SustainabilityHQ.com Weekly Highlights

Highlighting the top news, commentary, and research for the week coming from SHQ. The highlights newsletter also spotlights one profiled organization and their recent activity as monitored by SHQ.

View an archive of previous "SHQ Highlights" here: http://www.sustainabilityhq.com/sustainabilityhq-home/weekly-highlights/

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Content from this campaign

Media & Communications

In the Skies Overhead – Airline Passenger Volume Set to Double Over Next Two Decades. What Could the Environmental Impact of More Air Travel Be?
Once upon a time in the early days of jet travel, business travelers accounted for three-quarters or more of the total passenger business of the major U.S. airlines (known as “trunk” carriers back in the day). Fares were long set by Federal regulation and family-friendly, tourista-friendly fare packages were scarce or non-existent. Airlines relied on the “have-to-travel-for-business” crowd.

Media & Communications

For the Board Room and C-Suite, Questions and Advice From the Harvard Business Review and ESG and Sustainability
Attorney Silda Wall Spitzer and John Mandyck, CEO of Urban Green Council, writing in Harvard Business Review explain that while “some” board members have become increasingly “sustainability/ESG fluent” many companies [still] don’t expect their directors to understand sustainability or ESG and don’t provide board room education on the subject matter.

Media & Communications

NASDAQ Exchange Publishes the “ESG Reporting Guide” for Corporate Managements and Boards
There is encouraging news for sustainability professionals coming from the world of stock exchanges this month. The NASDAQ Exchange just published its guide for listed companies – as well for privately-owned firms as perhaps future IPOs for NASDAQ listing – for companies’ public ESG reporting. This is the “ESG Reporting Guide – A Voluntary Support Program for Companies”.

Media & Communications

S&P 500® Index Companies’ ESG/Sustainability, Responsibility Reporting Hits 86% For Year 2018 – Latest G&A Institute Research Results…
For the eighth year, the G&A Institute research team has examined the ESG, Sustainability, Responsibility & Citizenship disclosure and reporting practices of the S&P 500® Index companies and determined for year 2018 that 86 percent of the almost 500 public companies were publishing reports in various formats for public viewing.

Media & Communications

We Have Corporate Comparisons Galore – The Institutional Investor Has Access to Volumes of ESG Data Sets & Information – Where Can Others Find Scores, Rankings and Ratings of Public Companies?
These days the comparisons of companies in sectors and industries and among investment peers (those companies chasing similar sources of capital) are continuing to gain momentum. There are numerous third party players busily analyzing, measuring and charting company ESG performance and producing scores, rankings, ratings and various kinds of comparisons (company-to-company, company to industry etc) for their investor-clients (asset owners and managers).

Media & Communications

Trump Administration Continues Attempts to Unravel US Environmental Protections Put in Place Over Many Years – Now, Shareholder Proxy Resolution Actions on Climate Issues Also in Focus for Investors
We should not have been surprised: in 2016 presidential candidate Donald Trump promised that among his first steps when in the Oval Office would be the tearing up of his predecessor’s commitment to join the family of nations in addressing climate change challenges. In 2015 in Paris, with almost 200 nations in agreement, the United States of America with President Barack Obama presiding signed on to the “Paris Agreement” (or Accord) for nations and private, public and social sector organization to work to prevent further damage to the planet.

Media & Communications

Environmental Threats to Us and Mother Earth --- Seven Trends to Consider…and Develop Solutions From the Forum for the Future
This week we celebrated Earth Day. That first (1970) observance became a catalyst for action – soon after the first of a series of environmental-focused Federal legislation began to change dirty air to cleaner and then clean, and more laws to address a very unhealthy state of affairs in the U.S.A. (The Environmental Act, Clean Water Act, Clean Air Act, RCRA, etc.). But…the challenges for society have not gone away. The list of “hot ESG issues” grows by the week.

Media & Communications

When Will Sustainable Investing Be Considered to be in the Mainstream?
“Movements” – what comes to mind when we describe the characteristics of this term are 20th Century examples. The late-20th Century “environmental movement” was a segue from the older 19th and early 20th Century “conservation movement” that was jump started by President Theodore Roosevelt (#26), who in his 8 years in the Oval Office preserved some 100,000 acres of American land every work day (this before the creation of the National Parks System a decade later).

Media & Communications

Survey Results: Global Institutional Investors With US$8.4 Trillion in AUM Confirm The Rising Value of Corporate ESG Principles
The FTI Consulting business advisory firm surveyed a set of 130 global institutional investors to gauge the depth and breadth of U.S. assets invested using ESG principles. This group of investors, contacted from May through July 2018, responded that their Assets Under Management totaling US$8.4 trillion was believed to have benefitted by the contribution of extra [corporate] value to a company with a high ESG rating.

Media & Communications

Corporate Supply Chain Sustainability Strategies & Programs: Count as a Cost or Strategic Investment?
Question: Does a corporate sustainability program “cost” (and thus shows up on the “expense” side of the ledger) or are there measurable “returns” on the investments that companies are making to develop or adjust strategies, assemble teams and launch sustainability programs? (Especially those that have set goals and where progress is measured and then publicly reported.)

We frequently hear this kind of discussion in the phone calls we have with corporate managers, especially those at companies where management is now considering what to do or perhaps just starting out on their sustainability journey.

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