Top Story of the Week Women-Power: We read somewhere that 70% or more of car-buying decisions in the USA are the result of personal recommendations or prior experience with the brand. And a good amount of those decisions are made by the female in the family -- or a female buyer if the car is for her. The American population is more female than male. The undergrad and grad school graduation rows are increasingly dominated by young and older women. Women make or influence US$8 trillion of buying power. The ranks of the professions are swelling with females. So who or what is not recognizing the trend...or ignoring or resisting the trend? Look to the board room, says a study just completed with a thorough review of Catalyst resource. Lots of qualified females are MIA (missing in action) in U.S. corporate board rooms -- only 15% of the top firms have elected women to the board; 3% of the top 1,000 firms have no women in the board room. And companies are missing out on the benefits of more female directors, say the study authors. Companies are missing out, say Kellie McElhaney, the Whitehead Faculty Fellow in Corporate Sustainability for the Haas School of Business at University of California, Berkeley and Sanaz Mobasserir, a PhD candidate at the Haas School, because: - Companies with women on boards are reported to enjoy Higher ROE (at least by 53%).
- Superior Sales: Boards with higher percentages of female directors outperformed those with the least by 42 percent.
- Higher ROI: On average, by 66 percent
We recommend reading our top story: Having Women on Boards Increase Profits and Sustainability
(Tuesday - July 23, 2013)
Source: Triple Pundit - Imagine running an oil company where only one or two of the directors on your board have oil industry experience. Imagine running a computer company where none of the board uses a computer, tablet or smart phone. Now imagine... Sustainability in Focus Sequenced palm oil genome paves the way for sustainable plantations
(Friday - July 26, 2013)
Source: Guardian.cp.uk - Few environmentalists feel any fondness for the oil palm, with its connections to deforestation in the tropics. But the waxy orange pods the tree sprouts in vivid bunches generate 45 percent of the globe's edible oil, and... Green Sells: Ford’s Commitment To Sustainability Drives Sales Success
(Wednesday - July 24, 2013)
Source: Triple Pundit - Ford’s sales growth is proving that competitively priced, well-designed products that are more sustainable will outsell less-sustainable products. Ford’s line-up of fuel-efficient cars and trucks that deliver lower tail pipe... Investors demand clearer sustainability reporting
(Tuesday - July 23, 2013) Associated Profiles : EU Social Investment Forum
Source:Business Green - Sustainability reporting is not sufficiently consistent or transparent and provides too little information, investors have warned. Two-thirds of investors always make use of non-financial information, while 89... Why Social Sustainability Should Be Part Of Every Business
(Tuesday - July 23, 2013)
Source: Fastcoexist.com - I can’t think of anything that illustrates the human cost of doing business more than the tragedy this past April in Bangladesh. More than 1,100 men, women, and children died when the Rana Plaza building, which housed a number of... Sustainable Investment Organization Releases Guide for Retail Investors to Address Climate Change
(Tuesday - July 23, 2013)
Source: US SIF - Today the US SIF Foundation released Investing to Curb Climate Change: A Guide for the Individual Investor. This guide seeks to meet the increasing interest of a wide range of investors in using their investment... Which Sustainability Factors Are Most Linked to Brand Strength?
(Monday - July 22, 2013)
Source: Triple Pundit - In the previous posts in this series, we have described the relationship between Brand Finance’s Brand Strength Index and CSRHub’s sustainability rating. The overall correlation between these large sets of data is strong—and it... How the G4 guidelines shape sustainability reporting
(Friday - July 19, 2013)
Source: GreenBiz - At its May conference in Amsterdam, the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) released the fourth generation of its sustainability reporting guidelines, the G4, to an audience of more than 1,600 corporate sustainability... ESG Issues & Players UN Climate Report Will 'Scare the Wits Out of Everybody'
(Tuesday - July 23, 2013) Associated Profiles : Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change(IPCC)
Source: citywatchla.com - And as Ed King at the Responding to Climate Change website reports: Fellow US climate expert Michael Mann emailed the ThinkProgress website, arguing that: “the author hopelessly confuses transient warming... 2013 Proxy Season Review
(Monday - July 22, 2013)
Source: Harvard Law School - The 2013 proxy season saw a continued high rate of governance-related shareholder proposals at large U.S. public companies, including those calling for declassified boards, majority voting in director elections, elimination of... Can America's Energy Infrastructure Survive Severe Weather'
(Monday - July 22, 2013) Associated Profiles : World Economic Forum
Source: theinternational.org – “New York City is fortifying its 520 miles of coastline as an insurance policy against more frequent and costly storms," Obama said. “And what we’ve learned from Hurricane Sandy and... Asset Managers, US Pension Funds, Sovereign Wealth Funds Cliffwater: For top state plans, more alternatives = better performance
(Friday - July 26, 2013) Associated Profiles : Missouri State Employees Retirement System
