3BL Blog

It’s a Miracle: Financial Reform

Do you believe in miracles? Well, brace yourself. We may have another one coming down the pike. Financial reform bills have been passed by both the House and the Senate. Lawmakers are currently working on the final version. We just might see the most sweeping financial reform since the Great Depression within our lifetime. Considering the aggressive and well-funded lobbying by banks, financial institutions, large corporations, and highly placed politicians, this would truly be a miracle.

Why didn’t we have financial reform before this, you may wonder? Because… “The markets can...

BP Removed from Dow Jones Sustainability Indexes

Another nail in BP’s coffin. The oil company responsible for the worst environmental disaster in U.S. history was removed from the Dow Jones Sustainability Indexes (DJSI) effective May 31, 2010.

The DJSI are the first global indexes tracking the financial performance of leading sustainability-driven companies worldwide. Socially responsible investors use the DJSI to help them determine where their investing dollars should go. Many of us have 401(k) or IRA accounts, and we can...

HBR: Companies need to improve sustainability communications

In their Harvard Business Review article, The Sustainability Imperative, David A. Lubin and Daniel C. Esty say that companies need to get better at communicating sustainability. In the article, the authors identify sustainability as an emerging megatrend, similar to quality in the 1970's and IT in the 1980's.

In order for companies to gain advantage from this megatrend, they need to execute in five critical areas, one of which is reporting and communication. They write:

We see
...

Microsoft’s CSR Accelerator Summit

It’s easy to forget just how pervasive Microsoft’s reach is from Xbox to Office or their effect on everybody’s lives over the past 35 years.

Ok, they may have lost market value top dog status to Apple, market share in the internet browser sector or have harbingers of doom awaiting the monster to fall as the Cloud approaches, but with competition such as Google acting like a righteous teenager, Facebook playing like a petulant child and Apple’s aspirations heading toward megalomania with their use of applications to control content, Microsoft could be said to be enjoying a...

The Century of Women

Last week, I was invited to speak at a United Nations NGO conference on the role that women play in the changing world order. The CONGO Committee of Spirituality, Values, and Global Concerns and its working group “Values and Business” presented an inspiring two-day conference. (GoodB will report on the events and speakers next week.) The first day of the conference was devoted to The Divine Feminine, Rapprochement, and the Culture of Peace...

How to Leverage Your Advisory Board (Because Their Name Isn’t All They Can Offer)

You have your board. Now what?

I wrote before about when and how to assemble your advisory board. If you already have an advisory board though, what can you realistically expect from the people who comprise it and how do you best leverage their skills and commitment?

The first part–what you can realistically expect from your advisors–should be agreed on before they commit. I spoke with one enterprenenur who realized in hindsight the criticality of setting...

Let’s Help Panera Bread Take Corporate Social Responsibility to a New Level

I was surprised to read about Panera Bread’s new cafe in St. Louis dubbed the St. Louis Bread Company Cares Cafe. The concept is simple yet groundbreaking… take whatever you want to eat or drink and instead of paying a cashier, drop whatever you can afford into a donation box. And if you don’t have any money, you can donate your time. Crazy concept, I know.

According to a great article in USA Today, Ron Shaich, who stepped down as Panera’s CEO last...

Is Green the old Black?

One of the biggest networks of green blogs is dropping the word "green" from its name. Green Options Media, the former home of Sustainablog, Gas 2.0 and Cleantechnica, and current home to ten blogs, has been renamed Important Media. Now, GreenOptions.com is a full fledged community, running on Huddler’s innovative forum/wiki/product platform.

I recently...

The New Girls’ Club

Remember the Old Boys’ Club…? The boring, cranky, devious one that controls the banks, the economy and most of our wealth creation and money supply from behind the scenes? The one where nearly every key position in government is occupied by an Old Boy? Yes, that one.

Well, there are still a few lifetime members of the OBC firmly entrenched in the Federal Reserve (Grandpa Ben), and the Treasury (Timmy G and Larrykins) who continue to give all our money away to their ever-popular clubby friends.

These are the same old boy club members who along with ex-Goldman partner and Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin gave the store away to the big banks in 1999 with the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act. Ordinary banks like Citigroup could now legally play roulette with government guaranteed deposits. OB Robert Rubin thought it was such a great idea he took a job with Citibank only weeks after leaving the Treasury.

These same old boys, Summers, Greenspan, Geithner with OB Senator Phil Gramm (now a lobbyist for Swiss Bank UBS) the very next year pushed through the ill-fated Commodities Futures Modernization Act - otherwise known as Derivatives-Are-Born-Free Act. This little understood law overturned a century old rule that had prevented unregulated market bets since the Panic of 1907. Now all bets were off…

The Challenge of Translating Sustainability

Let’s face it: sustainability can be a challenging topic for many people to understand.

For example, when you hear someone on the news or in business talk about alternative energy or cap and trade policy, can you honestly say you understand it all?

I’ll go out on a limb and admit that when I hear the word “carbon,” I sometimes struggle to pay attention – let alone understand what’s being discussed. That’s why tools like Annie Leonard’s Story of Stuff are so powerful – they take complicated subjects and translate them...

Search form

3BL Blog

It’s a Miracle: Financial Reform

BP Removed from Dow Jones Sustainability Indexes

HBR: Companies need to improve sustainability communications

Microsoft’s CSR Accelerator Summit

The Century of Women

How to Leverage Your Advisory Board (Because Their Name Isn’t All They Can Offer)

Let’s Help Panera Bread Take Corporate Social Responsibility to a New Level

Is Green the old Black?

The New Girls’ Club

The Challenge of Translating Sustainability

Pages

Get in touch

Solutions

Community

Search form

3BL Blog

Pages

Get in touch

Solutions

Community

Follow us on social