SustainabilityHQ.com Weekly Highlights October 22, 2013

Top Story of the Week

Asia Rising as Hub of CR? Watching China & South Korea The Two Tomorrow’s annual global assessment of sustainability practices looked at 50 corporate components of the Dow Jones Sustainability Index (DJSI – 10 each from the oil & gas, energy utilities, food and beverage, and automotive sectors).  The results are reported in Tomorrow’s Value Rating 2013 Report, just issued and highlighted in our Top Story.  The analysts asked – are the companies evaluated and included in the DJSI the sustainability leaders expected to drive sustainable value?

Headlines – while the report content is heavily-euro-centric, companies from East Asia are quickly catching up to their western peers.  Some Chinese companies (like state-owned China Mobile and oil & gas Sinopec) are sustainability leaders.  In South Korea, telecom KT Corp stood out from the pack (Korean companies, authors noted, are seldom recognized as sustainability leaders). 

The not-so-good news:  The turmoil of the last five years in North America and European markets has led to a diminished focus on sustainability in mature markets.  And so – East Asian companies may well be positioning themselves to emerge on the world stage as tomorrow’s corporate leaders in sustainability, especially in China and South Korea.  For today’s corporate leaders in North America and Europe – the gap in investing in sustainability in mature markets is “of concern", say the report authors.  Read more in our Top Story for this week.

Is the hub of corporate sustainability moving towards Asia?       
(Thursday - October 17, 2013) 
Source: The Guardian - A new sustainability report shows Chinese and South Korean companies outperforming some traditional sustainability leaders.

Sustainability in Focus

Your most powerful marketing tool? Your sustainability story       
(Friday - October 18, 2013) 
Source: Greenbiz - We're going to keep hammering this home for a while because it's important: Green consumers are not "green consumers." They are "the most desirable consumers." • They're 24 percent of the population. • They're opinion leaders...

How the Middle East is setting standards in sustainability       (Thursday - October 17, 2013) 
Source: The Guardian - Most in the west would probably regard the Middle East as lagging behind on sustainability. The stereotyped view is one of flashy over-consumption to match a glut of wealth from oil production. The story I heard on the ground was...

Eat Sustainably for World Food Day       
(Wednesday - October 16, 2013) Associated Profiles : Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations -Source: thedailymeal.com - World Food Day, from the food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), hits Oct. 16, 2013, once again bringing awareness to the political need to end hunger. This year, the day is...

How to make sustainability ideas stick      
(Wednesday - October 16, 2013) 
Source: GredenBiz - What makes one idea or project "stick" and another disappear? It's a question we have asked for years as we track the progress of companies who have invested in our Pollution Prevention Lean Principles workshops. At the end of...

The 10 ways sustainability professionals can scale up the circular economy       
(Wednesday - October 16, 2013) 
Source: Guardian - I've never met a sustainability professional who doesn't agree that the circular economy is critical to our future in a resource constrained world. It's not a new concept, 10 bob for your old pop bottle was big when I was growing...

CEOs Report Frustrated Sustainability Ambition      
(Wednesday - October 16, 2013) 
Source: Triple Pundit - More than two thirds of CEOs (67 percent) believe that business is not doing enough to address global sustainability challenges, while the same percentage report that the private sector is not making sufficient efforts to address...

This is just a sample of some of the articles from this weeks SustainabilityHQ Highlights.  You can view the full Highlights by using the following links.  Sustainability | ESG, Highlights for the Week of October 22, 2013