Slow Travel; The Trouble with Palm Oil; Venture Capitalists and Energy Policy

Writer Ed Gillespie will begin a year-long journey around the world in March. Plenty of people travel around the world every year, but Gillespie plans to do it without flying. The Guardian helps Gillespie kick off the project with a piece on slow travel. He will also be blogging about his experiences on the road.

In other news, the Netherlands are quickly learning that not all biofuels are equal or eco-friendly. A few years ago the Dutch began to advocate the use of biofuels as a substitute for oil. In a follow-up, scientists were sent to investigate the palm plantations in Indonesia and Malaysia. The investigative team found that the plantations used great amounts of fertilizer, cut down huge tracts of rainforest to plant more palm trees, and burned peatland for additional plantations, releasing huge amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere. Whatever positive effects palm oil has were overshadowed by environmental degradation. A European Environment Agency representative noted, “It’s important to take a life-cycle view,” and not to “just see what the effects are here in Europe.”

Finally, the New York Times reports how tech barons take a new role: energy policy. Venture capitalists have a great stake in the outcomes of energy policy.

IPCC Ready to Release New Climate Report

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is ready to release its fourth climate report. In an article in the New York Times yesterday,

"scientists involved in the effort warned that squabbling among teams and government representatives from more than 100 countries — over how to portray the probable amount of sea-level rise during the 21st century — could distract from the basic finding that a warming world will be one in which shrinking coastlines are the new normal for centuries to come.

Jerry Mahlman, an emeritus researcher at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo., who was a reviewer of the report’s single-spaced, 1,644-page summary of climate science, said most of the leaks to the news media so far were from people eager to find elements that were the most frightening or the most reassuring.

He added in an interview that such efforts distracted from the basic, undisputed findings, saying that those point to trends that are very disturbing.

He noted recent disclosures that there is still uncertainty about the pace at which seas will rise because of warming and the melting of terrestrial ice over the next 100 years. That span, he said, is just the start of a rise in sea levels that will almost certainly continue for 1,000 years or so."

One

Bank of America celebrated its merger with credit card company MBNA in Manhattan late last year. To enjoy a video from what is presumably their closing event, click on the arrow below.

Before watching the clip, you might want to check out "The ONE Campaign" at one.org, led by U2's frontman Bono and named after the original song. The ONE Campaign is actually a charity effort to fight AIDS, starvation and extreme poverty.



ps. Bono is also involved in the corporate world through a stake in Elevation Partners, a venture capital business. I don't know how that is connected to this, but it just came to mind. In the name of fairness, transparency, and shades of gray.

"Most Sustainable Companies" List

In Davos, a niche consulting firm launched the first annual 100 most sustainable corporations of the world ranking (they call it the "G100.") A copy can be found right here. The list includes two Finnish companies, Kesko and Nokia.

Companies "were evaluated according to how effectively they manage environmental, social and governance risks and opportunities, relative to their industry peers."

Chairman of Shell and Nokia on Climate Change; Traveling to Disappearing Destinations

Jorma Ollila, the chairman of the boards of Shell and Nokia, calls for strict emission controls, reports Helsingin Sanomat today. Ollila supports the EU carbon trading scheme and follows American energy policy closely. Doubling energy efficiency is the way to go, Ollila argues, shunning proposed increases in atomic energy. "Awareness of the threat of global warming was much higher than I expected," Ollila says in reference to the European oil and energy sector. Full Finnish-language article here.

For a wistful moment, check out the Guardian for a travel article called the "10 wonders of the vanishing world." Beautiful article, upsetting content, including the disappearing snows of Kilimanjaro, the disappearing snow in Austrian ski resorts and the disappearing Maldives islands. The most interesting bit is towards the end where the editor tackles the question "Should I go before it disappears?" Beyond that, should we start doing something else before they disappear?

The Next Zeppelin?

The Guardian reports that the United States desires a leading role in the fight against climate change. In an article titled "US answer to global warming: smoke and giant space mirrors" (pun assuredly intended), the Guardian reports that Washington wants to develop technologies to block sunlight from entering earth's atmosphere. The technologies include giant mirrors in space and reflective dust pumped into the atmosphere.

Perhaps openmindedness is in order; that said, would any of this ever, um, fly? Giant mirrors and "magic" dust?

The US government document can be found here.

Questions: 1) which nation would be developing these technologies or would it be a mutual effort? 2) can we afford not to achieve consensus for years to come: the EU and Japan etc. trying to go the Kyoto way, while Americans would go it alone and continue emitting CO2, business as usual? 3) would Washington want this to be an internationally funded project on the basis that it would benefit everyone, a project whose costs would thereby need to be covered by all? 4) would something like this actually be feasible i.e. does it make sense? 5) how much would it cost? 6) who would produce these technologies: would the proceeds go to an American corporation X or some other interest group?

Scabies on a Viking Line Cruise Boat

Aftonbladet reports of the scabies on Viking Cinderella cruise boat, where twenty crew members have been infected with the small parasite. Scabies spreads readily, causes great discomfort and itching in patients, and requires medical attention. Incubation period for the bug can be several weeks, so it is not possible as yet to determine how widely the parasite has spread.

Viking Line is a listed company whose margins have been shrinking in recent years. Intense competition between the various ferry lines crisscrossing the Baltic has made headlines several times over the past few years.

Not sure, but this begs the question, is scabies spreading because the boats are being improperly cleaned due to cost cutting?

