ThinkingShift

Now, I’m sure you’ll be shocked to learn that the human species is the cruelest on the planet. Gasp, quell horror!! I bet you thought it was collie dogs or doves. Nope, it’s humans. And here’s a round-up of what we’ve done to other species on this planet.

• single-handedly revived the fur industry and exotic animal skin trade. Dead minks, dead foxes, dead rabbits and other carcases are being increasingly worn on the backs of stick insects tottering down the catwalks of the world and by rappers. According to the Fur Information Council of America, retail sales of fur and fur trim continued to grow in 2005, totaling $1.82 billion, an increase of 82% from 1991. Let’s read that again: an 82% increase in wearing dead animals over a 14 year period.

• 39 states in the US allow the hunting of mourning doves. Yep, really dangerous creatures these. Here’s a picture of this ferocious bird so you can recognise it should it menace you.

• Apparently, there are twisted individuals who like to go out hunting this innocent bird because it flies at breakneck speed, turning and diving as it flies. 22 million mourning doves are slaughtered every year in the US.

• we gorge on salmon, factory-farmed in such overcrowded tanks that their skeletons become malformed and their skullbones burst through their skin in a condition called “death crown.“

• some of us wear dead alligators or crocodiles - as handbags or shoes - without giving a moment’s thought to how these poor creatures were flayed alive or slashed to death. Or how their spinal cords are severed and it takes from 1 hour 41 minutes to 1 hour 53 minutes for the animals to lose consciousness, during which time they probably experience terrible pain.

• the really cruel amongst us purposely breed fighting roosters and fowl that are bred to rip each other’s eyes out or claw an opponent to death. The birds are often drugged with steroids, strychnine and amphetamine to give them that “fighting spirit”. Humans stand back, watch and bet on the outcome.

• and if humans can’t wait for the hunting season to begin, they can choof off to Texas to hunt zebra, blackbuck, gazelle and yaks all-year round. And if humans are really bored and have nothing better to do, they can even hunt rare animals like Pere David’s Deer or Sambar Deer in Texas.

So, yes, we should be worrying about global warming and whether our shampoo has sodium lauryl sulfate or sodium laureth sulfate in it. But we should also pause and think about how we humans are insufferably cruel to other species that share this planet with us.

Instead of going to movies or being dumbed-down by TV, spend your weekend reading Erin E. Williams and Margo DeMello’s Why Animals Matter and learn about our crimes against nature. You will be appalled.

Source: Alternet

Well, I’ve been a Chief Knowledge Officer. Perhaps I could morph myself into a Chief Sustainability Officer - especially given Patrick Lambe’s rather depressing survey results, which revealed how much organisations invest in their KM initiatives (and Australia doesn’t come out smelling very rosy). So if the life of a knowledge manager is “nasty, brutish and short”, then you could turn your attention to organisational efforts in sustainability (which must surely require some KM input).

Forbes recently highlighted how the new role of Chief Sustainability Officer (CSO) is emerging within the corporate echelons. The CSO’s role is to balance the difficulties and opportunities created by climate change. The article suggests that as the world cooks, the CSO might become the most influential corporate position as organisations struggle to identify and embrace the business opportunities that present themselves. So green is a growth opportunity and those that snap up the opportunities will survive in an increasingly complex and environmentally-troubled world.

A sustainable approach to business can produce a healthier bottom line. Better resource use and energy management can lower operational and manufacturing costs and reduce pollution and waste; “green” products, services and technologies can increase revenue; critical resources can be conserved; and a corporation can be seen as environmentally responsible, which boosts the brand and results in positive PR opportunities. A further benefit of course is that pursuing sustainability goals can attract employees who wish to “make a difference”.

Since the 1960s, there has been an organisational role that focuses on the environment but from the perspective of regulatory compliance. The focus is now shifting to this role feeding into strategy, product design, marketing and corporate communications. The CSO is now the bridge between the environment and business. What was once good for the environment was considered bad for business. The CSO role can bridge these opposing forces perhaps.

