BE Blogs: A Voice for Responsible Business
Don’t Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is, Put Your Back: Supercharged Philanthropy
“It’s good to hear that you donated some money to a cause, but I can do that myself! Show me what you can really do!”
I’ve heard a number of fellow SXSW attendees today commenting about the limited effectiveness of many philanthropic campaigns. A recurring theme was something along the lines of “giving money to charities and then telling customers about it is good, but is there a better way?”
Profit Responsibly in 2011 – Resolutions for the New Year
As 2010 draws to a close, now is the perfect time to make some resolutions for your business.
In 2011, take steps to make your business more responsible, greener, more in tune with all of your various stake holders and more profitable with the following resolutions:
- Conduct an annual energy audit at each of your facilities, and work to become more efficient every year.
- Enact new heating and cooling policies (and follow through by raising the thermostat a few degrees in the summer and lower it in the winter).
- Switch to double-sided and / or black and white printing or, better yet, encourage employees to NOT print materials unless they have to.
- Install software that automatically shuts down computers at the end of the day, or at least make it a policy for employees to fully shut down at night.
- Allow employees to volunteer for charities on company time, and pay their regular wages while they do so. Read more >>
GRI & Sustainability: The Small Business Advantage
The following is a guest post by Jennifer Roberts, content strategist at Collective Intellect. Contact us if you would like to be a guest author for BusinessEarth.
The Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) provides a framework for companies to measure and report their economic, environmental, and social performance. At first glance, a formal framework may seem overkill for a small business. However, the core principles of the GRI can benefit small players as much, if not more, than a Fortune 500 company.
Measuring Beyond the Bottom Line
Revenue and profit are critical to your operation. If you don’t keep tabs on these numbers, your business won’t survive. The GRI is simply an extension of these metrics that allows you to measure the impact of your business on your environment and community (including your customers).