Moves from Puma, Wal-Mart and all the latest from other brands in corporate responsibility and sustainability this month.
Brand risk
Brands such as Adidas and G-Star featured prominently in photographs and footage of looters involved in August’s riots in several English cities. Stores stocking such brands were targeted by looters. British media commentators, such as Janet Street-Porter, noted that, while “Waterstones escaped unscathed,” certain stores and brands were targeted because they had cultivated an association with “gangsta” culture, with Adidas, for example, featuring convicted criminal Snoop Dogg in its advertising.
Meanwhile, Levi’s postponed an advertisement featuring scenes of rioting. The company says the ad was pulled “out of sensitivity for what is happening in the UK”. The advertisement remains on YouTube, and received widespread coverage in a number of newspapers, however. (And we’ll be examining further the role of brands in building social cohesion over the coming months.)
Ray of light
Corporate sustainability pioneer Ray C Anderson died in August, aged 77. Anderson founded US carpet tile firm Interface, which has earned plaudits for its attempts to put environmental integrity at the heart of its business. Interface’s progress towards sustainability began in the 1990s, when Anderson said he realised it was “an extension of the petrochemical industry” because of what went into its products. Interface subsequently reformulated its carpet tiles, and took steps to dramatically cut water usage, greenhouse gas emissions and waste. Anderson pushed other companies, such as Wal-Mart, to follow his lead, and received widespread recognition, such as in 2007 when he was named a Time magazine Hero of the Environment.
Black gold
While many countries seek to cut their greenhouse gas emissions, Canada expects its to rise by 7% by 2020 compared with 2005, because of the growth of the Canadian oil sands industry. According to the latest government forecasts, emissions from oil sands will increase by more than 200% from 2005 to 2020, wiping out savings from other sectors, such as pulp and paper, and electricity production from coal. Total Canadian greenhouse gas emissions in 2020 are on track to be 785m tonnes, about 200m tonnes more than the UK’s annual total. Canada had pledged, after the 2009 Copenhagen climate conference, to cut its 2020 emissions to 607m tonnes.
Low scorers
Indian companies are corporate responsibility laggards, according to the fourth annual survey carried out in India by social platform Karmayog. The survey ranks India’s 500 largest companies from 0 (worst performance) to 5 (best), and only 15% of companies score 3 or 4, and no companies score a 5. The greatest proportion of companies (62%) rank in categories 1 and 2. Karmayog recommends that companies dedicate 0.2% of their sales income to corporate responsibility activities. The better performers include papermakers Ballurpur Industries, Kansai Nerolac Paints and Tata Steel. Among those making up the rear, according to Karmayog, are Indian subsidiaries of western multinationals, such as Bayer CropScience and Gulf Oil, which is now part of the Hinduja Group.
Boxing clever
Campaign group Computer Aid International is calling for companies to sponsor portable, solar-powered internet cafés that can be transported to remote regions in developing countries and used as educational or IT development centres. The units, known as ZubaBoxes, are converted shipping containers fitted with computers and workstations, entirely powered by solar panels installed on the top. Computer Aid, which provides refurbished PCs and IT support to poorer countries, aims to distribute 10 ZubaBoxes by the end of the year. Potential sponsors should visit here.
Trace minerals
Industry platforms the Global e-Sustainability Initiative (GeSI) and the Electronic Industry Citizenship Coalition (EICC) have published a Conflict Minerals Reporting Template, which they say will help companies manufacturing products containing materials such as gold, tantalum, tin and tungsten to ensure that those substances have not come from illegal sources. The template helps companies trace sensitive metals and minerals back through the supply chain to the smelters that produced them, and is needed because “smelters or refiners are many levels removed from the companies that sell the end products which use those materials,” GeSI and EICC say. The template is aimed at manufacturers of products such as computers and mobile phones.
Sun train
Belgian rail infrastructure operator Infrabel has achieved a European first by powering trains directly from solar energy. Trains passing through the 2.1-mile “Sun Tunnel”, which is on the high-speed Amsterdam to Paris via Brussels route, receive electricity directly from 16,000 solar panels installed on the roof of the tunnel. According to Infrabel, even in cloudy Belgium the panels can generate 3,300 megawatt hours of electricity annually, equivalent to the annual consumption of 1,000 households. The rail network’s carbon dioxide emissions will be cut by 2,400 tonnes per year.
Clutching at straws?
Work has started on a brownfield site in Bradford, UK, to construct what will be Europe’s largest suite of office buildings made of straw. The development, the Inspire Bradford Business Park to the north of the city, will comprise 2,787 square metres of offices with wall panels made of half-metre-thick straw bales. The panels are highly energy and carbon efficient and, combined with solar panels on the roof and an onsite ground-source heat pump, will mean that the offices will need little energy from external sources. The construction, due to be completed by the end of this year, is costing £4m, with funding from the European Union and local and regional sources.
First case concluded
The OECD national contact point in Norway has become the first to conclude a mediation based on the revised Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises, the update of which was completed in May. The revised guidelines provide a more comprehensive social responsibility framework for corporations, encompassing a wider range of elements on issues such as human rights, supply chains and greenhouse gas emissions. The Norwegian national contact point used the guidelines to deal with a case involving Norwegian fish farming firm Cermaq, which admitted, following an NGO complaint, that its aquaculture activities in Chile were not sustainable. Cermaq has now pledged to do better.