The videos have been submitted, the ballot is on our website and the Boston College Center for Corporate Citizenship’s 3^rd Annual Corporate Citizenship Film Festival is under way! Now it’s your turn to tell us which video is your favorite.

A total of 37 companies have submitted videos to compete for the Film Festival trophy for best demonstration of using video to tell a corporate citizenship story. The 37 participants is an all-time high for the festival and the field promises to offer some compelling examples of how a company can tap the power of video to communicate the positive impact of its work in the community and around the world. Read the rest of this entry »

As companies become increasingly global, their corporate citizenship and community involvement follows suit.  In celebration of this increased internationalism of corporate philanthropy, the Committee Encouraging Corporate Philanthropy is leading International Corporate Philanthropy Day on February 28.  Celebrated on the fourth Monday in February every year, International Corporate Philanthropy Day is an opportunity for corporations to reflect on, and raise awareness of, the role of the private sector in society, as well as the business and social benefits of corporate community investment.

Several of the Center’s member companies are taking part in International Corporate Philanthropy Day events and are highlighted below:

• The Alcoa Foundation will be announcing the expansion and launch of several environmental programs focused on the sustainability themes of Reduce, Recycle, Replenish and Measure. The programs represent a total investment of $3 million.
• Campbell Soup Company kicked off a program in mid-February to reduce childhood obesity and hunger in Camden, N.J., where it has been headquartered since 1869. The company plans to invest $10 million over a 10-year period with the goal of reducing childhood obesity and hunger by 50 percent in Camden.
• Throughout February, the Hartford Financial Services Group plans to recognize International Corporate Philanthropy Day at all of its main offices and will be introducing its newly re-organized community service program — Team Hart — to its employees at volunteer fairs.
• The ITT Corporation will be announcing that its corporate citizenship program is partnering with members of the Emergency Capacity Building Project to support development of water-related disaster risk reduction programs.  The announcement aims to recognize International Corporate Philanthropy Day and shed light on the plight of people affected by disasters every year.

I think it’s fair to say that most people in the corporate citizenship field have chosen their career because they want to make a difference. And more and more young professionals, as well as more experienced job changers, are pursuing this objective. That’s why Net Impact, the growing global network of socially minded professionals, has just released a joint publication with the Center that provides detailed guidance for those seeking to make a difference between nine and five.

“Corporate Careers that Make a Difference” is a guide for professionals and students interested in the field of corporate citizenship. In addition to providing information on the increasing opportunities in formal corporate citizenship roles in companies, the guide also highlights professional functions not often considered part of the “field” of corporate citizenship. With bright-eyed optimism, Net Impact assures career-seekers that “with such a diversity of job functions in which these values might be applied, and so many fields clamoring to address these issues, the opportunities are endless.”

Read the rest of this entry »

It’s hard to believe but in recent days and weeks, creating jobs is an even hotter topic. President Obama has called for business to “get in the game” on job creation but there was already ample evidence that companies need to consider that the short term gains of a jobless recovery may not be the best route to a sustainable economy.

As our most prominent global leaders departed Davos, Gallup released several polls that highlighted related themes. Among them, one conducted January 7-9 noted that 67 percent of Americans are dissatisfied with the size and influence of major corporations today, the highest level since Gallup first asked this question in 2001. Read the rest of this entry »

The most important thing to remember when communicating with executives is to keep it brief and relevant. Even those executives who are very supportive of corporate citizenship have little bandwidth to delve into the details of company programs, but they still want to be informed.

Center members have recently been trading advice and examples of quarterly corporate citizenship briefs that capture the attention of their time-strapped bosses.  The virtual discussion, begun by a post in the Center’s online Member Community, has stirred a flurry of interest showing just how eager corporate citizenship professionals are to effectively inform their senior leaders.

In order to meet this challenge, some members report that they prepare a quarterly dashboard of key community engagement activities for the executive team. “Unfortunately, people often start and stop at reporting outputs or short-term ‘outcomes’ such as the number of dollars, numbers of grants, numbers of ‘activities’ we participated in or supported, etc.,” warns Susan Santos, instructor for the Center’s Evaluating and Measuring Community Involvement course. “In my experience, leadership is more interested in the value provided, or what we refer to as ‘longer term outcomes’ or ‘impacts’ in measurement parlance.” Santos recommends any results reported should be tied to their associated business and social impacts, such as maintaining or improving reputation or ensuring/supporting operations through community relations efforts.

It is certainly a challenge to send this message in a concise fashion. Some talented communicators have crafted a one-page document or a slide of bulleted highlights and graphical representation of metrics and goals.  I invite you to pay a visit to our online Member Community to see the examples and join in the conversation.

Companies often struggle to develop an integrated CSR strategy – a social and environmental strategy that is truly part of the business strategy. There are many ways stakeholders judge such strategies but two of the most critical elements of an integrated strategy are developing sustainable products/services and improving transparency.

The Clorox Company best known for making bleach and other cleaning products, launched its first CSR report in October 2010. The report was a result of a long journey to build an integrated CSR strategy that today is organized around five pillars: People, Products, Performance, Planet and Purpose. But what I found most exciting is the company’s commitment to developing “green” products and to becoming more open and transparent. Read the rest of this entry »

It’s a wonderful thing when business priorities line up with environmental stewardship. AMD’s recently released AMD Fusion APU – the AMD E-350 APU– is a great example.