Source: pionline - The top performing state pension plans over the past 10 ... Private equity makes up 42%; real estate, 32%; and real assets, 9%. The $8 billion Missouri State Employees' Retirement System, Jefferson City... 10 countries most at risk of financial black hole
(Thursday - July 25, 2013) Associated Profiles : MapleCroft
Source: Rediff - Risk analysis firm Maplecroft has studied 163 countries and found that Europe has the least sustainable finances. Of the 10 countries at the most dangerous end of Maplecroft’s Fiscal... Detroit’s bankruptcy is proof that states are calculating public pensions all wrong
(Thursday - July 25, 2013)
Source: Quartz - The Detroit bankruptcy has raised concerns about the future of state and municipal pensions. When pensions are severely underfunded and states or municipalities fall on hard times, either the taxpayer or retirees pay the price.... Denmark's Unipension sues dozen banks over CDS competition concerns
(Monday - July 22, 2013) Associated Profiles : PGGM – Asset Managers for Pension Funds
Source: Investment Pensions Europe - GLOBAL â Danish pension administrator Unipension has filed a class-action lawsuit alleging US clearing members inflated the price of trading derivatives by "unreasonably" restraining competition... Watching the Watchers 
Steel Recycling Institute
Headquarters: Pittsburgh, PA
Established: Roots date back to 1855, the founding of the American Iron Association
ESG/Sustainability Focus: Yes: focus on recycling steel
KEY PARTNERS
This is a business unit of the American Iron and Steel Institute, which works with a variety of partners, such as The Canned Food Alliance, Metal Roofing Alliance, and The Metal Initiative. OVERVIEW/MISSION
The Steel Recycling Institute states that it “serves as an informational and technical resource for the recycling, life cycle impact and ultimate sustainability of steel, as well as all steel products, including containers, construction and automotive.” The SRI also educates the public, the solid waste industry, and other stakeholders about the “benefits of steel’s infinite recycling cycle.” News Sweep The Growing Computer Scrapheap Revealed
(Wednesday - July 17, 2013) Associated Profiles : Steel Recycling Institute
- permaculture.co.uk - Metal from the laptop is then recycled to companies such as Steel Recycling Institute î n America and British Metals Recycling Association in the UK. Even the hard drive can be destroyed via a... How to get rid of practically anything
(Monday - July 15, 2013) Associated Profiles : Steel Recycling Institute
- Consumer Reports.org - Find out whether your town or county government offers an appliance-recycling program or locate one on the Steel Recycling Institute’s website, at www.recycle-steel.org. To donate appliances...
Recycling facilities waste not, want not
(Friday - July 05, 2013) Associated Profiles : Steel Recycling Institute
- Milwaukee Journal Sentinel - That includes steel cans. "It's actually its own grade of steel scrap," said David Keeling, general manager for the western U.S. for the Steel Recycling Institute. Keeling is based in... | Top Stories from Governance & Accountability Institute’s Accountability-Central.com Right to Your Inbox Overwhelmed by the flood of news and information on the Web? Let us do the work! Each morning AC editors monitor news sources, scan and search for news and commentary, and evaluate and select those top stories and reports that relate to the issues of accountability, sustainability and ESG (Environment, Sustainability and Governance factors) -- and post them on our Web site. We are offering a free service to present them in a very brief email right to your inbox. Headlines and top-line information about the top stories as they appear on AC with links to the original source are available early every business day right to your inbox -- so you can get a jump on the rest of the world. Go to Top Stories and enter your email address. Sustainability & Corporate Responsibility Reporting G&A Institute is the Global Reporting
Initiative's (GRI) sole data partner for the United States of America, the United Kingdom, and the Republic of Ireland. As the data partner we monitor, analyze and database information on all Sustainability reports issued in these territories. For a list of recently issued Sustainability reports please follow the links below:
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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 _______________________________ Governance & Accountability Institute Research Reports Learn more @ G&A! _______________________________ Corporate ESG Performance Factors & SustainabilityHQ Corporate ESG Performance Factors are important to financial analysts, asset owners and managers, and many stakeholders. The ESG framework or approach considers environmental issues and impacts, the company’s positioning and actions on social/societal issues, and important aspects of corporate governance. ESG key performance indicators are considered by investors as proxies for effective governance and management. Increasing numbers of of independent research and financial analysis firms monitor and measure these and advisie investors. The Sustainability HQ™ platform is an important profiling and monitoring resource for the G&A team, and for our clients and subscribers. ESG market players and corporate reputation influencers are profiled and monitored by G&A Institute. In these Highlights we provide some results of our continuous global scanning for ESG, sustainability and corporate responsibility news.. The Associated Profiles indicated are in our platforms. For more information, please email us at info@sustainabilityhq.com
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