Corporate Responsibility

Symantec’s Volunteer of the Quarter initiative highlights and rewards those employees who dedicate their time and talents to address societal and environmental issues. Today we highlight our Volunteer of the Quarter Nick Coates, Principal ITSM Solutions Engineer, Production Engineering, in our Reading UK office.

Speaking at the company's annual Sustainability Summit in London yesterday, HP's UK MD, George Brasher, explained how the environmental benefits of "short run printing" could play a part in countering the carbon footprint of businesses' supply chains.

Look at any community around the world that works with Fair Trade, from the smallest village in Uganda, to a coastal fishing town in Mexico, and you'll see that no two have the same exact set of needs. That’s why Fair Trade USA leaves power in the hands of committees of farmers and workers to decide for themselves how the additional funds earned through Fair Trade—called Community Development Funds—will be spent. Regardless of those unique challenges, many see education as the most promising solution. Our neighbors around the world are longing to write a better future for themselves and their children by creating opportunities to learn and grow.

As part of Mohawk Group’s ongoing commitment to leave more handprints than footprints, we joined Groundswell, Elevate Energy and other partners in south Chicago for the unveiling of a new smartflower™ solar system.

Sappi utilizes numerous systems and other tools for providing information on our sustainability performance.

“Ambition enables finance,” said Redentor Constantino, executive director of the Institute for Climate and Sustainable Cities, as he introduced another way of merging climate-related action and finance to achieve a low-carbon and resilient economy in the Philippines. Echoing the words of Senator Loren Legarda, Constantino said that economic resilience, especially in the face of climate threats, entailed a strategic use of available funding from the local through to the international level.

This case study, presented by Edison Energy, powered by Altenex, details the renewables efforts made by Bloomberg L.P. — from their initial procurement of RECs in 2007 to a commitment to source 100% of electricity from renewable sources by 2025.

Research has shown over and over again that building a diverse workforce isn’t only the right thing to do, but it also gives businesses a competitive advantage. Diversity encourages innovation and creativity, enables discussions and decision-making drawing on a broad range of perspectives and helps to develop and retain versatile talent. Newsrooms globally still have a long way to go in creating and maintaining diversity, and that is a cause for concern.

It would be difficult to think of a field that is more old-power than the arts.

Closely connected with this old-power/new-power dynamic is the way that technology has been embraced in these organizations (or not). Traditional performing arts institutions are lagging behind other kinds of groups when it comes to embracing interactive technology in their performances, particularly methods that empower their audiences.

We tried a new-power approach to philanthropy at American Express with our Partners in Preservation program, which we sponsor with the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

After 11 years, this partnership has awarded nearly $20 million in preservation funding to 250 diverse historic sites in 20 National Parks, fourteen different cities, and 12 Main Street communities.

Companies from all industries have turned their attention to addressing the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), tackling a range of issues including climate change, economic inequality, sustainable consumption, peace and justice, among other priorities. However, reports from the Sustainable Development Solutions Network show that in order to meet the ambitious goals set forth in the SDGs, progress must accelerate – and more organizations need to join the movement. Recently, in an effort to help companies better measure and report on their progress, the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) and the United Nations Global Compact released a “Practical Guide” to help fast-track progress as we move towards 2030.