Page 28 – Sustainability Academy

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has. ~ Margaret Mead

When anthropologist Margaret Mead talked about changing the world, global population was less than 3.7 billion. Now, the population stands at 7.6 billion and growing! How small of a group do we need to promote sustainability? Or how big?

The Centre for Sustainability and Excellence (CSE) wants to change the world. We’re taking on a piece of this “small group of thoughtful, committed citizens” with an initiative to reach 100,000 of them by 2020!

CSE has created the Sustainability Academy, an innovative online platform for organizations to maximize their Social Impact! The goal is to teach the language of sustainability, promote its common goals and explain its unifying principles, across disciplines and international boundaries. With the academy, companies can educate their staff, suppliers and other stakeholders in the field of Sustainability.

“Education is key to individual, corporate and global prosperity,” says Nikos Avlonas, president and founder of CSE, best-selling author and sustainability pioneer. He defines prosperity to include financial, social and governance (ESG) concerns and the triple bottom line – people, planet, profit.

Beyond the lofty objectives of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), corporations face EU directives on sustainability, mandates from ASEAN on sustainable energy, and a global fixation on limiting carbon emissions. Through education, organizations learn tools such as SROI (social return on investment) to help understand and calculate their Social Impact.

For start-ups, world-changing opportunities are even greater. The academy platform helps organizations support Social Entrepreneurship and young entrepreneurs who want to start careers and enterprises already focused on sustainability. Established corporations or new, building a common understanding, knowing key definitions, where to turn for advance guidance, how to report ones successes – these all add to financial performance.

We at CSE are practical dreamers – dreamers with results. Based in part on his work with the Sustainability Academy, the Silicon Valley Community Foundation, the largest community foundation in US and globally, honored Avlonas as 2018 Practitioner of the Year for Corporate Responsibility, together with Google, Inc., winner of the corporate award.

Innovative platforms such as the Sustainability Academy help us all become committed citizens who can change the world!

For more information on how you can promote the initiative or join in the effort, contact [email protected].

The Emerging Corporate Sustainability Role

Over the course of the last 20 years when the terms Sustainability and CSR were first introduced to companies, organizational teams have undergone multiple shifts, urging them to slowly but steadily reevaluate their strategic objectives and goals in order to cope with real challenges on Sustainability. Transformation has been required to be made so that sustainability and CSR departments operate in such matters that reflect the evolution in sustainability both internally and externally.

According to recent researches, sustainability practitioners are not entitled to simply lead and manage projects so that their company is positioned as sustainable and environmentally responsible but have themselves positioned as leaders in the field. That emerging job role states that Sustainability leaders are capable of driving their companies’ initiatives to enhance the sustainability impacts in their operations and value chain. There is a mandate to embed sustainability so that it is in compliance with social and corporate culture; it is financially beneficial whereas it constantly meets the stakeholders’ concerns. The role of Sustainability practitioner evolves in the most fundamental way meaning that professionals need to shift from an operational behavior to a more strategical focus on how to embed sustainable contexts within the organizations.

What can they do

Sustainability directors have to involve all departments and integrate sustainability across business teams within the organization in order to improve sustainable performance and add value to business segments. Foremost, what it is noted in terms of holistic collaboration when it comes to a truly successful sustainability strategy is the direct involvement of the board of directors. It appears that the role of sustainability leader is not one-dimensional but it is wider and more strategical than ever. On that note, the emerging corporate sustainability role implies that the approach on handling the particular job description has to be dynamic and constantly applicable to the requirements and priorities of the organization. During this evolving process, sustainability practitioners need to be proactive and put themselves into the situation of identifying what skills and competencies have to be advanced to become more impactful.

It appears that the role and actions of sustainability professionals have to be defined on a long term which means they constantly re-evaluate their skill-sets, knowledge and experience to be always competitive among the sustainability group of leaders.

If you aim to break into this field and identify the current needs to evolve your sustainability profession, the Center for Sustainability & Excellence (CSE) offers you the globally recognized and challenging Certified Sustainability Practitioner Program that is hosted annually around the world – N.York, Houston, Atlanta, Toronto, London, Dubai, among other cities. Check them out here.

For a more flexible and affordable education, the Silicon Valley awarded Sustainability Academy offers specialized education on hot issues of the field! Check the online courses here.

