Are Public Companies Including Sustainability Information In The Traditional Financial Communications Channels? We are almost at calendar year end and for many companies approaching fiscal year end -- and that means busy-busy-busy times in the corporate suite as senior managements prepare 4Q / year end results for the earnings release and the details of the earnings call to be scheduled not too far into the new year 2016. The preparation for the 10-k will be underway in earnest at year-end. So – reflecting the heightened interest of the investment community in sustainable investing -- what about companies including narrative and metrics related to the progress of the company’s sustainability journey? Are companies including these references? Will they? Our colleague, Pam Styles (Fellow of the Institute and principal of Next Level Investor Relations LLC) writes about this on the AlphaSense blog, exploring the question: should ESG / Sustainability be coming up on earnings press releases and conference calls? In conversations with U.S. corporate managers, we hear over and over – no one in the investment community ever asks about our CR or sustainability efforts/progress on the earnings call. (It’s very different in Europe, where sustainability questions are more mainstreamed. Pam includes European company trends in her article.) Pam’s research identified a small number of U.S. public companies that did include references to sustainability in their earnings releases, included references in their Proxy statement, in their 10-k, or in other financial communications separate of the many sustainability reports published by public companies. Companies referencing sustainability topics included Alcoa, Cardinal Health, Hormel Foods, and Campbell’s Soup. Trendsetters: Using the AlphaSense resource, Pam found eight U.S. companies that back in 2010 were referencing ESG/Sustainability in their investor communications: Emerson Electric, Chesapeake Energy, CR Bard, Gentex, Google, St Jude Medical, EQT Corp, and electric utility Vectren. Forward to 2012 – Baxter made comments on its annual conference call. What’s ahead? Will more U.S. companies expand their traditional financial communications to include sustainability information? Read the findings in Pam’s commentary in the Top Story this week. Reporting on the Sustainability Journey: A Conversation with Mondelez International One of the Worlds Leading Food & Beverage Companies You Know Many of its Brands We had a conversation recently with Jonathan Horrell, Director of Sustainability at Mondelez International, one of the world’s leading food & beverage manufacturers and brand marketers. We talked about the company’s sustainability journey and the public reporting on the progress of the journey. The company has a long tradition of taking a holistic view of its operations, Jonathan explained, and has structured its sustainability journey on four pillars that are high level strategic priorities. The company’s approach can be summed up in the theme of the holistic approach of “the call for well being.” The Mondelez “brand family” includes such products as Chips Ahoy, Triscuits, Wheat Thins, Lu Petit Beurre, Mikado, Cadbury’s, Oreos, Ritz, belVita, Kinh Do…and many more. Some brands date back a century or more, and the company’s core values are aptly described in the company’s 2014 Call For Well Being Progress Report. The G&A Institute interview has the details for you – we invite you to read our Sustainability Update blog post – link below. Top Stories of the Week Mondelez International – Food & Beverage Marketers With Strategy of a “Call for Well Being” for Stakeholders — Colleagues, Suppliers, Farmers & Consumers
by Hank Boerner – G&A Institute Chairman
Executives of major consumer brand marketers are increasingly concentrating their focus on their sustainability and responsible business practices up and down the value chain. Senior managements are paying attention to their global enterprise value chain, from beginning to end. For food marketers, as example, that includes greater engagement with their partners at the beginning of the chain: farmers, small growers and suppliers. And at the other end, the all-important consumer reaching for their product at the local supermarket. ESG / Sustainability — Is the Topic Coming up on Earnings Calls?
(Wednesday - November 25, 2015)
Source: Alpha Sense - Pamela Styles, principal, Next Level Investor Relations LLC - There is growing evidence of attention to ESG / Sustainability in mainstream investing. Global ESG / Sustainability investments are now 30% of all professionally managed funds with significant growth both in the U.S. and UK ...
Sustainability in Focus
Sustainability is more than environmental management
(Monday - November 23, 2015)
Source: NewsDay - FROM civil sector perspective, sustainability is managing current businesses with respect to the exploitation of natural resources taking in mind the generations to come. The focus is on managing the use of limited resources to...
