NV Energy unveiled its new NVision Plan last week, a policy initiative that proposes shutting down coal plants and investing in new renewable energy and natural gas generation. On the surface, that sounds great – shuttering coal plants, reducing carbon emissions, increasing investment in renewable energy and creating jobs. All good things, right? (more…)

When most people think of water issues, the first thing that comes to mind is falling reservoirs and water rationing at the tap. While this is a very significant impact, our business sustainability consulting is reminded that water stretches much further and deep in to the heart of business. The reality is that water is linked to every facet of life on our planet and directly interacts (more…)

Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, foursquare, blogging, the social web– we no longer just communicate; we interact. In the process, how can the wealth of information being generated by social media help us better understand business sustainability value creation? (more…)

Producing a corporate sustainability report (CSR) is a team sport. The stronger the team is, the stronger the report will be. Each player needs to bring specific expertise that is complementary to the team as a whole. So, it is important to recruit and rally the key experts that can deliver what you need to make the company’s report a success. Choose carefully (more…)

With the Paralympics Games set to start on 29 August 2012, it is now widely recognized by many sustainability social innovation practitioners that London did deliver a sustainable 2012 Olympic games. It has left a long-term legacy that will pass to future event organizers and suppliers: a pack of new standards and best practices in sustainable event management, (more…)

A recent Forbes article, Why Great Ideas Fail, attempts to answer this question and offer guidance towards improved business innovation success. Drilling to the heart of the issue, the post explains that it is not the idea but more often the culture that fails. Instead of confining creativity to a closed-off lab, the concept of an open innovation model is (more…)

“Many companies suffer from disproportionately high breakthrough project failure rates because they find it hard to balance execution discipline with flexibility to respond to changing technical and market realities. When executing on breakthrough projects, use detailed maturity checklists to establish flexible yet guard-railed execution paths.” -CEB Views (more…)

For consumer products companies like Avon, there is often a quick assumption that sustainability will focus on the products themselves – products that are green, organic, natural or similar designations. But at Avon, and many peer companies, the sustainability imperative is embedded organically (no pun!) into the business enterprise, (more…)

With a wide range of perspectives and view points on sustainable development, it may seem unlikely that a common definition or framework of ‘business sustainability’ could ever be defined. Add in personal beliefs and business operating philosophies, and the conversation continues to expand. However, the (more…)

One of the ways the business case is determined is that each region, country or community has a different combination of CSR drivers. I will start with the five typical CSR drivers that are local (or internal) drivers, namely pressures from within the country or community. (more…)