Connectivity and Communications - Key Driver of Sustainability (CERES)

CERES recently launched their report The 21^st Century Corporation: The CERES Roadmap for Sustainability. Last year’s report, CERES 20-20, laid out four pillars. The second pillar was ‘setting new standards and expectations for business leadership’. This new report dives deep into this pillar exploring 20 expectations related to governance, stakeholder engagement, disclosure and performance. It is comprehensive in breadth, thorough in depth and full of inspiring examples that demonstrate it can be done. I think it will remain valuable for many years as a benchmark.

My initial look was dominated by the four key drivers of sustainability: (1) Competition for Resources, (2) Climate Change, (3) Economic Globalization and (4) Connectivity and Communications. Although my original inspiration for CSRPerspective was the intersection between ICT and sustainability, I realized haven’t written much about that recently. In fact, this CERES report has reminded me of the importance of my own sector as it highlights it as one of the key drivers together with resources, climate change and globalization!

This part of the report highlights the rapidity and disaggregation of communications and the impact that has on tracking company’s sustainability performance. CERES talks about an era of “radical transparency” . I certainly agree with this. Some of my recent comments about the importance of social networking to demonstrate authenticity and bridge the gap between the company and civil society are a part of the picture. All companies, telecommunications, communications and others have the choice to embrace this now and use it proactively; or wait, but have a lot of catching up to do.

But I see some additional significant attributes of connectivity and communications that need to be taken into consideration. The less positive side of the “radical transparency” coin is trial by public opinion and, perhaps even more potentially destructive, the short termism engendered by the immediacy of the social networking news cycle.

Connectivity and communications have other potential positive attributes. On the topic of social and economic sustainability; leveling the playing field for the economically disadvantaged and providing better access to healthcare and education are some of these attributes. On the topic of environmental sustainability; substitution of and efficiency for energy intensive activities are positive elements. There are negative attributes too though which have the potential to be carried out more anonymously and on an ever increasing scale; things such as cyber crime, online bullying, child pornography and government abuse of human rights.

I am thrilled and newly inspired to see connectivity and communications considered by CERES to be one of the key drivers of sustainability. It brings with it a renewed obligation to the sector, and to everyone who uses connectivity or communications services, to take that responsibility seriously and ensure we do not permit the downsides to prevail. Rather we must leverage and optimize all the potential benefits.

By coincidence, this month, BT’s Global Services organization is highlighting some of the sustainability impacts of ICT services. You can read more about this here.

Some Thoughts on Climate Change

There have been some significant back-currents recently in the wave of progress on climate change; the outcome from Copenhagen that was short of many people’s expectations; some climate change scientists and some involved in the IPCC pursued poorly conceived public statements, exchanged particularly unscientific emails or exaggerated the strength of their findings; recently three significant members of USCAP have left that group. Skeptics have appropriately highlighted these issues.

To put things back in perspective, I enjoyed reading Frank Robert’s economic view on balance of risks in the New York Times on Sunday. Of course, we need to be careful not to be overly reliant on fear as the motivating factor. ‘Just in case’ is not a strong argument for action. The balance of risks has to be compelling.

The scientists have a dilemma. Not long ago I recall the scientific community was being criticized for not being forceful enough in its message. I recall comments that it was too mild in its language, too many caveats, too academic in its articulation of the outcomes. Now it seems we have our just desserts and much of the criticism has reversed. Of course balance is everything and perhaps one lesson is the importance of being true to ones core values.

I think many companies are at a bit of a loss as to how to respond to these back-currents and as a result have gone quiet on the topic or reverted to energy efficiency and energy security as the reasons for reducing energy usage. But for those who are convinced by the scientific evidence of anthropogenic global warming this is not the time to do that. This is the time to stick to principles. Regaining the momentum later will be much harder than the effort to maintain it now.

I do think companies need to get better at articulating why we hold the positions we do. We owe it to our stakeholders to be able to do this and if we can define clearly what evidence underpins our positions, it easier to define if and how we should respond to a particular change.

More than ever, I don’t think we can ignore those who are skeptical. We need to engage them with the same respect and sense of inquiry and open debate that we do those who are supporters.

Sign the Copenhagen Communique

Earlier this week I attended an alumni event of the University of Cambridge Program for Sustainability Leadership held in Washington DC. One of the speakers was Craig Bennett, Deputy Director and faculty member of the Program.

The program addressed the Copenhagen Communiqué , subtitled 'A call from business for an ambitious, robust and equitable global deal on climate change'.

In two pages, the communiqué establishes a set of principles intended to deliver a message of support from businesses globally, to the negotiators at Copenhagen. Ten pages display the logos and names of the currently 650 companies that have signed up to the principles from across the globe.

Craig is the one of the key drivers behind the communiqué. He made some interesting observations both during his presentation and in a smaller group afterwards (repeated here with his permission). He mentioned that American companies are under-represented (I noticed for example that not all the companies in USCAP or BICEP have signed up). This is partly because the program is European originated and so the staff have a stronger network within Europe. But Craig also shared that some American companies were not comfortable with the statement and declined to sign.

The second component called for in the principles is 'Developed countries need to take on immediate and deep emission reduction commitments'. That is a pretty strong statement and I suspect may have deterred some potential signatories. That said, Craig shared that he was not entirely unhappy having some companies declining to sign. If everyone had said yes, it would have indicated the document was not strong enough.

I suspect that one of the challenges of signing up to a document like this is that there is not an established precedent or approval pathway in most large organizations for resolving a position on such a statement.

I would urge more companies to sign up. BT is in there. I see the logos of many of the companies of my peer group of CR practitioners in the US, but many are not there. You can sign up here

Incidentally, Craig mentioned that there is a signatory from every country in the G20 except Indonesia - anyone able to suggest some contacts who could help Craig with that ?