Corporate Citizenship

Corporate Responsibility and reporting begin to blossom in China
Chairman Mao would be spinning in his grave if he knew that his original call to action, designed to flush out his critics under the guise of democratic discourse in China in the 1950s, had been hijacked in so crude a fashion. But it serves us well.
Corporate [...]

Goodbye to the Year of the Tiger and welcome to the Year of the Metal Rabbit! Let’s be honest, economically speaking, we’ve made it with barely a bounce. But with little confidence in our own government’s predictions, perhaps we can take consolation from the ancient wisdom of the Chinese zodiac on our prospects and quest [...]

While all the world is caught up in the daily dramas of Wiki-leaks, I can’t help thinking the time is right for an Eco-leaks spin-off for disgruntled CR practitioners whose companies’ and clients are saying one thing and doing another? Or who change their goal posts and hope that no-one notices? Progressive or destructive? Discuss!

Went to a sustainable agriculture conference yesterday and heard a lot about companies’ ‘engaging with farmers’ to be more sustainable – by reducing their environmental impacts and increasing productivity and efficiencies in their supply chain… everything from carbon footprints and certification, to irrigation technologies for our water-scarce world. With a few notable exceptions, I left [...]

Looking for inspiration in a jaded consumerist world?  Seeking to foment continuous revolution? Look no further than the latest app in China from beyond the grave. More than 12 iPhone apps bearing Chairman Mao’s name will give you his poetry, his prose, and his paper tigers…

As if Apple weren’t in enough trouble with a number of worker suicides on its hands in its Chinese supplier factory Foxconn… Shanghai papers this morning report concerns from female customers in its flagship store who are attracting leery stares from men at the bottom of its transparent spiral stairs, looking up their skirts. We’re [...]

Monsoon season in Mumbai, wellies or plastic shoes the order of the day. Staying in the ITC Maratha Hotel where bedside reading is, I kid you not, their Sustainability Report 2009!  At 100 pages it’s a hefty read, GR3 compliant, with claims to be ‘the only company in the world to have become carbon positive, [...]

I visited a Beijing suburban market last weekend and came across an organic dairy enterprise called Green Yard that made this claim: ‘we have a wide playground for cows, with mild music that increases their feeling of happiness, and thus enhances the freshness and good taste of the milk.’  
One year on from its milk contamination [...]

 In the city that never sleeps, I’m here to talk sustainability and citizenship to a group of senior Chinese managers.  There’s appetite for the subject, but apathy too. With a business growing at 40% + p.a, it’s hard to convince them that anything other than business as usual is the way forward.  But they also [...]

Who’d have thought it? Mao memorabilia is nothing new in China. His face adorns lighters, t-shirts and alarm clocks…but always in revolutionary red (as he would have wanted it). But now Mao can be found in mini statuette form, in a pretty shade of pink. What would he think?  From red revolutionary to pink trinket.  [...]