the conference. Shame they didnt edit the chat in the middle about whether I had said things in the way they wanted!

The Empire State of Mind song also got me thinking about we might do do with this initiative if we thought anything possible, so I reflected and wrote up some ideas on the future of the UN Global Compact, available at:
http://www.lifeworth.com/consult/2010/08/from-global-compact-to-global-impact/

Alica’s great tune..

Photo: UN Global Compact/Michael Dames

Thoughts on the future of CSR, ESG, Responsible Finance and Social Enterprise

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This Friday CSR Geneva participants will be sharing their views on the future of this field of practice – what is likely and what we each feel is needed. What follows is an excerpt from my book “The Corporate Responsibility Movement”, published last year. In it I describe the emergence of a movement and suggest that we learn from past movements, and social science scholarship on social movements, to better effect systemic change in society (or, to use the Gladwellian lingo used in the UN Global Compact Summit last month, to reach a “tipping point” in business sustainability).

Read on, and do share your views on the future of CSR, ESG, Responsible Finance and Social Enterprise, especially as it relates to what Geneva-based organisations are or can do, and what CSR Geneva might do in future; via our CSR Geneva Linked In group.

“The key trends in corporate responsibility that can be identified from the events and views chronicled in this volume are:

Standardising. As more people and organisations work in this field, so the need to compare and benchmark performance increases, and new codes and qualifications emerge

Mainstreaming. As the limits of individual corporate action in delivering commercial returns and addressing the scale of societal challenges become apparent, so more executives are looking at how to encourage broader changes in society to allow them to invest more in social and environmental excellence

Integrating. As the commercial and legal relevance of performance on social, environmental and governance issues grows, so does the need to integrate this into the various organisational functions, such as marketing, design, human resources and so on

Levelling. As economic, political and cultural power shifts from the West to the rest of the world, so the CR strategies and performance of Southern corporations becomes more important, not only in the global South, but even in the West, and more CR initiatives emerge from non Western countries with their own values and emphasis

Enterprising. As the limits of existing business models and corporate forms in delivering solutions to societal problems appear, as well as the limits of tradition philanthropy and advocacy, so more companies seek to profit from provision of innovative market-based solutions to societal problems

Yoyoing. As the underlying drivers for corporate responsibility increase, so more societal challenges are translated into matters of corporate responsibility and opportunity, and so various issues yoyo to the top of the corporate agenda and suggest a redefinition of the challenge as one of sustainability, ethics, rights, accountability, governance, innovation, efficiency and so on. In light of such yoyoing, the ‘responsibility’ framework remains useful

If you benefit from mnemonics, the initial letters make this a ‘smiley’—‘:-)’—of emerging corporate responsibility trends. The mainstreaming and enterprising trends, which parallel the emergence of societal leadership and social innovation strategies from companies, show how executives have been learning through their engagement with corporate responsibility and that there is an endogenous desire from within the corporation.”

(from The Corporate Responsibility Movement, Jem Bendell, 2009, Greenleaf Publishing, pg 12-13) http://www.greenleaf-publishing.com/productdetail.kmod?productid=2767

Crowd-sourcing philosophy on Facebook

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The power of crowd-sourcing information and ideas is proven by the power of wikipedia. New innovations in crowd sourcing include crowd funding, for instance for the movie Age of Stupid.

I decided to have a crack at this for something quite abstract, yet very important.

I have increasingly realised how easy it is for people to assume that one “thing” is “good” and become attached to that assumption in ways that lead to bad judgement. It happens a lot in the worlds of organisational and policy development. Examples in my field include cross-sector partnerships being seen as always good, or U process facilitation as always key, or government subsidy or regulation related to climate change as always good. Im a fan of each of these, but I’ve seen how assuming such things to always be good without understand context or intention, is a real problem. I realised this is something related to very deep themes around systems thinking and non-attachment. So, I thought I’d put the question out to my pals on facebook, to see how they could help me clarity these insights, so I could then communicate them more clearly in my advisory and writing.

Here are the preliminary results. If you can, please add in comments on this post, and Ill continue to crowd-source philosophy through wordpress!