And what might be the competencies the CSO needs? According to Forbes:

• someone who sees the “big picture” and the long-range trajectory
• a strategist with the ability to rethink organisational structure and recognise levers for change
• someone who’s not afraid to “rock the boat”
• a charismatic person
• a leader with the ability to create consensus and drive change
• needs to be involved in integrating environmental thinking into every layer of the organisation
• needs to create awareness that the role is about creating a better way of doing business, a more sustainable way of doing business
• facilitator and enabler
• someone who is not easily intimidated by corporate bureaucracy
• and I’ll add my own one - a fox terrier who bites the corporate ankle, thrashes around and doesn’t let go until mission accomplished.

Mmmm….so far, sounds a lot like the competencies a KM person requires. A 2006 survey of 25 US companies found that 15 of the CSOs are vice-presidents; 6 are directors; and women fill 9 of the chief environmental positions. But like KM, the position the CSO occupies in the corporate hierarchy says a lot about the value that organisation places on environmental issues.

I seem to remember a lot of CKOs in the early 2000s (myself included) but the KM world is less populated with CKOs these days. So the CSO is probably the new CKO. If the CSO position is a top role in the hierarchy, then there’s some hope of influencing a corporation’s sustainability journey (as with the CKO and the “KM journey”). The CSO will be able to survey the whole corporate ecosystem and identify patterns etc.

I’ll be interested to see if the CSO role becomes popular in Australia. A quick search of Seek didn’t throw up anything and ferreting around Google only showed CSOs in US companies, like Dupont. If you know of any Australian positions, leave a comment.

And what qualifications will a CSO need - legal, government background, science, research and development? The experiences of some US companies sounds a lot like KM again - Owens Corning Inc plucked their CSO from its research department, whilst Home Depot found their CSO lurking in merchandising. KM people come from disparate backgrounds too and are often plucked from the ranks of a company to fill a KM position (and after a stint in KM in my experience, these people are often all too happy to go back from whence they came!). Perhaps we’ll start to see University courses like Graduate Certificate in Sustainability as we see now with KM. There are already educational institutions that offer an MBA in Sustainable Business or who offer a green MBA curriculum.

Well, my career in KM hasn’t been “nasty, brutish and short” since I’ve been in the field since around 1996 or so. But a CSO role sure looks interesting!

In all the stuff I’ve read on global warming and the havoc we’re wreaking on our planet, one thing has always stood out for me. As the planet heats up, exotic diseases or diseases that have been dormant in the darkest parts of the African or Amazonian jungles will burst forth. So I get alarmed when I read about increasing deforestation because forests and undergrowth are often the natural protection against diseases.

Whenever I go to Johannesburg to visit family, I arm myself with malarial prevention. Not that Johannesburg has malaria but just in case (yep, paranoid I know). But it seems that malaria is making a a comeback and is just one of the dire signs I think we need to be aware of. I was thinking of visiting South America, particularly Peru, but maybe not. For 40 years, Peru has been malaria-free but the mosquito-borne disease is making a dramatic comeback. 64,000 cases of malaria have been noted during 2007 alone.

Now, this is not because the world’s mosquito population has suddenly decided to hold its annual convention in Peru. Nope, it’s because of deforestation and climate change. Peru is not trying to eradicate malaria all over again; it’s just desperately trying to control the outbreak.

Off-season rain means that sunlit puddles of water are lying around and provide an ideal breeding ground for mosquito larvae. “The actual malaria problem of the Peruvian Amazon is caused by constant climate changes,” says biologist Carlos Pacheco. But as rainforests crash down due to logging and clearing, mosquitos are moving into new areas where they can feed on humans. The biting rate of mosquitoes in deforested areas is apparently nearly 300 times greater than in virgin forests. Because Peru has been free of malaria for decades, the population is ill-educated on malaria prevention and mosquito nets and medical treatment are not readily available. In an ironic twist, loggers are the main victims of malaria.

