I saw a tweet from @derekabdinor the other day that intrigued me, so I went to check out the Jungle Rating site. The consultancy has just published ratings which aim for a view of how firms included on the DJSI STOXX Dow Jones sustainability index perform in online sustainability reporting. The idea is to create a benchmark consisting of 125 research criteria.

The outright winner was BASF.

BASF publishes topical information (news and case study updates) and offers complete GRI-based performance information, very useful for the professional user groups (socially responsible investors and analysts).

The website also contains several unique features, such as case study videos, flash animations, downloadable Excel sheets and interactive graphs.”

interactivity, programmability, and more open data. Makes sense.

The next companies on the list were BHP Billiton, Centrica, Novo Nordisk & BP.

Gas and utility companies-the usual regulated industry suspects for CSR PR. I need to spend some time checking out the DJSI SToXX index. I must admit I was pretty surprised not to see BT on list, given that its a European company I rate highly on sustainability action and reporting.

Meanwhile seeing BP on the list also made me think-not because of its sustainability reporting capabilities, but simply because I think BP talks the talk, but doesn’t walk it. The Lord Brown era was an era of deceit: all mouth and very short trousers from a sustainability perspective. Beyond Petroleum- yeah, right. Tell it to Alaska or Texas.  Lauding BP for its online carbon calculator seems a bit pointless. After all-there are already a surfeit of such calculators out there. Carbon calculators are table stakes not differentiators.

I spent yesterday in Berlin with Transparency International, which got me thinking about the difference between PR and a real commitment to sustainability.

The ticklist means nothing. Videos and “web 2.0′ features can obscure, rather than enable, transparency. Peter Wilkinson, a consultant working with TI, told me a brilliant story over dinner about a famous London lawyer who, having been refused permissionto build a garage extension to his house, spent time poring over the relevant statutes, and then went ahead with his new garage anyway. It turned out that as long as the structure had doors on all four sides planning permission was not actually required. Of course if you opened any of the doors on three sides of the building all you found behind them were brick walls. If that isn’t a brilliant metaphor for tick-list corporate social responsibility (CSR) I don’t know what is. All the reports and funky web sites in the world won’t create a real commitment to sustainability.

Or will they? Its kind of hard not to “inhale” when you’re smoking CSR dope. Much as with open source there is a disruption associated with adopting new approaches.

I would like to see an index correlating true CSR responsibility with best in class reporting. Perhaps a future version of XBRL can help with that…True benchmarking. But in the shorter term it seems Jungle has a point. The transition from CSR brochureware to interactive read/write CSR platforms mirrors the transition we’ve seen on the web. With full awareness of the potential danger of using the term I am tempted to tag the new approach CSR 2.0.

I am not the only one thinking this way.

The web offers a chance to put the social in corporate social responsibility. 

Geert Jan Grimberg, internet consultant at Jungle Rating, says:

“the best performers provide complete and topical information, but also make use of the unique possibilities the web offers in terms of multimedia (e.g. video, rich internet) and personalisation (e.g. interactive graphs, downloadable Excel sheets)”. Very few companies use their corporate website to facilitate a stakeholder dialogue, by means of a weblog or periodical chat sessions.”

Dialogue, markets as conversations. Jungle makes some forecasts based on its research:

1. Disclosing topicalities, statements and opinions: Companies use their corporate website more and more to inform stakeholders on topical matters both within their company and in the broader environment (industry / politics).
2. Creation of an online stakeholder experience: The last years, wave riders have started to experiment with the use of multimedia (images, video and rich internet) on their corporate website and within the sustainability section.
3. Taking into account individual stakeholder preferences: many techniques are available to personalise information for specific needs, some front runners for example offer alert functionalities, interactive charts and/or podcasts (downloadable audio files) within their online sustainability section.
4. Establishing an online stakeholder dialogue: Although by far omnipresent yet, some companies start to make use of the various possibilities the internet offers to get a discussion with stakeholders going (e.g. chat, weblog, polls).

All good motherhood and apple crumble. For me its all about point 4, the conversations between corporations and multiple stakeholders. The fact only 17 out of the 53 firms studied were willing to discuss their efforts with Jungle indicates we have a long way to go. Real leaders are building structures with doors and windows, that allow stakeholders through the corporate membrane.

 

Thanks to SideLong for the use of the photo above.

 

Technorati Tags: CSR – CSR 2.0 – tags – JungleRating – BASF – BP – Alaska – oil – BT –

greenbang is one of my favourite ecoblogs. I was particularly taken with its recent Q&A series with Simon Mills – the sustainable development coordinator for the City of London Corporation, which manages affairs in the Square Mile. His answers are a model of clarity- evidently Simon is not a politician. I like the way his answers include links to information resources, and are so well-informed across a range of subject areas. Some of the answers are quite surprising and definitely worth reading. The series works as a great example of transparency, a core Greenmonk value.