How to Communicate Sustainability at a Brand Level
(Monday - November 23, 2015)
Source: Sustainable Brands - SB ‘15 London’s third and final afternoon kicked off with a colourful session with Matthew Yeomans, founder of Sustainly, a knowledge consultancy and advisory platform based around bringing together the worlds of sustainability... Climate Survey Lists Sustainability Leaders: Unilever, Tesla, Ikea, Google, GE
(Monday - November 23, 2015)
Source: Just Means - The best ways for companies to demonstrate their commitment to combat climate change include taking specific actions to reduce their carbon emissions, increase the use of renewable energy such as solar and wind, and clamp down on...
How China can be a model of food sustainability for the developing world
(Monday - November 23, 2015)
Source: South China Morning Post - Food and water – we cannot do without them, but too often these resources are squandered and lost. The global population currently stands at about 7.3 billion, which the UN predicts will grow to about 11.2 billion by 2100 and...
Transparency and Integrity: They’re prerequisites for supply chain sustainability
(Tuesday - November 24, 2015)
Source: Supply Chain Management Review - Regardless of the motive, environmental and social supply chain sustainability requires a level of transparency, and ultimately integrity, that is only beginning to be recognized Choose sustainable palm oil to stop the destruction of rainforests
(Tuesday - November 24, 2015) Associated Profiles : Union of Concerned Scientists
Source: The Daily - In fact, according to a recent report by the Union of Concerned Scientists, if the carbon dioxide is released from all the peatlands in Southeast Asia, it will be equivalent to the amount of carbon dioxide from nine...
How HR, Sustainability Heads Can Partner to Embed Purpose Throughout an Organization
(Tuesday - November 24, 2015)
Source: Sustainable Brands - There was a lot of discussion last week at SB’15 London around the so-called ‘aspirational generation’ - a rising generation of millennials with higher sustainability expectations of brands whose products they buy, as well as for...
Environment and Sustainability: An Introduction
(Tuesday - November 24, 2015)
Source: The Link - The Earth is reaching its capacity faster than ever before; through our consumerist lifestyles and heightened technological dependencies, we’re living beyond our finite resources. Top 10 Graduate Programs For Environmental Sustainability
(Tuesday - November 24, 2015)
Source: Triple Pundit - Environmental sustainability is important in business. More and more consumers want the companies whose products they buy to be environmentally sustainable. A 2014 Nielsen survey found that 55 percent of global online consumers... Slow but steady progress on sustainable energy
(Wednesday - November 25, 2015)
Source: Green Biz - Energy sustainability is not only an opportunity to transform societies and grow economies, but it is also a necessity — a prerequisite to meet growing energy demand in many parts of the world and to reduce the global carbon Sustainability Kickstarts A Dialogue
(Friday - November 27, 2015)
Source: Ag Web - Ask a thousand people how they feel about sustainability, and you’ll probably get a thousand unique responses. For the U.S. Farmers & Ranchers Alliance (USFRA), that’s okay—they just want farmers in the conversation
No sustainability without equal water accessibility
(Friday - November 27, 2015)
Source: McGill Daily - Clean water is a given for most people living in Canada, the country with the world’s second largest supply of clean water. However, for over 120 First Nations, this is not the case – there are currently over 160 water advisories... ESG Issues & Players Oil-Sands Chases Carbon Technology Fix as Canada Fights Bad Rap
(Monday - November 23, 2015)
Source: Bloomberg - Canada’s oil sands are about to be put on a carbon diet as the country strives to overcome the “dirty oil” label used by President Barack Obama in rejecting the Keystone XL pipeline Paris is Just One Piece of the Climate Change Puzzle
(Tuesday - November 24, 2015) Associated Profiles : Council on Foreign Relations
Source: Council on Foreign Relations - Coauthored with Naomi Egel, research associate in the International Institutions and Global Governance program at the Council on Foreign Relations. Next week's Paris meeting on climate... Greenwashing Goes To Court, Stopping First At The Court Of Public Opinion
(Wednesday - November 25, 2015)
Source: Forbes - Few mishaps make a legal department or public relations team scramble to check their disclosure reports like seeing a good old fashioned case of greenwashing.
