Tag: wayne visser

Posted on

Turkey 2010 Notes

23 January 2010

Last week, I visited Istanbul, where I was speaking on a panel at the 3rd International Corporate Governance Conference. The topic was corporate governance and competitiveness and the panel was chaired by Judge Mervyn King, author of the King Report on Corporate Governance in South Africa.

Although I have previously shared a panel with Mervyn King (at an event during the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development), this time I also had the chance to interview and have dinner with him, which was a treat. I like his quiet, thoughtful yet authoritative demeanour and it was great to get some insights into the mind behind the King Code.

I’m not sure Istanbul quite lives up to its travel promo blurb of being ‘the most inspiring city in the world’ – perhaps because of the wet, chilly weather this time of year, and perhaps because I have been spoiled by my other travels. But it certainly is a city with a rich, long and significant history.

It is hard not to be impressed by its great mosques, but what I liked the most were the church-mosque hybrids. The remnants of the opulent rule of the Sultans (including the 86 carat diamond I saw in the palace) are full of glitz and glamour, but failed to move me.

The food is of course delicious – my favourite was haloumi wrapped and char grilled in vine leaves, although their baklava and Turkish delight were also, well, delightful. Next time, I hope to visit some of the archaeological sites beyond the city in the outer regions of Anatolia.

Share This Page

Share
Posted on

Tunisia 2009 Notes

26 December 2009

I recently returned from a pre-Christmas break in Tunisia. I stayed in the coastal city of Sousse, but also took a 2-day trip to southern Tunisia. The barren landscapes – terraced, rocky and flat – are spectacular and often otherworldly (hardly surprising that they were chosen as the backdrop for various scenes in Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back).

The desert itself – as we discovered on our one hour camel ride into the Sahara – has a surreal tranquillity. In terms of history, El Jem’s coliseum is impressive, dating back to the 3rd century and seating 30,000 (second only to Rome’s 45,000). Culturally, the troglodyte cave dwellings are fascinating and aesthetically beautiful, capturing a simple purity not often seen anymore. The salt-pan flats, where we watched a rain-drizzled sunrise, are breathtaking in their vast empty white expanse.

Share This Page

Share
Posted on

Germany 2009 Notes

22 November 2009

Berlin is a city of surprises to savour, full of delights to discover. Sadly, this was an ‘all work and no play’ trip. Even so, I am struck by two things.

First, the sense of renewal. Because so much new building and deliberate investment in regeneration took place after the fall of the wall, the city has an ultra-modern façade. Glass architecture proliferates, giving an impression of light and space.

This is reinforced by the actual existence of space. Apparently, as Berlinwas essentially an island city, with little opportunity to travel beyond its borders, its citizens treasured the open natural spaces all the more. As a result, post-unification, these open spaces have been vehemently protected.

The second impression is of the avant garde. Graffiti covers much of the city, but has apparently been embraced as art. (Another theory is that the city is bankrupt and can’t afford to clean it up). Besides the graffiti, the city is liberally sprinkled with sculptures, museums and theatres. It’s almost as if the years of oppression and suppression have seeded its opposite – the darkness and claustrophobic replaced by light and space; the rules and restrictions exchanged for artistic freedom and expression.

These may be superficial impressions and unfounded insights, but if nothing else, they have whet my appetite to return and explore more thoroughly.

Share This Page

Share
Posted on

Armenia 2009 Notes

21 November 2009

Armenia has a proud and long history, being the first country to be a state-declared Christian nation (in 301 AD). It has all the characteristics of a small nation (3 million) that has suffered many conflicts and yet managed to hold onto its identity.

Both Armenia andGeorgia retain the imprint of their communist past, but the people seem to have (for the most part) moved on. It’s almost as if the building still stands, but has been completely renovated and redesigned. The State is most visible now in the excessive presence of the traffic police, as if the exercising of authority had to find an outlet somewhere.