“Poverty: Punishment for a crime you didn’t commit”

The Sustainable Development Goal 1 aims to end poverty in all its forms everywhere. Extreme poverty is a fundamental problem worldwide and it has been targeted by the United Nations through the 2030 SDGs.

Poverty is a violation of basic human rights and dignity

It is shocking that 1% of the population controls 50% of the world’s wealth. At the same time, a great percentage of the world’s population faces life-threatening problems. These include hunger or malnutrition and lack of access to a proper education among others. Other problems for this unfortunate segment include social discrimination, inequalities and exclusion. It is also very common for them not to participate in decision-making.

According to the United Nations the numbers are disappointing

Less than $1.90 a day: that is amount of money 20% of people living in developing countries have to live on. At the same time, 800 million people live on less than $1.25 a day.

Southern Asia and sub-Saharan Africa are the two regions mostly hit by extreme poverty, while conflicts and small size seem to affect a country’s percentage of poor people.

Concerning children, 25% of them under the age of 5 have insufficient height for their age.

SDG1 Targets:

The United Nation’s SDG1 prioritizes men and women having access to basic human needs and people having equal rights and access to economic resources. It also encourages governments to develop social protection systems for all people.

According to the United Nations, the SDG1 targets include the following:

By 2030, eradicate extreme poverty for all people everywhere, measured as people living on less than $1.90 a day

By 2030, reduce at least by half the proportion of men, women and children of all ages living in poverty in all its dimensions according to national definitions

Implement nationally appropriate social protection systems and measures for all, including floors, and by 2030 achieve substantial coverage of the poor and the vulnerable

By 2030, ensure that all men and women, in particular the poor and the vulnerable, have equal rights to economic resources, as well as access to basic services, ownership and control over land and other forms of property, inheritance, natural resources, appropriate new technology and financial services, including microfinance

By 2030, build the resilience of the poor and those in vulnerable situations and reduce their exposure and vulnerability to climate-related extreme events and other economic, social and environmental shocks and disasters

Ensure significant mobilization of resources from a variety of sources, including through enhanced development cooperation, in order to provide adequate and predictable means for developing countries, in particular least developed countries, to implement programmes and policies to end poverty in all its dimensions

Create sound policy frameworks at the national, regional and international levels, based on pro-poor and gender-sensitive development strategies, to support accelerated investment in poverty eradication actions

For more information on essential sustainability issues and for you to become part of the solution, you can take a look at Sustainability Academy’s online courses

Following the current emerging trend of climate change and its drastic rise along with the acknowledgement of the insurers that climate-related factors have to be identified and reevaluated, business need to be more prepared and reliable on their sustainability plans. However, behavioral economics research argues that there is an underestimate of the risk exposure thus it is questionable on how the firms and cities are effectively implementing strategies that address the climate change.

As cities especially the large ones have become awesome in size, greenhouse gas emissions are accordingly growing. A voracious appetite for energy is created, consuming 2/3 of the world’s energy resulting in over 70% of global CO2 emissions. Recent facts show that US holds number one place in terms of overall CO2 emissions compared to the rest of the world.

Despite Greenhouse Gas Protocol initiative is no longer a newfound practice for the majority of companies to measure and report their emissions, there is more unexplored room for efficient infrastructure and planning. The global climate debate has triggered a greater concern over the need of adaptation following the latest Hurricane Sandy. It is broadly accepted that extreme weather events cannot be exclusively prevented by the Greenhouse gas emissions mitigation.

Society along with business are both liable to adaptation as physical impacts are translated into real time business problems such as resource availability, safety of personnel, facilities and operation as well as major market changes.

There is an onslaught of challenges that happen in the corporate field during this year which demands from executives to initiate a more realistic approach by understanding the risk exposure on a lasting view. To effectively cope with climate adaptation means immediate benefits a long-term positioning, and more solid relationships with stakeholders as well as re-activeness before others do it.

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Have 2018 managers established the mindset to deliver the necessary changes and show leadership on the matter? The Center for Excellence and Sustainability (CSE) is offering to those who are truly determined to be proactive, the Certified Sustainability Practitioner Program in New York City, June 11-12 and address the importance of Sustainability in Supply Chain and Carbon Footprint Reduction. Having completed the program, professionals will be enabled with all the practical tools to implement effective strategies and be prepared for any possible scenario regarding climate change.