Generally speaking, the trouble is that as margins tighten, cruise lines must cut their costs somehow, and cleaning services are often the first that get cut and squeezed, presumably not least because maintenance isn't revenue-producing and the obvious effects of reducing resources in maintenance do not show in the short term. It's easy to cut something that doesn't add to your bottom line. But as always, sweeping a problem under the rug and pretending it doesn't exist won't work for long.

The maintenance industry illustrates many other potentially problematic issues. Labor rights are relatively weak for part-time janitors, and the work is seen as low prestige. Oftentimes the jobs are held by minorities, creating a complex mix of issues around a low-status job becoming associated with a certain economic or social group or class. Turnover is high, training is seldom thorough, employee commitment to the job tends to be low, and workers may become demoralized due to their status, low pay, and the pressure of having to get the job done in the shortest possible length of time. Major problems that are brewing may be obvious to insiders, but only surface in the media when the symptoms become too obvious to cover up.

The only problem is, this industry is far from insignificant. Keeping places like cruise boats clean is obviously essential for ensuring passenger safety and eradicating health risks, considering the total number of passengers residing in the same quarters month after month. As black and white as it may sound, it seems on some level to be about trade-offs between financial results (for investors who may not use cruise ships anyway) and the conditions provided for the people who actually work and travel on these boats and sleep in the bunks.

I'm just wondering: now that privatization and outsourcing are popular, what will happen if hospitals, schools, nursing homes and daycare centers start outsourcing maintenance services? Will patient, elderly, student or child health be at risk?

Viking Line outsourced its cleaning services to SOL Siivouspalvelut, a local cleaning services provider, several years ago. The only real news available on the internet was a broken link to a SOL press release, but the employees who do the cleaning on Viking Line ferries are employees of SOL -- many of them students, immigrants and (other) part-time workers.

What seems wholly unacceptable is the lack of transparency. According to Helsingin Sanomat, it took the Viking Line ferry company a month to report of the situation.

Scabies isn't life threatening, but it's an extreme annoyance. Whoever catches scabies needs to do a complete floor-to-ceiling clean-up in their primary residence and use a topical agent for several weeks to kill the infection in their body. Garments and all bedding must be washed thoroughly, lest one wants to keep getting reinfected.

In a healthcare setting, nurses protect themselves with disposable clothing from head to toe when working with patients who have scabies. I just wonder what kind of protective equipment the cleaning staff on Viking Cinderella are wearing, and how Viking reimburses its employees for the discomfort and hassle of being infected.

Movie Event; Greenwashing; 'Fool' Efficiency

Yesterday's film event, The Corporation, had a great turnout. Thank you to the over fifty Hankeiters who attended and for the Student Union for supporting the event.

On to concepts. What is greenwashing all about? When companies want to appear as more ecofriendly (and one could also argue CSR oriented) than they really are, then they are "greenwashing." The Oxford English Dictionary defines the term as “disinformation disseminated by an organization so as to present an environmentally responsible public image.” The term is considered pejorative.

Some examples of companies allegedly involved in greenwashing include ExxonMobil (or Esso in Finland); the company is the subject of an article in the Guardian earlier this month. ExxonMobil has presented a very critical and conservative view of the role of carbon dioxide emissions in climate change. The company has now admitted it has a PR problem that needs to be dealt with. This, however, is not likely to result in strategic changes.

Other alleged greenwashers are listed in a short article about America's ten worst greenwashers.

Strategic change might, however, just pay off. Where companies are being washed green, perhaps they ought to just change, because the consequence of holding on to the status quo may not be so pretty. This is evident in the fate of one of the world's biggest brands and largest automakers, Ford Motor Co. Number one in the above greenwasher list, Ford is really struggling, having just announced its worst financial results ever: in fiscal 2006, Ford lost an average of $1,925 for every car or truck it sold, a total of 12.7 billion dollars. U.S. consumers have been shunning Ford vehicles, because they have the lowest fuel effiency levels in the market. With oil prices continually rising, the decline in demand is likely to continue. Unless Ford actually changes its strategy and begins to respond to consumer demands for more fuel-efficient vehicles, it is evident that it is placing its brand and financial future at risk.

Bush's State of the Union Address; System Change

Just in time for Davos, president Bush delivered his State of the Union address yesterday (the address is like the annual review of the U.S. of A.)

"Tonight, I ask Congress to join me in pursuing a great goal. Let us build on the work we've done and reduce gasoline usage in the United States by 20 percent in the next 10 years. (Applause.) When we do that we will have cut our total imports by the equivalent of three-quarters of all the oil we now import from the Middle East.

To reach this goal, we must increase the supply of alternative fuels, by setting a mandatory fuels standard to require 35 billion gallons of renewable and alternative fuels in 2017 -- and that is nearly five times the current target. (Applause.) At the same time, we need to reform and modernize fuel economy standards for cars the way we did for light trucks -- and conserve up to 8.5 billion more gallons of gasoline by 2017.

Achieving these ambitious goals will dramatically reduce our dependence on foreign oil, but it's not going to eliminate it. And so as we continue to diversify our fuel supply, we must step up domestic oil production in environmentally sensitive ways. (Applause.) And to further protect America against severe disruptions to our oil supply, I ask Congress to double the current capacity of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. (Applause.)

