A regular blog about (un) sustainable business. A focus on practical stuff, not blue sky pretentious waffle. Around 6000 regular readers, surprisingly.
It seems to me that Anglo-Saxon capitalism and globalisation has failed millions of people. In two recent episodes (one barely needs to name them as the Brexit vote and the US election result) many of these citizens decided to vote decisively in protest, for what they hope is change. When you have little to lose, you are…
At Innovation Forum, we held another of our conferences last week. We brought together about 160 company executives, NGOs, government agencies and other experts to debate the thorny topics in the title of this post. Here’s a few of the bullet notes I took that sum up some of the key questions companies taking part are…
(A guest post by Martin Summers) McKinsey research suggests it should. Investors increasingly recognise that companies need to have the right governance in place and the ability to manage environmental and social factors (ESG) if they are to mitigate risk and create value over the long term. It’s also becoming increasingly obvious that some of…
Here’s two short videos I taped a couple of years ago on the history of CSR and sustainable business. Each is about five minutes and they were the most popular ones on the online course I used to run with Mallen Baker (at least, out of the videos I taped) I have given this as a…
Does the internet REALLY need another listicle, I hear you ask? Probably not. But readers do click on stuff like this, hence the headline. I think it’s because you know it’s not going to be very long (or deep) and you might have time to get to the end. My guesswork aside, this listicle (it’s better…
Here below are four recent podcasts we taped at events we at Innovation Forum held earlier this year. The focus is all about smallholder farmers and how companies can better engage them, tackle capacity challenges, improve yields and overcome the limits to certification. (Many more podcasts can be found here) And this upcoming conference should…
Big food and FMCG brands and retailers have set important and game-changing targets in sustainable agriculture. Achieving these are amongst the biggest challenges that companies face in the next decade. Much has been done in recent years, but we’re a long way from overall success. So how will companies get there ‘on time’? Which techniques,…
At Innovation Forum we’re now helping companies understand risk in a cost effective way, that’s not just through edgy, focused conferences which get to the heart of the issues. Several companies has asked us to provide them with a quarterly, cost effective risk briefing service via PDF report, and face to face meetings. These focus…
Here’s the latest of the podcast series Scott Poynton, founder of TFT (The Forest Trust) and I are doing this year. In this edition we talked about the demise of the Indonesian Palm Oil Pledge, the IOI vs. RSPO lawsuit closure, Resolute vs. Greenpeace (briefly), why talking to critics is really the best way. We…
There are a few questions in the world of responsible business which always get attention. These are the thorny, difficult, riddled-with-potential-conflict-of-interest-and-controversy questions. One of them is: “How should companies responsibly engage and persuade Governments to think longer term in a sustainable way?” Another is this, the title of this post: “Should business defend environmental and human…
The case of an activist being supported by a Finnish company testifying against a former supplier in Thailand shows how the progressive business landscape is changing Relationships between companies and campaigners have evolved over the last few years. Still often adversaries, multinationals and NGOs now also work together towards common sustainability goals. Now, a case…
As we move into the summer break, here are some upcoming meetings from Innovation Forum that readers might want to think about coming to later in 2016. Remember, we take away all the boring bits of conferences and emphasise the useful. So our events are all about debate, the right people in the room, focus,…
Yesterday I took part in a webinar hosted by Forest Trends / Supply Change and our company, Innovation Forum. Our brief was to discuss progress made on tacking deforestation in corporate supply chains. I made a few remarks in an attempt to offer some challenge to current thinking, and to think about where we need…
It’s easy for companies keen to promote sustainability and resilience in their supply chains to neglect the potential of relationships with donor agencies, NGOs and governments. But if scale is the goal, collaboration is clearly the method. But these two words, scale and collaboration, are hugely over-used and not always well understood. To cut through…
“Everyone loves a good webinar”. That’s what my dear old grandmother used to say. Actually, she didn’t. For her the internet was something that happened to other people. But she would have loved this one, as she was a big fan of deforestation-free supply chains (that’s true, she spent a lot of time in Malaysia…
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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