More than 19 billion pounds of garbage ends up in our oceans every year, a great percentage coming from soda bottles and plastic bags. This number is expected to rise 100% by 2025 while according to the President of the United Nations, by 2050 there will be as much plastic in the ocean as fish, weight-wise. It is beyond imagination that every piece of plastic ever made is still out there, since only a fraction is recycled.

Where does the plastic come from?

The main reasons for plastic ending up in the oceans are the dumping of garbage into waterways and the pollution by plastic manufacturers. The number one reason though is the mismanaged waste disposal, a great percentage of which is coming from the developing countries. However, individual littering is not coming far behind. The plastic bottle you forgot on the beach is still out there, in the ocean.

The characteristics of plastic

Plastic is widely used in our every-day lives mainly because it is cheap, durable and easy to use. Those are the same reasons why it constitutes the most common trash in the oceans. Plastic has also another trait: it is not bio-degradable, when exposed to sunlight it breaks down to smaller and smaller pieces. But where do those small pieces end up?

The consequences of the pollution

Unfortunately 600 wildlife species are threatened by the rapidly rising use of plastic according to the Ocean Conservancy. Leatherback turtles get caught up in plastic bags which results to their death, whales are found with enormous amounts of plastic in their bellies, while seabirds pick up the plastic fragments to go and feed it to their chicks.

The story does not end here. It has been estimated that 25% of the seafood we eat has consumed plastic which it has also mistaken it for food. We do not yet have exact information of what this can do to humans, still fragments of plastic have been held responsible for being toxic to humans and possibly leading to cancer and reproductive problems.

What can we do?

It is beyond doubt that all nations hand in hand with corporate organizations are the first to take a stand and reduce the amount of plastic that is produced and then stuck in our lives forever. However, each and every one of us has his own share of responsibility. Re-use, recycle and reduce the amount of plastic in your life starting from today.

You want to become part of the solution? For cutting-edge sustainability education on essential sustainability issues, you can take a look at Sustainability Academy’s online courses.

US companies operating in Europe face tough penalties for not publishing Sustainability Reports or publicly disclosing Corporate Responsibility data.

The EU Directive on Non-financial and Diversity Information (Directive 2014/95/EU) can greatly affect North American corporations operating in any of the European Union Member States. The European Commission (EC) objective is to raise to a similarly high level across all Member States the transparency of social and environmental information provided by companies operating in all sectors.

A “similarly high level” does not mean THE SAME. Each member state can modify the directive to comply with national laws. Corporations which meet the minimum requirements in multiple states, must file a report for each Member State, requirements which can differ significantly.

Reports must cover:

Environmental impact including GHG emissions scope 1,2 and 3
Social and employee matters
Respect for human rights
Anti-corruption and bribery concerns

Reports must include:

description of the company’s business model;
description of relevant policies implemented, including due diligence processes;
outcome of those policies;
company’s principal risks, including business relationships, products or services, and how the company manages those risks;
non-financial key performance indicators relevant to the business.

There are many benefits to adhering to the EU directive. Reporting increases stakeholder trust. Companies learn from the reporting process. The effort generates continuous improvements in a business’s impact. And, the requirement to make the report public helps company’s highlight their business integrity.

Another advantage – guidance on incorporating the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). They are the EC’s major policy priority. Addressing the 17 SDGs sustainability challenges, including climate change, human rights, corruption, poverty, inequalities and justice, tops the EU agenda.

The directive applies to Member State-defined “large undertakings which are public-interest entities” having an average of 500 or more employees within a Member State. Each state can also specify: report topics and content, reporting framework, disclosure format, level of auditing and independent assurance, penalties for non-compliance, including the Safe Harbour Principle and including diversity reporting. For companies meeting the 500-employee minimum in multiple countries, the reporting requirements can be quite complex!

How different can requirements be? By country, fines range as low as $1,650 to as high as $12 million! Fines can be applied to an individual or the company. Some states impose a prison sentence, with durations ranging from 2 years to 6 years. There are 30 different variations of reporting. If you oversee compliance, you do not want to get this wrong!

With our European team and global expertise, CSE is uniquely positioned to help companies meet Directive 2014/95/EU requirements. CSE’s Certified Sustainability Practitioner Program, Advanced Edition 2018, addresses EU mandates, providing participants an edge in their efforts to keep their companies ahead of the game. During the upcoming New York City program, June 11-12, 2018, attendees will learn how to apply corporate sustainability strategy and reporting efforts to facilitate meeting EU and other global legislation.

