The Latest Corporate Social Responsibility News - Building Sustainability 2.0 on the Foundation of Sustainability 1.0
Corporate Social Responsibility Press Release
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12.30.2008 - 11:59pm ET
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CSRwire Weekly News Alert
The Latest Corporate Social Responsibility News - Building Sustainability 2.0 on the Foundation of Sustainability 1.0
(CSRwire) DECEMBER 31, 2008 - On first blush, the two latest blog posts on CSRwire's
Video, Commentary, and Research (VCR) section seem contradictory; but on
closer examination, they are absolutely consistent. Peter Salmon of the
New Zealand-based design firm Moxie argues that we are entering
a new era: Sustainability 2.0, he calls it. The primary limiting
factor of Sustainability 1.0 is its negative framing, according to Salmon:
"an environmental problem, something business needs to account for, a risk
to be managed or a tax to be paid … compliance, CSR, reduction, limits."
Sustainability 2.0 re-frames through a positive lens: "It's a process that
builds prosperous businesses creating innovative products and services;
businesses founded on good financial results, responsible use of
resources, and community well-being."
Enter Ceres President Mindy Lubber
considering the climate change governance of Whole Foods. She applauds
the natural foods retailer for buying wind-based renewable energy
certificates (RECs) to power all its stores - a textbook example of
Sustainability 2.0. However, she chides the company for failing to
measure its overall greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions or set targets to
reduce those emissions. Is she stuck in the land of Sustainability 1.0 -
compliance, reduction, limits?
Nope. In Salmon's words, Lubber is arguing for "and/and" - Sustainability
1.0 and 2.0. In other words, Whole Foods needs to take a holistic
approach with RECs and GHG reductions targets. She cites several
examples of best practice identified by the recent Ceres report rating 63 consumer
and technology companies on climate governance.
"Top-scorer IBM, for example, has already met a suite of emission and
energy reduction goals and is now embarking on a new set of ambitious
targets through 2012," Lubber states. "IBM is also keenly focused on new
product solutions, ranging from from high-performing data centers and
microprocessors to traffic congestion pricing systems and solar cell
technology."
In other words, in order for Sustainability 2.0 to be holistic, it needs
to build on the foundation of Sustainability 1.0, complying and reducing
as necessary preconditions for moving toward positive, proactive
solutions.
Disclosure: CSRwire contributing writer Bill Baue has written for
Ceres.
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