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Strategic Leadership for Senior Executives from Africa

05.10.2012 - 03:48PM

World Bank’s recent research has acknowledged that sustained growth in the coming years would come from emerging countries. However, their research has also revealed that corporate governance appears to be the bane of many organizations in evolving countries, hence the urgent need for senior executives to raise their game via capacity development programmes on areas such as strategic leadership. It is in response to this that Aston Business School in collaboration with These Young Minds presents a four day executive education programme, scheduled to take place between 25^th and 29^th of June, 2012. This programme is specifically designed for senior managers and directors from developing countries. Registration for this programme may be made at http://goo.gl/slp3D

The strategic leadership programme aims to enhance the performance of senior executives in their organizations, enable them appeal to lower cost of capital, attract as well as retain best set of employees and provide better social and financial value. This capacity development programme is a real opportunity for African executives to network with peers and world renowned academics. Importantly, candidates will be able to achieve operational excellence and business results through this programme on strategic leadership.

Through the use of simulations the course would offer participants alternative perspectives to real-life business challenges from a leadership viewpoint while applying innovative solutions to them. In addition, it would help leaders to build their organization’s capacity.

This capacity development programme is exclusively tailored for the present and future African business terrain as well as seeks to equip candidates with enhanced skills on how to make value adding strategies. Also, the course would enable leaders to paint their own high-level picture of global contextual business opportunities and develop clear perspectives on leadership. In addition, a high profile networking event would allow delegates to build an international network of peers and explore potential partnerships.

What is more, access to Aston Business School’s world-class facilities would boost the delegates’ learning experience. On this programme, participants would have the opportunity to interact with the business school’s teaching faculty, meet international candidates on other programmes and experience a visit to one of Aston’s partner organizations.

As These Young Minds is committed to adding sustainable value, we intend to provide managers in emerging countries with skill sets that would enable them stimulate organization performance and achieve set goals. These Young Minds has an impeccable track record of working with established organisations such as Microsoft, Mc Kinsey, Google, Ernst& Young, London School of Economics, Deloitte, University of Oxford and University of Cambridge and many others to deliver research and high-profile programmes.

As one of the world’s few business school with triple accreditation of AMBA, EQUIS and AACSB, Aston Business School is committed to transforming experiences, making real live difference to organisations, economies and the global society.

Professor Pawan Budhwar, Associate Dean Research, Aston Business School says ‘this programme will help participants to not only become aware about the rapidly changing global business context, but will also help them to develop competencies needed to both efficiently lead and organise businesses in the present challenging times.’

In the same vein, Alim Abubakre, Founding Executive Director of These Young Minds says that this programme will equip senior executives with actionable knowledge and skills to create sustainable value for their organisations. It would equip participants with the ability to ease the tensions between critically evaluating new opportunities and situations, towards competing today while applying sound judgement to them such that long-term leadership is not sacrificed. It will also enable them to understand the key commercial drivers of their organisations, and make key investment decisions that create an enduring competitive advantage for them in key value adding areas.

KOHL'S Department Stores Releases 2011 Corporate Social Responsibility Report

05.09.2012 - 08:00AM

Kohl’s Department Stores (NYSE: KSS) today released its 2011 corporate social responsibility (CSR) report, providing updates on the company’s programs and accomplishments in sustainability, community relations and social compliance. It is available for download on Kohl’s Investor Relations page under Corporate Governance and on KohlsGreenScene.com. While the company has for several years posted a Report to Shareholders on Social Responsibility on its Investor Relations page and last year released a corporate sustainability report, this marks the company’s first formal, comprehensive social responsibility report.

“Kohl’s has a longstanding commitment to social responsibility with the goal of making a positive impact on the customers and communities we serve and the environment we share,” said Kevin Mansell, Kohl’s chairman, president and chief executive officer. “It is our hope that this report demonstrates this commitment and continues to serve as a resource each year on the advancement and integration of our CSR efforts – from our Kohl’s Cares programs to our social compliance efforts and ongoing collaboration with our suppliers.”

Kohl’s 2011 CSR Highlights

Sustainability – Kohl’s Cares®: Advancing Environmental Solutions: Kohl’s is committed to protecting and conserving the environment through innovative solutions that promote long-term sustainability.

In 2011, Kohl’s revised its environmental strategies to reflect an enhanced focus on supply chain sustainability efforts and stakeholder engagement, with operational programs such as energy efficiency, building design and waste reduction continuing to serve as a key focus.
As of the end of fiscal 2011, Kohl’s:
- operated 121 solar arrays at stores and corporate facilities.
- achieved ENERGY STAR labels for 677 locations.
- achieved Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification from the U.S. Green Building Council for more than 200 locations and earned Gold LEED pre-certification on its prototypes for new and existing stores.
- purchased more than 1.4 billion kWh of renewable energy credits, offsetting 100 percent of Kohl’s purchased electricity use.
- recycled 78 percent of all operating waste.
- surveyed the company’s top 300 vendors on their sustainability practices each quarter, with the average score improving seven points from 2010.
- executed 18,880 backhaul trips to its distribution centers from vendors on return trips to stores, eliminating more than 4.3 million empty miles.
- served as a participant in the U.S. Department of Energy’s Better Building’s Challenge, a founding circle member of the Sustainable Apparel Coalition and a participant in Business for Social Responsibility’s Energy Efficiency Pilot.

Community Relations: Kohl’s is committed to giving back to the communities the company serves – not only through charitable donations and resources, but also with talent and time.

Kohl’s Cares® - Kids Health and Education: Kohl’s supports kids' health and education initiatives in communities nationwide. With more than a decade of dedication and millions of dollars raised, Kohl’s aims to give kids a happier, healthier future.
- Cause Merchandise Program: Since 2000, more than $208 million has been raised through the Kohl’s Cares cause merchandise program, including more than $28 million raised in 2011.
- Hospital Partners: Since 2000, Kohl’s has donated $149 million to more than 160 hospital partners nationwide, including more than $23 million donated in 2011.
- Scholarship Program: Since 2001, Kohl’s has recognized more than 15,000 kids with over $3 million in scholarships and prizes through the Kohl’s Cares Scholarship Program. In 2011, Kohl’s recognized nearly 2,200 kids with more than $400,000 in scholarships and prizes.
- Fundraising Gift Card program: Since 2000, more than 12,500 organizations have participated in the Kohl’s Cares Fundraising Gift Card program, raising more than $35 million in fundraising dollars and providing a simple, effective way to help raise funds for schools and youth-serving nonprofit organizations.
- Hometown: Since 2000, Kohl’s and Kohl’s Cares have combined to give approximately $43 million to support charitable initiatives in the metro-Milwaukee area, including $9.4 million in 2011.
Kohl’s Cares®: Women’s Health: In Wisconsin, through Kohl’s cause merchandise program and partnerships with world-class women's health organizations like the Southeast Wisconsin Affiliate of Susan G. Komen for the Cure and The American Cancer Society Midwest Division, Kohl’s continues to fund research, raise awareness and educate women about the importance of regular breast exams and breast cancer prevention.
- In 2010, Kohl’s committed to donating more than $7 million over three years to the American Cancer Society’s Midwest Division and the Southeast Wisconsin Affiliate of Susan G. Komen for the Cure.
- In 2011, Kohl’s represented the largest corporate team at the Milwaukee events for the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure and American Cancer Society’s Making Strides Against Breast Cancer walk with more than 5,000 and 2,000 associates, friends and family participating, respectively.
- In Wisconsin stores and at Kohls.com, Kohl’s showcased exclusive breast cancer cause merchandise from Simply Vera Vera Wang, Dana Buchman and FILA SPORT with 100 percent of the net profit donated to the fight against breast cancer.
Kohl’s Cares®: Associates in Action: Kohl’s associates are making a difference in the lives of children by volunteering for youth-serving nonprofit organizations and environmental initiatives. When a minimum of five associates from one Kohl’s location volunteer at least three consecutive hours of their time with a qualifying organization, associates help the nonprofit earn a grant.
- Since 2001, more than 500,000 Kohl’s associates volunteered for more than 1.6 million hours during more than 85,000 events, resulting in more than $47 million in grants donated. In 2011, more than 123,000 Kohl’s associates volunteered for more than 420,000 hours during more than 21,000 events, resulting in more than $12.4 million in grants donated.

Disaster Relief
- Since 2001, Kohl’s has given more than $4.2 million toward disaster relief efforts. In 2011, Kohl’s gave more than $900,000 toward these initiatives and donated to the American Red Cross in support of relief efforts following natural disasters. The company also encourages associates to volunteer in support of clean-up efforts through Associates in Action.

Social Compliance: Kohl’s is committed to operating within the highest standards of social responsibility and holds partners to these same high standards through Kohl’s Terms of Engagement policy, which is available in full at connection.kohls.com under the “new vendors” tab. Among highlights for 2011:

Kohl’s continued to emphasize open, ongoing communication with vendor partners. The company conducted numerous individual training sessions for partners to promote understanding and compliance with Kohl’s requirements.
Kohl’s is a member of the Sustainable Apparel Coalition Social/Labor working group.
Kohl’s participated in the Better Factories Cambodia and Better Work Vietnam programs, which are focused on strengthening labor standards in export garment industries in specified countries.
Kohl’s completed more than 3,400 factory monitoring visits, including more than 2,000 unannounced visits at more than 1,900 facilities.

Additional information about Kohl’s efforts in the areas of sustainability, community relations and social compliance is available on Kohl’s Investor Relations page, Kohls.com/Cares and KohlsGreenScene.com.

About Kohl’s

Based in Menomonee Falls, Wis., Kohl’s (NYSE: KSS) is a family-focused, value-oriented specialty department store offering moderately priced, exclusive and national brand apparel, shoes, accessories, beauty and home products in an exciting shopping environment. With a commitment to environmental leadership, Kohl’s operates 1,134 stores in 49 states. In support of the communities it serves, Kohl’s has raised more than $208 million for children’s initiatives nationwide through its Kohl’s Cares® cause merchandise program, which operates under Kohl's Cares, LLC, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Kohl's Department Stores, Inc. For a list of store locations and information, or for the added convenience of shopping online, visit www.Kohls.com, or join the discussion on Facebook http://www.facebook.com/kohls or Twitter http://twitter.com/Kohls

The Foundation for Enterprise Development Launches Film Trailer for "We the Owners: Employees Expanding the American Dream"

05.07.2012 - 04:55PM

Who should own the business? What does it mean to be an “owner?” These questions are explored in the documentary film “We the Owners: Employees Expanding the American Dream.” Produced by The Foundation for Enterprise Development and directed by Passage Productions, the trailer for the film opened the 2012 National Center for Employee Ownership (NCEO)/Beyster Institute Conference held recently in Minneapolis. The film is scheduled for release in the Summer of 2012. Educational materials and trailer are now available for free at www.wetheowners.com.

The trailer was viewed by more than 1,000 attendees - including bankers, professional ESOP service companies, employee owners, and company representatives considering ESOPs or other forms of broad-based employee ownership. Their immediate responses were overwhelmingly positive:

"Very moving, powerful, inspirational."
"Intelligent. Honest. Unlike anything done before."
"A game changer. A powerful authentic idea presented with the full magic of cinematic art."

Integrating art, business and education, We the Owners captures a rare insider's view of employee ownership at work at Namasté Solar, DPR Construction and New Belgium Brewing Company, demonstrating out-of-the-box thinking by founders and employees who dared to share both responsibility and wealth. Their stories show that -- even in times of economic hardship -- long-term, sustainable growth strategies can be based on the voice, vote and commitment of employees.

Viewers also said the film will help with training employees, educating board members and founders. The employees' message is:

Ownership matters to all types of employees and companies
Participation and responsibility are essential and integral to ownership
Employee ownership -- in various forms -- is key for success

"The research on the impacts of employee ownership is clear and compelling, but we finally have a film that shows its human side by showing the faces and telling the stories of employee owners,” said Loren Rodgers, executive director, National Center for Employee Ownership. “We the Owners looks at the challenges as well as the strengths of shared ownership.”

In addition to being recognized by third-party organizations for their top performance and innovation, the three companies featured in the film represent a broad swath of the workforce including blue-collar and white-collar workers, illustrate a mix of ownership forms, and use broad-based employee ownership as a key driver of the triple-bottom-line of people, planet and profit.

Experts report that broad-based employee ownership is a meaningful piece of the equation that can help a company be successful. As one recent MBA graduate points out in the film, “There’s a gap right now between that being taught in business schools and the need for it in business schools.” We the Owners was created to help fill that educational gap.

While company owners, employees, and business advisors will all find valuable principles, approaches and lessons revealed in the film, academic thought leaders in this area also point to the important role it can play in the classroom. Says Joseph Blasi, J.R. Beyster professor, School of Management and Labor Relations, Rutgers, "Almost half of American private-sector employees participate at some level in shared capitalism which, according to my research and the research of others, is generally linked to increased productivity, stronger profits, better pay and job security when done in a serious fashion. We the Owners does an excellent job of using this type of research and expert insights as a springboard for a deeper exploration into the inner-workings of well-organized employee-owned companies."

Students will learn first-hand about the power that’s unearthed when employees are engaged as owners, and they can draw from this insight as they start their own ventures or select a company to join. Importantly, they will be able to test their own assumptions about business and not take core work principles such as freedom, responsibility, and fair reward for granted.

Says Bill McIntyre, executive director, Ohio Employee Ownership Center, “While traditional educational tools such as books, case studies, and videos share a great deal of information with students, using a documentary film in the classroom will enable professors to take their teaching to the next level by giving students a true under-the-hood look at employee ownership at work.”

For more information on We the Owners, to view the trailer, or to pre-order the film, please visit www.wetheowners.com.

New Ceres/Sustainalytics Report Shows Most U.S. Companies Falling Short on Sustainability

04.25.2012 - 09:30AM

In the first major assessment of progress on a unique Ceres Roadmap to corporate sustainability released two years ago, Ceres and global research and analysis firm Sustainalytics today released “The Road to 2020: Corporate Progress on the Ceres Roadmap for Sustainability.”

The findings - based on an assessment of how 600 U.S. companies are responding to environmental and social challenges such as climate change, water scarcity and supply chain conditions – show individual examples of leadership but significant need for overall improvement.

“While there are encouraging pockets of sustainability leadership in the U.S. business community, far too many companies are only taking small, incremental steps,” said Ceres president Mindy Lubber, in announcing the report at the opening of the Ceres annual conference today in Boston. “Sustainability has yet to gain traction at anywhere near the scale and speed required given the global threats we face.”

“We’re encouraged by the leadership shown by some companies and expect that their success will spur others to better leverage sustainability to identify risks and seize opportunities in an increasingly competitive global marketplace,” added Michael Jantzi, CEO at Sustainalytics, who joined Lubber in announcing the report.

The report evaluates companies based on specific expectations in the “The 21^st Century Corporation: The Ceres Roadmap to Sustainability,” a how-to guide for companies to achieve sustainability by 2020. The evaluation was based on company data available as of Dec. 31, 2011.

The report highlights dozens of company examples in hopes of inspiring others to take similar actions. For instance, Alcoa, Xcel and Intel are relative pacesetters in sustainable corporate governance practices; Baxter and Ford are setting a high standard in stakeholder engagement; and Exelon, Nike and the Coca-Cola Company are ahead of the pack in performance on metrics for reducing environmental impact and improving workers conditions.

Intel is cited specifically for linking executive and employee compensation to company environmental goals such as reducing energy use and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions; in the two years since it started the program, the company has cut energy use by 8 percent and GHGs by 23 percent.

Coca-Cola is credited for being on track to meet its ambitious performance goal of improving water efficiency by 20 percent by the end of this year (against a 2004 baseline.) Other cutting-edge performance examples: Nike’s new partnership to implement a water-free fabric dyeing process, Kohl’s Department Stores achievement of net-zero greenhouse gas emissions at its stores, Pinnacle West using recycled urban wastewater (about 20 billion gallons a year) to cool its Palo Verde nuclear power plant and EMC building a new energy-efficient “virtual data center” to move data from physical storage to an entirely virtualized IT infrastructure (the shift has already saved the company more than $23 million).

But in the report’s four-tier assessment system, just a quarter of all companies surveyed were in the top two tiers for progress on governance, while 24 percent have some degree of meaningful stakeholder engagement. On corporate performance metrics, only 13 percent of the companies evaluated on human rights policies and programs were ranked in the top two tiers. And just a third of the 600 companies had time-bound targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions in direct operations.

Lubber and Jantzi said companies are missing a big opportunity by not fully embracing sustainability. “We see it as a world of opportunity for companies to improve competitiveness, realize large savings through energy efficiency, invest in their workers, strengthen their supply chains and, in many sectors, reap the benefits of the enormous investment opportunities in clean technology and clean energy,” they wrote in the report.