The thread:

May 17th Facebook status: Jem is looking 4 egs or quotes 2 illustrate a problem of mistakenly thinking a practice or thing is itself “good”, rather than seeing it as good at a particular time due to its context-dependent effect & people’s intention behind it, so that no “thing” is good, except an intention & an ability to understand effects in cont…ext. The same thing in different contexts & with different intentions is not the same thing. Ideas?

Jerri Husch
read some of the early work in anthropology, ie. Clifford Geertz who talks about meaning creation. Or read some of Peter Berger and Luckmann’s stuff from the ’70’s who talk about action and the “social context of meaning creation”. They were the early ones to talk about how the “norms” of what is “good” and what is “bad” are based on the social context of the actors and objects….. 30+ years later they are still the best—-good luck with the work and would love to see what you come up with.
May 17 at 1:08am ·

Jem Bendell
thx. im not wanting to study it, simply to communicate this principle as simply as possible, and mention any classics e.g. from antiquity, that make the same point. any ideas?
May 17 at 1:24am ·

Jerri Husch
maybe check this out…..a good overview and maybe some quotes?http://books.google.com/books?id=kd3w_tWWeewC&pg=PA35&lpg=PA35&dq=berger+and+luckmann+objectification&source=bl&ots=tDLpE3YYXZ&sig=SKkqJTkl-h092Mo7Z6UpiHRTLRs&hl=en&ei=IH_wS7DZLsP6lwef9dm1CA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=9&ved=0CDsQ6AEwCA#v=onepage&q&f=false
May 17 at 1:32am ·

Trineesh Biswas
more neo-classical than classical, but economic governance in the uk and the us for most of the last thirty years has been marked by the notion that privatisation, deregulation, and market forces were always good and efficient, with insufficient case-by-case analysis.
May 17 at 9:45am ·

Linda Popova
A tip from a Classicist, though not necessarily easy to communicate…Read Derrida’s essay “Plato’s Pharmacy”, which, among other things, discusses the “betterness” of the spoken word over the written. It is essentially a discussion of Plato’s dialogue Phaedrus and the relationship between memory and writing. It is centered on the use of the word… See More ‘pharmakon’, which in ancient Greek means both remedy and poison. Socrates’ death by drinking the hemlock is hence said to be ambiguous: is it damnation or salvation? The Phaedrus itself makes use of two further myths – the myth of the cicadas and the myth of Theuth – to illustrate that point…Also of interest, on the ambiguity of mental concepts (metaphors) dependent on context, Lakoff’s and Johnson’s book Metaphors We Live By is a good primer, with less linguistic jargon than my first recommendation. Good luck. Fascinating subject. Would be curious to see your take on it. Best, L
May 17 at 9:46am ·

Linda Popova
p.s. And then, of course, there’s Kant’s take on the subject and my musings on the Patriot act (with which I am sure you will disagree), but nonetheless, you could use this as an example of divergent vs convergent thinking. Since science should be based on divergent mental models, i.e. competing hypotheses rather than scholarly dogma (convergent politics), I am happy to be in disagreement:-)

Late Night Thoughts on the Patriot Act: Size Matters


May 17 at 10:05am ·

Kate Tench
To raise the tone somewhat and spin netgative to positive – “Even a stopped clock tells the right time twice a day” Withnail & I (I believe it was “I”).
May 17 at 11:10am ·

Tiago Pinto-Pereira
“Knowledge is neither good nor bad, but man’s use of
it can be either good or bad.” Paraphrases a sentence i remember in my theory of knowledge course in high school. Not sure of the origin of this epistemological sentence.
May 17 at 1:01pm ·

Vicente Garcia-Delgado
The problem arises because we keep under the illusion that things are “things” when they are really “processes”. For example rather than saying “I am” we ought be saying “I become.” (try that for size…)
May 17 at 3:33pm ·

Jerri Husch
what a great conversation!! Thanks Jem et. al.!!!
May 17 at 4:24pm ·

John Manoochehri
Those are too complicated as examples.