In the short time I was there, I had a chance to explore the Cascades – a real treat for a scultophile like me. Here too, there are stories. One is of a flower-seller who every day used to give free blooms to the beautiful women who passed on the street. As a tribute to his generosity, when he died, the city erected a statue of him.

Share This Page

Share
Posted on

Georgia 2010 Notes

21 November 2009

How privileged I am. Here I am in the old town of Tbilisi on a glorious day inGeorgia. The air is bitingly fresh and the sky is blue. The city is like a colourfully painted crypt, discovered amidst the rubble of socio-political conflict and economic uncertainty. Many people are poor, and yet there is a rich heritage of traditions, art and history.

Georgia seems to me a country struggling to emerge from the shadow of the world. There is a beauty here, and warmth, but the sun is shining on other places and nobody notices. Tourism is massively underdeveloped and yet holds vast potential.

Georgia is full of stories to delight. Tbilisi itself – which means ‘warm’ – is founded on a legend about a king who was hunting with his falcon. The pheasant he caught fell into the sulphur hot springs and by the time it was retrieved, it was cooked and ready to eat. So he ordered that a town be established around the springs.

Share This Page

Share
Posted on

When Corporations Rule the World

When Corporations Rule the World

Chapter by Wayne Visser

Extract from The Top 50 Sustainability Books

Key Ideas

  • We have been seduced by ‘corporate libertarianism’, which demands that all political, economic, and civic barriers to the free reign of corporate interests be removed.
  • The result of this unhealthy power in corporate hands is ecological destruction, the loss of civil freedoms, the erosion of democracy and community disintegration.
  • Although the current corporate globalization represents a failure of governments, it is more fundamentally a failure of the global capitalist economic system.
  • Instead, we should be striving for ‘democratic pluralism’, which requires a “pragmatic, institutional balance between the forces of government, market, and civic society.”
  • We are on the cusp of an Ecological Revolution, which puts people ahead of corporations, local communities ahead of global trade and nature ahead of money.

Synopsis

When Corporations Rule the World suggests that the promises of the global economy are based on a number of myths: that growth in GNP is a valid measure of human well-being and progress; that free unregulated markets efficiently allocate a society’s resources; that growth in trade benefits ordinary people; that economic globalization is inevitable; that global corporations are benevolent institutions that if freed from governmental interference will provide a clean environment for all and good jobs for the poor; and that absentee investors create local prosperity.

Korten believes that these myths are finally being unmasked and challenged by an Ecological Revolution that calls us “to reclaim our political power and rediscover our spirituality to create societies that nurture our ability and desire to embrace the joyful experience of living to its fullest.” He argues that instead of concentrating on increasing economic growth and GDP, we should concentrate on ending poverty, improving our quality of life, and achieving a sustainable balance with the Earth.

In order to achieve this goal of “sustainable well-being for all people”, Korten believes that we need a multilevel system of nested economies with the household as the basic economic unit, up through successive geographical aggregations to localities, districts, nations, and regions. Each level would seek to function as an integrated, self-reliant, self-managing political, economic and ecological community.

A corporations of the future needs to show that it is “committed to investing in the future; providing employees with secure, well-paying jobs; paying a fair share of local taxes; paying into a fully funded retirement trust fund; managing environmental resources responsibly; and other wise managing for the long-term human interest. Such companies are a valuable community asset, and in a healthy economy, they pay their shareholders solid and reliable – but not extravagant – dividends over the long term.”

The Guiding Principles for an Ecological Revolution include environmental sustainability, economic justice, biological and cultural diversity, subsidiarity (where the economy serves human needs, not the needs of money, corporations or governments), intrinsic responsibility (internalising externalities), and common heritage (of the planet’s environmental resources and the accumulated human knowledge) …

Continue reading

[button size=”small” color=”blue” style=”download” new_window=”false” link=”http://www.waynevisser.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/book_top50_chap20_korten.pdf”]Pdf[/button] When Corporations Rule the World (chapter)

Related pages

[button size=”small” color=”blue” style=”info” new_window=”false” link=”http://www.waynevisser.com/books/the-top-50-sustainability-books”]Page[/button] The Top 50 Sustainability Books (book)

Cite this chapter

Visser, W. (2009) When Corporations Rule the World, In W. Visser & Cambridge Programme for Sustainability Leadership, The Top 50 Sustainability Books, Sheffield: Greenleaf.