Anne Stausboll, CEO of the California Public Employees’ Retirement System (CalPERS), echoed the sentiment, saying: “The future will belong to innovative companies that understand that building long-term shareholder value and being an industry leader requires the integration of sustainability principles at every level, from the C-suite to operations and throughout supply chains.” CalPERS is the nation’s largest public pension fund with about $235 billion in assets under management.

The report provides a framework for investors who can use the report’s findings, case studies and sector trends to inform their decision-making and engagement strategies.

In the end, wrote Lubber and Jantzi, closing the sustainability gap “will require a collaborative effort among investors, businesses, non-governmental organizations and other stakeholders concerned about the future of the planet and the economy.”

All four groups, more than 500 strong, were on hand in Boston today for the start of the annual Ceres conference at which the “Road to 2020” report was unveiled.

The new “Road to 2020” report can be found at: www.ceres.org/roadto2020.

An agenda and other information for this year’s Ceres conference are at: http://www.ceres.org/conference

Ceres is an advocate for sustainability leadership. Ceres mobilizes a powerful coalition of investors, companies and public interest groups to accelerate and expand the adoption of sustainable business practices and solutions to build a healthy global economy. Ceres also directs the Investor Network on Climate Risk (INCR), a network of 100 institutional investors with collective assets totaling more than $10 trillion. For more information, visit http://www.ceres.org and http://www.incr.com

Sustainalytics provides environmental, social and governance (ESG) research and analysis as well as responsible investment services to investors around the world. The firm offers global perspectives and solutions that are underpinned by local experience and expertise, serving both values-based and mainstream investors that integrate ESG information and assessments into their investment management.
www.sustainalytics.com

Chevron Using Espionage Against Lawyers Who Won $18 Billion Verdict In Ecuador

03.15.2012 - 03:51PM

Facing increased financial risk in Latin America, Chevron has launched a corporate espionage campaign designed to intimidate and track the whereabouts of the lead lawyers who recently won an $18 billion judgment for environmental damage against the oil giant in Ecuador's courts, said the Amazon Defense Coalition.

The purpose of the espionage campaign -- being carried out by at least four different investigation firms working for Chevron in the United States and Latin America -- is partly to threaten the legal team and partly to obtain confidential information about the strategy of the rainforest communities as they prepare to file collection actions against the oil giant's assets around the world, said Karen Hinton, the U.S. spokesperson for the Ecuadorians.

Pablo Fajardo, the lead lawyer for the rainforest communities in Ecuador and himself a target of the campaign, issued an urgent call to human rights organizations and governments worldwide to protect the lawyers and other advocates working on the case.

"Evidence is mounting that the lives and well-being of those working on the case are under an orchestrated attack from Chevron," said Fajardo. "We are urgently calling on all people of conscience to protect the right of the rainforest communities devastated by Chevron's contamination to continue to pursue their legal claims free from threats and intimidation."

A court in February of 2011 found Chevron dumped billions of gallons of toxic water of formation throughout an area the size of Rhode Island, decimating indigenous groups and causing an outbreak of cancer that threatens thousands of lives. See here and here.

The discovery of the spying operation comes at a delicate time for Chevron CEO John Watson and the company's star General Counsel, former Bush Administration official, R. Hewitt Pate. Not only is Chevron facing the large liability in Ecuador for what experts consider to be one of the world's worst environmental disasters, but also Brazil's government recently sued the company for $11 billion over an offshore oil spill earlier this year.

Among the facts that confirm the existence of the espionage campaign:

Steven Donziger, the New York attorney who is the long-time legal advisor to the Ecuadorians, has been followed in recent weeks in New York City on a 24/7 basis by a team of six "investigators" believed to be connected to a U.S. law firm working for Chevron on the Ecuador case. Those surveilling Donziger park their cars outside his apartment building in Manhattan and then follow him when he travels by taxi or bike to his appointments around the city. These facts have been confirmed by numerous witnesses, including a retired FBI agent hired to conduct counter-surveillance of the Chevron spy team.

At times, Donziger's wife, five-year-old son, and friends also have been followed as they leave his apartment building and move around Manhattan.

Chevron's investigators also have been clandestinely filming Donziger when he is in Ecuador and then streaming live video of his movements over the internet so the company's American investigators can watch him in real time from the United States. Lawyers for the Ecuadorians have confirmed this aspect of the spy operation is controlled by an individual who works or worked for Kroll, a publicly traded investigations firm in the U.S. that counts Chevron as a major client.

In the Amazon town of Lago Agrio in Ecuador, Fajardo has been repeatedly followed in recent weeks by individuals who take photos of him and appear to report his whereabouts via telephone. Fajardo also has received numerous anonymous phone calls in recent weeks where the person on the line hangs up. He also had his computer hacked on several occasions in recent months from an IP address in the United States.

Last week, a team of three women posing as journalists talked their way into the legal team's Ecuador office in a residential neighborhood in Quito and began taking pictures. On Tuesday of this week, a group of men who claimed they were lawyers surrounded Fajardo under the pretense of serving him legal papers from a case Chevron initiated in the United States. The men filmed their interaction with Fajardo, who at the time feared he was potentially going to be killed or robbed.

People associated with Yanza, including his wife and landlord, have received repeated inquiries in recent weeks seeking sensitive personal data. Individuals have also been stationed outside of Yanza's home in the Amazon town of Coca, where they regularly take pictures of the community leader and his family members as a form of intimidation.

Donald Moncayo, a key member of the Lago Agrio team who is well-known to many journalists for his guided tours of Chevron's contaminated well sites, was the victim of an attempted robbery by a Chevron security official. The official tried to reach his hand into Moncayo's backpack and pull out papers while he was not looking. Moncayo stopped the official, but the same backpack was later stolen from his car along with an estimated 400 business cards of various journalists he had met over the last several years.

Members of the Ecuador legal team are seeking to re-institute emergency protection measures awarded them several years ago by the Inter-American Commission On Human Rights, said Fajardo. The body, part of the Organization of American States, issued the measures in 2006 when members of the Ecuador legal team were hit with a spate of death threats and assaults as the scientific evidence against Chevron began to mount and the company suffered a series of setbacks in Ecuador's courts.

The information gleaned so far is believed to be only the "tip of the iceberg" in terms of documenting Chevron's espionage activities, said Hinton. "We are continuing to investigate both the activities of Chevron's in-house counsel and its law firms in this regard," she said.

The four different investigations firms Chevron is using on the Ecuador case include Kroll; the Mason Investigative Group, based on San Francisco; Investigative Research Services, a Texas-based company headed by former CIA operative Douglas Beard; and a firm based in Colombia that is a sub-contractor for most of Chevron's work on the Ecuador matter in Latin America.

The coordinator of Chevron's spy operation is thought to be Sam Anson, a former journalist and Kroll executive who was caught trying to bribe an American freelance journalist Mary Cudahee to spy on the plaintiffs in Ecuador.

Shortly thereafter Anson was outed by Cudahee, he left Kroll and is now employed full-time on the Ecuador matter at a salary estimated at $500,000 annually, according to a source familiar with the matter.

Chevron's legal department, headed by Pate, has an increasingly checkered history in recent years. In 2007, Chevron was hit with a $28 million fine by the Department of Justice for violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act in Iraq. The company also was rebuked the U.S. Department of the Interior for corrupting government officials to reduce its royalty payments. In Ecuador, Pate's legal team was hit with a $8.6 punitive damages award for acting in bad faith, filing frivolous motions to delay the trial, and threatening judges with jail time if they did not rule in the company's favor.

The combined liabilities in Brazil and Ecuador threaten to undermine Chevron's standing in Latin America, an oil-rich region considered vital to Chevron's longterm growth prospects.

Because Chevron has refused to pay the Ecuador judgment, lawyers for the rainforest communities are gearing up to initiate standard collection actions against the oil giant's assets in countries around the world. Chevron is using its spy operation to determine where the communities plan to bring collection actions, said Hinton.

In the Ecuador trial, Chevron also has used clandestine and potentially illegal tactics to sabotage the proceedings. They include an entrapment scheme against a sitting judge that backfired and implicated a Chevron operative in a bribe attempt; the sudden disappearance of Wayne Hansen, an American man involved in the entrapment scheme, after he was subpoenaed under the order of a U.S. federal court; emails between Hansen and the principals of the Mason Investigative Group as Hansen was moving out of the United States. See this article.

Chevron also has tried to shut down the environmental case by offering a $1 billion bribe to Ecuador's government; the company's former lead lawyer, Ricardo Reis Veiga, testified under oath that he asked the country's Attorney General to illegally order the trial judge to shut down the case; and Chevron lawyers tried to enlist U.S. diplomats in Ecuador to help them undermine the lawsuit, according to diplomatic cables released by Wikileaks.

Barrick Announces Inaugural Members of Corporate Social Responsibility Advisory Board

03.02.2012 - 10:37AM

Barrick Gold Corporation is pleased to announce it has established a Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Advisory Board and named five distinguished individuals to serve as inaugural members. The Advisory Board will provide external advice and guidance to Barrick management on the Company’s global CSR performance and evolving best practices in CSR.

Inaugural members of the CSR Advisory Board are:

Aron Cramer, President and CEO of Business for Social Responsibility and a globally-recognized authority on CSR
Elizabeth Dowdeswell, President and CEO, Council of Canadian Academies and former Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Program
Robert Fowler, diplomat and senior foreign policy advisor to three Canadian Prime Ministers and Canada’s longest serving Ambassador to the United Nations
Ed Liebow, Director of the Battelle Memorial Institute’s Seattle-based Center for Public Health Research and Evaluation
Gare Smith, senior partner at Foley Hoag LLP and former Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary in the U.S. State Department’s Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor

John Ruggie, author of the U.N. Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, will serve as a Special Consultant to the Board as part of his advisory role in the CSR practice at Foley Hoag LLP. He is the Berthold Beitz Professor in Human Rights and International Affairs at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, and Affiliated Professor in International Legal Studies at Harvard Law School.

The Board will serve in an advisory capacity and act as a sounding board on a broad range of CSR issues, including community relations, sustainable development, the environment, human rights and security and stakeholder engagement. It will also provide a forum for constructive feedback, dialogue, and collaboration and inform Barrick’s CSR programs and future practices.

“These highly respected individuals bring a wealth of expertise and experience in corporate responsibility matters that will be a great asset to Barrick,” said Aaron Regent, Barrick’s President and CEO. “Their input and guidance will help us to further improve our practices and manage emerging issues affecting our Company and the global mining industry.”

Advisory Board members reflect a diversity of CSR expertise and stakeholder groups. Members will provide advice in an individual capacity, rather than on behalf of any organization or stakeholder group. They have been chosen based on their in-depth knowledge of social and environmental best practices for international companies and their understanding of the key issues affecting the mining industry.

Biographies

CSR Advisory Board Members

Aron Cramer: Mr. Cramer is recognized globally as an authority on corporate responsibility by leaders in business and non-governmental organizations and peers. As President and CEO of Business for Social Responsibility (BSR), he advises senior executives of BSR's 250 member companies and other global businesses, and is regularly featured as a speaker at major events and in the media. Under his leadership, BSR has doubled its staff and significantly expanded its global presence. Mr. Cramer is co-author of the book Sustainable Excellence: The Future of Business in a Fast-Changing World, which profiles CSR strategies that drive business success. He joined BSR in 1995 as the founding director of its Business and Human Rights Program, and in 2002, he opened BSR's Paris office, where he worked until becoming President and CEO in 2004. Previously, Mr. Cramer practiced law in San Francisco and worked as a journalist at ABC News in New York.

Elizabeth Dowdeswell: Ms. Dowdeswell is President and CEO of the Council of Canadian Academies, an organization that provides independent, evidence-based scientific assessments that inform public policy development. She has served as Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Program and Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations. Her work as the founding President and CEO of Canada’s Nuclear Waste Management Organization resulted in a government decision on the long-term management of Canada’s used nuclear fuel. As Assistant Deputy Minister of Environment Canada, she was responsible for the national weather and atmospheric agency, including negotiating the Framework Convention on Climate Change. She has led public inquiries into politically sensitive issues, such as Canada’s unemployment benefits program and federal water policy. Her early career included terms as Deputy Minister of Culture and Youth for the Province of Saskatchewan, university lecturer and high-school teacher. She is a Director on the Boards of several corporations and advisor to a number of Canadian and international not-for-profit organizations.

Robert Fowler: During his 38-year public service career, Mr. Fowler was the Foreign Policy Advisor to Canadian Prime Ministers Pierre Trudeau, John Turner and Brian Mulroney. He was Canada’s longest serving Ambassador to the United Nations, Deputy Minister of National Defence, Ambassador to Italy and the three Rome-Based U.N. Food Agencies, and the Personal Representative for Africa of Canadian Prime Ministers Jean Chrétien, Paul Martin and Stephen Harper. In 2005, he chaired Prime Minister Martin’s Special Advisory Team on Sudan. Mr. Fowler retired in the fall of 2006, and is currently a Senior Fellow at the University of Ottawa’s Graduate School of Public and International Affairs. In July 2008, the U.N. Secretary General appointed Mr. Fowler to be his Special Envoy to Niger. In 2011, Mr. Fowler wrote “A Season in Hell” in which he recounts his and his colleague, Louis Guay’s, kidnapping by Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, and their 130 days of captivity in the Sahara Desert.

Ed Liebow: Dr. Liebow directs the Battelle Memorial Institute’s Seattle-based Center for Public Health Research and Evaluation. For more than 30 years, he has conducted social, environmental, and public health policy research in a variety of settings, focusing on public engagement, community development, and promoting access to services for the disadvantaged and under-served. His academic training is in cultural anthropology, and he is affiliated with the University of Washington, where he teaches courses in ethnographic research methods. Dr. Liebow is also affiliated with the Institute of Sustainable Economies at the Università Carlo Cattaneo in Castellanza, Italy. He is a Fellow, Executive Board Member and Treasurer of the American Anthropological Association.

Gare Smith: Mr. Smith founded and chairs the corporate social responsibility practice at the law firm Foley Hoag LLP. He provides counsel on compliance programs to address labor conditions, community relations, security, indigenous rights, environmental stewardship, and the rule of law. Mr. Smith previously served as Vice President for CSR at one of the world’s most recognized clothing brands. As Senior Foreign Policy Advisor and Counsel to Senator Edward M. Kennedy, he created the first voluntary code of conduct for U.S. multinationals. He was appointed by the White House to serve as Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary in the U.S. State Department’s Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor. In that role, he helped to launch President Bill Clinton’s Model Business Principles and served as U.S. representative to the U.N. Human Rights Commission, the International Labor Organization, and the U.N. Working Group on Indigenous Peoples. Mr. Smith has authored three books on codes of conduct and international human rights standards, which were published by the World Bank and the International Finance Corporation.

Special Consultant

John Ruggie: Mr. Ruggie is the former U.N. Secretary General’s Special Representative for Business and Human Rights, a current Harvard professor, and recently joined Foley Hoag LLP’s corporate social responsibility practice as a senior advisor. One of the premier authorities on corporate citizenship and responsibility, Mr. Ruggie served as U.N. Special Representative for Business and Human Rights from 2005-2011 with a mandate to propose measures to strengthen human rights performance of the business sector around the world. He authored the Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, which the U.N. Human Rights Council unanimously endorsed in 2011. In his role at Foley Hoag, Mr. Ruggie advises clients on human rights-related risk and other aspects of corporate citizenship. This includes helping multinational clients navigate the Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights and apply them to their global business practices. He is the Berthold Beitz Professor in Human Rights and International Affairs at Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government and an Affiliated Professor in International Legal Studies at Harvard Law School.

About Barrick

Barrick Gold Corporation is a Toronto-based gold mining company and industry leader, with a portfolio of 26 operating mines, and projects on five continents. Barrick trades on the Toronto and New York Stock Exchanges and employs 25,000 people worldwide. The company has been ranked as a world leader in social and environmental responsibility for the fourth consecutive year by the Dow Jones Sustainability Index. Barrick is also listed on the NASDAQ Global Sustainability Index of the top 100 companies.

Learn more about Barrick’s social, environmental, safety and economic development programs at www.BarrickBeyondBorders.com.

You can also follow Barrick on Twitter and Barrick on Facebook.

Angel-Backed Start-Up Challenges Venture Firms to Invest in Their First B-Corp

02.27.2012 - 10:00AM

There are close to 30 million companies in the U.S. – of those, only 500 are certified B-Corps. Earlier this year, Ethical Ocean (www.ethicalocean.com) joined the ranks of this exclusive group, becoming one of the first angel-backed start-ups to earn the certification usually reserved for well-established companies.

To be a certified B-Corp, a company must make its social and environmental impact core to its mission. Once certified, Directors of the firm are legally entitled to consider the interests of employees, the community, and the environment when making business decisions. While many start-ups see this as limiting and restrictive, Ethical Ocean sought certification as an important part of their funding strategy.

