KLM/Air France has stated in writing that it will not do business with the Dutch investment company Waterland International now nor in the future. Last month Milieudefensie demanded that the company immediately stops investing in jatropha, the plant used for the production of biokerosene for European aviation. Our report 'Biokerosene: Take-off in the wrong direction' showed that the cultivation of jatropha in Java leads to serious exploitation of farmers and has a negative impact on food cultivation for local people. This is a high price to pay for the production of a "green" fuel which, as it turns out, is not even environmentally friendly. Milieudefensie is pleased that KLM has disassociated itself from any form of involvement with Waterland International’s injurious practices. KLM’s statement can be found here.
Statement from KLM
‘Following publication of the report Biokerosene: Take-off in the wrong direction, KLM has informed Milieudefensie that it will not do business with Waterland. KLM disputes the assertion by Waterland’s director, William Nolten, that his company has contracts with KLM to supply biokerosene. KLM has also told Milieudefensie that it has no current or future plans to directly or indirectly purchase raw materials to produce biokerosene from Waterland.’ 
By Francesca Rheannon Part One of a Two-Part Series
With the climate talks in Durban seemingly headed for a train wreck, an innovative project is developing a new legal international framework for protecting the planetary ecosystem that could just be the most important legal initiative of our age.
The climate talks had not even started in Durban when their epitaph was already being written. It was revealed in a number of reports that at the two previous talks in 2009 and 2010, the big industrial nations of Europe and the US had bullied smaller nations into accepting no action on the climate and that the rich nations, including the UK, EU, Japan, US and the UN have already decided to quash any agreement until 2020 – at which time, no doubt it will be conveniently put off again.
It won’t matter by then because it will be, in the memorable words of Dr. James Hansen, “game over for the planet.” The narrow window we might just possibly still have to avert civilization-destroying climate change will close by 2015. To squeak through that window, we will have to begin ratcheting down our absolute emissions by then – in other words, reverse the direction we are currently on, which saw a 6% rise in emissions in 2010, despite the global economic downturn. 
A Chinese baby-formula maker selling imported Australian milk to safety-conscious parents invested in the risky debt of lead, arsenic and cadmium refiners, seeking higher returns for its cash.
The uncollateralized investment, sold by a middleman known as a trust, promises to pay Ausnutria Dairy Corp. about double China’s benchmark savings rate. It’s an example of how companies are undermining government efforts to cool lending that has led to soaring property prices and inflation of 6.2 percent, near a three-year high.
“When companies neglect their core business and start speculating in hot sectors they know nothing about, it’s a sure sign the market is out of whack,” said Patrick Chovanec, an associate professor at Tsinghua University’s School of Economics and Management in Beijing who has advised private-equity funds.
GENEVA – Small-scale farmers can double food production within 10 years in critical regions by using ecological methods, a new UN report shows. Based on an extensive review of the recent scientific literature, the study calls for a fundamental shift towards agro ecology as a way to boost food production and improve the situation of the poorest.
“To feed 9 billion people in 2050, we urgently need to adopt the most efficient farming techniques available,” says Olivier De Schutter, UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food and author of the report. “Today’s scientific evidence demonstrates that agro ecological methods outperform the use of chemical fertilizers in boosting food production where the hungry live -- especially in unfavorable environments.”
Agro ecology applies ecological science to the design of agricultural systems that can help put an end to food crises and address climate-change and poverty challenges. It enhances soils productivity and protects the crops against pests by relying on the natural environment such as beneficial trees, plants, animals and insects.
“To date, agro ecological projects have shown an average crop yield increase of 80 per cent in 57 developing countries, with an average increase of 116 per cent for all African projects,” Mr. De Schutter says. “Recent projects conducted in 20 African countries demonstrated a doubling of crop yields over a period of 3-10 years.”
“Conventional farming relies on expensive inputs, fuels climate change and is not resilient to climatic shocks. It simply is not the best choice anymore today,” Mr. De Schutter stresses. “A large segment of the scientific community now acknowledges the positive impacts of agro ecology on food production, poverty alleviation and climate change mitigation -- and this is what is needed in a world of limited resources. Malawi, a country that launched a massive chemical fertilizer subsidy program a few years ago, is now implementing agro ecology, benefiting more than 1.3 million of the poorest people, with maize yields increasing from 1 ton/ha to 2-3 tons/ha.” 
IKEA, the world’s largest furniture retailer from Sweden, has set a goal to derive all of its energy from renewable sources, and it is now installing 39,000 solar panels on the rooftops of it’s stores in the United Kingdom to help achieve that goal.
It also purchased a 12.3-MW (12,300-kW) wind farm in Huntly (in northeast Scotland) from Good Energies Capital Inc, according to the chief sustainability officer, Steve Howard. He said that is enough to cover 30% of IKEA’s UK electricity consumption.