Join us as we stay ahead of reaching global sustainability goals and understanding evolving international laws: Certified Sustainability Practitioner Program, Advanced Edition 2018, New York City, June 11-12, 2018.

Polar bears are mammals that spend most of their time in the Arctic Ocean and they are considered very good swimmers. They have a high percentage of body fat and a water-repellent coat in order to be able to survive in the Arctic Ocean’s conditions and they are mainly fed by seals. They are hunting half of their time and still, they may catch 1 or 2 seals out of 10.

Polar bears are divided into 19 sub-populations, out of which 3 are already in decline according to the IUCN Polar Bear Specialist Group. In the southern Beaufort Sea there has been documented a 40% population loss for polar bears. Additionally scientists are afraid that this decline is going to continue in the future due to climate change since there is a continuous loss of their ice habitat.

But why are polar bears so severely affected by climate change? Polar bears need the sea ice to cover most of their primary needs: they access the seals from which they are fed, while they use it to breed and rest. As sea ice deteriorates polar bears do not have the means to survive.

Dr. Pete Ewins, WWF’s Senior Species Officer stated that “This is a clear warning sign of the impact a warming Arctic has on ice-dependent species like the polar bear.” “Given this sub-population is at the edge of the range, it’s no surprise to see this happening so soon.”

Unfortunately, polar bears are not the only ones affected by climate change. Many species are facing endangerment since their habitats are deteriorating, such as African Elephants, Giant Pandas and Snow Leopards. On the other hand extreme weather conditions have also made their appearance all over the world causing disasters. Hurricanes Harvey, Maria and Irma are only recent examples of how climate change has affected our lives.

It seems that after many years of humans leaving their footprint on the planet, the time has come for animal populations and future generations to pay the price. All nations and people individually should take responsibility for their actions and work together towards a resilient, sustainable world.

You want to become part of the solution? For cutting-edge sustainability education on essential sustainability issues, you can take a look at Sustainability Academy’s online courses.

The Sustainable Development Goal 5 is to achieve gender equality and to empower all women and girls by 2030. However, women and girls still face discrimination and become victims of violence all over the world.

Where do we stand concerning this Sustainable Development Goal?

Unfortunately, 49 countries still do not have laws to protect women from domestic violence. In 87 countries it is estimated that 1 in 5 women and girls under 50 years old fall victims of physical or sexual violence by their partner within last year.

Child marriage is still a real thing: every year 15 million girls get married under the age of 18.

Women find themselves doing 2.6 times more unpaid and domestic work than men. That leaves them with significantly less time to engage in other activities while they make less money.

It is estimated that only 52% of women around the world make their own decisions concerning sexual relations, contraception and health care. As a result, decisions concerning education and work are affected too.

As far as women’s professional status is concerned, they occupy less than a third of senior and middle management positions in the private sector and 23.7% of parliamentary seats.

According to the United Nations the targets of the SDG 5 are the following:

End all forms of discrimination against all women and girls everywhere.

Eliminate all forms of violence against all women and girls in the public and private spheres, including trafficking and sexual and other types of exploitation.

Eliminate all harmful practices, such as child, early and forced marriage and female genital mutilation.

Recognize and value unpaid care and domestic work through the provision of public services, infrastructure and social protection policies and the promotion of shared responsibility within the household and the family as nationally appropriate.

Ensure women’s full and effective participation and equal opportunities for leadership at all levels of decision-making in political, economic and public life.

Ensure universal access to sexual and reproductive health and reproductive rights as agreed in accordance with the Programme of Action of the International Conference on Population and Development and the Beijing Platform for Action and the outcome documents of their review conferences.

Undertake reforms to give women equal rights to economic resources, as well as access to ownership and control over land and other forms of property, financial services, inheritance and natural resources, in accordance with national laws.

Enhance the use of enabling technology, in particular information and communications technology, to promote the empowerment of women.

Adopt and strengthen sound policies and enforceable legislation for the promotion of gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls at all levels.

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Women and girls constitute half of the population and they have the same human rights as men. We cannot actually talk about a sustainable world when women and girls continue to suffer. Gender equality is the basis and essence of a prosperous future for all. Women are entitled to equal opportunities concerning their education, healthcare and work.

