CSRlive

Can Protecting Disabled Workers Do More Harm than Good?

05.25.2012 - 09:27AM

Will new legislation requiring companies to do more to accommodate disabled workers and protect their right prevent them from getting hired in the first place?

The True Value of CSR Reporting: In Conversation with Campbell Soup's VP for CSR

05.25.2012 - 09:27AM

Capturing the nuances of CSR and sustainability reporting with Campbell Soup's CSR chief Dave Stangis. On Talkback.

A Brief History Of Corporate Whining

05.25.2012 - 09:26AM

When You Put It This Way, Corporations Actually Sound A LOT Like People. Annoying, Intolerable People.

Apple’s New Coal-Free Data Centers

05.25.2012 - 09:26AM

Great News, Missed Opportunity

Cold Cash, Cool Climate

05.25.2012 - 09:26AM

Science-Based Advice For Ecological Entrepreneurs

Goldman Sachs To Invest $40 Billion In Clean Energy: ‘The Underlying Thesis Still Holds True’

05.24.2012 - 10:34AM

is this a real vote for the renewable energy sector or a public relations ploy?

U.S. Coal Generation Drops 19 Percent in One Year

05.24.2012 - 10:32AM

Power generation from coal is falling quickly.

A Million Carb-Light Miles Makes Frito-Lay Crave More

05.24.2012 - 10:29AM

The company's fleet of electric delivery trucks surpassed one million miles this month.

Should CSR Stand for Chefs’ Social Responsibility?

05.23.2012 - 09:32AM

Do chefs have a responsibility to incorporate sustainability practices, environmental or social, into their discipline? Or should a chef focus on their culinary artistry?

Cold Cash, Cool Climate: Science-Based Advice For Ecological Entrepreneurs

05.23.2012 - 09:32AM

This blog post is the first of an 11-part series summarizing key lessons from the new book Cold Cash, Cool Climate

Accenture Hosts Sustainability 24: Setting the Agenda for Business

05.23.2012 - 09:17AM

Including a live, 12-hour interactive online global broadcast connecting live events in Rio de Janeiro, Singapore and London. Register now!

Don't Stifle Your Corporate Social Entrepreneur

05.23.2012 - 09:16AM

Including corporate social entrepreneurship in your employee engagement strategy. CSR Europe's Executive Director explains.

Vision is not enough, we need a route map to build sustainable economies

05.23.2012 - 09:15AM

A new report from the WBCSD sets out the steps needed to accelerate the pace of change in addressing social, ecological and economic challenges.

Create a Life with Purpose

05.23.2012 - 09:15AM

Clay Christensen, Harvard Business School professor and author, discusses his new book and explains why it's essential to follow your commitments 100% of the time.

From Diversity to Inclusion to Impact: Our Journey at Campbell

05.22.2012 - 10:45AM

Being stuck in a different era: Campbell Soup's Director of Diversity & Inclusion elaborates. On Talkback.

CSR Europe's Enterprise 2020 Conference

05.22.2012 - 10:45AM

Christian Jourquin, CEO of Solvay kicked off CSR Europe's 2012 conference, which focused on how to leverage social innovation for growth and sustainability.

Patagonia Founder Publishes 'Responsible' Business Book

05.22.2012 - 10:09AM

The book provides concise step-by-step solutions for people who want to green their business.

Portland Is Top Bike-to-Work City as Lawyers Hit Street

05.22.2012 - 10:05AM

Portland has been named the best city for bike commuting in the U.S.

Can a Values-Based Pledge of Commitment Make a Difference?

05.22.2012 - 08:50AM

Twenty-five million students - or tomorrow's leaders and managers - are currently enrolled in nearly 4,000 colleges and universities across the country. Millions will graduate this spring and forge ahead to make worthy contributions with their employers or continue with their education. But while they all pledge to use their education to build their careers, its also the ideal time to ask them to make one more commitment: to live out values that will make a positive difference to the wide array of social and environmental challenges our nation faces today.

One such commitment was launched in 1995: the Student Pugwash Pledge, to encourage students to use science and technology in a socially responsible manner to create a safer and more just society.