The 12.3-MW farm is only one of the wind farms owned by IKEA, which also has wind farms in Denmark, Germany, France, and elsewhere in the UK. Howard said that the benefit of generating a significant percentage of its own energy from solar and wind sources is that it helps to protect the company from energy price spikes that cost IKEA a whopping €1.2 billion euros ($1.7 billion USD) per year.
Source: Clean Technica (http://s.tt/12ZKD) 
The recent upheavals in the Middle East, North Africa and elsewhere have put asset recovery in the spotlight. Indeed, as the citizens of these countries look towards the future, recovering wealth that former public officials are alleged to have acquired illegally remains a main concern.
Inclusive of governance issues and abbreviated as ESG (environmental, social and governance), factors pertaining to ESG are now included in mainstream corporate stock and bond analysis in numerous investment firms, funds and managers globally. Why? Because it provides analysts better insight into companies and a possibility of producing higher investment returns with less risk.
RT @davidcoethica: Why legal mandate has more advantages than disadvantages 4 global cos.?
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Here’s the press release sent out via CSRwire. Please help us spread the word! Companies are failing to provide the safety data required by Europe’s sweeping chemicals law REACH (registration, evaluation, authorization and restriction of chemicals), according to a study for the Centre for Alternatives to Animal Testing at the University of Konstanz in Germany.
The research looked at 400 documents drawn up by companies and detailing toxicity data for the chemicals they produce. REACH requires companies to produce these documents. The study found that “most” didn’t meet the requirements for providing safety date set by the European Chemical Agency – the REACH regulator based in Helsinki, Finland. In particular, documents lacked adequate data on the toxic effect of chemicals on reproduction and embryo development, the research found.
For example, nearly half the documents were found to have missing or inconclusive evidence of chemicals’ toxicity on embryo development. But in only around 11% of documents did companies propose conducting new tests to fill these gaps. 
Companies have been cautious about investing heavily in sustainability initiatives, which have often been seen as cost-drivers rather than sources of new efficiencies or revenues.
According to a new report by Deloitte titled "Sustainability 2011: a difficult coming of age" companies around the world have been cautious about investing heavily in sustainability oriented initiatives, which have often been seen as cost-drivers rather than sources of new efficiencies or revenues. Even the strongest proponents of the sustainability agenda are consistently tasked with compelling connections between sustainable business practices and increas 
The Timberland Company has long been driven by the notion of corporate responsibility—long before the notion even had a name. In my grandfather’s day, things like discarded bobbins and package paper were reused and repurposed—at the time it was called frugality, but in essence it was our earliest form of environmental stewardship. In my father’s day, our iconic waterproof boot was created—not to meet some crazy marketplace demand, but to keep workers’ feet dry in our own production facilities. Our path toward becoming a responsible, sustainable business is rooted in necessity, practicality and Yankee ingenuity—and over the course of time and three generations, it has helped us to build an authentic, sustainable outdoor brand.
Today, we embrace corporate responsibility consciously and deliberately. We believe in our ability and responsibility to make socially and environmentally—responsible decisions that benefit our business, the outdoors and our communities. These are not commitments we make altruistically. On the contrary, our strategic sustainability programs help build a stronger company—improving our bottom line as well as our ability to improve our physical and social environment. We call this our Earthkeepers philosophy, and it drives everything we do:
Jeff Swartz 
By Jonathan Schoonhoven
Google has its staff masseuses. Airbnb has its in-office tree house. Yelp provides employees unlimited beer on tap. Dropbox boasts a room dedicated to the game Dance Dance Revolution. Everywhere you look, tech startups from Seattle to San Diego are engaged in an arms race of employee perks. “Working at Airbnb “is like a really fun school where you get paid,” said Joe Gebbia,to the Wall Street Journal, “Or maybe it’s more like camp.” Suddenly, if your office doesn’t look like a ten-year-old’s deepest dream-come-true, you can’t be a player in the industry. Away from the Silicon Coast, however, these ostentatious spending sprees are seen with a shrug and a “kids-these-days” sigh. In the new book, “I’m Feeling Lucky” by a former Google Brand Manager, Douglas Edwards tells of his concern at first sight of Google’s notoriously luxurious employee benefits. He remembers, “A warning light flashed in my head at that. This was the guy who didn’t think there should be a marketing budget, and he had hired a chef and two massage therapists?” Even from day-one, Google cultivated a culture of lavish employee perks. And yet, despite their apparent financial recklessness, Google, Airbnb, Yelp, and Dropbox continue not only to survive, but to reign high over their competitors, perched atop their towering mountains of revenue. Through some black magic, their mindless pursuit of a bigger, better, cooler workplace seems almost to resemble a kind of strategy. Now, new studies from the likes of Gallup and Towers Watson just might vindicate them. 
UK aid will fund up to 300,000 companies in poor countries and encourage foreign investors to take advantage of highly profitable opportunities...
There’s plenty of hard work to do on the journey from here to sustainability. Dilly-dallying with green marketing come-ons is a distraction. Here are five reasons we should declare defeat.
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