Start with the original myth: the Midas touch. King Midas wanted gold, because it was his hearts desire, and was granted the wish that all he touched would become gold. He touched a tree and rejoiced at the golden tree. He touched his daughter – and then was distraught at the golden daughter. “The same thing… See More in different contexts & with different intentions is not the same thing.”

This story has at least two resonances: the problem of proxy-indicators of welfare, and the problem of the changed context.

One reason Midas liked gold, and the reason we like money, and consumer goods, is that they are ‘vehicles’ or welfare, they ‘carry’ welfare, but they are not in fact happiness or value themselves.

What happens all too often is that these vehicles of welfare, in particular when we get used to ‘storing’ them, as a way of holding over welfare into the future for example (e.g. by hoarding gold to buy more things in the future, banking money, etc), become ‘proxies’ of welfare, i.e. we see them as stand-ins for the welfare itself, and thereby, equivalent to the welfare itself, in the mind. The need to translate the proxy into the actual welfare recedes, and we become obsessed with money and object ownership, even while being unhappy!

Thus we are reminded “only when the last tree has died and the last river has been poisoned, and the last fish has been caught, will we realise that we cannot eat money”. The child that has a hoop and a stick is happy, and the man with a house full of goods is sad, even if the house holds his old hoop and stick. “The same thing in different contexts & with different intentions is not the same thing.”

The other resonance is problem of changed context, where, not particularly because one’s concept of, or intention for, an object or action has changed (e.g. from an object as a vehicle of welfare, to an object as a proxy of welfare), but because the situation has changed, and thereby the welfare effect of the object or action has changed.

The hopeful boyfriend who brings a beautiful rose to his second date, shining with expectation that the girl will fall for his charms, but forgetting his girlfriend is allergic to roses; the father trembling down the stairs towards a disturbing noise, with a baseball bat clutched for protection, discovering it is just his child watching TV; the mythical king mistakenly turning to gold what he valued more than gold, more than anything – all of these are examples of an initial intended welfare effect of an object or action having quite the opposite effect (rose > love; rose > sickness; baseball bat > protection; baseball bat > threatening act; golden touch > more lovely gold things; golden touch > one less lovely daughter).

Or, as you put it. “The same thing in different contexts & with different intentions is not the same thing.”
May 17 at 11:05pm ·

Jem Bendell
im beginning to find a wonderful new use for facebook because of u guys! Hey, its funny how people think that someone having a midas touch is a good thing. Many people speak of a designer or ceo having a midas touch for a brand.. and yet.. the midas touch is a tragic story of greed and ignorance.
May 18 at 12:27am ·

Jem Bendell
ps: this has been such an interesting use of fb ill blog about it, so anyone else wanna chime in this week? all tips welcome.
May 18 at 12:28am ·

Vicente Garcia-Delgado
go ahead! “I am becoming” game!
May 18 at 12:31am ·

Dumb ideas on the deficit

jembendell2 Comments

The new government is getting ready to cut public spending to reduce the deficit. That means people losing their jobs, and people who need support getting more “efficient” support i.e. less. Someone you know is probably worrying about their job; maybe they’ve told you, maybe they just didn’t seem their usual selves.

So, as it seems rather peculiar to me that a government doesnt own its own currency and therefore gets into debt in its own currency, here are some dumb ideas to reduce the deficit, not the country.

First, tell the Bank of England to write off all UK government bonds, or gilts, that it holds. No arguments, replace any bureaucrats at the bank if they disagree.

Second, tell those banks that the government has major shareholdings in to loan pounds to the government at zero interest, to a certain proscribed level that the bank can administer without failing.

Third, pass legislation requiring all banks registered in the UK to lend a certain percentage of all their loans to the government at zero interest.

Fourth, charter a new bank, the Bank of Britain, wholly owned by the tax payers of the UK (one tax payer one share, non tradeable), that would have assets such as national treasures assigned to it as collateral, and instruct it to use the maximum of its fractional reserve lending powers to lend pounds to the UK government without interest, and instruct the Bank of England to give the Bank of Britain it’s full support.

