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Green Inc. – NYT Blog
Kate Galbraith
Read the article here.
Excerpt:

In another sign of the widening divide in the business community over climate change action, Nike announced Wednesday that it would resign its position on the board of the United States Chamber of Commerce.

Nike said, however, that it would maintain its membership in the chamber.

Three large utilities — Pacific Gas & Electric, PNM Resources and Exelon — have announced their resignations from the chamber this month due to concerns about the chamber’s position on climate.

“We fundamentally disagree with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce on the issue of climate change, and their recent action challenging the E.P.A. is inconsistent with our view that climate change is an issue in need of urgent action,” Nike said in a statement that was posted today on the Web site of the Natural Resources Defense Council.

Read more…

Tonic, The Huffington Post
Katherine Gustafson
Read the article here.
Excerpt:

Think slavery is over? Think our children are safe? A courageous corporate campaign tells us all to think again.

Growing up during The Body Shop’s heyday, I rarely entered a shopping mall without seeing the cosmetics retailer’s familiar “No Animal Testing” signs. And no youthful spree was complete without bagging one of the mango shampoos or pomegranate body lotions that lined the shop’s walls like shining, aromatic jewels.

Back then, the company was one of few touting ethical consumerism; under the direction of co-founder Anita Roddick, The Body Shop pioneered the idea that businesses can do well by doing good. The concept gained so much traction that angry customers just about stampeded when in 2006 Roddick sold her share of the company to French cosmetic giant L’Oréal, not known for an animal-kindness stance. But Roddick saw the move as a pragmatic one that would take the gospel of socially responsible business to new horizons.

And indeed, two years after her death, the company is taking its advocacy work to a whole new level with the launch of the three-year “Stop Sex Trafficking of Children and Young People” campaign, kicked off eight weeks ago in partnership with the organization ECPAT International (End Child Prostitution, Child Pornography and Trafficking of Children for Sexual Purposes). The campaign aims to make sure that children’s rights are secure, and that governments are held accountable for their contributions toward that goal.

Read more…

http://www.greenbiz.com/research/tool/2009/09/28/supplier-sustainability-assessment
From the GreenBiz site:

The Sustainability Assessment is the first of three phases of the Sustainability Index project Walmart announced in July 2009. This tool offers an in-depth look at the 15 questions the company is asking of all its suppliers.

NPR
Pam Fessler
Read the article here.
Excerpt:

It’s one of those things that irks charitable givers no end — the high salaries paid to some nonprofit CEOs.

And a new study by The Chronicle of Philanthropy, released Monday, shows that the top pay at the nation’s largest nonprofits rose again last year, with some eye-popping results. But the survey also found signs that these high-dollar salaries may be starting to turn around.

Seven-Figure Salaries

Here are some of the more striking numbers: $2.1 million for the director of the Museum of Modern Art in New York; $2.7 million for the head of a health care group in Boston; $1.3 million for the president of New York University.

The survey found that many nonprofit CEOs earned half a million dollars or more last year, and that the median pay raise was 7 percent. But to be fair, says Chronicle editor Stacy Palmer, most of those salaries were set before charities and foundations felt the effects of the recession.

Read more…

http://www.savingtheworld.net/index.php/blog/post/RealizedWorth/238
A nice list of sites, blogs, and other web resources.

http://content.dell.com/us/en/corp/report.aspx

http://www.justiceharvard.org/
I’m sure there’s a business ethics component to this. From the site:

What’s the right thing to do? Is torture ever justified? Would you steal a drug that your child needs to survive? Is it sometimes wrong to tell the truth? How much is one human life worth?

Read the article here.

Excerpt:
LOS ANGELES — Four decades after he stunned the nation by leaking the top-secret Pentagon Papers study of the Vietnam War, Daniel Ellsberg walks the halls of the past in his dreams.

In his sleep, he imagines that he still works as a researcher at the Rand Corp., advising Pentagon officials on policy, handling classified documents, studying the science of war.

“Being at Rand was the ideal life for me,” Ellsberg says, almost as an afterthought. “In my dreams, I am doing classified work, trying to solve social problems.”

Over the decades, Ellsberg, 78, hasn’t been welcome at Rand. He committed the most startling breach of security in the company’s history, walking out on Oct. 1, 1969, with the first briefcase full of classified documents destined for public release.

That bold move — and the actions that followed to get them published — are the subject of a new documentary film, “The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers.”

Read more…

http://www.monsanto.com/responsibility/
I don’t know….

http://www.transparency.org/news_room/in_focus/2009/gcr2009

Excerpt from this report, newly released by Transparency International:

Bribery in business captures news headlines around the globe and leads to massive reputational and financial repercussions for the implicated companies. Bribery, though, represents only part of the picture when profit comes at the expense of integrity and sustainability. Other corrupt practices, such as corporate fraud, cartels and undue influence on public policy, work as destructive forces that undermine fair competition, stifle economic growth and ultimately undercut companies’ own existence.

Featuring analysis of more than 75 experts, Transparency International’s 2009 Global Corruption Report lays bare these and other corruption challenges that cut across countries and industries, exposes soft spots in existing corporate anti-corruption measures, and examines promising innovation in the sector.

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