Share this page

Share
Posted on

Our Geophysical Experiment

Our Geophysical Experiment

Chapter by Wayne Visser

Extract from Landmarks for Sustainability

Quotes

I worry about climate change. It’s the only thing that I believe has the power to fundamentally end the march of civilization as we know it, and make a lot of the other efforts that we’re making irrelevant and impossible – Bill Clinton, former US President

Climate change is the most severe problem that we are facing today, more serious even than the threat of terrorism” – Sir David King, former UK government chief scientific adviser

Climate change: It’s here. If we don’t react, war, pestilence and famine will follow close behind – R K Pachauri, Chairman, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)

If we follow business as usual I can’t see how west Antarctica could survive a century. We are talking about a sea-level rise of at least a couple of metres this century … What we have found is that the target we have all been aiming for is a disaster – a guaranteed disaster – James Hansen, US climate scientist and head of Head of NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies

Our “large-scale geophysical experiment” …

Scientists have long been aware of the earth’s extreme temperature variations, with the last major ice age ending about 10,000 years ago. However, in 1824 Jean-Baptiste Fourier discovered a global warming (or greenhouse) effect, and in 1861, the Irish physicist John Tyndall carried out key research on carbon dioxide (CO2) and heat absorption.

In 1896, Swedish and American scientists independently concluded that CO2 was the likely cause of global warming. By 1957, US oceanographer Roger Revelle was warning that humanity is conducting a “large-scale geophysical experiment”, while colleague David Keeling set up the first continuous monitoring of CO2 in the atmosphere, confirming year-on-year-rises.

Despite these early signs, it took until 1979 for the first World Climate Conference, organised by the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO), to state that “continued expansion of man’s activities on earth may cause significant extended regional and even global changes of climate”. This led WMO and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) to establish a scientific advisory body – the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

The IPCC issued its First Assessment Report in 1990, finding that the planet had warmed by 0.5°C in the past century and would rise further by 0.3°C per decade in the 21st century, accompanied by global mean sea level rises of 6 cm per decade. Convinced that the world needed a global policy response, the UN established the Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), which 154 nations (including the US) signed at the Rio “Earth Summit” in 1992.

In 1995, the IPCC Second Assessment Report confirmed that concentrations of greenhouse gas reductions (GHGs) were continuing to increase, and that the socio-economic impacts of climate change were significant, while the UNFCCC began negotiations on an international agreement to limit the emission of GHGs. The result was the Kyoto Protocol, adopted in 1997, which: 1) set mandatory targets for emission reductions for the world’s 38 leading economies, and 2) proposed three flexible market mechanisms for achieving these reductions through carbon trading. The targets collectively amounted to a 5.2% global reduction in GHGs from these countries against 1990 levels by 2012.

Despite US opposition to the Protocol, momentum continued to build, with the EU launching its Emissions Trading Scheme for CO2 in 2005. In 2007, the UK’s Stern Review, prepared by former World Bank Chief Economist Sir Nicholas Stern, warned that tackling climate change will cost around 1% of global GDP, whereas the cost of not acting could be between 5% and 20%. Shortly thereafter, the IPCC released its 4th Assessment Report, concluding with 90% confidence that human activity is causing climate change. It seemed the tide was turning, in no small part thanks to former US Vice-President Al Gore, who received an Oscar for his movie, An Inconvenient Truth, and a Nobel Prize, shared with IPCC. This seemed to mark the end of denial and the beginning of urgent global action on climate change …

Continue reading

[button size=”small” color=”blue” style=”download” new_window=”false” link=”http://www.waynevisser.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/book_landmarks_chap3_climate.pdf”]Pdf[/button] Our Geophysical Experiment (chapter)

Related pages

[button size=”small” color=”blue” style=”info” new_window=”false” link=”http://www.waynevisser.com/books/landmarks-for-sustainability”]Page[/button] Landmarks for Sustainability (book)

Cite this chapter

Visser, W. (2009) Climate Change, In W. Visser & Cambridge Programme for Sustainability Leadership, Landmarks for Sustainability: Events and Initiatives That Have Changed the World, Sheffield: Greenleaf.

