Third Sustainability Chat Tackles Sustainability Ratings on July 6 through 7

OpenEyeWorld Adds “SustyCred” Function to Rate the Most Credible Commenters
Jul 5, 2011 12:00 PM ET

(3BL Media / theCSRfeed) July 5, 2011 - Join corporate social responsibility experts from across the globe in the latest Sustainability Chat, focused on Sustainability Ratings. SustyChat3, the third in the series of monthly online dialogues on OpenEyeWorld, the online platform for sustainability expert engagement, takes place Wednesday, July 6 through Thursday, July 7.

To register for the Sustainability Chat, visit: http://www.openeyeworld.net/sustychat/3

The chat will be divided into three discussion streams facilitated by six Guest Experts, all prominent figures in the world of CSR:  

  • “Rate the Raters” with Michael Sadowski, head of SustainAbility’s Rate the Raters project and Mark Tulay, manager of Ceres / Tellus Institute Global Initiative for Sustainability Ratings.

  • “Rated Companies” with Suzanne Fallender, Director of CSR Strategy & Communications, Intel and Tracey Noe, Senior Director, Global Citizenship and Policy, Corporate Public Affairs, Abbott

  • “Raters” with Bahar Gidwani, CEO & Cynthia Figge, COO, CSRHUB

The third SustyChat adds “SustyCred” functionality, allowing participants to rate the credibility of comments, thereby crowdsourcing opinion of the best commenters on the topic.  This feature underscores OpenEyeWorld’s core business model of enabling companies to connect with the most credible sustainability experts, who distinguish themselves through their knowledge, expertise, and opinion. 

The credibility, accuracy, and materiality of sustainability ratings are trending as hot topics lately.  SustainAbility is three-quarters of the way through its “Rate the Raters” project, and Ceres and Tellus Institute recently launched the Global Initiative on Sustainability Ratings (GISR).  Companies continue to struggle with “survey fatigue” as increasing numbers of raters survey them on their environmental, social and governance (ESG) performance, and raters continue to improve their methodologies while trying to convince the marketplace of their value.  All of these issues and more will get hashed out in SustyChat3.

SustyChat3 rides the momentum and success of the first two SustyChats, which you can review at the following links:

SustyChat1 on “The Future of Stakeholder Engagement”: http://www.openeyeworld.net/sustychat/1

SustyChat2 on “Sustainability Reporting Best Practices”: http://www.openeyeworld.net/sustychat/2

OpenEyeWorld Advisor Bill Baue will curate the dialogue, which occurs asynchronously—meaning experts can weigh in at their convenience throughout the two-day period, allowing in-depth discussion to unfold organically. 

For information on the Sustainability Chat on Twitter, follow #SustyChat and @OpenEyeWorld.

Contact:

Tom O’Malley

CEO, OpenEyeWorld

tom@openeyeworld.com