Sustainability

Where does sustainability fit in a diverse IT company like Microsoft? For a special edition of Panorama, WBCSD President and CEO Peter Bakker sits down with Toni Townes-Whitley, Corporate Vice-President for Industry at Microsoft, to discuss the increasing role of information technology in our lives, Microsoft’s vision for the future of work and how business leaders can work to deliver the SDGs.

I had the pleasure of discussing HP’s leading sustainability innovation and initiatives with public and private sector leaders at the Shell PPT Asia Forum. It brought together over 150 leaders, young talents and representatives from the public and private sectors. We discussed and debated how to deliver “Energy for Better Living” and tackle future energy challenges.

According to The United Nations University World Institute, entrepreneurship is a “resource process and state of being through and in which individuals utilize opportunities in the market by creating and growing business firms”. It can notably be key to addressing Sustainable Development Goals 7 and 8 of the UN, to ensure sustainable employment and lasting energy solutions. Thus, it needs crucial supporting actions from the International Community and local governments.

Today, the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) and the Climate Disclosure Standards Board (CDSB) in collaboration with the Business Association for Development (AED), released a case study on the sustainability reporting in Costa Rica. The report was compiled using data from The Reporting Exchange, the global resource for corporate sustainability reporting.

The World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) and the Climate Disclosure Standards Board (CDSB) released a new report that maps global and regional Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) reporting trends.

The CLP Group has tightened the carbon intensity reduction target of its Asia-Pacific power business for 2050, the company unveiled in its latest Sustainability Report and Annual Report. Over a decade ago, CLP voluntarily introduced the Climate Vision 2050, where it committed to lower the carbon intensity of its generating portfolio by approximately 75% of its 2007 position by 2050. After a review of the energy transition underway in each of the key markets the Group operates, the company has set an even more ambitious target of reducing the carbon intensity by 82% by 2050, while increasing the share of renewable energy capacity to 30% and non-carbon emitting generating capacity to 40% by 2030.

A recent report from NRG Energy found that tackling energy sustainability is a significant challenge, though cities of all sizes can do it by first assessing their unique resources and strengths. Energy is far from the only factor cities consider when addressing sustainability, though. Cities' waste streams, and whether or not to ban controversial items like foam and single-use plastic bags, are another.

The U.S. is one of the biggest nations facing climate disparity right now, since the Trump administration chose to pull the country out of the global Paris Agreement last summer. As the federal government's support for climate issues lags, however, U.S. cities have vowed to uphold the charter's principles — and commitment to climate hasn't stopped there.

Do you believe that corporate social responsibility is important to your company, but that it’s someone else’s problem?

A recent Harvard Business Review article entitled “How to Make Sustainability Every Employee’s Responsibility” posits that question (albeit substituting “sustainability” for “corporate social responsibility”) and suggests that while many companies talk about sustainability and integration, it’s much harder to get people to act individually to achieve these corporate goals.

For decades, the definition of “infrastructure” has remained unchanged and was used to define roads, bridges, electricity and water delivery systems, among other examples. But as cities continue to build upon smart city efforts, the concept and very definition of infrastructure is changing.