11.27.2006 - 09:59am ET

(CSRwire) THETFORD CENTER, VT - November 27, 2006 -- The Center for Sustainable Innovation (CSI) Executive Director, Mark W. McElroy, creator of the Social Footprint Method, was recently interviewed on Corporate Watchdog Radio, a nationally syndicated radio show and podcast that focuses on corporate responsibility and socially responsible finance. McElroy and co-host Bill Baue spent the first part of the half-hour program discussing "sustainability context," the term coined by the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) to assess the degree to which corporate actions are truly sustainable--or not, as is often the case.

McElroy explained how sustainability context requires comparison of corporate actions, (such as greenhouse gas emissions) to some target, such as the Kyoto Protocol or the WRE350 scenario for mitigating climate change established by the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder. McElroy discussed how CSI uses this "quotient" approach in both its Social Footprint as well as its Global Warming Footprint methodologies.

In the second part of the program, McElroy and Baue (who also writes for SocialFunds.com) discussed "extended producer responsibility"--or whether companies should hold themselves (or be held) accountable beyond their own actions. McElroy posed the example of automobile manufacturers, who typically take accountability for their own operations, such as the greenhouse gas emissions from their own factories--but should they also be accountable for the emissions of their suppliers, or more significantly, tailpipe emissions from the cars they make when driven by their customers?

"It sounds like in both instances--with extended producer responsibility and sustainability context--it really boils down to a moral question of, 'is the action going to create environmental and social sustainability?'" Baue asked at the conversation's conclusion.

"It does--it boils down to the moral question, what should the manufacturers' moral obligation be to contribute to solving major problems on the scale of global warming?" McElroy responded. "I agree with you that this puts us squarely in the area of value theories and our attempts to apply them."

You can listen to the program at: http://corporatewatchdogmedia.blogspot.com/2006/11/can-corporations-help-create.html

About Center for Sustainable Innovation

The Center for Sustainable Innovation is a Vermont non-profit corporation located in Thetford Center, Vermont. It was founded in 2004 with a vision of working for sustainability, both within and by means of innovation. Most of CSI's current efforts are being applied to the development of the Social Footprint method, a joint project between CSI and the University of Groningen in the Netherlands. CSI's founder and Executive Director, Mark W. McElroy, can be reached at mmcelroy@vermontel.net. More information about CSI, its consulting services, and its Social Footprint Masterclass, can be found at its website at: www.sustainableinnovation.org .

About Corporate Watchdog Radio

CWR is a nationally syndicated radio show and podcast that focuses on corporate responsibility and socially responsible finance. The show is co-hosted and co-produced by Bill Baue, a journalist who writes for SocialFunds.com, and Sanford Lewis, an environmental attorney and filmmaker. The half-hour program airs twice monthly on Pacifica and independent radio stations across the country, including WXOJ-LP in Northampton, Massachusetts; WRFU in Urbana-Champaign, Illinois; The Journey Radio webcasting from St. Louis, Missouri; KWMD in Anchorage, Alaska; WOOL-LP in Southern Vermont; KZFR in Chico, California; and KRFP in Moscow, Idaho. You can listen to the show from its website -- http://www.corporatewatchdogmedia.org/-- where you can also subscribe to the podcast or an email listserve that announces when new shows are posted.

In recent editions of CWR, Baue and Lewis have interviewed Ben & Jerry's and Calvert Funds Board member Terry Mollner about corporate maturation; Gap Senior Vice President of Social Responsibility Dan Henkle on the PRODUCT (RED) campaign to address HIV/AIDS; filmmaker Robert Greenwald about Iraq for Sale: The War Profiteers; and Harvard University Professor and National Commission on Energy Policy Co-Chair John Holdren on whether nuclear power represents a solution to climate change or not.

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