Fifth, tell the Royal Family that they must donate any shares in the subsidiary of the Bank of England (BoE Nominees) and any government-related shares (Treasury Stock) to the new Bank of Britain to demonstrate their duty as principle citizens at a time of financial crisis. If they dont, make the request public. If they still dont, then legislate for it.

Sixth, outlaw mechanisms financiers could use to bring down the economy or the government, such as short selling of certain items and the use of dark pool masked trades, and issue clarification that commercial acts intended to force governments to collapse is treason. It might be less dumb to take this action first, not last.

Seventh, establish a Financial Truth and Reconciliation Commission to explore how the current monetary system was designed, who designed it, and the necessary restorative justice, and also a Monetary Democracy Inquiry to explore policy options at home and abroad for a fair and sustainable financial sector.

As these ideas havent been argued by specialists and politicians, I must presume that are dumb ideas. Therefore I would benefit greatly from any teaching from monetarists or lawyers explaining why precisely each of these ideas is unworkable, and are more dumb than stopping able-bodied people from using their skills to help their neighbours in our “big society”, just because of a change to our money supply?

Or is it dumb to say the pound is ours?

My Micro-blogging: http://twitter.com/jembendell

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Been tweeting about work, since starting this in January. If the stuff below is of interest, follow me at http://twitter.com/jembendell

Just added event on the Authentic Luxury Network; speaking in Geneva on June 3rd at Hotel Bristol, from 12. http://ning.it/9vKWZn

Academics back carbon tax not cap & trade scam http://tinyurl.com/257uplm Implications for CSR & ESG http://tinyurl.com/38mztwx/ climate 1:55 AM May 11th via web

Checking out “Paris Drinks of the “Authentic Luxury Network”” on authentic luxury network: http://ning.it/cLoFvx 9:22 AM May 4th via a Ning Network

Bee colonies collapse. We’re part of nature; & the least wise of species 2 forget it http://tinyurl.com/2u64ozc & http://tinyurl.com/2ut7pq9 5:01 AM May 2nd via web

Paris 7th to 9th then Geneva 9th to 12th – http://www.authenticluxury.net drinks on 7th in Paris, then on to UN event on financial crisis in GVA 11:38 AM May 1st via web

finally UK politician speaks of systemic changes; not deep enough but at least some straight talking http://tinyurl.com/y4ywy2m sri csr 8:57 AM Apr 20th via web

What is a University to do when staff are caught at plagiarism? PR crisis to opportunity? http://tinyurl.com/y7bfjec csr businessethics 12:23 PM Apr 12th via web

just worked out ive produced 111 publications (not including blogs n tweets). will upload on http://www.jembendell.com at some point in 2010 4:29 PM Apr 8th via web

after some stressful deadlines, remembering what’s really important https://jembendell.wordpress.com/2010/04/07/the-happiness-epidemic/ 10:49 AM Apr 7th via web

entrevista en el lujo sostenibles http://www.embelezzia.com/eventos/tarde-de-lujo-con-jem-bendell csr sustainability luxury lujo 10:25 AM Mar 26th via web

talks on sustainable luxury in Madrid on Mar 24 @ ISEM Fashion BusinessSchool http://www.isem.es/isem/mailer/secretosdelujo.php csr 8:09 AM Mar 18th via web

‘Going Green: The Future of Luxury’ broadcasts on CNBC Europe 12th Mar 23.00(CET), 13th&14th @ 20.30(CET) also at http://tinyurl.com/yb9wezu 8:10 AM Mar 12th via web

Pakistan fund to sign UNPRI making it 1st asset owner in SouthAsia. Will India catch up? http://tinyurl.com/yfjx5fs csr sri finance 1:15 PM Mar 11th via web

The FT reports on a growing shift to responsible & sustainable luxury & my little role in that. http://tinyurl.com/ygdf45d fashion csr

Beware the new irresponsible biz lobbying in green mask http://bit.ly/b13Vw1

In rare interview #UNPRI boss talks2me about #SRI #ESG #sustainablefinance #CSR #GFC & work of #UN with investors http://tinyurl.com/yjke7jd