America is on the verge of technological breakthroughs that will enable us to live our lives less dependent on oil. And these technologies will help us be better stewards of the environment, and they will help us to confront the serious challenge of global climate change. (Applause.)"

The main points:

• First ever mention of the words "climate change" in a Bush address
• Push for alternative fuels and more fuel-efficient cars
• Focus on technological discoveries to curb energy use
• What does stepping up domestic production in environmentally sensitive ways mean? Hopefully still no drilling in protected wilderness
• Strategic petroleum reserve: approximately 57-day oil supply for the US; doubling it would mean the U.S. would be holding about a third of a year's oil in emergency storage

---

In other news, an article on system change argues that "traditional corporate responsibility approaches focus mainly on corporate level activities. Yet probably eighty percent or more of the unsustainability problem resides at the system level. Many good system change programs have been developed. But most have low implementation rates." More on system change here. The writer of the full report challenges some of the basic CSR tenets and proposes major systemic changes.

(Systems thinking, by the way, is a term often used in futures studies - a field of knowledge that is founded on the idea of foresight and looking into what doesn't as yet exist to create desirable futures.)

Climate Change, Davos, and the World Economic Forum

Every year leaders from "business, politics, academia, the media and civil society" meet in Davos, Switzerland, to discuss a variety of issues under the rubric of the World Economic Forum. This year's annual meeting begins tomorrow.

The World Economic Forum is an independent international organization incorporated in 1971, and based in Geneva, Switzerland. According to the Forum website, it is impartial and not-for-profit and tied to no political, partisan or national interests.

This is the first year in the group's 36-year history when climate change forms a substantial part of the five-day event.

The World Economic Forum has also set up a separate group called the Davos Climate Alliance; its website can be found right here.

The Davos meeting coincides with the launch of the US Climate Action Partnership just yesterday; another coalition that mixes business leadership with non-profits to fight the problems of climate change.

Inconvenient Truth Box Office

I hope this next thing I'm going to write about isn't crass, and I do apologize in advance if it is, but maybe it's the business student in me, not sure, that for some reason started wondering about the economics of Al Gore and Davis Guggenheim's movie and how it faired.

That movie, of course, would be Inconvenient Truth. Net Impact Hanken organized a showing of this film in the fall.

Perhaps it just feels like #1, one would want to see a movie like that be successful (seriously, if Miss Congeniality 2: Armed and Fabulous grosses over a $100 million, then Inconvenient Truth should at least come close -- what's good though is that Miss Congeniality starred Sandra Bullock and from what I recall of having read entertainment news recently, she is known in Hollywood as a very generous philantropist. Anyway.)

More importantly, #2, box office success of a climate documentary would be a good guesstimate for how successfully its message got delivered to a wider audience.

So with that being said...

It's just good to know, somehow, that the film did exceptionally well in terms of box office, having grossed approximately $42 million since its late May release in 2006. That is a lot for a documentary, especially one that deals with a relatively technical subject like climate change. Al Gore and Davis Guggenheim's success really lay in giving climate change a face -- personalizing a concept and a phenomenon.

If we assume an average ticket price of $10, that would mean over four million viewers actually valued the message enough to commit both time and hard-earned money to see the movie. What's more, there were free public showings so that figure probably understates the actual number of viewers reached.

Looking forward to a lot more stuff like this from the (American) film industry.

Ten U.S. Corporations and 4 NGOs Launch Climate Action Group

Ten American corporations, including firms in the energy and financial services sectors, and four leading non-governmental organizations have launched a new climate action group.

Called the US Climate Action Partnership, or USCAP for short, the group will focus on policy action. In a statement released on Friday, the group argued that "there must be a reasoned and serious debate about the solutions. But debate cannot substitute for action." Effective carbon trading will be in the forefront of the group's agenda.

More information and an interview can be found here on MSNBC's website. In the interview, one commentator makes the point that this movement is about posturing and the political climate in the United States; another says that it reflects the corporations willingness to act without being legislated into action. "The climate is the issue; it's the climate in Washington and the climate outside," a PR specialist notes. "What we have here is business taking initiative." Another argues that the movement will not have any considerable impact on the climate. Either way, as the interviewer notes, the truth will be "in the pudding" - six to twelve months from now.

Barrick likely to begin Pascua Lama gold mine under glacier

Here's an example of news that is extremely important yet doesn't get a lot of mainstream coverage.

Canadian company, Barrick Gold is about to begin digging for gold (and silver) high in the Atacama Mountains between Chile and Argentina underneath glaciers.
To get to the minerals, it would be necessary to break the glaciers - something never conceived of in the history of the world - and to make 2 huge holes, one for extraction and one for the mine's rubbish tip. If the glaciers are destroyed, they will not just destroy the source of specially pure water, but they will contaminate the 2 rivers running from glaciers (because of the use of cyanide and sulphuric acid in the extraction process).

The Guardian Unlimited:
The original plans of Canadian mining giant Barrick Gold included "relocating" three huge glaciers - a decision since blocked by Chile's environment authorities.
Farmers and local community members in the Huasco valley below fear that the massive open-pit gold mine, due to come on stream in 2009, will cause water shortages and contaminate their fields. Barrick maintains that the $1.4bn mine will operate in "full compliance with all environmental regulatory requirements". But the history of gold mining in Latin America does little to inspire the local community with confidence.

Dresdner Bank and Gazprombank Form Joint Venture, Launch Carbon Trading

The carbon trading market keeps expanding, as the world keeps warming. (For what it's worth, I have yet to wear a hat this month.)