A more recent values-based commitment is the MBA Oath, geared towards business students. Launched in 2009 by a group of Harvard Business School students preparing for graduation, the pledge asks business students to create value responsibly and ethically. The rationale for creating the Oath: What if each of us on our graduation committed to holding ourselves to a higher standard?

It is the same question that prompted a group of young people 25 years ago at Humboldt State University to create a pledge focused on bettering society by increasing social and environmental consciousness in the workplace after graduation. Since that humble beginning in 1987, the idea has turned into a national and global movement known as the Graduation Pledge of Social and Environmental Responsibility. It encourages schools and their students to pledge the following:

"I, _________, pledge to explore and take into account the social and environmental consequences of any job I consider and will try to improve these aspects of any organizations for which I work."

The Pledge operates at three levels:

Students and graduates making choices about their employment,
Schools educating about values and citizenship rather than only knowledge and skills,and
The workplace and society being concerned about more than just the bottom line.

There are those who criticize such pledges as meaningless, feel-good gestures.

But for Meredith Morgoch, a public relations major and graduating senior at Appalachian State University in North Carolina, who was so excited about the Graduation Pledge that she joined the effort as an Outreach Coordinator intern, this is anything but. "I became enthusiastic about the Pledge when I realized that it was necessary to become more conscious of my actions in an effort to improve society through a 'think globally, act locally' approach. I also believe the Pledge takes on a transformative leadership role when student leaders become role models of social and environmental responsibility that other can emulate."

Mary Munion, a senior at Juniata College in Pennsylvania, who will be receiving her Bachelor of Science in Business Communication, is another believer. She plans to fulfill her Pledge commitment by pursuing a career that makes protecting the environment a focal point. "My plan is to go to Law School for Environmental Policy. I want to work for a large corporation's environmental department so I can help big corporations realize that the actions they take play a huge role on the environment."

For Jared Duval, a 2005 Graduation Pledge alumnus from Wheaton College in Norton, Mass., that commitment translated into becoming the National Director of the Sierra Student Coalition (SSC), the nation's largest student-run environmental organization. His experiences there, in fact, even lead to a book, Next Generation Democracy: What the Open-Source Revolution Means for Power, Politics, and Change, published by Bloomsbury in 2010.

Other Pledge alums have started their own environmental organizations to address community issues, persuaded employers to refuse weapons contracts, encouraged more sustainable practices in the workplace and even refused job offers from companies with poor environmental and social responsibility track records.

What good work will result from this year's thousands of students who take the Graduation Pledge? Based on the above examples, great things could happen. Even if only a small minority of graduating students takes the Graduation Pledge and lives it out, the impact is enormous. More than 200,000 have taken the Graduation Pledge since 1987.

Information about the Graduation Pledge Alliance (GPA), the national organizing effort housed at the Bentley University Alliance for Ethics and Social Responsibility, may be found at the GPA's website: www.graduationpledge.org. Information about the Student Pugwash Pledge may be found at www.spusa.org/pledge/index.html. Information about the MBA Oath may be found at http://mbaoath.org.

--By G. Sherman H. Morrison, Executive Director, Graduation Pledge Alliance

Archi-future: 13 Green Buildings That Will Blow Your Mind

05.21.2012 - 06:07PM

As architects continue to envision the utopian cities of the future, one thing is certain: innovation means sustainability.

Businesses Need to Focus on Regeneration and Resilience

05.21.2012 - 11:46AM

Jeffrey Hollender says there is a need for companies and products to focus on regeneration and resilience.

International Paper Sets New Sustainability Goals

05.21.2012 - 11:46AM

“Going green” on a dime is not so simple when a firm must answer to a gaggle of stakeholders and, of course, stockholders.

Slideshow: Retrofit Suggestions For Greener Warehouse Facilities

05.18.2012 - 04:51PM

Retrofitting warehouses the green way. Michael Koploy reports on Talkback.

Looking for the Socially Conscious Consumer

05.18.2012 - 04:50PM

A new Nielson study suggests companies rethink their CSR strategies in the Middle East. Bushra Azhar reports on Talkback.

The Future is Choice, Not Destiny: Two New Books Shift Corporate Mindset on Sustainability

05.18.2012 - 04:50PM

Two recent books shift the business mindset to operationalize sustainability, Bruce Piasacki’s Doing More With Less and Jonathan Koomey’s Cold Cash, Cool Climate.