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The Week in Green
For far too long one of the biggest problems faced by CSR officers is the (entirely unfair) perception amongst some of their colleagues that they are some king of mung bean eating hippy who has taken the role because of their treehugging love of all things green.
In many ways this perception is meant to be flattering, highlighting as it does the CSR professional's passionate commitment to their job. But the flip side of this popular image is that of the enthusiastic amateur, motivated by personal ideals rather than cold, hard commercial factors.
So it is extremely encouraging to hear this week that while they may still lag behind many other senior execs in the pay stakes CSR officers are catching up fast. Six figure salaries may not seem like much to the big beasts of the corporate jungle, but the fact that CSR officers can now command salaries in excess of £120,000 shows how seriously they are now being taken and the extent firms are willing to go to attract real talent.
Right across the green business movement nothing underlines the seriousness with which the environment is now being taken by firms than the sums of money involved.
This week alone we've seen Credit Suisse at one end of the scale pledging to plough $300m into cleantech, EDF pumping $50m into Nanosolar, Foresight stepping up its investment in wood-to-energy technologies, and the Scottish government offering £10m to any scientists capable of delivering a major marine energy breakthrough.
As US Senator Everett Derkson once observed, "A billion here, a billion there, pretty soon it adds up to real money".
Right, I'm off to try and book my place as a passenger on the next zero carbon flight.
Have a good weekend and try not to worry too much about whether or not the government is planning to ruin your car.
Cheers
James
This certainly a promising trend; the key is to encourage / empower these CSR executives to be part of the decision making process at a corporate level. MBOs could include:
- Increased profitability from effective material use and workflow
- Increased positive brand awareness
- Identification and development of new business lines that embrace sustainable principles
I am sure there are others, but if the executives are not involved in critical corporate decisions, then their roles will be relegated to more "EHS" roles of the past 20 years, which were non - mission critical...
Posted by :Scott Boutwell | April 6, 2008 8:07 PM
Hi there, I hope you will excuse this small intrusion but I'm trying to encourage people to sign this petition that is lodged with parliament, asking that public companies use post-consumer recycled paper instead of paper from trees
It can be found here:
http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/post-consumer/
hope this interests you, the full text is as follows:
Adopting a policy whereby all paper used by public companies is post-consumer recycled paper from British sources would: 1) Create an untold number of jobs domestically in the recycling industry. 2) At little inconvenience make a huge leap towards the enironmental sustainability of our county. 3) Be a milestone that made headlines, paving the way for other nations to follow. 4) Set a good example for children in schools, public sector employees, private corporations and other nations. 5) Protect our fragile environment and wildlife, as well as yielding many other benefits.
The current system of take/make/throw away is doing the world little good, destroying the life of humans and animals alike. Cutting down trees to make paper when there are better alternatives results in a reduction in the quality of our air. Sustainable forrests dry the land, robbing it of resources and preventing it from sustaining life therefore they are not an apt solution, neither are many of the recycling processes which use bleach or chlorine, and so it is post-consumer recycled paper (preferably from British sources) which is prescribed to deal with this problem.
thanks very much for your time,
best wishes,
Antony of the Campaign for Integrated Sustainability
Posted by :Antony | April 9, 2008 10:33 PM