German bank Dresdner and the Russian Gazprombank (affiliated with Gazprom, one of the world's largest energy groups) announced this week that they have launched a new joint venture for carbon trading. The JV is called Carbon Trade & Finance Sicar and registered in Luxembourg. The project will be primarily led by Dresdner's investment banking arm Dresdner Kleinwort.

According to the press release, the joint venture will "invest in primary projects generating CO2 certificates through the mechanisms of the Kyoto protocol with a view to repackaging these credits for resale to investors on a secondary market basis."

Los Angeles Times Uncovers Gates Foundation's Unethical Investments; Foundation Starts Adjusting Portfolio

CSRwire reports of contradictions between the mission and investment policies of the gigantic Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the world's largest charitable foundation that manages a $35 billion endowment (the number excludes Warren Buffett's $31 billion pledge from 2005.)

According to its website, the mission of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is to bring innovations in health and learning to the global community.

However, in a scathing investigative report, the LA Times discovered that 41% of the assets of the Gates Foundation were invested in companies whose actions are at odds with the basic objectives of the Foundation. Companies in which the Foundation held stakes included

• Mortgage companies that were accused in lawsuits or by government officials of making it easier for thousands of people to lose their homes, while the Foundation donated money to help victims of predatory lending

• A healthcare firm that has agreed to pay more than $1.5 billion to settle lawsuits accusing it of medical lapses and fraud going back a decade, while one of the Foundation's primary goals is to improve public health

• Chocolate companies said by the U.S. government to be profiting from the slave labor of children, while the Foundation funds educational and healthcare programs in developing nations.

According to an article in South African newspaper Mail&Guardian, there were additional issues related to oil drilling and drug sales in Africa, which is one of the Gates Foundation's major aid targets. Bill Gates has expressly stated that one of his main philantropic goals is reducing the prevalence of HIV in Africa. Mail&Guardian reports that the "foundation is funding studies into a microbicide which could help protect women and their future children from HIV. But the foundation invests in pharmaceutical companies which have lobbied hard to prevent affordable copies of their Aids drugs being manufactured by generics companies in India."

The Gates Foundation also holds large stakes in energy firms BP and Royal Dutch Shell that , according to the M&G article, "jointly own the Sapref refinery, outside [the second largest South African city of] Durban, which is blamed for 24 significant spills, pipeline ruptures and explosions since 1998. With the Mondi paper mill (owned by Anglo American, in which the foundation has a $39-million investment), it is held responsible for significant air pollution by toxic fumes. Two studies have found high levels of breathing problems and asthma in local children, largely attributed to sulphur dioxide and other pollutants."

The response from Bill and Melinda Gates was swift and promising; although the Foundation does not acknowledge a link to the LA Times report, Bill and Melinda Gates are said to have begun overseeing a complete review of the Foundation's investment policy.

This brings up an interesting issue and challenge in philantropic foundations in general.

Until now, M&G writes, "the [Gates] foundation's financing and philanthropic arms have been totally separate. Its policy has been simply to raise as much money as possible for its scientifically focused philanthropic works, with an emphasis on finding vaccines and other medical breakthroughs that could substantially improve the health of the world's poorest people."

This approach is probably much more common than we realize, simply because socially responsible investment (SRI) strategies are less common than mainstream management strategies that do not account for CSR issues.

The short-term gains of such an investment policy are obvious, if SRI does not rival the existing investment strategy. Yet over the long haul, investing in irresponsible corporations to get profits with which to help the victims of those irresponsible acts seems analogous to turning up the heat in your apartment while keeping the windows open.

One can empathize with the portfolio managers who have to make these decisions. Circumventing CSR landmines while trying to beat the market and maintain a robust investment portfolio is probably more challenging than many of us can appreciate, especially when we are talking about an enormous fund whose size is going to double. Many of the world's largest and most profitable listed companies, where a "regular" investment manager would channel her or his funds, aren't exactly free from CSR issues. The problem seems endemic, and when push comes to shove, this begs the question, where does a portfolio manager draw the line?

How do you keep a foundation well financed so it can keep giving, while not supporting firms that act irresponsibly?

It remains to be seen how the Gates Foundation does this; they are certainly being closely monitored, as per last week.

EK tukee USA:n ilmastopolitiikkaa

Elinkeinoelämän Keskusliiton (EK:n) tuore lausunto ilmastonmuutoksesta on vähintäänkin huolestuttavaa luettavaa. EK korostaa oikeudenmukaista ja kannustavaa ilmastopolitiikkaa, haluten nostaa teknologian ja innovaatiot ilmastonmuutoksen vastaisen taistelun kulmakiviksi. Samaan aikaan EK vaatii että kaikki maailman maat osallistuvat torjuntaan, ja että EU ehdottomasti ei saisi olla edelläkävijä tiukemmassa ilmastokurissa.

Sinänsä hyviä ajatuksia, mutta huono yhtälö: Teknologia ja innovaatiot ovat ilmastopolitiikan kulmakiviä, ja toisaalta kaikkien maiden pitää osallistua jotta yksikään osallistuisi = Kuinka kehittyvät markkinat ja köyhät kehitysmaat saavat käyttöönsä äärimmäisen kallista länsimaista ilmastoteknologiaa (onko sellaista edes vielä olemassa)?!

