Unilever is the top Food & Beverage company on the Dow Jones Sustainability Index. Through Bullfrog Power, Unilever recently became the largest commercial purchaser of renewable energy in Canada at 59,000 MWh per year. What is Unilever’s sustainability strategy and why do they do it? To find out, I took a tour of their Brampton plant and talked to John Coyne, Vice President and General Counsel of Unilever Canada.
Leading business schools in Canada and around the world are adding sustainability to their required MBA curricula. Oxford in the U.K., INSEAD in France, and York University in Canada are some of the business schools with required courses in sustainability. This can be seen as an indicator that sustainability has become a core business competency needed to effectively compete in today’s and tomorrow’s environments.
For decades HP has worked to manage its environmental impact by adopting environmentally responsible practices in product development, operations and supply chain. At a recent Toronto Sustainability Speaker Series event, Frances Edmonds, Director of Environmental Programs at HP Canada, told the story of how HP developed its sustainability program over the years.
How does sustainability affect raising capital? How do investment banks see sustainability when analyzing opportunities? What’s the point of view from venture capital firms? How does sustainability affect a business’ credit rating? This article looks at the current views from Standard & Poor’s, Toronto-Dominion Bank, MissionPoint Capital and others on this matter. We also look at what a business can do to attract capital.
In any corporate sustainability project, whether it is reducing greenhouse gas emissions, paper use, or supply chain waste, choosing the right key performance indicators is a critical ingredient to success. At the conference on Environmental, Social and Governance Issues hosted by the Canadian Institute of Chartered Accountants, Cathy Cobey from Ernst & Young talked about how to choose smarter KPIs.