The online retailer that specializes in eco-friendly, cruelty-free, fairly made products launched early in 2011. In their first year they posted an impressive 50% month-on-month growth rate and raised $500,000 in angel funding. Looking forward they intend to raise $3-4 million in venture-backed investment this spring to continue fuelling their rapid growth – growth, however, that they won’t prioritize at the expense of the company’s principles.

This is one of the start-up’s strengths, explains CEO Chad Hamre. According to Hamre, becoming a B-Corp is an important step in Ethical Ocean’s funding process. “It tells investors exactly where we stand,” he says. “We will not disregard our principles to maximize profits and at the end of the day, we want to work with investors who share our values and understand that this commitment is also good for business.”

Some are theorizing that the newly founded certification may help companies like Ethical Ocean command higher valuations because the trust B-Corps build with customers, employees, and partners ultimately bolsters brand equity and goodwill. However, to date, it appears that the most prominent venture firms – Sequoia Capital, Bessemer Venture Partners, and Greylock Partners – have yet to invest in a B-Corp. Ethical Ocean thinks they will be among the first.

“Gaining B-Corp status is a way to ensure that positive social and environmental impact remains part of our corporate DNA,” according to Hamre. “We’re confident this unwavering commitment will increase the attractiveness of this investment to any investment firm that recognizes how quickly the ethical market is growing.” Only time will tell if the venture industry is ready to embrace B-Corp.

Chevron's Arbitrator Suffers From Acute Ethical Problems, Ecuadorians Assert

02.23.2012 - 10:57AM

Horacio Grigera Noan, Chevron's arbitrator in a secret investor proceeding related to an $18 billion environmental judgment in Ecuador, has what amounts to a "business relationship" with the oil giant's lead American lawyer and therefore should be disqualified and sanctioned under the ethical rules governing international arbitrators, said representatives of the rainforest communities in a letter to Ecuador's Attorney General.

"We are informing the parties that Grigera Noan has acute ethical issues related to his close ties to Chevron's counsel and his obvious bias against the government of Ecuador, and that he therefore should be disqualified as an arbitrator," said Karen Hinton, the U.S. spokesperson for the 30,000 Ecuadorians who recently won an $18 billion judgment against the oil giant over an environmental catastrophe in the Amazon.

"We have evidence that in numerous arbitral proceedings Grigera Noan has twisted and stretched international law to rule against Ecuador and its citizens, including this latest effort by Chevron to avoid its environmental liability," Hinton said.

A review of the limited public records in the opaque and tightly controlled investor arbitration world -- whose 40 or so members are overwhelmingly white males and who call themselves the "club" -- shows that Grigera Noan has what amounts to a functional business relationship with R. Doak Bishop, Chevron's lead outside lawyer in the Ecuador arbitration and a partner in the Houston office of the American law firm King & Spalding.

Chevron stripped its assets from Ecuador and is now trying to use the secret investor arbitration to try to block enforcement of the Ecuador judgment. The three arbitrators, all private sector lawyers, have been harshly criticized by international law jurists for acting outside the scope of their authority, for violating international law protecting human rights and the sovereignty of independent judicial systems, and for not disclosing their conflicts of interest. See here, here and here.

The letter from Fajardo to Ecuador's Attorney General, Diego Garcia Carrion, asserted the following:

Bishop, who manages a lucrative arbitration practice at King & Spalding, ensures that many of his corporate clients appoint Grigera Noan as their "arbitrator" over investment disputes against foreign governments. Grigera Noan then invariably rules in favor of Bishop's clients, even if it means taking extreme positions that have little or no basis in international law.

Grigera Noan has been appointed by clients of Bishop to sit on at least five arbitration panels where the government of Ecuador was the defendant -- including one that began after the Chevron arbitration over the environmental judgment. In each of these cases he has ruled against Ecuador, even as the other two arbitrators in two instances ruled in favor of the country.

In all, Bishop has appointed Grigera Noan to sit on 12 different arbitration panels as the represenative of King & Spalding clients. Not once did Grigera Noan rule against the King & Spalding clients in any case that was litigated to a conclusion.

In two cases, Grigera Noan sent shock waves through the international legal community by taking what is considered extremist and legally indefensible positions in favor of King & Spalding clients who sued the government of Ecuador. In one of the cases, brought by the Canadian energy firm Encana, Grigera Noan ruled that private international arbitrators can interfere whenever they want in domestic court cases -- a radical reinterpretation of international law. "This decision is akin to an American judge voting to re-segregate public schools," said Hinton.

In a second case, Grigera Noan ruled in a dissenting opinion that the American oil company City Oriente had a legal right to continue operating an oil concession in Ecuador even after the government expelled it for violating its operating contract -- an unprecedented intrusion on the sovereignty of the country that has no basis in international law, said Fajardo.

The appointments as arbitrator for the King & Spalding clients ensure a steady flow of millions of dollars of fees for Grigera Noan. Arbitrators are really private lawyers who bill at top rates that can average $800 per hour. The arrangement creates enormous economic incentives for arbitrators to take an expansive view of their own power and to grant jurisdiction where no basis exists. (Grigera Noan and his colleagues have refused to disclose how much they have earned in the Chevron arbitration or details about their contacts with King & Spalding lawyers, despite demands from civil society organizations.) See here.

While Grigera Noan earns a significant income as an arbitrator -- Hinton said the Chevron case could result in payments of $5 million if the panel takes three or four years to rule -- he holds himself out to the public as a modestly-paid professor at the Washington College of Law in Washington, D.C. The school, which ironically has a strong reputation for its commitment to human rights law, gave Grigera Noan a special appointment where he maintains a light teaching load while spending most of his time billing for arbitration cases filed by King & Spalding.

In his letter to the Attorney General, Fajardo said there was sufficient evidence in the Chevron case "to doubt the impartiality" of the panel. "The panel has shown an absolute disrespect for the principles of sovereignty and for internationally recognized human rights protections," he wrote.

Fajardo asked that Ecuador's government move to disqualify Grigera Noan and each member of the panel on the grounds of the conflict. It is unclear why Winston & Strawn, Ecuador's American law firm, apparently never moved to disqualify Grigera Noan given his evident bias against their client.

Fajardo said that Grigera Noan and his colleagues have violated the ethical rules governing international arbitrations, which are promulgated by the International Bar Association and are available here, see 3.1, 3.3, 3.5, 4.5.

Those rules prohibit the appearance of bias -- which occurs when an arbitrator "favors one of the parties" or where a "dependence arises from relationships between an arbitrator and one of the parties, or someone closely connected to one of the parties" -- in this case, Grigera Noan's relationship to Bishop and the King & Spalding law firm, said Hinton.

Just last week, several distinguished international law jurists sent a letter to the United Nations asking for a review of Chevron's "egregious misuse" of the U.S.-Ecuador Bilateral Investment Treaty to launch the arbitration against Ecuador. The jurists concluded that Chevron's attempt to undermine the case "stands in direct violation of international law" and threatens to "quash" the fundamental human rights of the 30,000 citizens who initially brought suit against the oil giant in the United States in 1993. See here.

In ruling against Chevron, the Ecuador court found that the company deliberately dumped billions of gallons of toxic waste into Amazon waterways that local inhabitants relied on for drinking water, decimating indigenous groups and causing an outbreak of cancer, spontaneous miscarriages, and other oil-related diseases. See here and here. Chevron operated in Ecuador under the Texaco brand from 1964 to 1992.

Lawyers for the Ecuadorians assert that Ecuador's government is obligated to ignore its orders given its own binding legal obligations under the Ecuador Constitution and various international treaties protecting the human rights of its citizens. Some commentators have likened the secret arbitration panel to a "kangaroo court" imbued with a pro-business culture. See this article and this lawsuit filed before a noted human rights court.

"This is obviously a situation where the lawyers for Chevron and at least one of the arbitrators are scratching each other's backs behind closed doors," said Hinton. "Their goal is to earn fees by blocking the claims of thousands of rainforest residents who are dying of cancer and other diseases because of Chevron's contamination.

"It is clear that Doak Bishop has become the sugar daddy of Grigera Noan in what has become a closed system of private justice for King & Spalding clients," said Hinton. "This is an outrageous abuse of power and violation of the ethical rules."

For a background document explaining the many legal problems with the Chevron arbitration, including its role as a secret court used by corporations to avoid their legal responsibilities, see here.

Business Leaders Say President’s Corporate Tax Reform Framework Doesn't Go Far Enough

02.23.2012 - 08:35AM

Business leaders made the following statements today about the corporate tax reform framework released by the White House:

Scott Klinger, tax policy director of Business for Shared Prosperity, said, "President Obama's outline draws attention to some very important themes, including closing corporate tax loopholes and curtailing the abuse of offshore tax havens, but the devil is in the details. Until the President proposes a rate for his global minimum tax, we remain concerned that this positive idea could be turned into a permanent repatriation tax holiday for tax-avoiding corporations. Moreover, the tax framework places too much emphasis on lowering the corporate tax rate and not enough on raising corporate tax collections from their historically low level. U.S. corporations pay far less toward the cost of public services and infrastructure than they did in decades past and less than their foreign competitors pay in their countries today.

Mr. Klinger added, "The reality is that large U.S. businesses, as a whole, are undertaxed, not overtaxed. In 2011, total corporate federal taxes fell to just 12.1% of domestic profits and corporate taxes accounted for just 7.9% of all federal revenue. Moreover, as a percentage of U.S. Gross Domestic Product, the corporate tax share was just 1.2%. All these levels are historically, irresponsibly low.”

Frank Knapp, Jr, president and CEO of the South Carolina Small Business Chamber of Commerce and vice chair of the American Sustainable Business Council, said, "Small businesses are tired of big businesses not paying their fair share. The President's proposal puts the cart before the horse. Rather than starting with a lower corporate tax rate of 28% -- and even lower for manufacturers -- we should start by establishing a fair and responsible share of corporate taxes as a percent of our economy that is competitive with our major trading partners, and achieve that through a combination of closing loopholes and adjusting tax rates where warranted. Then we can meet three important objectives: ending loopholes and breaks that reward large U.S. corporations for disguising their domestic profits as “foreign” earnings and shifting investment and jobs overseas; leveling the playing field among big and small businesses; and raising the revenues we need for the modern infrastructure, education, research and other public investments that underpin an innovative, healthy, job creating economy."

Mitch Rofsky, president of the Better World Club and board member of the American Sustainable Business Council, said, “Corporate tax loopholes need to be closed, but this alone will not assure that large profitable corporations are paying their share. We need a strong Buffett rule for corporations. Then, no longer would the GEs and the Exxons be able to escape paying corporate taxes entirely.”

The American Sustainable Business Council is a growing coalition of business networks representing over 100,000 companies and 200,000 business leaders. ASBC advocates for public policies that meet the realities of the 21st century global economy. www.asbcouncil.org

Business for Shared Prosperity is a national network of forward-thinking business owners, executives and investors. BSP is a member of the American Sustainable Business Council. www.businessforsharedprosperity.org

GLOBE 2012 Attracts Influential Policy-Makers

02.13.2012 - 02:25PM

Environmental policy-makers are attending GLOBE 2012 in Vancouver this March 14-16, 2012. In attendance at the 12^th edition of this internationally renowned conference focused on the business of the environment will be Alberta Minister of the Environment Dianna McQueen and Quebec Minister of the Environment Pierre Arcand. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Assistant Administrator, Office of Air and Radiation, Gina McCarthy will also be in attendance.

“The decisions made by environmental policy-makers are critical to today’s broader economic realities,” says John Wiebe, President and CEO of the GLOBE Foundation. “These are the people who play a leading role in shaping the environmental policies that will inevitably influence and determine the economic path forward.”

Providing perspective on key policy challenges, including managing greenhouse gas emissions, developing natural resources and growing a cleaner economy, these top-level government decision-makers will allow for comprehensive discussions on business and environmental issues at GLOBE 2012.

They will join more than 130 other speakers from world-leading corporations and organizations at North America’s largest and longest-running international conference series dedicated to the business of the environment. Speakers from some of the world’s most environmentally forward-thinking companies will gather in Vancouver to spark a dialogue on issues including corporate sustainability, clean energy, climate change, emissions management, sustainable finance, and greener cities.

For more information, visit www.GLOBESeries.com.

Find us on Twitter: @GLOBE_Series

About GLOBE
GLOBE 2012 is produced by the GLOBE Foundation, an international consultancy organization in the business of the environment. GLOBE’s expertise lies in project management, event development, and management and consulting in the fields of environment and energy, urban development, and corporate responsibility.

New York Rolls Out New Kind of Corporation

02.10.2012 - 10:00AM

New York Secretary of State Cesar A. Perales was on hand to accept filing papers from New York’s first benefit corporations, a new kind of corporation that became available in New York for the first time today. Created when Governor Cuomo signed S.79-A (Squadron)/ A.4692-A (Silver), the benefit corporation passed both houses unanimously.

This new law has the ability to transform the State and national economy by creating businesses that must create benefit for society and the environment in addition to profit. Thirteen businesses from across the State rushed to adopt the new corporate form as they build a new economy. One company even left Delaware and incorporated in New York State to take advantage of this innovative corporate form. Currently seven states, including New York, have enacted benefit corporation laws.

“The creation of benefit corporations in New York is a testament to the strength of this global movement to redefine success in business” said Andrew Kassoy, Co-Founder of B Lab, a non-profit organization that supported the legislation. “New York is the heart of global finance and now interested investors in New York have a way to make sure their money is doing much more than just making a profit.”

Benefit corporations are a new kind of corporation legally required to: 1) have a corporate purpose to create a material positive impact on society and the environment; 2) expand fiduciary duty to require consideration of the interests of workers, community and the environment; and 3) publicly report annually on its overall social and environmental performance using a comprehensive, credible, independent, and transparent third party standard. Traditional corporate law requires corporations to prioritize the financial interests of shareholders over the interests of workers, communities, and the environment.

"This legislation is a validation of the double-bottom line mission that Greyston Bakery has championed for the past 30 years and we are proud to be a part of business history in the State of New York as one of the state's first Benefit Corporations” said Mike Brady, President of Greyston Bakery, New York State’s first benefit corporation.

Investors are also interested in the new law. "We like to back entrepreneurs who have embraced solving social problems as part of the goals for their companies,” said Albert Wenger, Partner at Union Square Ventures, an investor in innovative internet businesses like Twitter, Etsy, Edmodo, and Tumblr. “We believe this creates more long term value for both shareholders and society. The Benefit Corporation legal structure is an important innovation to help maintain that dual focus as the companies scale."

California, New Jersey, Virginia, and Hawaii passed similar legislation in 2011, joining Vermont and Maryland who did so in 2010. Benefit corporation legislation has also been introduced in Michigan, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Illinois and the District of Columbia. The legislation has enjoyed strong bi-partisan support in every state.

“Congratulations to New York's first benefit corporations! The entrepreneurs lining up today send a clear message: New York is open for business in a huge new way," said Senator Daniel Squadron. "Starting today, benefit corporations will bring new businesses into our market and unlock billions in investments, all while promoting a new socially-minded approach to entrepreneurship. Today is a big day for all who believe that profitable business and social responsibility can be inextricably connected. I look forward to welcoming many new benefit corps to New York in the coming weeks and months."

“Today, businesses in New York are now empowered to embrace social responsibility and to pursue vital goals such as safeguarding workers’ rights and protecting our environment as part of their core mission. By enabling benefit corporations in New York, we are continuing our efforts to strengthen and diversify our economy while demonstrating that profit and the pursuit of social justice are not mutually exclusive,” said Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, one of the Prime Sponsors of the Legislation.

"I am very happy this legislation is going into effect in New York," said Senator Bill Larkin (R-C, Cornwall-on-Hudson), a Co-Sponsor of the bill. "This new option allows our businesses to stay competitive while promoting best-practices that are good for both the environment and society."

"Governor Cuomo has opened New York for business while reinvigorating our tradition as the nation's progressive leader. By combining these key objectives, benefit corporations allow New York State businesses to pursue goals beyond the bottom line while promoting continued investment and development in our state," Secretary of State Cesar Perales said.

The New York bill had significant business support, including companies such as Eileen Fisher; Greyston Bakery, Icestone and Uncommon Goods, all interested in creating better choices for the growing number of entrepreneurs and investors who seek to create businesses that create both social and shareholder value. Numerous business organizations, such as Syracuse First, Buffalo First, Ithaca First, Onondaga Citizens League, The JustGreen Partnership and Westminster Economic Development Initiative, Inc., also supported the bill.

“The passage of Benefit Corporation legislation is an important and much needed step forward to grow our New York State economy,” said David Levine, co-founder of the American Sustainable Business Council whose members’ organizations represent over 100,000 businesses. “New York is helping to lead the way for the country with an innovative and sustainable business strategy that will grow businesses and create jobs which will also provide social and environmental benefit.”