Share this page

Share
Posted on

The Future of CSR Codes

The Future of CSR Codes and Standards

Article by Wayne Visser

In this piece, I look at the lessons we have learned so far (both positive and negative) and what part CSR codes and standards play in an emerging New Governance model. Let me start with what I think we’ve learned about CSR codes and standards over the past 30 years or so.

  • Codes can be a useful activist tool
  • Codes can help to generate consensus
  • Codes can embed incremental improvement
  • Codes can change industry sectors

There are also downsides to CSR codes and standards, which we have come to realise.

  • Codes create auditing and reporting fatigue
  • Codes create confusion in the market
  • Codes can be a mask for irresponsibility
  • Codes are no substitute for regulation

With the usual caveats that the future is unpredictable, it does seem to me that there are several trends in CSR codes and standardsthat indicate the direction of their evolution.

  • Principle-based codes will consolidate
  • Process-based codes will struggle
  • Performance-based codes will strengthen
  • Sector-, product-, issue- and geography-based codes will expand

My fundamental belief is that CSR codes and standards will not disappear, because they form part of an emerging new form of governance, based on a multi-stakeholder approach …

Continue reading

[button size=”small” color=”blue” style=”download” new_window=”false” link=”http://www.waynevisser.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/inspiration_csr_codes_wvisser.pdf”]Pdf[/button] The Future of CSR Codes (article)

Related websites

[button size=”small” color=”blue” style=”tick” new_window=”false” link=”http://www.csrinternational.org”]Link[/button] CSR International (website)

[button size=”small” color=”blue” style=”info” new_window=”false” link=”http://www.waynevisser.com/books/the-a-to-z-of-corporate-social-responsibility”]Page[/button] The A to Z of Corporate Social Responsibility (book)

Cite this article

Visser, W. (2009) The Future of CSR Codes and Standards, CSR International Inspiration Series, No. 6.

Share this page

Share
Posted on

CSR and the Financial Crisis

CSR and the Financial Crisis:

Taking Stock

Blog by Wayne Visser

The Scale of the Crisis

There is nothing small or trivial about this financial crisis. According to the Bank of England’s recent Financial Stability Report, governments worldwide have already pledged more than $7 trillion in loans, guarantees, capital injections, and other assistance in their coordinated effort to prop up the global financial system. And the ILO estimates the crisis will cost 20 million jobs by next year.

This is not the first financial crisis the world has seen over the past century. The worst, of course, resulted in the Great Depression in the 1930s. But there have been numerous others, all of which carried painful economic and human costs. For example, the crises inArgentina (1981-1990), South Korea (1997-1999) and Thailand (1997-2000) all cost more than 30% of those countries’ GDPs.

But even by historical standards, the 2008 crisis is BIG. In what’s been dubbed “Wall Street’s Red October”, the S&P 500 plunged 16.9%, or 198 points, for the month. That’s the worst-ever monthly point decline for the S&P 500. The Dow similarly dropped 14.1%, or 1,526 points. And the ILO estimates that the crisis will bring the total unemployed to more than 210 million for the first time in history.

The key difference is that, unlike the Asian and Latin American crises in the 1980s, this crisis is truly global. Some countries, like Iceland andPakistan, are threatened by bankruptcy. Others, like Japan, have been hit by huge volatility in the markets. And even the cash-rich, high-flyers like China are seeing their growth suffering as a result. But what does any of this have to do with corporate social responsibility (CSR)?