Is "Business Ethics" An Oxymoron?
(Wednesday - November 25, 2015)
Source: Fast Company - Economics rests on an assumption of rational self-interest, yet that's the very principle that seems to reduce ethical conduct. Over a dozen studies have shown how having money in the room or just thinking about money leads to... Asset Managers, US Pension Funds,
Sovereign Wealth Funds Pensions’ Private-Equity Mystery: The Full Cost
(Monday - November 23, 2015)
Source: Wall Street Journal - Public pensions are owning up to a painful truth about their private-equity bets: They never totaled the bill. Socially Responsible Investing: 3 Funds That Are Beating The Market
(Monday - November 23, 2015)
Source: Seeking Alpha - There's a powerful trend emerging in the investing world. Investors are building portfolios based on their morals and values. Dubbed "socially responsible investing," or SRI, these investors align their investments with their... Qatar-backed Volkswagen hit by tax evasion probe
(Wednesday - November 25, 2015) Associated Profiles : Qatar Investment Authority
Source: Arabian Business - As is customary in Germany he did not name any of the suspects. Volkswagen, which is 17 percent owned by the Qatar Investment Authority (QIA), admitted in September that it installed software in up to 11... New York state pension fund hit by volatile markets
(Wednesday - November 25, 2015) Associated Profiles : New York State Common Retirement Fund
Source: Reuters - The New York State Common Retirement Fund fell 4.13 percent in the second quarter of its 2015-2016 fiscal year, which ends on Sept. 30, the state's comptroller's office said. The fund had a value of $173.5 billion at... Watching the Watchers  Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility (ICCR)
Headquarters: New York City, USA
Established: 1970-71 – formed by leading church denominations, the National Council of Churches; later became an independent not-for-profit investor coalition. KEY PARTNERS Trucost
OVERVIEW / MISSION
As stated by ICCR: "Through the lens of faith, ICCR builds a more just and sustainable world by integrating social values into investor actions." The Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility writes that its members are "nearly 300 faith-based institutional investors including denominations, religious communities, pension funds, healthcare corporations, foundations, dioceses with combined portfolios worth an estimated $100 billion." ICCR members are in the vanguard of many corporate annual proxy season campaigns, filing and supporting (each other’s) shareholder-sponsored resolutions. ICCR itself does not file resolutions; the organization serves as a gathering point for members and affiliated organizations, and conducts extensive research on issues of interest to the ICCR investment and asset management community. The Coalition states its core values as: - "Faith: We shape our priorities for action through faith.
- "Justice: We challenge ourselves to accountability for right relationships with all creation.
- "Integrity: We are striving to be credible practitioners of the values we set forth.
- "Inclusive: We embrace and promote diversity as we covenant to work together."
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G&A Institute Sustainability Update™
Informative, insightful, thought provoking
Governance & Accountability Institute's blog focusing on the sustainable world evolving daily before our eyes. Read it, absorb it, question it and challenge. Recent posts: Reporting 2025 – Perspectives: Interview with Elena Valderrábano Vázquez, Global Director for Corporate Ethic and Sustainability, Telefónica Thanksgiving, 2015 – So Many Blessings To Acknowledge on the National Holiday Reporting 2025 – Perspectives: Interview with Dr. Ashutosh Karnatak, Director (Projects) & Chairman of Sustainable Development Committee, GAIL (India) Ltd. _______________________________ CHECK YOUR CALENDAR
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Your corporate sustainability journey may have begun. Or, the journey may be far along, maturing – and the story being told through the GRI sustainability report. Who is taking notice? Who is recognizing the company's reporting effort (the progress report for corporate achievements), and bestowing recognition? Which of the many “best of” lists, and ratings, rankings, scores ,and other third party judgments is your company being included in – where are you positioned in the race to the top.Learn more About G&A's Awards & Recognitions Program _______________________________
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