For more information on essential sustainability issues and for you to become part of the solution, you can take a look at Sustainability Academy’s online courses.

Leveraging Community and Skills in the quickly expanding Sustainability Sector

CSE and our Business Network of Affiliates help companies and organizations improve business performance while promoting social, economic and environmental values.

The Sustainability sector is one of the fastest growing business opportunities available. Start-ups and corporations are looking to install sustainable practices at every level from foreman to financier. Sustainability Reporting is a trend reaching every major corporation, domestic and international, and many smaller businesses looking to grow and compete.

CSE welcomes Sustainability freelancers and small consulting companies to join our Affiliate program. CSE selectively partners with creative and engaged sustainability professionals who can teach sustainability principles and lead sustainability programs as consultants.

Joining the CSE network provides:

Opportunity to become a Certified Sustainability Consultant
- Discount on certification courses
- Free materials and webinars
- Access to original CSE research
Ongoing opportunities to expand your resources, knowledge and marketing capacity
- CSE Affiliate logo for your website and presence on CSE website
- Supplement your expertise with CSE resources for joint projects or RFPs
Increased revenue
- Conducting CSE Sustainability Trainings in your community and networks
- 15% commission for referring clients outside your expertise to CSE
Increased professional visibility
- Offer clients discounts on External Assurance
- Offer online courses in a wide variety of Sustainability topics and skills, using your brand as point of reference

CSE certified practitioners span the globe with Affiliates in Canada, Central America, Hong Kong, Japan, Oman Qatar, Romania, the UK and, of course, the USA. Current expansion is focused on North America. CSE is vetting applications to join our award-winning family. Visit the CSE website for more information and to apply.

What do Nestlé, Adidas Group and Heinz have in common? For starters they are all successful, green, profitable companies. Looking closer one finds out that they are quite active in the CSR field, they have solid Sustainability strategies and they communicate it.

Nestle’s Corporate Responsibility strategy focuses on three goals: (1) To help people live healthier and happier lives, (2) to build up prosperous, resilient communities and to (3) conserve resources for generations to come.

Adidas’ partnership with Nobel Laureate Muhammad Yunus’s micro-finance organization, Grameen Bank helped the organization materialize a very thoughtful project: to manufacture a low-cost and low-budget shoe for the poor in Bangladesh, which they were able to afford.

Heinz’s “micronutrient campaign” aimed to battle iron-deficiency anemia and malnutrition of children in 15 developing countries. Approximately 5 million children received sachets of vitamin and mineral powders approved by UNICEF and the World Health Organization, costing only two cents a sachet.

One might say that these companies’ corporate responsibility strategies are effective, period. However, the secret lies deeper.

In 2006 researchers and business strategists Michael Porter and Mark Kramer first introduced Shared Value. Creating Shared Value (CSV) is the simultaneous creation of positive social and environmental impact and positive financial results. According to CSV, financial, societal and environmental benefits can be achieved at the same time. “Shared Value is not social responsibility, philanthropy, or sustainability, but a new way for companies to achieve economic success.” It has been adopted by a wide range of companies all over the world and in essence these companies make good use of these societal and environmental problems: they see them as opportunities to build profitable Shared Value business cases.

Basically, society faces many problems: malnutrition, water shortage, climate change, deforestation and many others. The role of business’ in all these has traditionally been perceived as negative, that companies caused great problems in their effort to make profits and made the existing problems worse.

NGOs, social organizations and the government on the other hand were perceived as the solution. Still, the resources available from these entities under no circumstances were adequate to address societal problems effectively. And here is where companies come in.

Organizations create wealth when they make profits. And in reality they make these profits when they meet needs, not by causing more social or environmental problems. Consumers nowadays more than ever raise these social issues and they demand from companies to be environmentally and socially responsible. In fact companies benefit from solving social problems: e.g. it may be expensive to host a safer working environment but healthier happier employees come to work more often. There is a trade-off among social and economic performance.

Companies that authentically and essentially prioritize these social issues in their corporate agenda meet the needs of their consumers and make more profits, therefore they Create Shared Value.

CSE’s next Global Certified Sustainability (CSR) Practitioner Program will be held in Bucharest, Romania June 21-22 and will provide all the latest updates and key concepts regarding trends and legislation on corporate sustainability, SDG’s, carbon emissions, GRI reporting guidelines, ways to measure the stakeholder engagement, case studies and best practices.