EU julkisti viime viikolla ilmastostrategiansa, jossa EU selvästi ottaa edelläkävijän roolin ja pyrkii laskemaan kasvihuonepäästöjä 20% vuoteen 2020 mennessä (1990-tasosta). Mikäli muu maailma sitoutuu vastaavaan, EU tavoittelisi jopa 30% vähennystä.

Kauppalehden lauantai-numero totesikin seuraavaa:
"Elinkeinoelämän Keskusliiton ilmastopoliittisen linjauksen tulkittiin olevan tuki USA:n ja Tyynenmeren maiden ilmastoaloitteelle, joka luottaa teknologiseen kehitykseen kasvihuonekaasujen torjunnassa. Ilmastoaloitetta on pidetty Yhdysvaltain presidentin vastavetona YK-vetoiselle Kioton sopimukselle. Ylen tv-uutisten haastattelema EK:n johtaja

Leif Fagernäs myönsi, että EK tukee amerikkalaisten teknologiaa painottavaa kasvihuonekaasujen vähennysmallia"

Green Behavior at Home and in the Office

According to a British survey, workers leave their eco-friendly habits at home. Behaviors like switching off lights and the computer and boiling only the needed amount of drinking water were substantially more infrequent at work compared to home.

Employees argued that they looked to their bosses for example and speed and efficiency came before green issues at work. Hence the neglect.

One can think of a number of additional issues besides electricity use that would likely yield the same result. Copiers are a common source of waste; my personal experience has been that the busier the office, the more paper and copy services are overused, beyond what is necessary.

In certain businesses, we are talking about issues like corporate travel; document transportation; and so on. The further up the chain we go, the larger the issues get.

On the other hand, in organizations like hospitals or food services companies, the issues may be slightly different and probably even greater. It would be interesting to know whether there is a difference between state vs. privately owned organizations.

Improvements could take place in a number of areas, such as commitment to sorting waste at the site; food procurement vs. actual consumption levels and recycling of biodegradables; commitment to recycling packaging materials (such as drink cartons); safe and appropriate use of cleaning agents; use of non-reusable vs. reusable cutlery and crockery; and the like.

But the point is, should CSR, as most other good things in the world, begin at the corporate "home", inside the firm? How does the level of CSR credibility of a business change over time, if the firm applies responsible behaviors intra firm -- or not?

Net Impact in Today's FT

"A wave of interest in courses and electives that cover everything from human rights to climate change has swept business school campuses. Their interest is reflected in the rapidly growing membership of Net Impact, a network of MBA students and young professionals that promotes the use of business strategies to affect society, ethics and the environment. The organisation now has more than 130 chapters on four continents in 75 cities and 80 graduate schools."

("A degree of ethical leadership" by Sarah Murray)

"Ilmastonmuutos iskee vakuutusyhtiöihin" (KL 12.1.07)

Kauppalehti otsikoi etusivullaan että myös suomalaiset vakuutusyhtiöt ovat entistä kiinnostuneempia ilmastonmuutoksesta ja sen vaikutuksista vakuutettavaan omaisuuteen, erityisesti maa-alueisiin ja kiinteistöihin. "Yhä useammat rannat Suomessa ja Ruotsissa kaavoitetaan täyteen asuntoja kun ilmastonmuutos nostaa järvien, jokien ja meren pintaa ja tulvista alkaa tulla jokavuotisia," Kauppalehti kirjoittaa.

How to Talk to a Climate Change Skeptic

Here's an excellent link to "How to talk to a climate change skeptic." Check it out; the page refutes any and all arguments against human-induced climate change. Even if you're not having a dialogue with a skeptic, the page is interesting in its own right: if you have questions about a specific issue related to global warming, the site can probably answer it for you and provide great graphics and stats to boot.

Corporate Sustainability Course at Hanken

A new course in Corporate Sustainability starts next week at Hanken. It's so popular that the instructor is urging people to sign up quickly, because only 50 students are accepted into the class.

The class will have a large media criticism / analysis component, including three film events. Among the films that will be shown: The Corporation (2003.) You can find the trailer below and the film's homepage here.

ps. For longer sneak previews, you can find several segments of The Corporation on YouTube. Just click on this link. Dubbed in Spanish, though!

Here is director Mark Achbar's interview.

Ecological Footprint; Aviation Industry; Finland and Climate Change

Ecological footprint = a calculation that estimates the area of Earth's productive land and water required to supply the resources that an individual or group demands, as well as to absorb the wastes that the individual or group produces.

Check www.myfootprint.org for your ecological footprint. (For what it's worth, I took this test and thought I live a fairly simple life, but apparently my footprint is 4.4; and if everyone lived this way, we would need 2.4 planets! Makes you go, Hmm...)

Aviation appears to be the big culprit in the footprint equation. On that front, in Britain just this week, a new storm of a debate has erupted over the issue of restricting aviation to curb greenhouse gas emissions. Prime minister Tony Blair is taking heat for his comments on the "impracticality" of measures aiming to restrict air travel; an antithesis to his previous statements pushing for such restriction and to the Stern Review on climate change which he commissioned last year.

So is it easier to be on the corporate side, where your fate depends not on votes but on net profits? A fair CSR question, perhaps.

On that note, Richard Branson of Virgin, the UK transportation and entertainment conglomerate, agreed last fall to invest $3 billion in a new venture devoted to solving the climate crisis. Perhaps Branson sees this as a moral obligation, considering a major part of his empire is made up of Virgin Airlines?

