|
The Center for Socially Responsible Business (CSRB) at Mills College is home to a permanent Internet-based repository of information about socially responsible business.
This site is intended to reach well beyond the center's public face, evolving into an online resource center for socially responsible business. It will provide lists of services, online education material, an intellectual clearinghouse for case information and research, and a place for practitioners to share best practices.
The site will specialize in the San Francisco Bay Area, and will include information about people, companies, nonprofits, government, and colleges and universities where social responsibility is practiced, advocated, and studied.
The site will also serve as home to a regular electronic publication - a compilation of news items and research findings, with an emphasis on center-funded research and activities.
News
We are pleased to announce that Mills, in addition to being named one of the best colleges in the nation by the Princeton Review for the fourth consecutive year, was also ranked at the top of the newest ranking for "green campuses." Colleges were rated on a scale of 60 to 99. Mills ranked an impressive 92. The criteria for the green rating included "whether the school's students have a campus quality of life that is healthy and sustainable, how well the school is preparing its students for employment and citizenship in a world defined by environmental challenges, and the school's overall commitment to environmental issues."
Hottest Places For Green Jobs
The U.S. gained more than 750,000 green jobs in 2006 and is set to add millions more in the next few decades, according to a new report by the U.S. Conference of Mayors and Global Insight, a Boston-based economic research firm.
California has 3 of the nations' 10 largest green job markets: San Francisco, Los Angeles, and San Diego.
Read the Forbes article.
Search for Green Jobs
CSRB In The News
Recent coverage of our launch includes
San Francisco Chronicle
East Bay Business Times
Sustainability at Mills
Our President, Janet L. Holmgren, has signed a national Climate Commitment with more than 300 presidents and chancellors of U.S. colleges and universities who are "deeply concerned about the unprecedented scale and speed of global warming and its potential for large-scale, adverse health, social, economic, and ecological effects."
Visit our site and read the Sustainability Newsletter which comes out monthly during the academic year.
CSR/Green Events
If you would like us to list your event, send an email to CSRB@mills.edu with title, description, and a link if you have one.
2009 State of Green Business Forum: 2Feb2009, 9:30-3:30, PG&E Auditorium, 245 Market St., San Francisco
Standards
There are many national and global CSR and Green Business standards. Standards are helpful to companies, to consumers, to those seeking jobs, to nonprofits, to government agencies, and to investors.
This section lists some of the major standards.
Ceres Principles: a 10-point code of environmental conduct that obligates companies to report periodically on environmental management structures and results.
Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) to standardize corporate reporting on the triple bottom line.
CR (Corporate Responsibility Index) to help companies assess their impacts on the community, marketplace and workplace through their operations, products and services, and interaction with key stakeholders, and the Environment Index.
Dow Jones Sustainability Indices tracking the financial performance of the leading sustainability-driven companies worldwide.
FTSE4Good Index Series is designed to measure the performance of companies that meet globally recognised corporate responsibility standards.
The Global 100 is a list of publicly-traded companies based on research and analysis on 1,800 companies by Innovest Strategic Value Advisors. The companies are deemed to have the best developed abilities, relative to their industry peers, to manage environmental, social and governance risks, and to take advantage of new business opportunities in this area.
UN Global Compact: Based on 10 principles across labour, human rights & environment.
ISO 14001: International Standard for Environmental management systems, focused on procedures to minimise environmental risk & harm.
Fairtrade labelling is a certification system designed to allow consumers to identify goods which meet agreed standards.
Climate Counts will independently evaluate leading consumer-products companies' efforts to manage their climate effect.
Social Accountability International’s SA8000 is a voluntary, universal standard for companies interested in auditing and certifying labour practices in their facilities and those of their suppliers and vendors.
Institute of Social and Ethical Accountability’s AA1000 addresses the need for a single approach that effectively deals with the qualitative as well as quantitative data that makes up sustainability performance plus the systems that underpin the data and performance. It is designed to complement the GRI Reporting Guidelines and other standardised or company-specific approaches to disclosure. It is the first non-proprietary, open-source Assurance Standard that covers the full range of an organisation's disclosure and performance.
The bluesign® standard has been adopted by various leading textile manufacturers, and is supported by several key players of the textile chemical industry.
Environmental Paper Assessment Tool® establishes consistent language and metrics for environmentally preferable paper and facilitates communication between the buyers and suppliers of paper products.
Links
The Markkula Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University does research and dialogue on ethical issues in critical areas of American life. They have a great deal of information on ethical business practices. View site
The mission of Corporate Ethics International is to transform the role of corporations so that they are once again in service to and under the control of civil society. They have a great deal of information on the expanding role of corporations in society and perspectives on the role of corporations in society. View site
The mission of the Center for Social Innovation at Stanford is to inspire and educate social innovators, providing knowledge and ideas that strengthen the capacity of current and future leaders to champion social change. They have a great deal of information -- basic and applied research, cases, courses, and publications -- and some interesting events. They also publish the Stanford Social Innovation Review. View site
The mission of the Committee Encouraging Corporate Philanthropy is to lead the business community in raising the level and quality of corporate philanthropy. View site
Green Drinks is a network of people from NGOs, academia, government and business. They meet in the East Bay and in San Francisco.
The mission of the Ethics & Compliance Officer Association is to be the leading provider of ethics, compliance, and corporate governance resources to ethics and compliance professionals worldwide. View site
 |