The bill was originally proposed by the American Sustainable Business Council and B Lab; and the citizen advocacy campaign was led by Care2.com.

For additional background on benefit corporations, including national and local legislative updates, see www.benefitcorp.net.

Background information and contacts for benefit corporations’ first day:

First Day Registered Companies:

Agrodolce for Fast Foodies, Call2Action, Clay.com, Corn Cow Inc., eco, Greyston Bakery, On Belay Business Advisors, Outlier, Sahara Reporters, Singlebrook Technology, Stephen Vardin & Colleagues, Inc., Strugatz Ventures

Initial Supporters:

B Lab is a nonprofit organization dedicated to building a new sector of the economy that uses the power of business to solve social and environmental problems. B Lab drives systemic change through three interrelated initiatives: 1) building a community of Certified B Corporations to make it easier for all of us to tell the difference between “good companies” and just good marketing; 2) driving capital to impact investments through use of GIIRS Ratings and Analytics; and 3) advancing supportive public policies to accelerate growth of social entrepreneurship and impact investing. To earn certification, which is not required for registered benefit corporations, B Corps must achieve a verified minimum score (80 out of 200) on the B Impact Assessment and amend their bylaws to legally require their directors to consider the interests of stakeholders, not just shareholders, when making decisions. For more information, check www.bcorporation.net or contact Jay Katie Kerr at katie@bcorporation.net.

American Sustainable Business Council is a growing coalition of business networks and businesses committed to advancing a new vision, framework and policies to support a vibrant, equitable and sustainable economy. The Council brings the business perspective, experience and strength to stimulate our economy, benefit our communities, and preserve our environment. Today, the organizations that have joined in this partnership represent over 65,000 businesses and social enterprises and more than 150,000 entrepreneurs, owners, executives, investors and business professionals and other individuals. www.asbcouncil.org For more information contact David Levine at (917) 359-9623

Care2: With more than 17 million members and over 700 nonprofit partners worldwide, Care2 is the largest online community that empowers millions of individuals to lead a healthy, sustainable lifestyle and support important causes. Care2 is a B Corporation, or social enterprise, that generates revenues by connecting individuals with nonprofits and business that are making the world a better place. Care2 has worked with B Lab to provide thousands of signatures to advocate for Benefit Corporation legislation passed in California and New York. Founded in 1998, Care2 has collected over 80 million signatures on petitions featuring timely and important issues. Please visit the Care2 community at www.care2.com. For more information contact Sue Anne Reed at sueanne@care2team.com or 650 622-0867.

State Senator Daniel Squadron introduced the legislation. Contact Amy Spitalnick, 212-298-5565 / 516-521-0128.

Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver was the Prime Sponsor in the Assembly. Contact Jason Fink 212-312-1400.

Other Individuals Willing to Comment On the Bill

Mike Brady, President of Greyston Bakery 914-375-1510 x201

Albert Wenger, Partner at Union Square Ventures albert@usv.com

Andrew Greenblatt, Adjunct Assistant Professor at NYU’s Wagner School of Public Service, a Professor specializing in social ventures. 917-885-9309

Allen Bromberger, Partner, Perlman + Perlman, LLC, 212-889-0575 allen@perlmanandperlman.com

Kyle Westaway, Westaway Law, attorney in New York City and Adjunct Professor at Harvard Law School. 626-942-2380

New Evidence That Chevron Used U.S. Professors to Defraud Ecuador Court In $18 Billion Environmental Lawsuit

02.07.2012 - 12:50PM

Chevron is refusing to deny that it defrauded Ecuador's courts by altering a key document to induce U.S. academic "experts" -- including a prominent professor at Rice University in Houston -- to endorse fake testing methods to hide the presence of massive quantities of cancer-causing toxins at the company's former well sites in Ecuador's Amazon rainforest.

"We have smoking gun evidence that proves Chevron used U.S. professors as part of a failed plan to hide the presence of massive amounts of life-threatening toxic contamination from the courts of Ecuador," said Karen Hinton, the U.S. spokesperson for the 30,000 Ecuadorians who brought suit against the oil giant.

The U.S. professors hired by Chevron to defraud the Ecuador court, Hinton said, are Dr. Pedro J. Alvarez currently the chair of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Rice University, and Dr. Douglas Mackay, an adjunct professor at the University of California, Davis.

Alvarez was called on to disavow the report in a letter sent by Aaron Page, a representative for the rainforest communities that was also copied to David W. Leebron, the President of Rice. Other letters were sent to Mackay and Dr. Robert Hinchee of Integrated Science and Technology, Inc., who also signed a statement based on the altered report.

The three professors, in a joint statement in response to the letters apparently approved by Chevron's legal team, defended their report but curiously refused to address the fraud issue or the documents that show they based their opinion on an altered report. See here.

Despite Chevron's scheme to hide the contamination, the Ecuador court in 2011 found the company liable for dumping billions of gallons of toxic waste into the rainforest. The court relied on scientific evidence from the plaintiffs, third-parties, and even Chevron itself, which bungled its own plan early in the trial by submitting soil and water samples that showed illegal levels of contamination.

The Ecuador court found that Chevron's deliberate dumping of toxic waste poisoned streams and rivers relied on by local inhabitants for their drinking water, decimated five indigenous groups, and caused dramatically higher rates of leukemia. The $18 billion judgment was affirmed on appeal on January 3.

Chevron operated in Ecuador under the Texaco brand from 1964 to 1992.

The documents, which were ordered released by a U.S. federal court in Colorado during a discovery proceeding, suggest that Chevron's legal team concocted a plan to guarantee the company would find only "clean" soil samples from dozens of contaminated well sites inspected by the court while "dirty" samples would be sent to a secret laboratory where they would not be disclosed.

Chevron's technical team carried out the scheme by secretly visiting dozens of company well sites in the rainforest where they would mark spots where they could find "clean" soil and water samples, usually located uphill from contaminated waste pits. The plan to defraud the court was written up in a Chevron document called the "Judicial Inspection Playbook" that contained a summary table outlining the company's sampling and testing program. See here and here.

After Chevron's secret pre-inspections, Chevron's technical experts miraculously would discover only "clean" soil and water samples during the official court inspections days later. Based on these samples, the company would "report" to the court that there were no detectable levels of contamination at a particular site despite the visible presence of oil waste.

When the obviously deceptive sampling practices came under attack by the plaintiffs, Chevron hired Professors Alvarez and Mackay to defend the company.

Their report submitted to the court concluded that there was "no foundation" for allegations that Chevron's sampling program "deliberately hides or minimizes the existing contamination."

The problem, though, is that the professors based their opinion on a doctored version of the "Judicial Inspections Playbook" that omitted the explicit instructions to lift only "clean" samples. The doctored version instead altered language in eight places to make it appear that the company was doing a valid environmental assessment at the well sites.

A document comparing the original "Playbook" with the eight changes in the doctored version given to Alvarez and Mackay can be seen here.

An illustration of how Chevron's fraudulent sampling scheme in Ecuador worked can be seen in this photo of Shushifindi 38, a Chevron well site closed in the 1980s that is still polluting soils and groundwater. During the trial, Chevron reported to the court that it found no "detectable contamination" at the site by lifting soil samples from a dense forest up-gradient from the obviously contaminated pit in the photo.

Pablo Fajardo, the lead lawyer for the rainforest communities, said the documents ordered released by the U.S. court "clearly prove Chevron engaged in a meticulous planning process to defraud the Ecuador court during the judicial inspections process, which was the central part of the entire trial."

Fajardo said: "Chevron's fraud is ongoing in that the report signed by Alvarez and his colleagues is part of the official trial record now being relied on by the appellate court. It's outrageous that Chevron does not withdraw this report."

Chevron's deceptive sampling plan is also consistent with previous statements made by an Ecuadorian contractor for the company, Diego Borja. Borja told a friend that while working for Chevron he would swap out contaminated soil samples collected during the judicial inspections with clean samples from other locations, which would be submitted to the court. Borja also said in a taped conversation that the laboratory Chevron used during the trial was not independent as the company claimed.

Chevron has long been accused of using fraudulent junk science in Ecuador. In the mid-1990s, it used a deceptive laboratory test (called the TCLP) that guaranteed it would only find a tiny fraction of actual toxins in the soil as part of a sham clean-up effort required by Ecuador's government.

In the meantime, Chevron's legal position in the historic litigation continues to weaken. Not only did the company lose the trial in Ecuador, it recently suffered a setback when a U.S. federal appellate court reversed a trial court decision that issued a worldwide injunction barring the Ecuadorians from trying to enforce their judgment. Further, the credibility of Chevron's technical experts is diminishing rapidly in light of the obvious fraud they were committing in Ecuador, said Hinton.

Chevron has stripped its assets from Ecuador in anticipation of an adverse judgment, forcing the plaintiffs to consider standard collection actions against Chevron in other countries should the trial judgment become enforceable.

Widespread SEC Disclosure Noncompliance Triggered by Material ESG Issues

02.06.2012 - 09:00AM

Widespread corporate noncompliance with SEC requirements triggered by material ESG issues may cause many SEC filings to be materially misleading, inaccurate, or even fraudulent, finds the first independent, comprehensive technical study of how the SEC regime applies to ESG issues, conducted by CSR Insight™ LLC. Corporate noncompliance also triggers SEC liabilities and disclosure requirements for corporate boards, auditors, and registered investment advisers and funds.

More than a dozen SEC requirements potentially apply, for 10-K, 10-Q, 8-K, and other corporate SEC filings, including narrative disclosure and financial statement requirements, books and records requirements, and management certification requirements. Corporate noncompliance also triggers auditor liabilities and potential violations under the current SEC regime.

The study found a substantial likelihood of widespread corporate noncompliance with one or more of these SEC requirements, due in major part to the inadequacies of most current enterprise software systems, both internally developed and vendor-purchased. What is lacking is the integration of the full range of ESG issues and risks and the associated additional SEC requirements into ERM, GRC, risk management, performance management, and financial information systems, and necessary linkages amongst these enterprise systems. This systems integration capacity is necessary for companies to properly identify, evaluate, measure, manage, and monitor these complex, escalating issues and risks, including their nature, magnitude, probability, timing, and business and operating model impacts.

This noncompliance not only undermines investor protection and efficient capital formation, but can have potentially significant ripple or knock-on effects for other market participants and global capital market activity.

For example, corporate noncompliance creates additional SEC disclosure requirements, liabilities, and risks for corporate boards, and for registered investment advisers and funds, including registered private equity and hedge funds. Corporate noncompliance also can undermine corporate transactions, such as M&A, IPOs, and secondary capital raises.

This is the first in a series of news releases by CSR Insight™ LLC. Future releases will provide further highlights of CSRI’s analyses of SEC and global financial regulation applicable to ESG issues.

About CSR Insight™ LLC

CSR Insight™ LLC, founded in 2007, is an independent consultancy specializing in analysis of SEC and global financial regulation, global financial regulatory policy, ESG reporting frameworks, ESG capital market issues, and international corporate governance standards. CSRI has completed a unique, independent five-year Global ESG Regulatory Research Program, and has developed the first educational “Library of Congress” Knowledge Base of global ESG regulatory and market intelligence, available in 2012, designed to educate market participants, stakeholders, academia, policymakers, and regulators on a comprehensive range of key ESG regulatory, economic, industry, and capital market issues.

CSR Insight™ is a syndicated partner of CSRwire and has been a contributing member since 2008. For further information, contact CSR Insight™ at inquiry@csrinsight.com or visit www.csrinsight.com

Disclaimer

All content contained in this news release is provided for informational purposes only and does not constitute advertising, a solicitation, or legal or other professional advice, and is provided with the understanding that CSR Insight™ LLC, and its authors and publishers, are not engaged in rendering legal or other professional advice, and assume no liability whatsoever in connection with any use of the content in this news release. This news release reflects the current opinions of CSR Insight™ LLC and may change without notice.

Chevron Paid $2.2 Million to Man Who Threatened To Expose Company's Corruption in Ecuador

01.23.2012 - 11:46AM

Chevron has paid a whopping $2.2 million to a longtime company contractor who repeatedly threatened to expose the company's attempts to mislead the court and corrupt the landmark environmental trial in Ecuador, according to new court documents. Links to documents are below at the end of press release.

The stunning information could further damage the legal prospects of the oil giant, which earlier this month found itself on the losing end of an appellate court decision in Ecuador affirming an $18 billion liability for causing what experts believe could be the world's worst oil contamination. See here and here.

Chevron has been repeatedly sanctioned in Ecuador for trying to sabotage the trial, intimidate judges into ruling in favor of the company, and using a secret lab to hide its dirty soil samples from the court. See here, here and here.

Chevron paid the $2.2 million – what plaintiffs call "hush money" – to Diego Borja, a self-described Chevron "dirty tricks" operative who lifted soil and water samples during dozens of critical court-supervised inspections during the eight-year trial from 2003 to 2011.

Aside from his trial duties, Borja in 2009 orchestrated a video scheme to entrap an Ecuador judge in a fake bribery scandal, which backfired against the company; he later was recorded on a phone call describing evidence that Chevron cooked laboratory results to hide its contamination from the court. See here and here.

Chevron paid for Borja and his family to move from Ecuador to the United States in 2009, where he reportedly lives in an undisclosed location in the Houston area while remaining on Chevron's payroll while he does no work. Borja's wife, Sara Portilla, was also given a job by the company the nature of which remains undisclosed, according to the evidence.

Chevron disclosed during discovery in a related litigation in New York that it had paid the funds to Borja as of September of 2011, the point when a trial the oil giant initiated to block enforcement of the $18 billion Ecuador judgment was stayed by a federal appellate court.

A separate discovery proceeding against Chevron underway in federal court in San Francisco could lead to the disclosure of additional documents implicating the oil giant in an attempt to undermine the court proceedings and cover up Borja's "dirty tricks" activities, said Karen Hinton, the U.S. spokesperson for the Ecuadorians.

"The exorbitant amounts of money paid by Chevron to a low-level Ecuadorian worker is clearly hush money designed to buy silence from a man who can expose the company's corruption," said Hinton, noting that Chevron has spent huge legal fees on three different law firms in an attempt to prevent further disclosure of Borja's documents.

The payments to Borja and his wife include regular monthly fees of $5,000 to $10,000; fund for housing and the purchase of furniture, appliances, cell phones, travel, legal fees, and even the payment of hundreds of thousands of dollars of income taxes.

Chevron also paid the fees of prominent California criminal defense attorney Cris Arguedes to represent Borja, who faces potential criminal liability for his trial-related activities in Ecuador. Arguedes is expected to represent Borja as a likely witness in various legal fora as the case proceeds.

In the San Francisco discovery proceeding, Chevron has used three large corporate law firms -- including Jones Day and Boies Schiller -- to fight further disclosure of Borja's documents. These include the contents of an IPhone that Borja says could destroy Chevron's legal defense in the Ecuador case. A ruling on that discovery request, currently before Magistrate Judge Nathaniel Cousins, has been pending for months.

Another set of documents, ordered released by a federal court in Colorado, disclosed that Chevron used a secret “Judicial Inspection Playbook” to execute a plan to hide contamination from the Ecuador court. See here and here.

Details about Chevron’s relationship and involvement with Borja and his partner Wayne Hanson, a convicted American drug trafficker, have leaked as findings from private investigations and court documents have been released over the last year. See here and here.

Some of the more salient facts that have been made public include:

Chevron made several material misrepresentations when the videotape scandal broke in August 2009. The most blatant was the company's description of Borja as a "Good Samaritan" when in fact he was a paid “dirty tricks” operative working under the direction of Chevron lawyers.
Courthouse News reported that it had an email from Hansen confirming Chevron had "cut a deal" with Borja for his work in trying to mount a dirty tricks campaign to undermine the trial.
Hansen, the drug trafficker who worked with Borja, vanished from the U.S. after being subpoenaed in 2011 under federal court order. He is said to be living in Peru and has had contact with an American investigator being paid by Chevron, according to Courthouse News.
Borja told a friend in Ecuador, Santiago Escobar, that one of his jobs for Chevron was to switch contaminated soil samples for clean ones before submitting them to the company's laboratory -- a practice consistent with those described in other Chevron documents released under court order.
Borja also told Escobar in a taped conversation that he would "immediately go to the other side" if Chevron did not pay him enough. He told Escobar that there are "things that can make the [plaintiffs] win this just like that" and he bragged that "crime does pay."
Borja said that Chevron lied to the Ecuador court when it said the lab it used to test soil samples was independent, when in fact it was run by Borja and his wife.
Borja confirmed that he and his wife worked on the Chevron case handling field samples for several years. He said his uncle has been employed by Chevron in Ecuador for 30 years.
Robert Middlestadt, a managing partner of the Jones Day law firm in San Francisco and a longtime Chevron outside counsel, also has been implicated in the Borja scandal. Evidence from discovery proceedings demonstrates that Middlestadt was involved in "managing" intimate details of Borja's life after he came to the U.S., including his procurement of counsel and the payment of his cell phone bills.

