« Previous | Main | Next »

Sustainable Strategies driving 25% stock rise

Last week's UN Global Compact Leaders Summit in Geneva, Switzerland,
brought together some of the world's biggest companies committed to
corporate social responsibility. It also left behind some potentially
powerful tools. For starters, there's a new online tool
(www.gln-openaccess.org/) aimed at helping companies "embed responsible
business practices as a driver of long term, sustainable competitive
performance."

A report released at the summit by Goldman Sachs showed that among six
sectors covered -- energy, mining, steel, food, beverages, and media --
companies that are considered leaders in implementing environmental, social
and governance (ESG) policies to create sustained competitive advantage
have outperformed the general stock market by 25 per cent since August
2005.

There's more: a group of chief executive officers representing some of the
world's largest corporations issued The CEO Water Mandate, urging their
business peers to take immediate action to address the emerging global
water crisis. The chief executives of 153 companies worldwide committed to
speeding up action on climate change and called on governments to agree as
soon as possible on measures to secure workable and inclusive climate
market mechanisms post 2012, when the Kyoto Protocol expires.

And a new report on business-NGO partnerships found that environmental
issues account for a third of all business corporate social responsibility
partnerships on a global level and that education projects are the
preferred corporate social responsibility partnerships at a local level.

Details on these and other Global Compact Summit actions can be found on
GreenBiz.com and at the Compact's site: www.globalcompact.org.

-- Joel Makower, Executive Editor