The City of London has a policy for “green roofs”. Here’s why:

Firstly we have identified green roofs as a valuable resource for biodiversity in our Biodiversity Action Plan, and have produced guidance notes for developers on both Green Roofs and Vertical Habitats.

Secondly we have identified how important green roofs are to combat the impacts of climate change– basically they act a giant sponges, soaking up excess rainfall and releasing it slowly, so as not to overwhelm the sewers.

Who knew? The format greenbang used is interesting – giving each answer its own blog entry, rather than compiling them into one uber-interview – works really well. So here are the questions:

What is the plan for making buildings zero carbon at the 2012 Olympics?

As the owner of three of London’s most vital wholesale markets, serving the fresh produce needs of London’s businesses, what is City of London doing to get more local, organic and Fairtrade produce sold through these markets?

What is the City of London doing to change the mindset of its resident corporations to make the same everyday steps to be greener that individual consumers are?

What is the City of London doing to encourage a ‘buy recycled’ policy?

With a huge unmet demand for food growing space from the population in the area, are the City of London looking into alternative growing space such as Green Roofs?

Why is the City so bad for cycle parking? – it’s a close-run competition with Westminster on who offers the fewest proper parking stations.

While I realise the City Of London is a particular approach to city and financial district governance, with a long and distinguished history, I would love to see greenbang, which has some global coverage ambitions, run a series of interviews with officials in cities such as New York, Shanghai, Tokyo, and Frankfurt.

photo courtesy of Cimm.

Very interesting idea here from Sky TV in the UK. They are getting customers to vote for which charities they should support. The charities have created videos about their efforts, which you can then vote for. This is the second cool green thing I have seen Sky involved in in as many weeks. Sky is the UK’s name for FOX, in case you didn’t know. I have a favourite charity choice already – Global Action Plan, which I wrote about here. Disclosure: I am going to be doing some pro-bono work with Global Action Plan on community engagement work.

But please watch the videos and make up your own minds.

Well you didn’t think I meant me, did you? I must admit I couldn’t resist the headline Governors links with Google energy savings initiative from Computerworld today:

The governors of Kansas and Minnesota said that they are willing to spend the required additional $30 per computer when the states buy their more than 4,000 PCs each year. That is about how much more a computer with special energy saving components costs. The governors said they expect to pay off that additional investment quickly and possibly save even more through reduced energy costs.

“As with many energy efficient pieces of equipment, there is a slightly increased out-front capital cost but over the life of the computer you actually recoup those savings so we think it is a win-win situation,” said Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius.

Ah Sibelius… another last name of note. Go Kansas and Minnesota! And does anyone know of similar initiatives in the UK, people getting involved with the climatesaverssmartcomputing? It looks like the guy I need to hook up with is Bill Weihl. What a great Greenmonk interview he would make.

“They will begin to drive down the cost of the PCs, said Bill Weihl, vice president and board member of the Climate Savers Computing Initiative as well as the clean energy director for Google. “When these efficient systems are sold in high volumes, the price premium will become small if not zero,” he said.

I also note that these initiatives are at the State, rather than the Federal level. As with plastic bags, local governments appear more concerned to get on with fixes than central government.

Technorati Tags: climatesavers – google – kansas – minnesota – PCs – greening

I just got back from Microsoft TechEd IT Forum 2007 in Barcelona. The company’s new strategy seems to be… if it moves virtualise it, if it doesn’t move virtualise it anyway, and if its virtualised already then virtualise it some more and manage it. Microsoft is determined to lose a reputation for workload inefficiency, and the virtualisation story makes for great motherhood and apple crumble stuff, but would it hurt the firm to at least mention green issues in the efficiency context? A day and a half and the only conversation about greening was at the dinner table.

A couple of questions then absolutely floored me: “Are Europeans still obsessed with carbon footprints? Why?” As I responded – with oil at nigh on $100 a barrel, we’re all green now. Simple but brutal economics is now the green advocate’s best friend. It seems totally absurd to me that some people, notably in central governments, are still arguing that efficiency initiatives might “hurt the economy”. Can you imagine a CEO arguing it makes no business sense to become more efficient? Well actually yes but that’s autistic cost-benefit analysis for you.

Microsoft likes to see itself, somewhat justifiably, as taking a long term view on things. Its technical marketing people take evident pride in eschewing what they see as the “latest fads”. Service oriented architecture (SOA) is a good example of same. While other vendors, most notably IBM, were developing the market Microsoft sat on the sidelines looking grumpy, saying ‘there is no such thing as SOA”. Three years later or so and it finally jumps on the bandwagon. For Microsoft though, virtualisation is not a fad but The Real Deal.