Summary Document

http://chevrontoxico.com/assets/docs/chevron-payments-to-or-on-behalf-of-borja.pdf

Supporting Documents

http://chevrontoxico.com/assets/docs/borja-chevron-invoice-payments.pdf

http://chevrontoxico.com/assets/docs/borja-chevron-payments-to-borja.pdf

http://chevrontoxico.com/assets/docs/borja-travel-and-living-expenses.pdf

http://chevrontoxico.com/assets/docs/borja-travel-expenses.pdf

http://chevrontoxico.com/assets/docs/borja-attorney-bills.pdf

http://chevrontoxico.com/assets/docs/borja-cort-invoices.pdf

For more information, check out The Chevron Pit.

Kerry Kennedy Blasts Chevron As "Unpatriotic" For Destruction of Ecuador's Amazon

01.17.2012 - 11:02AM

Human rights lawyer Kerry Kennedy has blasted Chevron as "unpatriotic" and called on the company to "mend its ways" in Ecuador or risk losing business as governments in oil-producing nations begin to perceive it as a rogue operator out of step with the modern world.

"Chevron's conduct in Ecuador has been so reprehensible and profoundly cynical that it reflects poorly on our country and its values," wrote Kennedy in a blog on The Huffington Post. "I would call that kind of behavior unpatriotic."

Kennedy added: "Chevron must mend its ways in Ecuador or risk being viewed by people worldwide as a rogue oil company unworthy of a license to operate in oil-producing nations."

Kennedy described a trip she took recently with her three daughters to the area of Ecuador's Amazon where Chevron operated for almost three decades under the Texaco brand, leading to an $18 billion judgment against the company that just last was affirmed by a three-judge appellate panel.

The judgment is undergirded by tens of thousands of chemical sampling results and numerous independent studies. See here here and here.

"We looked at pools of oily muck abandoned in the early 1970s that still drain toxic soup into nearby streams used for drinking water, fishing, and washing," Kenney wrote. "We visited the home of an elderly woman who told us about the skin lesions that covered the bodies of her son, daughter, and grandson.

"She had built the family home on a field Texaco claimed to have cleaned. In fact, the oil giant had merely covered up the poisonous pond with four feet of dirt and a thin layer of grass… all this is part of the massive environmental damage and accompanying cancer clusters, lung disease, skin lesions and other injuries left behind by a U.S. multinational corporation."

Kennedy wrote that public distrust of corporations "is often rooted in real abuses of the type Chevron engages in to cover up its obvious misconduct in Ecuador."

"Chevron's failure to adhere to basic standards of decency undermines the credibility of our capitalist model … and reflects poorly on our country and its values," she wrote.

Kennedy also called out Chevron for personally attacking those who advocate on behalf of the rainforest communities and said it was "utter fiction" that she had a stake in the outcome of the Ecuador litigation.

Chevron "seeks to intimidate anybody who wants to help the rainforest communities or advocate on their behalf," she wrote. "This is the classic Chevron template: blame the victim, change the subject, and distract from the evidence."

Kennedy is the President of the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial for Human Rights and a long-time advocate for victims of human rights abuses. Aside from Ecuador and the United States, she has worked on behalf of human rights in countries as diverse as El Salvador, Kenya, South Korea, China, India, Pakistan, and Northern Ireland.

Kennedy's comments come at a time that Chevron's legal position has considerably weakened in the case, which was originally filed in 1993 in U.S. federal court before being shifted to Ecuador at the oil giant's request. The company not only lost before the appellate court in Ecuador, a U.S. federal appellate court recently stayed a case where it sought to block enforcement of the Ecuador judgment.

More recently, Chevron's lead outside law firm in the case -- Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher -- has been sanctioned by multiple courts for engaging in unethical litigation practices on behalf of Chevron as as part of a campaign to evade the Ecuador judgment.

For more information, become a follower of The Chevron Pit

Global Business Media Company Womenetics Receives B Corporation Certification

01.12.2012 - 03:56PM

Womenetics, an online business platform, is proud to announce it has received designation to operate as a Certified B Corporation. B Corporations are a new kind of company which use the power of business to solve social and environmental problems. B Corporations are required to create a material positive impact on society and to meet higher standards of accountability and transparency. This new designation required extensive vetting by a national organization.

“The new B Corporation certification will enable Womenetics to propel a powerful and socially responsible business movement that advances professional women as agents of change. ” says Elisabeth Marchant, CEO, Womenetics. “It allows Womenetics to continue to leverage our audience of leaders -- women with education, influence and the means -- to act for change at local, national and global levels. We seek to inspire business to advance women as leaders which we consider to be an imperative for business and economic success in today’s global economy. We are proud to have received this certification.”

For more information about the B Corp Certification, please visit www.bcorporation.net.

About Womenetics
Womenetics is a Certified B Corporation based in Atlanta, GA. A global business platform providing substantive information for and about women through relevant content online and at events, Womenetics focuses on three primary areas where women’s influence and abilities can provide the greatest opportunity for action: as business leaders, as business owners, and as agents of change around issues that impact the bottom line. Visit www.womenetics.com.

Follow us: www.twitter.com/Womentics and www.facebook.com/Womenetics

About B Corp
Certified B Corporations 1) meet rigorous standards of social and environmental performance; 2) legally expand their corporate responsibilities to include consideration of stakeholder interests; and 3) build collective voice through the power of the unifying B Corporation brand. As of July 2011, there are over 500 Certified B Corporations from over 50 industries, representing a diverse multi-billion marketplace.

About B Lab
B Lab is a nonprofit organization dedicated to using the power of business to solve social and environmental problems. B Lab drives systemic change through three interrelated initiatives: 1) building a community of Certified B Corporations; 2) accelerating the growth of the impact investing asset class through use of B Lab’s GIIRS impact rating system by institutional investors; and 3) promoting supportive public policies, including creation of a new corporate form and tax, procurement, and investment incentives for sustainable business.

MEDIA CONTACT: Ellen Adair Wyche, 404-233-4480/404-376-1694, eawyche@thewychegroup.com

Chevron Reportedly Offered $1 Billion to Quash Huge Environmental Case In Ecuador

01.09.2012 - 03:52PM

Representatives of the rainforest indigenous groups in Ecuador who last week had their historic $18 billion judgment against Chevron affirmed on appeal slammed the company today after reports surfaced that the oil giant was trying to float a $1 billion bribe offer to Ecuador's government to quash the case before international enforcement can begin, said Karen Hinton, a spokeswoman for the communities.

"We are putting Chevron CEO John Watson and all Chevron lawyers on notice that we are monitoring the situation closely to prevent any bribes or so-called settlement plans from being offered to Ecuador's government that bypass the legal case," said Hinton.

Hinton cited reports from officials in Ecuador's government that Chevron flooded Ecuador's capital of Quito over the weekend with at least a dozen lawyers as it plotted a last-ditch effort to prevent the judgment from migrating to other countries where it could potentially be enforced against Chevron assets.

In a previous effort, Chevron had offered $1 billion to Ecuador's government in exchange for the case being choked off -- an action that would clearly be illegal under Ecuador and international law and violate the legal rights of the plaintiffs, said Hinton.

Chevron has stripped almost all of its assets from Ecuador and its officials have stated repeatedly that the company will not pay the judgment, forcing the communities to consider standard collection efforts in other countries.

That said, the judgment in Ecuador is not currently enforceable given that the appellate court in Ecuador will probably take several weeks to respond to requests that it clarify its decision, and other hurdles remain, said Hinton.

Chevron will have the right to suspend enforcement of any Ecuador judgment in other countries simply by posting a bond while it appeals to Ecuador's highest court. Should Chevron decline to post a bond and the judgment becomes enforceable, the company will still have a right to contest enforcement via the courts of any country where a collection action might be filed.

"Chevron has a number of legitimate ways it can contest the judgment in Ecuador and contest enforcement in Ecuador and other countries," said Hinton. "Offering bribes to bypass the legal process it not a legitimate way to contest the judgment, and it raises questions about whether Chevron is violating anti-bribery statutes in Ecuador, the U.S., and other countries."

Chevron also has remained silent in the face of mounting evidence that it defrauded the Ecuador court by using a secret laboratory to hide evidence of contaminated soil samples; that it lied to its own experts so they would defend the company's fraudulent sampling practices, and that it paid substantial sums of money to a Chevron contractor in Ecuador so he would remain silent about a sting operation against a sitting judge who was prepared to rule on the case.

In the meantime, Chevron's main law firm on the Ecuador matter -- Gibson Dunn & Crutcher -- faces ethical questions of its own as courts have repeatedly sanctioned the firm for trying to harass witnesses for the Ecuadorian plaintiffs. The firm has also come under fire for using overly aggressive litigation tactics that have increased risk to the company and caused a backlash from shareholders. See here and here. In the meantime, Chevron faces increasingly dim prospects in the litigation. The Ecuador appellate court decision, which came out on Jan. 3, was a devastating setback for the company. Three days later, a U.S. federal trial court judge denied a Chevron attempt to attach the assets of the plaintiffs on allegations the judgment was procured by fraud.

Chevron has now turned its attention to a private international arbitration it started against Ecuador's government, but that the rainforest communities have repeatedly said that action is not binding on them and that the relief Chevron seeks is illegal under international law.

The Chevron bribe issue first surfaced in December when a blog on the Huffington Post reported that Ivonne Baki, an Ecuadorian government official, had discussed a $500 million "donation" from Chevron as part of a package or benefits that would be used to end the legal case.

Baki directs Ecuador's internationally-celebrated Yasuni project, which seeks to keep more than one billion barrels of crude oil permanently in the ground in a biodiverse area of Ecuador's Amazon rainforest in exchange for payments to Ecuador's government of $350 million annually for ten years.

In a statement at the time the reports surfaced, Baki denied having contact with Chevron. But Chevron's own legal filings in U.S. federal court outlined a series of meetings between Baki and Chevron lawyers related to resolving the case by bypassing the plaintiffs. See here, here and here.

The latest news about Chevron using Baki to float the offer has created a media firestorm in Ecuador, with unflattering articles about Baki appearing here, here and here. Chevron officials have not disputed the reports of the $1 billion offer.

There is no evidence anybody with authority in Ecuador's government considered accepting the proposal, which would have violated the legal rights of the 30,000 plaintiffs and run afoul of Ecuador's Constitution which guarantees the independence of the judiciary, said Pablo Fajardo, the lead lawyer for the rainforest communities.

"Chevron and Baki apparently think Ecuador is a banana republic where officials would be willing to sacrifice the rights of their own citizens for a small bribe," Fajardo said when the reports first surfaced.

Separately, Chevron still has not commented on a memorandum from Texaco (Chevron's predecessor company in Ecuador) that ordered the destruction of company documents related to oil spills in Ecuador. The memo was disclosed via a U.S. discovery action.

Texaco reportedly caused hundreds of oil spills in Ecuador, many of which were "remediated" by setting them on fire, according to the book Amazon Crude, which was published in 1989 and which documented Texaco's substandard operational practices. The company also has admitted to pouring sludge from the waste pits along dirt roads.

From 1964 to 1990, Chevron used the Texaco brand to operate a large concession in Ecuador's Amazon region that included an extensive network of pipelines and hundreds of wells and separation stations. The Ecuador court found Chevron liable for dumping billions of gallons of toxic waste, decimating indigenous groups and causing a dramatic increase in cancer rates.

The impact of the disaster in Ecuador – which has haunted the local population for almost fifty years – dwarfs that of the BP spill in the Gulf of Mexico, according to experts.

The trial unfolded in Ecuador after Chevron had it shifted out of U.S. federal court, the preferred forum of the indigenous communities. At the time, Chevron offered effusive praise for Ecuador's judiciary.

Since evidence pointed to the company's guilt, Chevron has engaged in an all-out legal and public relations war to taint Ecuador's judicial system and by hiding the fact the company itself has won several cases in Ecuador in recent years. See here.

Scientific Certification Systems Earns B Corporation Certification

01.03.2012 - 04:23PM

Scientific Certification Systems (SCS) has earned Certified B Corporation status, and in a ceremony today in Sacramento, was officially recognized as a California Benefit Corporation under the recently enacted AB 361 legislation.

“We’re proud to be part of the growing community of companies explicitly organized to meet higher standards of social and environmental performance, transparency, and accountability,” said Dr. Stanley Rhodes, founder and CEO of SCS.

“B Corp certification is an official recognition of the vision we have always had for SCS as a driver of sustainable business practices,” said Linda Brown, co-founder and Executive Vice President.

SCS has been a pioneer in the field of third-party certification of food safety and quality, environmental and sustainability accomplishments for nearly three decades, and continues to break new ground with programs and standards that encourage leadership in sustainability. SCS currently provides services under 16 internationally recognized accreditations. In addition, SCS was named in both 2010 and 2011 as one of Inc. Magazine’s 5000 fastest growing companies in the US.

Certified B Corporations conduct business for the benefit of people and the environment, with products and services that promote sustainability and transparency. The certification was granted by B Lab, a nonprofit organization dedicated to using the power of business to solve social and environmental problems. To earn the certification, SCS was successfully reviewed against a set of social and environmental impact criteria.

In becoming certified, SCS joins an elite community of businesses representing more than 50 industries, $2 billion in collective revenues and $6.5 billion in capital under management.

Under the new State of California legislation, signed into law by Governor Jerry Brown in October 2011, legally recognized California Benefit Corporations will in the long term enjoy tax incentives, procurement preferences, and eligibility for participation in a social stock exchange for sustainable businesses.

Scientific Certification Systems (SCS) has been providing global leadership in third-party environmental and sustainability certification, auditing, testing and standards development since 1984. SCS programs span a wide cross-section of industries, recognizing achievements in green building, product manufacturing, food and agriculture, forestry, retailing and more. www.scscertified.com

B Lab is a nonprofit organization dedicated to using the power of business to solve social and environmental problems. B Lab drives systemic change through three interrelated initiatives: 1) building a community of Certified B Corporations to make it easier for all of us to tell the difference between “good companies” and just good marketing; 2) accelerating the growth of the impact investing asset class through use of B Lab’s GIIRS impact rating system by institutional investors; and 3) promoting supportive public policies, including creation of a new corporate form and tax, procurement, and investment incentives for sustainable business.

Chevron Fraud Scandal In Ecuador Implicates Rice University Professor

01.03.2012 - 12:54PM

A prominent environmental engineering professor at Rice University has been implicated in a fraud scandal in Ecuador's courts after submitting a report defending Chevron that appears to be the product of fabricated evidence, say lawyers for the plaintiffs.

The professor, Dr. Pedro J. Alvarez, submitted the report in 2006 to a trial court in Ecuador's Sucumbios province defending Chevron's soil and water sampling methodology even though it was deeply flawed and designed to hide evidence of contamination from the court, according to a letter sent to Alvarez by Aaron M. Page, a lawyer for the 30,000 plaintiffs in the case. The court was hearing evidence about one of the largest oil-related disasters in history, caused by Chevron when it used sub-standard practices in a large area of Ecuador's Amazon rainforest from 1964 to 1992.

"As a prominent professor and the chair of your department at Rice University, you surely recognize your duty to uphold the highest standards of academic integrity," wrote Page in the letter to Alvarez. "To protect your own integrity and the integrity of Rice University, the Aguinda plaintiffs respectfully request that you disavow your 2006 opinion and notify the Ecuadorian court of the same."

Copies of the letter were sent to David W. Leebron, the President of Rice University; Edwin L. Thomas, the Dean of the George R. Brown School of Engineering at Rice; Joseph S. Cavarretta, the executive director of the American Academy of Environmental Engineers; Chevron CEO John S. Watson; and Chevron General Counsel R. Hewitt Pate.

Last February the Ecuador court, in a 188-page decision, found Chevron liable for systematically dumping billions of gallons of toxic waste into the rainforest and abandoning more than 900 unlined waste pits carved out of the jungle floor. The court found Chevron's contamination decimated indigenous groups and caused an outbreak of cancer that continues to put the lives of thousands of people at risk.

The venue of the trial was shifted from U.S. federal court in New York to Ecuador at Chevron's request, with the $18 billion judgment currently under appeal by both parties. The Alvarez report is part of the record being reviewed by the appellate court.

Alvarez is currently the chair of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Rice University. He listed his affiliation with Rice to the Ecuador court as a way to add much-needed credibility to the disputed report, which came at a time that Chevron was on the defensive in the face of evidence that it had left extensive soil and water contamination at hundreds of its former well sites in Ecuador, said Page.

