A regular blog about (un) sustainable business. A focus on practical stuff, not blue sky pretentious waffle. Around 6000 regular readers, surprisingly.
First, and for a long time, we had philanthropy, and there was no need to measure that, except in cash given, and tax breaks received. Then we had early CSR, let’s say at some point in the 1980s, and that was about happier communities, some more motivated employees, the odd bit of PR and some…
Chris Meyer from the Environmental Defense Fund has put together an insightful blog post on the above topic, which is particularly timely, given this week is the TFA 2020 AGM in Accra, Ghana, where I am moderating a panel session on scaling up zero deforestation initiates, with speakers from Golden Agri Resources and Mondelez. I’ve…
For the last two years, we at Innovation Forum have held conferences on this above topic in Washington D.C. Firstly with the Pew Centre and in 2018 with the Nature Conservancy, at their offices in Arlington. Thank you for the support to both organisations. Here’s some of the anonymised notes from the conference. A couple…
As you might know, we love a good old podcast at Innovation Forum. We find they get a lot more interest and listens/downloads than text articles, perhaps because they are convenient, and human-centered. So here’s quite a few we’ve taped recently, with executives from leading companies and other experts, on a whole host of sustainability…
Later in 2018, we’re convening a meeting about plastics and sustainability in Amsterdam. So what? You might say, you and everyone else, too. Well, yes, good point you might raise, but our plan is a different one. We don’t seek to demonise plastics, as so many are doing right now. We’re taking a more nuanced…
As some readers and customers of Innovation Forum may know, we’ve been running conferences on various supply chain issues since we started. To date, we’ve run around 10-12 events per year in recent years, and perhaps 30 since we started in 2014. These are generally events of 80-150 business folks, NGOs, and others, over two…
Paul Reig is responsible for managing the World Resources Institute’s corporate engagement on water and their Aqueduct Water Risk Atlas In advance of our conference next week tackling this: “Can innovation and technology make agriculture sustainable? – 5-6 April 2018 – Washington DC ” we thought we’d send him a few questions about his work, and…
In case you missed last week’s webinar, “Circular fashion: The state of play in the apparel industry” (actually more of a discussion based conference call) you can listen to it here: http://bit.ly/circularapparelwebinar Here’s what we aimed to discuss: Circularity is inching its way into the fashion industry, but how close is it to mainstream application?…
Here’s some notes from our recent conference on How business can make smallholder supply chains resilient which we held on 13-14 March in London, where we were generously hosted by Diageo at their London HQ. Their work on smallholders is commendable, and can be seen here. Here are my notes from a few sessions. It by no means…
Here are some of my notes from our recent conference on this subject. These are just from a few sessions, so only represent a snapshot of the conference, which was fascinating. To get the full notes or experience, you’d need to attend. Sorry, but publishing is like the music industry now: It’s all about the…
So here’s some of our recent analysis, podcast and webinars published on https://innovation-forum.co.uk in recent weeks. I hope you find them useful. All designed to be short, sharp, insightful and practical. And all free. You can’t argue with that. See below. The radical supply chain transparency solution The latest palm oil supply disclosures from Unilever and…
The story I’m talking about is this one: Chinese insurer ZhongAn plans blockchain chicken coup Poultry-tracking ledger technology can improve country’s food safety, says chief From the Financial Times today. In case you can’t read it (the curse of paywalls, media in search of a business model) here’s what it says, in quotes: “An insurance…
The business case is, as ever, the holy grail of corporate sustainability in 99.99% of companies. How do you make the business case? You start with measurement. Then you take targets, put them with performance, and measurement, and then you think about innovation, opportunity and moving towards figuring out how you make a net positive…
Greenpeace’s new “Moment of Truth” campaign report today claims that: “Eight major household brands such as PZ Cussons, Johnson & Johnson and Kraft Heinz are refusing to say where their palm oil comes from, despite promising to stop buying from companies that destroy rainforests. Eight others, such as Nestlé and Unilever, have made their palm…
I recently went to visit the new London Business School building on Euston road in central London. It’s an impressive, (and listed) building, where the architects have combined the new and traditional elegantly. I caught up with Ioannis Ioannou there over coffee. If you don’t know Ioannis’s work, I commend it to you. He is one…
I'm Toby Webb, founder of Innovation Forum, a sustainability focused research, publishing and events business. I've also been a lecturer on Corporate Responsibility at Kings College London and at Birkbeck, University of London for eight years. I work with large companies all over the world and sit on the sustainability advisory board for Walgreens Boots Alliance. From 2006-9 I lead the development of UK CSR policy, resulting in the Responsibility Deals framework. I can be contacted at Tobias DOT Webb AT innovation-forum.co.uk
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