If you want to freak yourself out thinking about a future with infectious diseases brought about by climate change, here’s a brief run down:

• plague due to increased rodent populations following heavy rainfalls likely to hit us
• cholera and rodent-borne hantavirus
• Murray Valley encephalitis and Ross River virus in Australia
• meningitis epidemics
• Guinea worm and Chagas’ disease
• dengue or breakbone fever
• yellow fever
• Lyme disease

You get the idea. I remember reading a report a couple of years ago that had me freaked out by Dr Paul Epstein of the Centre for Health and Global Environment in Massachusetts, US. You can read highlights of his study here.

Source: Guardian Unlimited

I’ve been researching into corporate sustainability and have come across some useful resources that I thought I’d share with you. First up, is a new publication by the World Business Council for Sustainable Development - The New Role of Corporate Leadership in Global Development. Check it out here. A key message for business is: “Given the right conditions, the private sector can improve the lives of people in the low-income segment through direct employment, procurement from local suppliers and delivery of affordable products and services.”

Sorry, but having read Naomi Klein’s The Shock Doctrine, I’m a tad skeptical about this. Seems to me that relentless privatisation just feeds greedy corporations and is creating a gaping wealth divide. So people in the low-income bracket don’t always get a share of the wealth. And will corporations actively worry about improving the lives of people in this income bracket?? I wonder.

The Wall Street Journal has a special issue on the environment. It looks at topics such as public attitudes towards climate change and personal sacrifice; building green and affordable; alternative energies. I also found the United Nations Environment Programme has just published the fourth Global Environment Outlook. Its compiled by 390 experts from observations, studies and data garnered over two decades. Pretty bad news: the report says that humanity is ravaging the planet so voraciously and so rapidly that future generations will be bequeathed a devoured planet. Earth has experienced five mass extinctions in 450 million years, the latest of which occurred 65 million years ago and the report highlights that a sixth major extinction is under way, this time caused by human behaviour.

Interesting and scary statistics from this report. Here’s a taste.

• climate is changing faster than at any time in the past 500,000 years
• global average temperatures rose by 0.74 degrees Celsius (1.33 Fahrenheit) over the past century and are forecast to rise by 1.8 to four C (3.24-7.2 F) by 2100
• global population is expected to peak at between 8 and 9.7 billion by 2050
• in Africa, land degradation and even desertification are threats; per capita food production has declined by 12% since 1981

The UN report presents four scenarios to the year 2050: “Markets First”, “Policy First”, “Security First”, “Sustainability First”.

Also news about rising sea levels and other disasters related to climate change. 33 cities are predicted to have at least 8 million people by 2015 and at least 21 of these cities are highly vulnerable - Dhaka, Bangladesh, Buenos Aires, Rio de Janeiro, Shanghai and Tianjin in China, Alexandria and Cairo in Egypt, Mumbai and Kolkata in India, Jakarta, Tokyo and Osaka-Kobe in Japan, Lagos, Karachi, Bangkok, New York, Los Angeles.

643 million people or more than one tenth of the world’s population live in low-lying areas at risk of climate change. In descending order, China, India, Bangladesh, Vietnam, Indonesia, Japan, Egypt, the U.S., Thailand and the Philippines are countries most at risk.

From the 1960s to now, the peaceful, green English countryside has been disappearing due to relentless urbanisation - highways and population growth have eroded the tranquility. In the early 1960s, the motorways had barely started to encroach and 26% of the countryside was classed as disturbed. By the 1990s, 41% of the English countryside was suffering from urban blight. By 2007, 50% has disappeared due to urban intrusion. South-east England is the worst affected with a 70% loss of undisturbed countryside. So by the end of the 21st Century, countryside free from major disturbance could all be swallowed up in most regions of England.