Page noted in his letter that Chevron apparently deceived Alvarez by sending him an altered internal document on which to base his opinion that hid the company's deceptive sampling practices in Ecuador. The altered Chevron document sent to Alvarez made it appear that the company was undertaking neutral environmental assessments of the polluted sites in Ecuador, rather than working to hide the presence of toxic contamination by only lifting "clean" samples that were plotted during a secret pre-inspection process hidden from the court, according to documents attached to the letter.

Chevron also sent any "dirty" samples lifted during its secret pre-inspection to a secret lab where they would not be disclosed to the court, according to the original Chevron document.

The original Chevron document that outlined the deceptive sampling methodology, and the altered plan given to Alvarez that made the sampling appear neutral, were ordered released by a U.S. federal judge in a related litigation in Colorado.

The original document ordered Chevron's technical team to choose "locations for sampling … to emphasize clean points around (oil) pits. The sanitized version given to Alvarez omitted instructions to test only "clean" spots.

Chevron thus far has refused to account for the discrepancy, but at a minimum Alvarez should explain what he knows given his ethical obligations both to the Ecuador court and to Rice University, said Karen Hinton, the U.S. spokesperson for the Ecuadorians.

"It would be outrageous for Alvarez to leave his deceptive report undisturbed in the Ecuador court record in light of the facts presented here,” said Hinton. “Doing so would only perpetuate Chevron's fraud before the court and undermine the entire concept of academic integrity."

Alvarez concluded in his report that there was "no foundation" for allegations that Chevron's sampling was designed to "deliberately hide or minimize the existing contamination." Earlier, experts for the plaintiffs had accused the oil giant of deliberately hiding contamination by lifting samples uphill or far away from the oil-laden waste pits that were being inspected.

Chevron has a long history of using junk science in Ecuador. In the mid-1990s, the company used a deceptive laboratory test (called the TCLP) to minimize large quantities of soil and water contamination as part of a sham clean-up required by Ecuador's government. Fraud related to the clean-up led to the criminal indictment of two Chevron officials.

Chevron also has been implicated in a variety of human rights and legal violations in Ecuador as it tries to evade paying the $18 billion judgment.

Chevron recently was caught trying to bribe Ecuador's government to quash the legal case and entrap the presiding judge in a video bribery scandal, and was hit with sanctions for filing frivolous motions and for threatening the Ecuador judge with jail if he didn't rule in the company's favor. Chevron also remained silent in the face of mysterious death threats and robberies directed at lawyers for the plaintiffs. The company also has been sanctioned by a U.S. judge for harassing witnesses who worked on behalf of the Ecuador plaintiffs.

Also paid by Chevron to sign the Alvarez report was Dr. Douglas MacKay, a professor at the University of California, Davis; and Dr. Robert Hinchee, an environmental consulting engineer. Both Mackay and Hinchee also have been asked to notify the Ecuador court that they disavow the report, said Hinton. See here and here.

Alvarez is known for his close ties to the oil industry. A textbook which he authored essentially argues that contaminated groundwater will be remediated by Mother Nature, thus saving oil companies the expense of clean-up.

That argument is exactly the same as the one Chevron is making in Ecuador to avoid paying for the cost of a complete clean-up, Hinton noted.

Patagonia Registers as First California Benefit Corporation

01.03.2012 - 12:30PM

Today, Patagonia became the first company in California to elect benefit corporation status. Patagonia founder Yvon Chouinard led the largest group of businesses to register on the legislation’s first effective date among the 7 states that have passed benefit corporation laws. The dozen CEOs filed their documents at 9:30 a.m. as soon as the offices of the California Secretary of State opened. Scores of other businesses have expressed interest in registering in the next few months.

“After the ‘year of the protester’, it’s inspiring that a group of business leaders are taking action to create a positive alternative,” said Jay Coen Gilbert, co founder of B Lab, a non-profit organization that supported the legislation.

Benefit corporations are a new kind of corporation legally required to: 1) have a corporate purpose to create a material positive impact on society and the environment; 2) redefine fiduciary duty to require consideration of the interests of workers, community and the environment; and 3) publicly report annually on its overall social and environmental performance using a comprehensive, credible, independent, and transparent third party standard. Current law requires corporations to prioritize the financial interests of shareholders over the interests of workers, communities, and the environment.

“Patagonia is trying to build a company that could last 100 years,” said Patagonia founder Yvon Chouinard. “Benefit corporation legislation creates the legal framework to enable mission-driven companies like Patagonia to stay mission-driven through succession, capital raises, and even changes in ownership, by institutionalizing the values, culture, processes, and high standards put in place by founding entrepreneurs.”

“It is safe to declare a successful end to the ‘beta test’ phase of socially responsible business,” said Mike Hannigan, President and Co-Founder of Give Something Back Office Supplies. “we have been giving customers their money's worth and a whole lot more for more than 20 successful years. This important legal framework marks another giant step of mission driven business towards the mainstream.”

“We rushed to be in Sacramento on January 3,” said Sandra Stewart, principal of Thinkshift Communications. “It’s what people are demanding. It’s not just a trend -- ingraining values into a legal corporate structure is key to a sustainable future.”

New York, New Jersey, Virginia, and Hawaii passed similar legislation in 2011, joining Vermont and Maryland who did so in spring 2010. Benefit corporation legislation has also been introduced in Michigan, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, and the District of Columbia. Legislation has enjoyed strong bi-partisan support in every state.

“This is California at its best, showing there is a way to create jobs and grow the economy while raising the bar for social and environmental responsibility,” said Assemblymember Jared Huffman (D-San Rafael). “With this new law, we are attracting new socially-conscious companies, investors and consumers – we’re sending a strong message that California is open for this emerging form of business.”

The California bill had significant business support, including that of more than 200 individual California businesses, 12 business associations, including the Silicon Valley Leadership Group and the U.S. Green Building Council, standards organizations like GreenSeal, and more than 3,000 California citizens through the advocacy efforts of Care2.com, all interested in creating better choices for the growing number of entrepreneurs and investors who seek to create businesses that create both social and shareholder value.

The bill was sponsored by the American Sustainable Business Council, New Voice of Business, and B Lab; the effort to pass the bill was led by a legal working group co-chaired by John Montgomery from Montgomery & Hansen LLP, Donald Simon from Wendel Rosen Black & Dean LLP, and Jonathan Storper from Hanson Bridgett LLP; and the citizen advocacy campaign was led by Care2.com.

For additional background on benefit corporations, including national and local legislative updates, see www.benefitcorp.net.

First Day Registered Companies:

DopeHut, Dharma Merchant Services, Give Something Back Office Supplies, Green Retirement Plans, Opticos Designs, Patagonia, Rimon Law, Scientific Certification Systems, Solar Works, Sun Light & Power, Terrassure Sustainable Land & Resource Development, Thinkshift Communications

Initial Sponsors:

B Lab: is a nonprofit organization dedicated to using the power of business to solve social and environmental problems. B Lab drives systemic change through three interrelated initiatives: 1) building a community of Certified B Corporations to make it easier for all of us to tell the difference between “good companies” and just good marketing; 2) accelerating the growth of the impact investing asset class through use of B Lab’s GIIRS impact rating system by institutional investors; and 3) promoting supportive public policies, including creation of a new corporate form and tax, procurement, and investment incentives for sustainable business. For more information, check www.bcorporation.net.

American Sustainable Business Council: is a growing coalition of business networks and businesses committed to advancing a new vision, framework and policies to support a vibrant, equitable and sustainable economy. The Council brings the business perspective, experience and strength to stimulate our economy, benefit our communities, and preserve our environment. Today, the organizations that have joined in this partnership represent over 65,000 businesses and social enterprises and more than 150,000 entrepreneurs, owners, executives, investors and business professionals and other individuals. www.asbcouncil.org

New Voice of Business: is a non-profit organization that promotes economic, social and environmental sustainability in the United States. Its mission is to inform, engage, and mobilize an influential network of business people – a unified, new voice of business to advocate for a sustainable economy and encourage triple bottom line business practices. New Voice advocates for policy change that makes it easier and more profitable for business to operate sustainably. For more information please visit: www.newvoiceofbusiness.org.

Care2: With more than 17 million members and over 700 nonprofit partners worldwide, Care2 is the largest online community that empowers millions of individuals to lead a healthy, sustainable lifestyle and support important causes. Care2 is a B Corporation, or social enterprise, that generates revenues by connecting individuals with nonprofits and business that are making the world a better place. Care2 has worked with B Lab to provide thousands of signatures to advocate for Benefit Corporation legislation passed in California and New York. Founded in 1998, Care2 has collected over 80 million signatures on petitions featuring timely and important issues. Please visit the Care2 community at www.care2.com.

Assembly member Jared Huffman (D-San Rafael): represents the 6th Assembly District, which encompasses southern Sonoma County and all of Marin County. First elected in 2006, Huffman chairs the Assembly Water, Parks and Wildlife Committee and also serves as Co-Chair of the Legislative Environmental Caucus.

Sustainable Brands Announces 2012 Corporate Call to Action

12.15.2011 - 03:27PM

Following it’s annual Advisory Board and Corporate Member meeting hosted this year at Dell in Austin, Sustainable Brands announces a 2012 Corporate Call To Action for brands to leverage their unique role in focusing stakeholder energy and driving society toward a healthy and sustainable future. Recent new members, including Molson Coors, Philips, Novozymes, Mars, Steelcase and others, will join existing Corporate Members such as Unilever, Coca-Cola, 3M, Ford, Johnson & Johnson, Target, Green Mt. Coffee Roasters and others in 2012 to address this challenge.

As the Sustainable Brands community grows, amid pressure for businesses to shift toward sustainability, members agree that the time is now to move beyond learning to collective action. Following the just-concluded Member Meeting, Group Marketing Director, Sustainability, Javier Roderiguez Merino of The Coca-Cola Company said: “Thanks so much for challenging our thinking and for your genuine interest and support. We learned a lot, plus did a lot of networking with corporate members that will pay out in the very near future.”

“As a community we have agreed to focus on three key areas: creating consumer demand for more sustainable products, driving disruptive (vs. incremental) innovation, and continuing to evolve the business case for migration to sustainable brands,” notes KoAnn Vikoren Skrzyniarz, founder of Sustainable Brands. ”We believe we are in the midst of a revolution spurred by almost sudden awareness by the mainstream of systemic issues forcing the issue. Brands are the storytellers of commerce with the power to build shared vision and drive alignment of the resources needed to create shift. We believe that the brands that will succeed in leading this shift are those who establish themselves as a platform for purpose, drive revolutionary innovation and learn to collaborate with consumers, civil society and their value network. We're calling for others who are interested in participating in this vision to join us in 2012.”

Participation in this collective effort can be accomplished in several ways: join other global brands like those above as part of the SB Corporate Membership Group, plan now to participate in SB’12, the annual community gathering of as many as 1000 business strategy, sustainability, brand and innovation leaders who are working to drive sustainable consumption, join one of the Sustainable Brands online networks on Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin or Google Plus, or engage in conversation online at SustainableBrands.com.

About Sustainable Brands

Sustainable Brands is the global learning, collaboration, and commerce community committed to replenishing the world through better brands. Sustainable Brands offers news and views from thought and practice leaders, online and live events, a robust resource library, peer-to-peer learning groups, E-learning, and a set of solutions providers for corporate brand and sustainability professionals, social entrepreneurs and the eco-system of supporting value partners. Sustainable Brands inspires, engages and equips today's business and brand leaders to grow revenues and enhance brand value, reputation and loyalty, while helping create a healthy and sustainable future for all. Sustainable Brands is a production of Sustainable Life Media, located in San Francisco CA.

BSR Adds Four Senior Executives to Board of Directors

12.14.2011 - 08:00AM

BSR has added four new board members—Takashi Hatchoji, Chairman, Hitachi America; Rachel Kyte, Vice President of Sustainable Development, World Bank; Anne-Marie Skov, Group Communications and CSR Senior Vice President, Carlsberg; and Robert Webb, Chief Human Resources Officer, Hyatt—adding global diversity and broad industry perspectives to steer the organization toward its mission of working with business to create a just and sustainable world.

“These new board members will offer invaluable contributions to BSR, as we expand our global presence, with offices now in Asia, Europe, North America, and our newest location, Brazil,” said BSR Chairman Mats Lederhausen. “We rely on our board for insight, governance, and connections. Our diverse board allows us to have rich discussions about how business can have the most meaningful impact on the most pressing sustainability issues of our time.”

“These new directors will certainly enrich BSR’s ability to serve our nearly 300 member companies,” said Aron Cramer, BSR’s President and CEO. “I look forward to applying their advice and counsel in a fast-changing world.”

The new members have deep experience in sectors ranging from food and beverage, to information and communications technology, to travel and tourism, to government:

Takashi Hatchoji, Chairman, Hitachi America: Hatchoji, who also serves on Hitachi’s board of directors, has more than 40 years of experience at Hitachi, where his positions have included general manager of the corporate planning and development office, executive general manager of the business solution systems division, COO and CTO of the information and telecommunication systems group, and president and director of the Hitachi Research Institute. Previously, as Hitachi Group’s chief environmental strategy officer, Hatchoji led the corporation’s “Environmental Vision 2025,” which introduced advanced technologies in energy efficiency and power generation, and “Eco Products” that minimize environmental impacts.

Rachel Kyte, Vice President of Sustainable Development, World Bank: In her role, Kyte is responsible for the World Bank’s global work in agriculture, the environment, infrastructure, urban development, and social development. Prior to taking up her current post in September 2011, Kyte held various roles at the International Finance Corporation (IFC), including as vice president for business advisory services and director for environmental and social development, and she served in the office of the IFC’s compliance advisor/ombudsman. Prior to joining the IFC, she was a member of the World Conservation Union’s management team. She has also held elected positions in Europe, and she founded and led NGOs focused on women, the environment, health, and rights.

Anne-Marie Skov, Group Communications and CSR Senior Vice President, Carlsberg: Since 2004, Skov has been responsible for Carlsberg’s corporate communications activities, including investor and media relations, and the CSR/public affairs unit. Prior to joining Carlsberg, Skov worked with the Novo Group, most recently as vice president and as a member of Novozymes’ executive management team. She is also a member of the supervisory board of WWF Denmark, the Tuborg Foundation, the alumni board of the University of Copenhagen, and vice chairman of the board of Erik Møller Architects.

Robert Webb, Chief Human Resources Officer, Hyatt: Webb has been in his current role since 2007. Prior to joining Hyatt, he served as the head of global service delivery for Citi Employee Services at Citigroup Inc. During his 19-year tenure at Citigroup and two predecessor companies, Webb served as chief administrative officer for a global business unit and held several senior human resources roles in North America and internationally. He is also an advisory board member of Boston University’s School of Hospitality and DePaul University’s Hospitality Program, he serves on the Human Resources Policy Association’s health care committee, and he is a member of the International Tourism Partnership’s governing council.

A full list of BSR’s board members is available at www.bsr.org/en/about/board-of-directors.

About BSR
A leader in corporate responsibility since 1992, BSR works with its global network of more than 250 member companies to develop sustainable business strategies and solutions through consulting, research, and cross-sector collaboration. With offices in Asia, Europe, and North America, BSR uses its expertise in the environment, human rights, economic development, and governance and accountability to guide global companies toward creating a just and sustainable world. Visit www.bsr.org for more information.

NY Law Creates New Kind of Corporation

12.13.2011 - 04:00PM

At midnight last night a law was enacted creating benefit corporations, a new class of corporations required to create benefit for society as well as shareholders. Unlike traditional corporations, benefit corporations are required to create a material positive impact on society and the environment; consider how decisions affect employees, community and the environment; and publicly report their social and environmental performance using established third-party standards.

Continuing a national trend of strong bi-partisan support for benefit corporation legislation, the New York bill (S79-A and A4692-A), sponsored by Senators Daniel Squadron (D-25) and Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver (D-64) and co-sponsored by William Larkin (R, C-39), passed both houses of the New York legislature unanimously.

“Political leaders like Speaker Silver, and Senators Squadron and Larkin understand that New York needs to attract businesses whose core purpose is to create more high quality jobs and to improve the quality of life in communities across the state,” said Andrew Kassoy, co founder of B Lab, the nonprofit organization that drafted the model legislation. “The benefit corporation bill will unlock billions of dollars in impact investment capital and enable entrepreneurs across the state to start businesses that solve some of society’s greatest challenges.”

"Benefit corporations will mean New York is open for business in an important new way. Benefit corporations will unlock billions of dollars in new investments in New York while empowering companies to do well and do good,” said Senator Squadron. “By offering this opportunity to entrepreneurs and investors, New York will bring new businesses into the state, new investors into the market and a new socially-minded approach for our entrepreneurs.”

“By bringing benefit corporations to New York, we are showing that profit and social responsibility are not mutually exclusive,” said Speaker Silver. “This law will continue our efforts to strengthen and diversify our economy while ensuring that New York remains a national leader in progressive policies that help our environment, protect consumers and bolster the rights of working men and women.”