According to environmental website Grist.com, Branson "plans to plow 100 percent of the proceeds from Virgin's airline and locomotive divisions -- an estimated $3 billion over 10 years -- into investments in clean technologies, such as wind turbines and cleaner-burning aviation fuel, with a heavy emphasis on developing "cellulosic" ethanol."

The first new offshoot in Branson's business empire is called Virgin Fuels, which will invest $400 million over the next three years in the renewable fuels sector, beginning with an ethanol venture called Cilion.

Here in Finland, likewise, Elinkeinoelämän keskusliitto, EK, or The Conferedation of Finnish Industries, published a press release on 9.1.2007 and said that Finland should aim to be a major player in the fight against global climate change. According to EK, we must amend our consumption patterns and develop and apply new technologies. More global technology investment into combatting climate change; global norms and regulations; effective emissions trade; and efficient production processes are key. Energy and climate related technologies could be a major area of innovation for Finland.

Yhteiskuntavastuusta yritysten kilpailukeino

Helsingin yliopistosta joulukuussa väitelleen Maija-Leena Uimonen väitöskirjasta selviää, että yritysten vapaaehtoisesta sosiaalisesta vastuusta on tullut eräiden yritysten kilpailukeino.
– Osalle tutkituille yrityksille sosiaalinen vastuu ei enää tarkoita muutamaa sanaa yrityksen arvoissa, vaan se on osa liiketoimintastrategiaa. Se on yksi väline, jota käytetään kilpailussa, sanoo Maija-Leena Uimonen, joka väitteli vapaaehtoisesta sosiaalisesta vastuusta joulukuun puolessa välissä Helsingin yliopistossa.

Katso Taloussanomien artikkeli aiheesta sivulla http://www.taloussanomat.fi/page.php?page_id=106&news_id=200624258
Net Impact Hanken

Socially Responsible Investment Continues to Grow in 2006; Spreads to Mainstream Venues

In its year-end review, CSR Wire discusses the top five developments in socially responsible investing in 2006. One growing trend has been the strengthening of shareholder rights and the incorporation of SRI content into investment analysis at institutions like Merrill Lynch, Citibank, Wells Fargo, and Piper Jaffrey.

Among the top developments listed is also the establishment of the United Nations principles for responsible investment (the UN PRI homepage can be found here.)

Ilmastonmuutoskeskustelua Iltalehdessä

Iltalehden nettiversio otsikoi 7.1.2007: "Ilmastonmuutos on uhka, joka voi kääntyä pohjoisen hyödyksi." Juttu luotaa vaikutuksia muun muassa sisävesiin, metsiin ja matkailuun. Hyötyjä nähdään esimerkiksi parantuvissa viljelyolosuhteissa ja puun tuotannossa ja lämpöenergiakulujen vähenemisessä.

On vienyt kauan että iltapäivälehdet ovat todella alkaneet ottaa osaa ilmastonmuutoskeskusteluun; lienee aavistuksen normatiivista sanoa että asialle voisi antaa enemmänkin palstatilaa, mutta hyvä asiahan se kaiketi olisi. Paikoittain vaikuttaa että meillä on edelleen väärinkäsityksiä siitä miten ilmastonmuutos loppujen lopuksi vaikuttaa. Yksi tyypillisimmistä lienee ajatus esimerkiksi siitä että yksittäinen kylmä talvi tai viileä kesäkausi indikoi ettei ilmasto olekaan muuttumassa. Siksikin on hyvä painottaa laajalti leviävissä medioissa, kuten iltapäivälehdissä, että mistä oikeastaan on kyse. Kysymyksessä on nimenomaan ilmastonmuutos eikä vain ja ainoastaan ilmaston lämpeneminen. Paikallisvaikutukset voivat erota globaaleista keskiarvoista.

Paikallisvaikutusten ja maailmanlaajuisten vaikutusten välinen konflikti ja siitä aiheutuvat mielipide-erot näkyvat myös julkisessa keskustelussa. Maailmanlaajuisesti negatiivinen ilmiö voi aiheuttaa paikallisesti positiivisiakin seuraamuksia, kuten Iltalehti toteaa. Lukijat ovat reagoineet artikkeliin äänestämällä ja ottamalla osaa nettikeskusteluun, josta alla muutamia lainauksia.

"Suomessahan vain ilmasto on paranemassa siedettäväksi. Eihän Suomessa ole syytä pelätä lämpenemistä; talvista tulee inhimillisiä ja kesistä pitempiä ja lämpimämpiä!"

"Ei jääkausi tullut käden käänteessä vaan tuhansien vuosien asteittaisena kehityksenä. Nyt 1900 -luvulla lämpötilat ovat nousseet hälyyttävän nopeasti, siitä tässä on kyse. Onko sattumaa että samaan aikaan on teollistuminen voimistunut ja hiilidioksiidi pitoisuudet nousseet. Pitoisuuksien nousun myötä melkein samaan tahtiin ovat nousseet myös lämpötilat. Eli muutoksen nopeus on se, joka tässä on hälyyttävää!"

"Mikä saastuttanut nämä meret? Teollisuus turismi ja maatalous, eli mistä ihmiset saavat leipänsä. Saastuminen on myös syvä moraalinen ongelma, eli ei välitetä seurauksista. Se on myös syvä länsimaisen ihmisen kriisi..."