This is all according to new maps just published by Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE). Once tranquil areas are now subject to noise, street lights, spoiled views, power lines, airports and highways. More than 12,350 square miles of countryside have been affected since the 1960s. And since 1990, each year is witness to a further 320 square miles disappearing. As the CEO of CPRE says: “Countryside which is undisturbed by noise and development is vital for our quality of life and well-being. These maps show what the future may hold if we don’t sufficiently value our wonderful rural landscapes. As the shadow of intrusion stretches further and wider, the peace and quiet we need is harder to find.“

CPRE has just released the intrusion maps and they bring together data spanning the 1960s, 1990s and 2007. You can see the maps from the 1960s and 2007 below - click on them for fuller detail.

You can download the full report - Developing an Intrusion Map of England - here. What a sorry state of affairs.

Photo credit: CPRE

Okay, this week I admit I’ve been a bit introspective pondering the English language, cemeteries and heroes, so time for a change of pace. I just had a week’s holiday and for once decided to stay at home rather than schlepping overseas. This resulted in time to read and contemplate, hence the posts of the last few days.

So…..today’s post is something pretty interesting to me and anyone interested in global warming-related corporate social responsibility issues. GreenMachines.net has just launched the internet’s first green corporate governance network - a social network with the mission of helping to turn climate-related corporate decision-making into a public process so that the technological and economic power of business corporations is focused on the fight against global warming.

There are four online discussion areas on the network:

• The Whistle: looks at whether particular corporations are violating laws designed to reduce greenhouse gas emission. Whistleblower protection is provided by Massachusetts v. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), 549 U.S. __ (2007), in which the US Supreme Court gives the EPA authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from the tailpipes of new motor vehicles - meaning that the United States Supreme Court has found that carbon dioxide is a “pollutant” within the meaning of the Clean Air Act and the Court’s reasoning applies equally to other greenhouse gases. So anyone who thinks a company is violating the Clean Air Act by unlawfully emitting greenhouse gases can report the violation on the network.
• The Long View: an area for discussing carbon footprint-reducing investments that corporations can make to develop or implement carbon dioxide (”CO2″) capture and/or sequestration technologies.
• Value-Added: here the network can share information about the steps a company can take to develop or implement CO2 capturing or sequestering technologies or find information on how to publish a Corporate Sustainability Report.
• Deconstruction Zone: an area to discuss and highlight the accuracy of a company’s Corporate Environmental Responsibility Reports or other green PR.

All four forums are moderated and anyone can join. Under New Posts, I found a whole lot of stuff on court cases involving non-compliant companies; companies that are seen as having the greenest tech brands; what specific companies like Wells Fargo and Chevron are doing around sustainability; and a link to measuring and managing corporate carbon footprints.

Quite timely really given the recent article in The Economist. US economist, Robert Reich’s new book, Supercapitalism, denounces CSR as a dangerous diversion that is undermining democracy. Reich has apparently had a Damascene conversion and following many years of preaching the CSR gospel, now believes that companies cannot be socially responsible and that CSR activitists need to focus on getting Governments to solve social problems. He debunks many CSR arguments and maintains that socially responsible companies are not necessarily more profitable and that many companies are using CSR as a propaganda tool to fool the public into thinking that problems are being addressed.

I suspect a good cat fight will erupt over this book - check out the overview of the book in The Economist article.

An interesting report has been released by Goldman Sachs, which highlights how an increasing number of business leaders view corporate social responsibility as a way to build trust with stakeholders, compete successfully, build business value and deliver higher stock prices. The report examined 6 industry sectors - energy, mining, steel, food, beverages, and media - and showed that companies in these sectors who were considered leaders in implementing environmental, social and governance (ESG) policies have outperformed the general stock market by 25% since August 2005. And 72% of these companies have outperformed their peers over the same period. You can download the report from the United Nations Global Compact site.

A complementary survey carried out by McKinsey & Co has found that CEOs are now listening to the call for increased environmental, social and governance strategies. 90% of CEOs surveyed say they are focusing more on ESG than 5 years ago. 72% of CEOs believe that corporate responsibility should be fully embedded in strategy and operations, but only 50% think their firms are actively doing so. You can can download the McKinsey survey from the UN Global Compact site too.