“I am very happy to see that this bill has finally become law. It will enable businesses to grow without the infringement of state government, and will help New York become a more business friendly state,” added Senator Larkin.

The new law addresses a long time concern among entrepreneurs who need to raise growth capital but fear losing control of the social or environmental mission of their business. These entrepreneurs and other shareholders of benefit corporations now have additional rights to hold directors accountable for failure to create a material positive impact on society, to consider the impact of decisions on employees, community, and the environment, or to inform the public about the company’s overall social and environmental impact as assessed against a credible, independent third party standard.

New York is the seventh state to pass benefit corporation legislation, joining Maryland, Vermont, New Jersey, Virginia, Hawaii, and most recently, California. The legislation has enjoyed broad bi-partisan support nationally, with a vote tally of 892 ayes and 62 nays, and the signatures of both Republican and Democratic governors. The New York bill had significant support from business (partial list below), including Eileen Fisher, City Light Capital, and UncommonGoods; and from more than 2,600 New York citizens, all interested in creating better choices for the growing number of entrepreneurs and investors who seek to create businesses that create both social and shareholder value.

“The passage of benefit corporation legislation is an important and much needed step forward to grow our New York state economy and create more jobs which can also provide greater social and environmental benefit,” says David Levine, co-founder of the American Sustainable Business Council whose members’ organizations represent over 100,000 businesses. “At a time when the country is looking for solutions to build the economy, New York is helping to lead the way with an innovative and sustainable business strategy.”

See below for list of supporters and individuals willing to comment on the legislation

B Lab: is a nonprofit organization dedicated to building a new sector of the economy that uses the power of business to solve social and environmental problems. B Lab drives systemic change through three interrelated initiatives: 1) building a community of Certified B Corporations to make it easier for all of us to tell the difference between “good companies” and just good marketing; 2) driving capital to impact investments through use of GIIRS Ratings and Analytics; and 3) advancing supportive public policies to accelerate growth of social entrepreneurship and impact investing. For more information, check www .bcorporation .net and www .benefitcorp .net.

American Sustainable Business Council: is a growing coalition network of business networks organizations and businesses committed to advancing a new vision, framework and policies to support a vibrant, equitable and sustainable economy. The Council brings the business perspective, experience and strength to stimulate our economy, benefit our communities, and preserve our environment. Today, the organizations that have joined in this partnership represent over 10065,000 businesses and social enterprises and more than 150,200,000 entrepreneurs, owners, executives, investors and business professionals and other individuals. For more information, check www .asbcouncil .org.

Care2: with more than 17 million members and over 700 nonprofit partners worldwide, Care2 is the largest online community that empowers millions of individuals to lead a healthy, sustainable lifestyle and support important causes. Care2 is a B Corporation, or social enterprise, that generates revenues by connecting individuals with nonprofits and business that are making the world a better place. Care2 has worked with B Lab to provide thousands of signatures to advocate for Benefit Corporation legislation passed in California and New York. Founded in 1998, Care2 has collected over 80 million signatures on petitions featuring timely and important issues. Please visit the Care2 community at http://www.care2.com.

Supporters of New York State’s Benefit Corporation law:

Business Organizations American Sustainable Business Council; B Lab; Syracuse First; Buffalo First; Ithaca First; Onondaga Citizens League; The JustGreen Partnership; Westminster Economic Development Initiative, Inc.

Individual Businesses City Light Capital; Eileen Fisher; Comet Skateboards; CSRHUB; Green Forestry; Green Team; Greyston Bakery; Icestone; Management Resources; Mission Markets; Peeled Snacks; RecycleBank; Runa; Singlebrook Technology; Uncommon Goods; Vendorboon, LLC

Other Individuals Willing to Comment On the Bill

David Bolotsky, Founder of UncommonGoods, a catalog and online gift store based in Brooklyn, NY. 718.210.1175

Andrew Greenblatt, Adjunct Assistant Professor at NYU’s Wagner School of Public Service, a Professor specializing in social ventures. 917-885-9309

Tim McCausland, Vice President of Orange County Trust Company, a regional bank in the Hudson Valley. (845) 467-6011

Gary Schuster, Senior Counsel, Jacobowitz & Gubits, LLP, attorney in the Hudson Valley. 845-778-2121 Ext. 230

Kyle Westaway, Westaway Law, attorney in New York City and lecturer at Harvard Law School. 646-942-2380

Portfolio Manager's Message to Citigroup, Bank of America, & JP Morgan: "Stop Protecting Director Misconduct."

12.13.2011 - 01:28PM

Harrington Investments, Inc., (HII) a socially responsible investment advisory firm has filed shareholder resolutions calling on Citigroup, Bank of America, and JP Morgan Chase to stop indemnifying directors against civil and criminal liabilities.

“The next time one of these banks commits a crime, their directors would not automatically have their defense paid for with shareholder funds,” said John Harrington, President/CEO of Harrington Investments.

It is the fiduciary responsibility of corporate directors to ensure that publicly traded corporations have adequate oversight and legal compliance measures in place. Failure to do so is negligence and should be considered criminal neglect,” added Harrington.

“These are serious issues that need to be taken seriously. Nothing short of our national security is on the line,” concluded Harrington.

Over $270 billion of taxpayer funds were used to bail out Bank of America, Citigroup, and JP Morgan Chase following the 2009 financial meltdown. Since then they have failed to make adequate policy reforms necessary to avert ongoing controversies and not one director has been charged with corporate malfeasance.

“From ‘mistakenly’ foreclosing on foreign-deployed servicemembers (with pregnant wives), to systematically defrauding schools, non-profits and hospitals, to misleading their own customers and investors, to submitting tens of thousands of improper foreclosure affidavits, to paying themselves outrageously after imploding the US economy, the bankers seem immune to moral suasion or legal sanction,” wrote Jack Ucciferri, Research and Advocacy Director and head of HII’s Santa Barbara office.

“This ongoing lack of accountability is why we have introduced shareholder resolutions seeking to enhance director oversight by reducing knee-jerk indemnification of those directors,” Mr. Ucciferri concluded.

For the past 30 years, Harrington Investments, Inc. has been pioneering socially responsible investing and shareholder advocacy. HII manages assets for institutional and individual investors concerned with social and environmental, as well as financial performance.

Federal Judge Sanctions Chevron Lawyers at Gibson Dunn for Harassing Witness in Ecuador Case

12.07.2011 - 11:41AM

Chevron's lead law firm in the $18 billion Ecuador environmental lawsuit, already under scrutiny for trying to mislead Congress, has been scolded and sanctioned by a federal judge for harassing a witness in a discovery action in Oregon.

Magistrate Judge Thomas M. Coffin last week ordered Chevron to pay $32,945.20 in costs to ELAW, a non-profit network of environmental lawyers from 60 countries that in 2009 filed an amicus brief before the Ecuador court hearing charges that the oil giant dumped billions of gallons of toxic waste into the Amazon. Coffin found that the deposition of ELAW's executive director, conducted by Kristin Hendricks of the Gibson Dunn & Crutcher law firm, was in part "meant to harass".

The executive director of ELAW, Bern Johnson, had accused Hendricks of deliberately misstating testimony during his deposition on Sept.15 as part of a civil case Chevron filed in New York against the Ecuadorian plaintiffs. That case was stayed Sept.19 by a federal appellate court in New York, cutting off Chevron's ability to depose more witnesses in the United States. Chevron has since moved to withdraw its discovery action against ELAW.

Pablo Fajardo, the lead Ecuadorian lawyer in the case against Chevron, is a member of ELAW.

In February of this year, an Ecuador court found that the oil giant had deliberately dumped billions of gallons of toxic waste into the rainforest from 1964 to 1992, when it operated several large oil fields. The pollution has decimated indigenous groups and caused an outbreak of cancer and other oil-related diseases. See here and here.

In his written opinion, Judge Coffin stated: "It is a reasonable conclusion that Chevron's subpoena for Johnson's deposition was, at least in part, meant to harass." The judge relied on an affidavit from an ELAW lawyer outlining how Hendricks and other Gibson Dunn lawyers disregarded their own chosen deadlines, showed up late for the deposition, took elongated breaks, and asked repetitive questions designed to waste time.

In that affidavit, ELAW counsel Charles M. Tebbutt described how the Gibson Dunn lawyers also violated court rules by issuing a subpoena without using local counsel, and were repeatedly late for phone meetings they requested as they tried to resolve various discovery disputes. In addition to Hendricks, lawyers from Gibson Dunn involved in the ELAW matter included Randy Mastro, Alexandra Southwell, and Gregory Shill.

"Judge Coffin should be lauded for calling out Chevron's continued abuse of the discovery process to distract attention from its environmental crimes in Ecuador," said Karen Hinton, the U.S. spokesperson for the Ecuadorians. "A picture is emerging of lawyers at Gibson Dunn who were being paid by Chevron to bully a respected international environmental organization.

"Because of ELAW's courage and tenacity, the tables now have been turned against Gibson Dunn lawyers who are clearly guilty of using Chevron's superior resources to abuse the judicial process," Hinton added.

Gibson Dunn in the last two years has filed dozens of discovery actions in the U.S. against almost any American connected to the Ecuador lawsuit in an effort to consume the limited resources of the plaintiff's team and scare off funding for the case, said Hinton. In the meantime, Chevron suffered a series of legal setbacks in Ecuador that led to the historic judgment, which is now under appeal.

A Gibson Dunn lawyer recently disclosed the firm has at least 60 lawyers working for Chevron on the Ecuador matter even though it is only one of the four large law U.S. firms defending the company. The others are Jones Day, King & Spalding, and Boies Schiller.

Gibson Dunn brags in its marketing materials that it is a bastion of "innovative thinking" whose lawyers conduct "rescue operations" for clients in trouble, but it has been repeatedly sanctioned for its misconduct in the Ecuador matter and in related cases.

In 2009, Chevron was ordered to pay all attorney fees associated with the defense of a civil lawsuit brought by Gibson Dunn against Cristobal Bonifaz, a former lawyer for the Ecuadorian plaintiffs who operates a solo practice in Massachusetts. A state judge in California found that the lawsuit was designed to harass Bonifaz and suppress his First Amendment rights.

In 2010, a federal court in Colorado found that Gibson Dunn lawyer Andrew Neumann asked several harassing questions of a technical expert for the plaintiffs in the Ecuador case.

The same Gibson Dunn practice group used by Chevron in the Ecuador case, headed in part by Neumann, recently was hit with sanctions from a second California judge for filing a frivolous lawsuit to suppress the free speech rights of a filmmaker who made a documentary about how pesticides used by Dole in Central America have poisoned banana workers. Dole is a Gibson Dunn client.

In the Ecuador trial, Chevron's lawyers on numerous occasions were fined and sanctioned for harassing the court in the South American nation. One lawyer threatened the judge with criminal sanctions if he did not rule in the company's favor. The misconduct of the Chevron lawyers was cited by the court as one reason it imposed a punitive sanction on the company.

Just last week, lawyers for the affected Ecuadorian communities submitted a blistering letter to the U.S. Congress accusing a Gibson Dunn partner, William Thomson, of orchestrating the presentation of false information about the Ecuador case during a subcommittee hearing on foreign judgments. Thomson also represents Chevron in the Ecuador matter, a fact not disclosed to the subcommittee.

Thomson wrote a report for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce warning of what he called a "new breed" of abusive foreign litigation without disclosing he reaps sizable fees from Chevron in its efforts to defeat enforcement of the Ecuador judgment. The report was submitted to the Congressional record.

Gibson Dunn is notorious for its sharp-edged litigation practices. The firm was fined a shocking $20 million in 2003 in Montana for harassing an art expert for failing to raise the appraisal value of a forged painting owned by a firm client.

"Let me be as clear as possible," said Hinton, the spokesperson for the Ecuadorians. "The Gibson Dunn law firm wouldn't raise a finger for Chevron if wasn't being paid millions of dollars per month in a futile attempt to get an oil company off the hook for polluting the rainforest.”

"The law firm might be increasing its profits, but it is doing it at the expense of both Chevron's shareholders and Chevron's victims in Ecuador," added Hinton.

Hinton said that R. Hewitt Pate, Chevron's General Counsel and a former Bush Administration appointee, is responsible for the use of a law firm that "clearly has a problem adhering to the ethical rules" of the legal profession.

Once it was hit by sanctions, Chevron's lawyers at Gibson Dunn quickly moved yesterday to dismiss its discovery action against ELAW. ELAW has opposed the dismissal and has informed the court that it will seek further sanctions against the oil giant.

100 Year Starship Symposium

09.29.2011 - 07:32PM

The Defense Advanced Project Agency (DARPA) with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA) Ames Research Center has expressed another grand challenge - long distance manned space travel, called the 100 Year Starship™.

Their challenge includes committing ourselves to spending the next century tackling the key technological, socio-political and economic problems to develop a viable and sustainable non-governmental organization for persistent, long-term, private-sector investment into the myriad of disciplines needed to make long-distance space travel viable.

The stated vision is much larger than technology development or national security. DARPA has expressed a desire to create a renewed enthusiasm and "wonder" across a broad range of research and development, including science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) but also in humanities, arts, management, financing and other related areas for the success of long distance, long duration spaceflight. Benefits are not only expected to extend into private and commercial sectors, but to be led by them.

DARPA has opened up the dialog to all interested parties via a public symposium to be held in Orlando, Florida, from September 30th through October 2nd, 2011.

A Healthy Approach to Life: Corporate Responsibility Report 2008

08.06.2009 - 11:00AM

China Summit On Anti-Corruption

06.15.2009 - 12:00AM

With more than 150 attendees from some of the world's largest and best known blue chip companies and law firms, the American Conference Institute's first annual China Summit on Anti-Corruption provided a groundbreaking opportunity for anti-bribery and FCPA professionals to learn, question and network with their peers. Featuring keynote presentations by the US Department of Justice, General Electric, Goodyear Tire, ITT, Motorola, Nortel Networks, Pfizer, Rockwell Automation, SGS, Tyco International and many more, the inaugural summit quickly became the must-attend, leading anti-corruption gathering in Asia.

Due to continued high demand, we are pleased to announce that the Second China Summit on Anti-Corruption will take place in June 2009 in Shanghai. This event will once again bring together an exceptional faculty of experienced corporate ethics and compliance executives, senior attorneys, forensic accountants and government officials to discuss the complex anti-bribery landscape in China. They will examine the intersection of the FCPA and local Chinese anti-bribery laws and how to implement robust anti-corruption policies in this environment.

If your company is doing business in the People's Republic of China, you must have a comprehensive anti-corruption compliance program, be prepared to act promptly and effectively to remedy any problems that do arise and attend ACI's Second China Summit on Anti-Corruption.

2nd Summit on the Future of the Corporation

05.22.2009 - 01:08PM

We stand today at an historical moment. Many aspects of the global economy are out of synch with 21st century imperatives. While the character of corporations that produce needed goods and services—the "real economy"—is undergoing intense change, the "financial economy" is fueled more by money shuffling than by long-term wealth creation. The current global financial crisis has exposed a system of untenable leverage and speculative behavior that has left the real economy dangerously short of affordable, reliable and timely capital to meet its investment and operating needs. The result: an erosion of prospects for the creation and prosperity of sustainable companies to meet the pressing social and environmental challenges in the coming decades.

To explore the causes, consequences and solutions to these conditions, Corporation 20/20 (www.corporation2020.org) invites you to participate in the 2ND SUMMIT ON THE FUTURE OF THE CORPORATION: RESTORING THE PRIMACY OF THE REAL ECONOMY. Join leaders from business, civil society, labor, law and the media in a dynamic forum to debate one of the most pressing issues of our time: how can financial markets be returned to their rightful role as servant to, rather than master of, the real economy?

Business and Society: A Web Conference Series

05.19.2009 - 12:00AM

Business and Society: A Web Conference Series
Presented, in partnership, by The Aspen Institute's Center for Business Education and the College of Management and Technology at Walden University

As part of the ongoing commitment to developing leaders for a sustainable global society, the College of Management and Technology and The Aspen Institute's Center for Business Education have joined together to bring a free webinar series. Business and Society: A Web Conference Series will feature thought leaders from leading corporations, academic institutions and NGOs discussing practical approaches for bringing positive social impact to life.

The series starts May 19th at 12 pm Eastern with Dan Bross, Senior Director of Corporate Citizenship at Microsoft and Michael Gordon, Professor of Business Information Technology at the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan, discussing Corporate Social Responsibility and the Information Technology Sector. The web conference will be hosted by Dr. Ahmed Naumaan, associate dean for the NTU College of Engineering and Applied Sciences at Walden University.

About our Guests:

Dan Bross is the Senior Director of Corporate Citizenship at Microsoft. He leads a corporate citizenship effort that incorporates Microsoft’s business investments with the goal of significantly broadening the reach of technology in underserved communities. Microsoft aims to deliver the benefits of relevant, accessible and affordable software to the 5 billion people who today have no access to technology or the opportunities it affords, with a goal of reaching the next 1 billion people by 2015.