And yet… shouldn’t a company that prides itself on the long view be more, rather than less, obsessed with carbon emissions,efficiency and maybe even the future of the planet? Virtualisation and greener data centers make great bed-fellows, as vendors such as Cassatt are doing a great job of articulating, and with that in mind some opportunistic marketing and development would make sense. Microsoft should go and talk to US energy and utility companies and ask about bills and rebates for customers that run more effective IT operations. It could startwith PG&E, which actively recommends customers virtualise their data centers through rebates and a campaign called wecandothis.

One of the refreshing things about Microsoft is the dorkness of much of its market conversation. It tends to avoid the kind of business process hand-waving most major vendors prefer. At Microsoft there is a genuine belief that if you provide great tools to technical people they can do great work. Their pitch is to practitioners rather than CIOs. In my experience though practitioners are just as worried about the future of the planet as any of their their pointy-haired bosses, if not more so. It would be fantastic to see Microsoft marketing green from the roots up.

I don’t see Microsoft leading the corporate social responsibility (CSR) and related green debates. its about time it did. We need a better plan A because there is no plan B.

picture of construction work at Gaudi’s masterpiece La Sagrada Familia courtesy of Mishkabear. Thanks!

Today I read that, according to the UN, greenhouse gas emissions from richer nations have risen to their highest levels since 1990. We’re moving in the wrong direction, it seems. Greenmonk normally tries to avoid “climate pr0n” but sometimes the cap just fits.

It seems to more that more sacrifices are required. Technology isn’t magic. We need to do more. And what am I doing? Getting on a plane to New York for an IBM event, my second foreign trip with the vendor in two weeks. Are you thinking what I am thinking? More on this later…

One thing that really does my head in though. What’s the first thing I do when I check into a hotel room? Turn the air conditioning off… One thing globalisation can’t mean is a steady 68 degrees Fahrenheit.

I realise Greenmonk is not about green data centers, but I am at an IBM conference and its a core issue here.  I am going to do writing it up in some depth, but I called out IBM’s efforts in a blog here, titled Globalisation’s Green Core.

One issue that absolutely screamed at me however, which ComputerWorld readers should perhaps be aware of, is that many IT organisations have never had to fully consider their electricity consumption. Electricity is a “cost of doing business”, which comes under a facilities management budget. However with increasing energy costs bringing these budgets under increasing scrutiny, facilities managers are beginning to present IT organisations with a bill. This is a huge game-changer, and if your IT organisation isn’t thinking green now, it will be when you get the bill.

Greenmonk: Save The World or Get Rich Tryin’. I must get some t-shirts made up with that slogan – If I do would you like one?

Reuters concurs, according to ecototality, based on a quote from Deutsche Bank.

“The climate change markets are being created by governments through their regulation,” said Mark Fulton, tbank’s (Deutsche Bank) global head of strategic planning and climate change strategist.

“Whether you believe the science or not, investable markets are being created by governments, and these investable markets we think will grow significantly over the next 20 to 30 years,” he said at the launch of a report on climate change investment.

greenback picture courtesy of yonanimus

I got a tweetback today from @michaeldestries so I went to check out who he is. It turns out a green enterpreneur and consultant. So far so good. So what’s the ecorazzi thing then, I wondered? When I got to the site I was floored. Its basically a perfectly executed celebrity gossip site – but bright green. Lots of humour. Nice photoshop montage of Paris Hilton in an ice-cube (she wants to be cryogenically frozen with her dog. It can’t happen soon enough if you ask me.)

I think most people would rather hear from an ecorazzi than an eco-nazi.

The team is pretty big – which helps explain how they pump out so many stories, with such a slick editorial look. You guys are my new heroes. Its like Go Fug Yourself wearing green. Making green sexy- and nothing sells better than sex. Maybe green really is the new black…

Thanks Sophie Monk and PETA for the image above. That’s a chili shot.

Technorati Tags:gossip – green – paris+hilton – sophie+monk – ecorazzi

Matt Biddulph, “celebrity programmer”, Dopplr CTO, office-sharing mate, and all round good egg recently told me about Freecycle. He had used the service to “get rid off” a bunch and Sight and Sound magazines, a DVD player, and Sky+ settop box. All of these objects went to good homes, which is the goal of the service.

Welcome! The Freecycle Network™ is made up of 4,138 groups with 3,994,000 members across the globe. It’s a grassroots and entirely nonprofit movement of people who are giving (& getting) stuff for free in their own towns. It’s all about reuse and keeping good stuff out of landfills. Each local group is moderated by a local volunteer (them’s good people). Membership is free.

This is like eBay without the filthy lucre. It’s an implementation of what is being called the Gift Culture of Economy. Don’t throw things away – give them to somebody. One person’s trash is another person’s treasure.

Freecycling already happens in in first life in Hackney. People just put stuff outside their front doors, and its clearly there for freecycling. I recently “got rid’ of a DVD that way (I included a note saying it jumped occasionally). But a social network now allows for recycling serendipity.