Whilst there is no global legal responsibility (yet) for companies to issue sustainability reports, it’s good to see that a number of companies are responding to internal and external demands to be transparent about their business activities.

I also found another report from KPMG and the Global Reporting Initiative (NGO started in 2000) very useful. The publication analysed sustainability reports published in 2006 by 50 leading companies and found that there were some surprising business opportunities from climate change, mostly in carbon credits.

I remember when I first went to Brazil to check out the Amazon, the only thing I was really worried about were nasty little fish with razor-sharp teeth - piranhas. I’d been watching a film (can’t recall the name) but a scene showed a man deciding to bathe while his friends watched from the shore - cut to underwater shot of blood-thirsty little creatures zooming in on target and resulting chaos amid red-coloured water. I never came face to teeth with a piranha and it seems I might not need to worry anyway.

Reuters brings us news that the feisty little devils are not so fearsome after all. In fact, they could be wimps, gathering together in large shoals to protect themselves as opposed to gathering for the collective kill. Researchers believe that piranhas aren’t aggressive killers but omnivorous scavengers, eating mainly fish, plants and insects. When you think about it, piranhas probably have a lot to worry about because sharing the waters with them are much larger fish: river dolphins, caimans and the giant piracucu.

So when the little critters gather together in a large shoal, this is actually defensive behaviour and a reaction to larger fish probably being in the area. Apparently, this behaviour particularly occurs when the water levels in the Amazon basin are low and the piranhas have no means of escape.

This is very useful information actually - when I next see large groups of people gathering together in an organisation for a meeting, I won’t view this as a “piranha mob” about to announce some restructure or sundry unpleasant news - I’ll look on them as “management without teeth” :)-

Photo credit: Reuters

Well, at the risk of getting savaged again on one of those social networking sites, today’s post highlights climate friendly companies. And if I’m accused again of being “one of those whining greenies who believe in climate change”, then yep, I admit it - I’m deeply concerned about how we’re damaging the planet, killing off species, stuffing up the climate. So….I was pleased to come across this article, which talks about how companies are getting ranked on global warming from the consumer’s viewpoint.

A new non-profit, Climate Counts, has produced a climate scorecard based on 22 criteria. Companies are graded from 1 to 100 on whether they measure their carbon footprint; how they are reducing their impact on the environment; compliance with legislation; and what they publicly disclose about corporate activities and environmental impact.

Fifty-six companies from North America and the UK have been ranked. So who’s on top and who’s at the bottom? Canon, Nike and Unilever came out shining with scores of 77, 73 and 71 respectively. Amazon.com, Wendy’s, Burger King, Jones Apparel, CBS and Darden Restaurants (Red Lobster, Olive Garden) all got zeros. Apple, eBay.com and Levi Strauss also were among 16 companies with scores under 10. Being an Apple fanatic, I was a bit disappointed with Apple’s score (2) - lift your game! even Google is going green with their ambitious plan to team up with Intel and cut the amount of energy computers consume by 2010. Regular ThinkingShift readers will know I’m somewhat obsessed with Google (over privacy concerns) but have to admit that at least they’re trying to do something about carbon emissions :)- Overall, electronics/computer companies scored well: IBM, Toshiba, Motorola, Hewlett-Packard and Sony, Dell, Hitachi, Siemens, Samsung and Nokia were all in double digits.

Companies in the food industry didn’t fare too well: Starbucks ranked highest in this group, with 46, followed by McDonald’s at 22. Yum Brands — which includes Kentucky Fried Chicken and Taco Bell — scored a 1.

The climate scorecard was developed with assistance from business and climate experts and you can go here to check out the scorecard. It’s a great way for consumers to decide which companies are committed to reducing their contribution to global warming and this results in empowered purchasing decisions. There’s even a downloadable pocket version [PDF] of the scorecard you can carry with you.

