Moving Beyond Green: The Rainbow Within CSR

This blog was originally posted on CSRHub and Triple Pundit

By Bahar Gidwani

We participated in a CleanWeb Hackathon this past weekend. It was fun to hang out with 100+ programmers and designers who are interested in changing the world—a group of smart people who came up with some interesting ideas.

However, I was surprised that I had to explain several times why we at CSRHub track broad CSR (corporate social responsibility) and sustainability issues, rather than just whether or not a company is “green.” It seemed that folks who focus on “clean energy” and “clean tech” are into “carbon” and “climate change” and they care about how companies and people treat the environment. But not about the many other things that go into corporate responsibility and sustainability.

If I attended a conference of labor activists, they would talk about employee health care, training and safety, and community issues. Similarly, I know that whether you are involved in water issues, protection of indigenous people, animal treatment, or involvement in the military you are probably passionate about these subjects and less concerned with other areas. Read more at CSRHub>>

 

Bahar Gidwani is a Cofounder and CEO of CSRHub. Formerly, he was the CEO of New York-based Index Stock Imagery, Inc, from 1991 through its sale in 2006. He has built and run large technology-based businesses and has experience building a multi-million visitor Web site. Bahar holds a CFA, was a partner at Kidder, Peabody & Co., and worked at McKinsey & Co. Bahar has consulted to both large companies such as Citibank, GE, and Acxiom and a number of smaller software and Web-based companies. He has an MBA (Baker Scholar) from Harvard Business School and a BS in Astronomy and Physics (magna **** laude) from Amherst College. Bahar races sailboats, plays competitive bridge, and is based in New York City.
 
CSRHub is a corporate social responsibility (CSR) ratings tool that allows managers, consultants, academics and activists to track the sustainability performance of major companies. We aggregate data from more than 130 sources including seven leading socially responsible investing (SRI) analysts, Carbon Disclosure Project, indexes, NGOs, crowd sources, and government agencies to provide our users with a comprehensive source of employee, environmental, community, and governance information on nearly 5,000 publicly traded companies in 65 countries. CSRHub is a B Corporation.

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