Michael Gordon is Professor of Business Information Technology at the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan. His research looks at the relationship between information technology and social responsibility.

Other scheduled events include:

Environmental Responsibility and the Major Multinational Corporation - July 28th at 1pm Eastern

Investing to Create Value for Society: Socially Responsible Investment and New Forms of Governance - November 3rd at 12 pm Eastern

About The Aspen Institute's Center for Business Education

The Aspen Institute’s Center for Business Education (Aspen CBE) equips business leaders for the 21st century with the vision and knowledge to integrate corporate profitability and social value. Aspen CBE helps business educators incorporate issues of social and environmental stewardship into teaching and research by offering targeted resources, networks, and a platform to share cutting edge practice among peers.

Learn about the technical requirements for viewing a Walden Forum or call an enrollment advisor toll-free at 1-866-492-5336 before getting started.

OCEG Webinar Series: How Do We Measure the Performance of GRC?

05.18.2009 - 02:08PM

A high-performing GRC system will always deliver value. Always. The value of an activity or department is directly related its contribution to business objectives. For that reason, it is not sufficient to focus on measuring GRC activities themselves (e.g., risk assessment, policy management, training and communication, control management). Rather, special focus must be on the desired system outcomes that result from those activities.

Each organization is unique, of course, and pursues unique business objectives. In turn, each GRC system will pursue a unique set of outcomes. However, surveys of experts and analysis of compliance, internal control, and risk management charters suggest that most organizations share several desired outcomes that appear to be universal across GRC systems.

2008 Global Citizenship Report

04.27.2009 - 12:00AM

2009 International Corporate Citizenship Conference

03.29.2009 - 12:00AM

The 2009 International Corporate Citizenship Conference will be held March 29-31 in San Francisco. The annual conference, organized by the Boston College Center for Corporate Citizenship, is expected to attract some 500 executives responsible for directing corporate citizenship activities in global companies. The conference theme "Leading Change, Finding Opportunity" will be reinforced by keynote speakers and 20 breakout sessions all designed to address the challenge of managing corporate citizenship in a difficult economic environment.

Keynote speakers include CSR visionary John Elkington, environmental entrepreneur Van Jones, innovation guru Dev Patnaik and sustainability expert Adam Werbach.

The 20 breakout sessions are designed to provide tactics, tools and other valuable information needed to deal with what's happening inside your business today. To ensure that every conference participant leaves with what they need -- from new skills and competencies to benchmarking data and knowledge -- we are offering three types of breakout sessions.

Hands-on workshops will help you develop new competencies.

Best practice and reality sessions will provide benchmarking data and knowledge to help you manage your work.

Research and trends sessions will provide you with new insights and never-before-released data to make your work innovative and relevant.

For more information about the conference or to register go to www.corporatecitizenshipconference.com. A special hotel rate of $249/night is available until March 1. This rate is on a first come, first serve basis.

Webinar: The Competitive Advantage to Incorporating Citizenship into Your Brand

02.24.2009 - 11:00PM

Will your customers choose a brand that is associated with good work in the community? This webinar will take you through a brief look at how brands have been built, and why they are not built to last under the old terms of corporate-consumer engagement. Today, the brand is everyone's responsibility, no longer just the purview of the communication and marketing department. Consumers are taking control of communication and turning the tables on companies. You will hear examples that demonstrate the "state of play" today and how corporate citizenship and branding can no longer be separate and distinct. It goes beyond messaging to behavior.

This webinar sets the context for a new approach to building brands by presenting examples from corporations that have embedded corporate citizenship into the heart and soul of their brand promise. You will learn best practices in brand marketing and walk away with a better idea of how you can continue to build your corporation's social mission into your branding.

Issues we will address:
- Has it become the new role of corporate citizenship to differentiate your brand?
- Why you need to communicate your mission through your brand promise
- How to highlight your competitive advantage

Article 13 UNGC 2008 Communication on Progress

01.15.2009 - 12:00AM

Transparency: Risk or Opportunity?

09.22.2008 - 12:00AM

Transparency: Risk or Opportunity?
Conversations about corporate responsibility from the legal and investor perspective.

For most companies, disclosure implies risk. Yet customers, communities, employees-and increasingly, investors-are demanding transparency around environmental, social, and governance (ESG) performance.

Join us for this highly interactive, one-day forum to explore strategic disclosure, its perceived risks and benefits, and its relevance to your role in your company.

You'll learn how to:
- Establish strategic relevance of ESG issues
- Determine an appropriate level of disclosure
- Engage with socially responsible investors and activist shareholders
- Bridge gaps in existing dialogue with both internal and external stakeholders

Featuring speakers from Calvert, Citigroup, Deutsche Bank, Ethical Corporation, Fair Factories Clearinghouse, Trillium Asset Management, and more!

DATE: Monday, September 22, 2008
TIME: 8:30am-5:00pm
LOCATION: The Harvard Club
35 West 44th Street
New York, New York
FEES: Before September 1: $595
After September 1: $695
Register early and bring a colleague, save 25% each!

www.frameworkcr.com/disclosure

Personal Democracy Forum

06.23.2008 - 12:00AM

5th Annual Personal Democracy Forum (PdF) Expands to Two Days; Features Preeminent Minds in Politics, the Internet and New Media

Keynoters Include:

Elizabeth Edwards, Michael Arrington, Vint Cerf, Craig Newmark, Arianna Huffington, Lawrence Lessig, Mayhill Fowler, Ana Marie Cox, Robert Scoble, Josh Marshall, Douglas Rushkoff, Joe Trippi, Jason Calacanis, Cyrus Krohn, Van Jones and Many More

New York——On Monday, June 23rd, and Tuesday, June 24th, 2008, America's foremost leaders and luminaries from all segments of the Internet, political and blogosphere arenas will converge in New York at Rose Hall, the new home of Jazz at Lincoln Center, for the annual Personal Democracy Forum (www.personaldemocracy.com)—the preeminent conference examining how Internet technology and trends are reinventing politics.

The forum will feature an unprecedented cross-partisan roster of speakers and panelists—individuals who are altering the landscape of the electoral process, political action and communication in our wired world on a daily basis. Now in its fifth year, the Personal Democracy Forum (PdF) is expanding to a two day event covering not only how the Internet is impacting campaigns and elections, but also how governance is changing.

Topics that will be covered at the 2008 PdF:

• The top political technology innovations of 2008
• Open fundraising and how to create Internet "money bombs"
• Mastering the new world of online political video
• Re-inventing political media with the rise of the semi-pro
• The changing roles of the “net-roots” and the “right-roots”
• Converting online supporters into on-the-ground volunteers
• Unblocking the future of mobile politics
• Big fish in small fishbowls: How bloggers are upending local politics
• The inside scoop on what worked and what didn't from the Presidential campaigns
• Ideas that spread win: How to go "viral"
• How "Wiki Government" can work
• Open data, open government and the problem of corruption
• Creating better debates with and without television
• The cross-partisan politics of transparency
• Design principles for online democracy: Connecting government and constituents in the Internet age
• How to embrace voter-generated content
• New ways of making and spending money online
• National tech policy: Which way forward?
• Social technology and how the Internet can save the planet
• The rise of dynamic data-driven journalism
• Redefining leadership in a networked age

Optimizing Your Approach to GRC

06.19.2008 - 12:00AM

This week on Thursday, June 19, 2008 at 2pm Eastern we are presenting a webinar entitled Optimizing Your Approach To GRC. Carole Stern Switzer, OCEG President, Brett Curran VP GRC Practices, Axentis, Inc. and Lee Dittmar, Principal, Deloitte Consulting LLP will discuss this topic and the recent OCEG illustration related to it along with presenting examples of how companies have implemented this in the field under the day to day realities we all operate under.

To register now go to www1.gotomeeting.com/register/584750648

Come listen to them discuss the three major elements for integrating GRC

* Addressing inconsistency and complexity
* Aligning risk management with objectives
* Using technology as an enabler

In the end, many organizations will benefit from a more organized and disciplined approach to GRC. While some of this may seem daunting, your likelihood of success, if you address these elements, is high. According to OCEG research, 84 percent of organizations pursuing this path are seeing results that meet or exceed their expectations.

2008 Compliance Institute

04.13.2008 - 12:00AM

2008 Compliance Institute
April 13 - 16, 2008
Hilton New Orleans Riverside Hotel, New Orleans, LA

SAVE $425 before
January 1st 2008

Sessions at HCCA's 2008 Compliance
Institute will offer the latest compliance
information on the hottest topics and
current events.

Advanced Discussion Groups

Sessions will cover advanced compliance
concepts
Discussion groups, no presentations
Facilitated by industry experts

Seating is limited! Please preregister to
attend an Advanced Discussion Group.

Industry Immersion Sessions

DRA and Government
Pricing/Reporting
Large Hospital Systems
Children's Hospitals
Payor Immersion
Academic Medical Centers
Long-Term Care

These intense four-hour industry
immersion sessions are designed to provide
advanced information for these specific
areas. The sessions are led by industry
experts at the forefront of their fields.

Corporate Social Responsibility: Strategic Integration and Competitiveness

03.26.2008 - 12:00AM

Today's global businesses face a daunting challenge - achieve and sustain competitive advantage while empowering customers and communities to grow and prosper. Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is an organization's obligation to consider the interests of their customers, employees, shareholders, communities, and the ecology and to consider the social and environmental consequences of their business activities. By integrating CSR into core business processes and stakeholder management, organizations can achieve the ultimate goal of creating both social value and corporate value.

This course explores different ways in which companies can incorporate societal and environmental perspectives into strategic thinking, as well as the challenges and dilemmas involved in this process. The aim is to expose executives from different industries to state-of-the-art knowledge on responsibility and sustainability in business, as well as to reflect on how these issues impact business strategy.

Wireless America: Closed or Open?

03.11.2008 - 12:00AM

Open MIC and The Paley Center for Media invite you to a policy breakfast

Wireless America: Closed or Open? - A forum on the future of wireless communications

Opening Remarks
William C. Thompson, Jr.
Comptroller of the City of New York

Panel:

Blair Levin, Managing Director, Stifel Nicolaus

Mark Lloyd, Vice President, Leadership Conference on Civil Rights

Jason Devitt, CEO, Skydeck

Michael Connor, Executive Director, Open MIC, Moderator

Tuesday, March 11
Breakfast available at 8AM; Program 9-10:30 AM

The Paley Center for Media
25 West 52nd Street
New York, NY

On January 24 of this year, the Federal Communications Commission began a major auction of 700 megahertz of some of the most valuable spectrum ever to be made available to the commercial wireless industry – “beachfront property” that may never be available again. The sale, which is expected to raise more than $10 billion for the federal government, results from television broadcasters moving from the current analog signal to a new digital format which requires substantially less spectrum.

The auction comes at a critical time for American consumers, and many experts believe the coming months could help determine just how “closed” or “open” America’s wireless future will be. Competitors for the newly freed-up spectrum include telecom giants Verizon and AT&T and the search engine giant Google. According to data provided by the FCC, bidding on a key 50-state nationwide package of spectrum has now surpassed the “reserve” level – $4.6 billion – guaranteeing that spectrum will be sold and triggering critical “open access” provisions. But the bidding process remains confidential, and the identity of the winning bidder probably won’t be known for weeks.

What will be the rules in this expanding wireless universe? Will the wireless Internet of the future continue to resemble current cell phone services – with providers largely controlling what’s on offer – or will it be truly open to all devices, applications and content? Will innovators and entrepreneurs be able to create new products and services for the internet on wireless the way they have over fixed wire broadband? What choices will be available to consumers? Some experts believe low-income Americans will come to rely on wireless devices for their primary access to the internet. What access will those citizens have, and what will it cost?

The answers are critical to the future of communications and democracy in America.Open MIC – the Open Media and Information Companies Initiative – and the Paley Center for Media invite you to join a select group of executives from media and technology companies, and policy and academic leaders, for this provocative panel discussion.

Please join a select group of executives from media and technology companies, and policy and academic leaders, for this provocative panel discussion.

Click here to register

'How to... Sustainability Workshops 2007'

11.07.2007 - 11:00PM

The workshop will be held in Athens and the participants will have the opportunity to get familiarised with new practical tools and techniques related to the way organisations can manage crisis.

The workshop has been scheduled for November 8-9, 2007: Integrated Crisis Management Communication/Operations.

Athens EFQM Forum 2007

10.01.2007 - 12:00AM

CSE Supports the Athens EFQM Forum and CEO Summit
The Centre for Sustainability and Excellence (CSE) is supporting and will participate at the Athens EFQM Forum 2007 and the CEO Summit, organised by the Hellenic Management Association, which will be held at the Athens Concert Hall, on October 1-3.

The EFQM Forum is the annual prestigious event for Business Excellence in which over 800 business leaders congregate to learn, interact and network.

This year the event will be hosted in Athens of Greece.

Top speakers such as Mohammad Yunus, Chan Kim and Rene Carayol will be present, while during the event a number of interactive sessions from a diverse and international perspective of business will take place.

CSE is also supporting the CEO Summit, which will be organised along with the Athens EFQM Forum 2007, as an initiative of the Hellenic Management Association on the 1st of October 2007, at the Athens Concert Hall.

This will be the first time where more than 300 CEO's from Greece and around the world will have the chance to meet and share their opinions and visions about the future importance of two very important matters: Corporate Ethics and Social Responsibility. Speakers of international fame, such as Olivier Giscard D' Estaing and Ola Ullsten will share their experiences and knowledge with the CEO's attending the Summit.

As a Licensed EFQM Consultant, CSE has supported more than 50 leading organisations and Governments worldwide in Business Excellence including the development of specialised methodologies that assisted organisations in the improvement of their business results and contributed to the development of the EFQM Excellence model.

Global Award for CSR Reporting in collaboration with World Council for Corporate Governance

09.20.2007 - 12:00AM

The Centre for Sustainability and Excellence (CSE) is proud to present, in association with the World Council for Corporate Governance, the Golden Peacock Award for Corporate Social Responsibility Reporting.

The Golden Peacock Award for Corporate Social Responsibility Reporting, which is anticipated to become an international top event, was developed in order to provide support to the global corporate reporting efforts in the area of CSR, and at the same time to offer an international distinction for corporations that provide best practices in CSR Reporting.

The award ceremony for 2007 will take place during the 8th International Conference on Corporate Governance in London on September 20-21, 2007. The Jury Committee for the Golden Peacock Award for Corporate Social Responsibility Reporting will consist of highly respectable individuals, such as:

Dr. Ola Ullsten, Former Prime Minister of Sweden

Dr. Olivier Giscard d'Estaing, chairman of the INSEAD Foundation, of the European League for Economic Co-operation France and of the COPAM (Comite pour un Parlement Mondial)

Dr. Ruud Lubbers, Former Prime Minister of The Netherlands

Francisco Balsemão, Former Prime Minister of Portugal

Baroness Flather, member of the UK House of Lords

Justice P. N. Bhagwati, Member UN Human Rights Committee & Former Chief Justice of India.

Design and Implement a CSR Strategy and Report

11.22.2006 - 11:00PM

The focus of this programme is to present and analyze the notion of CSR and the tools to be utilized for the proper management of CSR activities, as well as the good practices applied by the best companies around the globe.
By the end of the workshop participants will be able to understand:

The notion of Corporate Social Responsibility

The benefits and the importance of CSR

The drivers of CSR

The history of CSR & the role of the European Commission in the shaping of CSR principles

Management Models and other tools for CSR

Good practices and case studies of leading companies in the world

The basic principles for the development of CSR Report according to International Standards (GRI, etc.)

Manage Reputation & Branding for Sustainability

10.13.2006 - 12:00AM

The purpose of this workshop is to present and analyze the importance of Brand Image Reputation & Branding towards Corporate Sustainability. By the end of the workshop, participants will be able to understand:

Importance of Image & Branding

The image within organization

Reputation management

How to execute image analysis

Brand value –brand strategy

How to...Integrate CSR through Performance Measurement

09.29.2006 - 12:00AM

The purpose of this workshop is to present and analyze the importance of CSR Performance Measurement for practical Integration into Corporate Strategy & Reporting based on the global CSR Standards (EFQM Framework, GRI). This is an advanced Training Programme only for those that have already attended the introductory programme “How to…Design and Implement an Effective CSR Strategy and Report” or already have an advanced knowledge of the CSR concept.

Get Started with Sustainability

09.28.2006 - 12:00AM

This one day workshop which had been designed based on the practical question of how to get started with Sustainability, presents you all the necessary steps to be followed, so as to set out the journey of your Organisation towards Sustainable Corporate Performance with practical tools such as the EFQM Excellence Model & Stakeholder Management.