"Katsokaa Al Goren elokuva Epämiellyttävä Totuus. Siitä tyhmempikin tajuaa mikä on homman nimi!"

"-Ei MAAPALLOLLA ole mitään hätää. Se on pyörinyt ja matkannut avaruudessa 99% elinajastaan ilman ihmistä! (n. 5 miljardia vuotta) Ihmiselle itselleen tulee hätä, kun pallo täyttyy ihmisistä. Jos ihminen tuhoaa itsensä, niin pallo jatkaa pyörimistä, ja jotain muuta ehkä syntyy tilalle vuosimiljoonien kuluessa..."

Green New Year's Resolutions

Several websites suggest ideas for ecofriendly New Year's resolutions. A selection can be found here (Friends of the Earth), here (Energy Refuge) and here (The Guardian.)

Among the top tips:

• cycle in the city instead of driving (with no snow in Helsinki right now, this ought to be easy!)
  
• choose reusable shopping bags instead of plastic
  
• switch to energy-saving lightbulbs
• fly less
• get to know your home country: choose domestic vacations and take the train
  
• choose energy saving home appliances
• turn off the lights when leaving home or office
  
• buy organic produce
• limit your intake of meat
  
• recycle organic waste
• buy recycled goods (books, clothes, etc.)
• choose reusable batteries over general purpose
  

An other "review" of CSR in the year 2006 - this looks in my opinion great! We are living in a treehugger-age...

CSRwire Reports Top Corporate Social Responsibility News of 2006

Microfinance wins Nobel Peace Prize and investment from Gates Foundation, "green" goes mainstream thanks to Al Gore's Inconvenient Truth, and much more...Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) shifted from the periphery to the mainstream in 2005; in 2006 it dominated headlines and catapulted into the heart of our collective consciousness. CSR initiatives such as microfinance and "green" energy impacted lives and won allegiance--from the poorest of the poor to the richest of the rich to the sexiest of the sexy.In December, the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Muhammad Yunus and the Grameen Bank, elevating microfinance to global notoriety. The award celebrated the role that poverty alleviation and financial empowerment play in nurturing peace and fostering social and economic justice. It capped off a banner year for microfinance in which the giant academic retirement fund manager TIAA-CREF committed $100 million to microfinance. The influential Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation filtered some of the $31 billion left to it by investment guru Warren Buffett into microfinanciers such as Grameen Foundation USA, and Pro Mujer, paving the way for philanthropists and entrepreneurs alike to support microfinance. The Gates Foundation will also use some of the Buffett money to pursue its goal of curing the world's 20 leading fatal diseases.

If 2006 had an official color, it was certainly "green," as "treehugging" transformed from a pejorative to an accolade. The "Al Gore movie"--the street name for An Inconvenient Truth,--raised mass awareness of the dangers of global warming and introduced the linguistic shift from climate change to climate crisis. Other movies also advanced the green agenda. George Clooney and Matt Damon lent star power to Syriana, which addressed the environmental, political and economic issues of “peak oil”. Behind the scenes, Jeff Skoll's Participant Productions purchased renewable energy credits (RECs) from NativeEnergy to make the production of the film carbon neutral."Carbon neutral" was the New Oxford American Dictionary "word of the year," with companies contributing significantly to this green trend that garnered cover stories in mainstream magazines such as Time, Newsweek, Wired, Inc., Fortune, Elle, and Vanity Fair. For example, Wells Fargo became the largest corporate purchaser of RECs in the US with its October 2006 purchase of 550 million kilowatt hours of renewable wind energy through 3 Phases Energy. In addition to purchasing carbon offsets, companies are increasingly powering their operations directly with green energy.

In October, Google, leapfrogged over GM, Johnson & Johnson, and FedEx to become the company with the largest solar installation in the US by mounting over 9,000 Sharp solar panels on the roofs of its Mountain View, California campus (dubbed Googleplex.) CSR addresses not only beneficial company actions, but also those with adverse environmental and social impacts.

Drama unfolded from October on as Oxfam America accused Starbucks of prompting the National Coffee Association to oppose Ethiopia's application to trademark its regional coffee names such as Harrar and Sidamo, and Starbucks defended its actions. In other activists’ endeavors earlier in the year, Amnesty International published a report detailing the role of Yahoo!, Microsoft, and Google in limiting freedom of expression in China.

On the governance front, 2006 was a record year for shareowner activism. Almost a third of these shareowner resolutions going to vote received over 15 percent support, double the results from the previous two proxy seasons. This year’s tally was the highest documented since 1973. In an apparent victory for shareowner democracy, a federal appeals court essentially usurped the regulatory power of the SEC. The SEC had "punted" on the issue of allowing shareowners access to the proxy to nominate directors by proposing a rule in 2003 but never implementing it. The judges ruled against AIG and in favor the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), allowing its pension fund to file resolutions seeking proxy access to nominate directors. Further clouding the governance scene, the backdating stock options scandal continues to widen and reveal ever more sordid evidence of unethical corporate conduct at Apple and more than a hundred other companies. At the same time, Treasury Secretary and former Goldman Sachs, CEO Hank Paulson financed a blue-ribbon panel that recommended scaling back Sarbanes-Oxley.