Back to the surveillance society: I’ve been thinking about how CCTV cameras are emergent properties of a system: a fear-based society in which the human-eyes of Jane Jacob’s city, who watch over and protect neighbours, have been replaced by a deep mistrust of fellow human beings. We are subjected to intrusive searches at airports; fingerprinting; iris scanning; Google Street View.

Now we have eye-tracking devices that will be able to record people looking at ads on billboards. The Eyebox2 is a new eye-tracking capability: a palm-size video camera that can record eye contact with 15-degree accuracy at a distance of up to 33 feet. Advertising nirvana perhaps, but for people like me concerned about the contemporary erosion of privacy, it’s yet another intrusion on the self and another example of how the social contract (always a delicate balance) is being pummelled. The social contract binds a society together: in exchange for certain civil rights - such as the right to equal protection or the right of freedom of movement - individuals jointly agree to subject themselves to civil law or political authority. Paramount amongst our civil rights is the right to privacy.

I question whether those glass-domed eyes silently watching and recording our movements are not in fact breaching our right to privacy, along with technologies like Google Street View and Google Maps. Time magazine recently raised the question: are Google Maps an invasion of our privacy? What I’ve seen mostly is blogs and websites making fun of images captured by Street View - here’s an example. Why are we not concerned about being watched by what are frankly surveillance technologies?? Have we become so apathetic and accepting of what Governments tell us that we can no longer question whether we are hurtling straight into becoming a controlled, fear-based, mistrustful society?

Thankfully, the privacy lawyer for Electronic Frontier Foundation, Kevin Bankston, is speaking out about Street View: “There is a serious tension here, between the concepts of free speech, and open information, and the idea of privacy….We don’t think what Google’s done here is necessarily illegal, though a few images may cross the line and may create liability. It’s more that they’ve done something that’s really irresponsible and rude to people.” Irresponsible, embarrassing, humiliating, thoughtless, unethical. I for one do not want my cat snapped by the roving Big Brother eye of Google while said cat peacefully suns itself in the front window of my house; nor do I wish to be citizen Joe standing on a street corner minding my own business, then suddenly finding myself on Street View with the caption ‘The Voices in My Head are Back” emblazoned for all to see and snigger over - funny caption perhaps but not so funny impact on the person.

A right to privacy and freedom of movement means that a man can quietly slip into a “gentleman’s club’ for a lunch hour’s worth of (dubious) entertainment; you can protest at a political rally; or you can exit unseen out of a plastic surgeon’s office following a shot or two of botox. The sorts of activities we get up to as social animals might be questionable or downright immoral, but our right to carry them out in anonymity emanates from our right to privacy. Ironically, Kevin Bankston’s image was captured by Google Street-View and Google has refused his request to take it down without Bankston coughing up a driver’s licence and various documentation.

Privacy International has just released a report, A Race to the Bottom: Privacy Ranking of Internet Search Companies, and no doubt you’ll be truly shocked to learn which search engine company was at the bottom of the list - Google - which was accused of entrenched hostility to privacy and using personal data less responsibly than its competitors. Let’s not forget that Google is a company that recently acquired the online advertising firm DoubleClick, making it the possessor of the world’s largest collection of data about Web users’ behaviour. Google senior engineer, Matt Cutts, laughed off Privacy International’s report saying: “Personally, I think Privacy International should feel remorse about walking right past several other companies to single out Google for their lowest rating.” Ah yes, good ploy: let’s shift the blame onto the competitors.

Surely, we’re moving into a future we don’t want to step into. A future in which we will without a doubt be snapped by some glass-domed CCTV camera or caught unawares (and perhaps compromised) by Google. Where everything occurring in our world will be Googleable and where we will live in cities that are nothing more than a Panopticon, guarded by silent, glass-domed sentinels.

For an extreme glimpse into our future as a watched over society, check this out.