I can’t think of anyone in the corporate citizenship space more passionate than Karen Proctor from Scholastic. On Karen April 27, Karen kicked off the Boston College Center’s Business-Education Summit in New Orleans. All you have to do is spend a few minutes with Karen to see and feel a tangible energy that gives immediate definition of passion. Read the rest of this entry »

Center member Microsoft has unveiled an online resource that showcases the company’s impact on local communities globally. The new tool, named Microsoft Local Impact Map (www.microsoft.com/LocalImpactMap), chronicles over 350 case studies and a wealth of data that demonstrate how Microsoft’s partnerships and technology are positively impacting over 230 countries and regions around the world. Read the rest of this entry »

With the historic signing of the Serve America Act, more individual Americans than ever will answer the call to service in the coming months and years. What role can and should the business community play in answering this call? We know nonprofits need funding; it’s no secret that many are struggling to fill the gap between increasing community needs and decreasing cash donations. But corporate donors have another worthy asset to offer: the skills of its workforce. Read the rest of this entry »

Nestle has announced three new company initiatives aimed at creating new partnerships with governments, NGOs and small enterprises. The announcement came as Nestle launched a two-day forum on Creating Shared Value in New York in collaboration with the United Nations Office for Partnerships and the Mission of Switzerland to the United Nations. Read the rest of this entry »

At the Center’s 2009 International Corporate Citizenship Conference, Tony Wagner provided an energetic lesson on what’s wrong with education in American schools. Speaking during the final keynote session on business and education, Wagner began by explaining that “in education we frequently start with solutions to problems we don’t completely understand.” He labeled this phenomenon “answer-itis.” Read the rest of this entry »

The Boston College Institute for Responsible Investment has released its Handbook for Climate-related Investing across Asset Classes. Funded by the Brooks Family Foundation, the handbook identifies eight asset classes – cash and cash equivalents, fixed-income, public equities, private equity, real estate, infrastructure, commodities and hedge funds – that allow for climate-related investing. Each chapter provides practical examples of climate-related investments that lay out trends in the field. Read the rest of this entry »

President Bill Clinton and The Economist invite you to join leaders in government and business, as well as a select group of your peers working in corporate responsibility, at a timely meeting, Global Challenges, Corporate Solutions: Creating Value for Business and Society. Read the rest of this entry »

Yesterday brought the lovely news that Bob Massie has been awarded two Joan Bavaria awards for Building Sustainability into Capital Markets, jointly awarded by Ceres and Trillium Asset Management. Bob’s work has spanned many field and, among other things, he has been an astonishingly effective institution-builder, having helped grow Ceres into the powerful force it is today, and along the way incubating both the Global Reporting Initiative, now the fundamental touchstone for corporate social reporting, and the Investor Network on Climate Risk, an effective collaboration of institutional investors that has helped bring climate risk, and opportunity, into the mainstream of financial and corporate discourse.

Bob has been a regular participant in meetings at the Boston College Center’s Institute for Responsible Investment, offered invaluable guidance on multiple topics, and his ongoing work on accounting frameworks that take into account all costs and benefits from corporate activity – in which the IRI participates – is both exciting and vitally important. Congratulations to him for this well-deserved honor. Learn more about Bob and the Bavaria Awards here.