As with environmental issues, star power fueled interest in social issues as well. At a benefit for the human rights organization WITNESS, Angelina Jolie recounted her activism in helping secure key commitments from Sierra Leone's president to implement the Truth and Reconciliation Commission recommendations in the wake of the country's 11-year conflict. Sierra Leone is also the setting of the Leonardo DiCaprio film Blood Diamond, which shone a spotlight on the sale of illegally mined stones to fuel wars in Africa. The Kimberley Process, collaboration between nongovernmental organizations and companies to certify responsibly produced diamonds, is one of many voluntary CSR initiatives whose awareness was raised.

This year saw the launching of new CSR initiatives, such as the United Nations Principles of Responsible Investment to promote socially responsible investing (SRI). It also saw the revision of other important voluntary CSR initiatives, such as the third generation of Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) Sustainability Reporting Guidelines (dubbed "G3"), as well as the second generation of the Equator Principles, which now has almost 50 banks committing to social and environmental standards for financing major infrastructure projects such as dams and power plants.

Many companies also voluntarily implemented codes of conduct to guide ethical business decisions and responsible supply chain management. Gap and Nike continue to lead the pack on this front. Gap recently discontinued sourcing from 62 factories where the company discovered violations of its Code after inspecting some 4,500 factories worldwide. Nike dropped a Pakistani soccer ball supplier due to child labor concerns and other violations. Finally, 2006 hearkened back to 2000 when the purchase of Ben & Jerry's, by Unilever, raised the question, “What becomes of small, socially responsible companies when they are acquired by large corporations?” In 1993, Tom's of Maine cofounder Tom Chappell wrote The Soul of a Business, and this year, Colgate-Palmolive bought the company, prompting some to question whether the business ‘sold’ its soul. In a similar development, the Body Shop sold on the auction block to L’Oreal after tumultuous periods as a private and public company. Leaders of the CSR community are addressing this dilemma, trying to create a model for small businesses that insures their commitment to social responsibility when acquired.If all this happened in 2006, imagine what we have to look forward to in 2007…

McKinsey Quarterly's Social and environmental trends 2006:

Although they are less predictable and their impact on the business world is less certain, they will fundamentally change how we live and work.

1. Technological connectivity will transform the way people live and interact. The technology revolution has been just that. Yet we are at the early, not mature, stage of this revolution. Individuals, public sectors, and businesses are learning how to make the best use of IT in designing processes and in developing and accessing knowledge. New developments in fields such as biotechnology, laser technology, and nanotechnology are moving well beyond the realm of products and services.
More transformational than technology itself is the shift in behavior that it enables. We work not just globally but also instantaneously. We are forming communities and relationships in new ways (indeed, 12 percent of US newlyweds last year met online). More than two billion people now use cell phones. We send nine trillion e-mails a year. We do a billion Google searches a day, more than half in languages other than English. For perhaps the first time in history, geography is not the primary constraint on the limits of social and economic organization.

2. The battlefield for talent will shift. Ongoing shifts in labor and talent will be far more profound than the widely observed migration of jobs to low-wage countries. The shift to knowledge-intensive industries highlights the importance and scarcity of well-trained talent. The increasing integration of global labor markets, however, is opening up vast new talent sources. The 33 million university-educated young professionals in developing countries is more than double the number in developed ones. For many companies and governments, global labor and talent strategies will become as important as global sourcing and manufacturing strategies.

3. The role and behavior of big business will come under increasingly sharp scrutiny. As businesses expand their global reach, and as the economic demands on the environment intensify, the level of societal suspicion about big business is likely to increase. The tenets of current global business ideology—for example, shareholder value, free trade, intellectual-property rights, and profit repatriation—are not understood, let alone accepted, in many parts of the world. Scandals and environmental mishaps seem as inevitable as the likelihood that these incidents will be subsequently blown out of proportion, thereby fueling resentment and creating a political and regulatory backlash. This trend is not just of the past 5 years but of the past 250 years. The increasing pace and extent of global business, and the emergence of truly giant global corporations, will exacerbate the pressures over the next 10 years.
Business, particularly big business, will never be loved. It can, however, be more appreciated. Business leaders need to argue and demonstrate more forcefully the intellectual, social, and economic case for business in society and the massive contributions business makes to social welfare.

4. Demand for natural resources will grow, as will the strain on the environment. As economic growth accelerates—particularly in emerging markets—we are using natural resources at unprecedented rates. Oil demand is projected to grow by 50 percent in the next two decades, and without large new discoveries or radical innovations supply is unlikely to keep up. We are seeing similar surges in demand across a broad range of commodities. In China, for example, demand for copper, steel, and aluminum has nearly tripled in the past decade.
The world's resources are increasingly constrained. Water shortages will be the key constraint to growth in many countries. And one of our scarcest natural resources—the atmosphere—will require dramatic shifts in human behavior to keep it from being depleted further. Innovation in technology, regulation, and the use of resources will be central to creating a world that can both drive robust economic growth and sustain environmental demands.

From http://www.mckinseyquarterly.com/article_page.aspx?ar=1734&L2=21&L3=114&srid=190&gp=0

Warmest Finnish December Ever Measured

Still no snow in Helsinki. Helsingin Sanomat reports that last December was the warmest ever measured in this country.

Average temperatures were 6 to 8 degrees above the thirty year December average.

In current climate conditions, a December this warm would be expected to occur just once or twice in a millennium. But given the accelerating global warming, winter temperatures this high might be commonplace by the end of the century, according to the Finnish Meteorological Institute.