Approximately 300 million people in India are estimated to lack access to energy with an even higher number experiencing intermittent access. Since a majority of the population resides in rural areas, energy access acquires strategic importance for poverty reduction, quality of human capital, livelihood opportunities, inclusive economic development and social justice.
This holiday season, we’re spotlighting May Chen, one of our inspiring employee volunteers from Fidelity Investments. May has now volunteered on two skills-based volunteering projects, where she helped develop a Salesforce community application for Citizen Schools and an IT assessment and strategic roadmap with Metrocrest Services. Throughout both projects, May has been an incredible team player and is extremely dedicated to developing the most effective deliverable for her nonprofit partners.
Two decades after pioneering the sustainability reporting process in 1997, GRI is now the world's established pre-eminent sustainability standard setter. Through 20 years of work that has defined the reporting landscape, we have evolved our reporting framework in line with the collective understanding of sustainability, to incorporate new topics and best practices as they emerge.
The multi-stakeholder nature and global representation of GRI's governance bodies is one of the key factors in the organization's success. We welcome new members at the start of 2018 in out Board of Directors, Global Sustainability Standards Board, Stakeholder Council and Independent Appointments Committee.
GRI will be hosting a sustainability reporting summit in Arizona, USA, in February 2018. The Summit will bring together sustainability professionals from across North America to explore practical solutions and valuable learning they can take back to their organizations. Find out more and register today!
A group of 24 students, the Tiger Tech team keeps the school’s technology running smoothly. To see them at work, it’s hard to imagine the team is only four years old, but until 2014, Armstrong had little technology and no access to Wi-Fi. The school was transformed thanks to a Verizon Innovative Learning initiative that provides free tablets, two-year data plans and teacher training to select underserved schools across the country.
Detroit’s urban garden scene continues to grow in impact, bringing neighbors together and supporting the underprivileged with access to healthy produce. General Motors contributed a small part in fueling this movement through the donation of its steel shipping crates repurposed as raised garden beds. Five years later, 2,000 of the automaker’s crates are home to plantings in 33 different gardens.