The Links to CSR

Irresponsible banking

I’d like to suggest a multi-level approach to this. At the first and most obvious level, we can say the financial crisis is a direct result of irresponsible banking. According to the Mortgage Bankers Association, the number of sub-prime loans offered to risky borrowers increased more than 15 times since 1998. Essentially, the banks got greedy and compromised good banking practices of credit risk assessment.

Irresponsible financial markets

At another level, the crisis is the predictable consequence of irresponsible financial markets. Since the deregulation of the 1980s, the derivatives market has grown to around $600 trillion dollars, almost 10 times the value of global GDP. This speculative trading (which some call the “casino economy”) is meant to hedge risk, but it also increases the volatility and systemic risk of financial markets.

We would do well to recall economist John Maynard Keynes’ warning: “Speculators may do no harm as bubbles on a steady stream of enterprise. But the position is serious when enterprise becomes the bubble on a whirlpool of speculation. When the capital development of a country becomes a by-product of the activities of a casino, the job is likely to be ill-done.”

Irresponsible corporations 

Others argue that the crisis is the inevitable consequence of irresponsible corporations. This is linked to the short-termism of shareholder value driven public companies …

Continue reading

[button size=”small” color=”blue” style=”download” new_window=”false” link=”http://www.waynevisser.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/blog_financial_crisis_wvisser.pdf”]Pdf[/button] CSR and the Financial Crisis (blog)

Related websites

[button size=”small” color=”blue” style=”tick” new_window=”false” link=”http://www.csrinternational.org”]Link[/button] CSR International (website)

[button size=”small” color=”blue” style=”tick” new_window=”false” link=”http://www.waynevisser.com/books/the-age-of-responsibility”]Link[/button] The Age of Responsibility (book)

Cite this blog

Visser, W. (2008) CSR and the Financial Crisis, Wayne Visser Blog Briefing, 4 November 2008.

Share this page

Share
Posted on

Canada 2008 Notes

09 October 2008

I had a very pleasant dinner at the wonderful “Fresh” vegetarian restaurant in Toronto on Tuesday evening. My friend and colleague, Prof Andrew Crane, and I met with Nai-wen Wong, a visitor from Taiwan, who is part of the CSR International network I run.

One of the stories from Nai-wen that I liked was how people in Taiwan are now being encouraged to bring their own chopsticks to restaurants, to save all the forests being cut down for disposable chopsticks. That sounds like a great environmental idea, with a cultural twist.

On Sunday, I was walking around Toronto Island Park when, to my unexpected surprise and delight, this guy on a Penny Farthing bicycle rode past me. The Penny Farthing – so called because of the relative size of the British penny next to the smaller farthing coin – was invented in the 1870s.

It got me thinking about our progress, or more accurately, lack of progress. For me, the Penny Farthing, which has hardly changed at all to become the modern bicycle more than 130 years later, is a perfect metaphor for our seeming lack of change in other areas.

I am thinking mostly about that other wheeled invention, the car. More specifically, the internal combustion engine car. The basic design has hardly changed over the past 100 years, even though we have tinkered to make it more efficient, safe and clean.

At one level, we might say that, like the bicycle, it’s because the basic design still works. So why change a winning formula? But does it really still work? Is spending hours in gridlocked traffic, or thousands dying in auto accidents, or pumping out pollution that causes asthma and climate change what “works”? Is that our definition of a winning formula?

But now we have hybrids and electric cars, I hear you say. True, and I am their biggest fan. They begin to solve some of the environmental and health problems, but they still keep us locked into the same basic design – a metal box, with an engine, on four wheels. Is that the best our fantasmagorical imagination can come up with?

A penny (farthing) for your thoughts, my dear …

11 October 2008

I’ve enjoyed a wonderful week in Toronto, with blue skies, lake views and Autumn leaves. It has me thinking about change. Would we appreciate autumn leaves as much if they were always always on display? Most likely not. It is the changes which help us to value life.

Share This Page

Share
Share
Share