The AMD E-350 APU (code named “Zacate”) is one of the first of the AMD Fusion family of products to be released.  At the risk of oversimplifying this incredibly sophisticated technology, AMD Fusion represents the combination of graphics processing (GPU) and central processing (CPU) capabilities onto a single die (computer chip): the Accelerated Processing Unit or APU.  The notion behind AMD Fusion in general, and the AMD E-350 APU in particular, is to enable breakthroughs in users’ visual computing experiences. Whether you watch 3D BluRay videos, are a hard-core gamer or just post family photos, the APU can help improve your user experience.

What does all of this have to do with environmental protection?  Well, we had the same question.  As these products were still being developed, we set out to answer this question by looking at the implications of the “Zacate” product on climate protection.

Working with NetImpact, we hired a bright, young engineer/MBA student to analyze the carbon footprint of this new product.  Rather than look at the APU in isolation, the study compared the carbon footprint of a system using this product with a system using current generation AMD products on the market today. We deliberately set up the study to compare the impact of the E-350 with recent technology (rather than older technology) so that we could get a clear picture of the environmental implications of the new APUs.*

The results were, frankly, stunning.

Comparing the AMD E-350 APU-based system against a similar performing AMD-based system with a CPU and discrete GPU, we calculated that it was possible to achieve up to 40% improvement in the overall carbon footprint of the product.

If you have looked at a few of these carbon footprint studies you might, understandably, be somewhat skeptical. To be sure we had the numbers right, we asked our intern to conduct a sensitivity analysis.  This means he changed the key assumptions around and re-ran the model…10,000 times.  The results varied between 36% and 56% carbon benefits for the AMD E-350 APU compared to the AMD non-Fusion product.

What does this all mean?  Well, let’s assume that your system mirrors the APU system we tested, and that your computer use is similar to what we assumed in our tests.  Using the Environmental Protection Agency’s Greenhouse Gas Equivalencies Calculator, if there are 10,000 people exactly like you the carbon savings that could be achieved by using the APU system could equal the same amount of CO2 emissions from burning 30,000 gallons of gasoline. Or, to put it another way, this is the same amount of emissions that more than 58 acres of pine or fir forests can sequester.**

That, friends, is really something to be pleased about.

Tim Mohin is Director of Corporate Responsibility at AMD and a board member of Net Impact. His postings are his own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites, and references to third party trademarks, are provided for convenience and illustrative purposes only.  Unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such links, and no third party endorsement of AMD or any of its products is implied.

*The study referenced in this post compared the total lifecycle greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions (also known as a “carbon footprint”) of an APU system (based on the 18W dual-core processor codenamed “Zacate” and the M1 chipset codenamed “Hudson”) with the latest AMD system codenamed “Nile” (which is based on an AMD Athlon™ Neo II Dual Core processor, SB820 Southbridge, RS880M Northbridge with an ATI Radeon™ 5450 discrete graphics card).  The “Nile” system was selected as the baseline to test the APU system because the two had similar performance measures, as determined by PCMark® Vantage and 3DMark Vantage E scores.  The study compared carbon emissions of the two systems for multiple points in the products’ lifecycles, including: fabrication; assembly; testing, marking, and packaging (TMP); retail and distribution; and product use.

**The study found a reduction of 27.2 kgCO2e over the life of the AMD Fusion APU product codenamed “Zacate.”  The individual savings, when multiplied by 10,000 users, led to a potential savings of 228,000 kgCO2e, or 228 metric tons of carbon emissions. Equivalences were determined using the United States Environmental Protection Agency’s Carbon Emissions Calculator, available at http://www.epa.gov/cleanenergy/energy-resources/calculator.html.

Humana is throwing its support behind an exceptional effort to make biking easier. Humana has become a premier sponsor of Peopleforbikes.org, an innovative campaign that seeks to unite 1 million voices for legislation to improve bike  paths, lanes, trails and other facilities nationwide. The effort is the brainchild of the nonprofit Bikes Belong Foundation

Why?

Humana’s partnership with Bikes Belong reflects our long-standing support for bike programs. In addition to helping bring 1,000 bicycles to the 2008 U.S. political conventions in Denver and Minneapolis-St. Paul (also with Bikes Belong), Humana was a founding member of the successful B-Cycle bike-sharing program that has rolled out in multiple major markets. We also are engaging our employees via our bike rental program at our Louisville headquarters.

Most importantly, Humana’s support for Bikes Belong underscores our Healthy People, Healthy Planet CSR pillars and emphasizes our commitment to help communities live healthfully and to protect the environment. The benefits of biking are clear for both.

Healthy People

It’s no secret that obesity is a serious public health issue.  A 2010 McKinsey study found that nearly half of Americans age 16 and older are overweight, and that the resulting physical and financial burdens are heavy. The study said that obesity costs Americans $160 billion annually — twice as much as it did a decade ago.

Yet, the solutions are plain: We must change our eating and exercising habits. Biking can serve as a simple exercise regimen if initiatives like Peopleforbikes.org and B-Cycle spread nationwide.

Healthy Planet

Biking also offers an alternative to driving. When we reduce the number of cars on the road, we reduce fuel consumption and the release of harmful pollutants, such as carbon dioxide and nitrogen oxides, into the atmosphere.

Increasingly, environmental safety has become important to Humana from a health perspective. Recent studies from the World Health Organization demonstrate that an alarming number of preventable diseases are caused by such environmental factors as exposure to chemicals and pollutants. This creates a double incentive for us to reap the environmental benefits of biking.

We have a way to go – and biking represents just a small piece of the solution.  But these initiatives are important. Perhaps Bruno Maier, vice president of the Bikes Belong Foundation, said it best: “As our leaders plan for the future of transportation and recreation in America, we need to send a unified message that bicycling is important and beneficial to individuals and our nation.”