Tuesday, February 1, 2005

Yet another argument for energy independence [Times OnLine]: We are witnessing nothing less than the geopoliticalisation of the world[base ']s oil and gas industry. Governments rather than traditional commercial enterprises are taking control. And those governments have interests hostile to America[base ']s. This is not the sort of problem that drilling in ANWAR will solve. The energy part of it is going to take an effort more along the lines of the Apollo Alliance (also not sufficient to the challenge, IMHO) or Winning the Oil Endgame (much more like it). But it's not just about energy. 5:14:25 PM    comment []  trackback []

100 Most Sustainable Corporations. Maybe. [WorldChanging]: The Global 100 is a new annual ranking of the world's most sustainable corporations, unveiled last week at Davos. Their definition of corporate sustainability is pretty loose...[but]...just as governmental lip-service to ideas like the hydrogen economy and sustainable development moves the center of the debate towards those ideas, recognizing good corporate behavior moves us closer to widespread acceptance of transcommercial principles. The point isn't that these companies are anywhere close to the transformations we need to see. These sorts of efforts, I think, change the debate about corporate behavior. However, do they change corporate behavior itself? Here's the comment I posted there: Alcoa _could_ be worthy of such an award, I suppose -- they've certainly made good efforts -- but as Makower points out, there's no way to know from this process. I'm glad to know that 'Alcoa has the requisite sustainability strategies in place,' but  I'd sure like to know 1) what the awarders think those are, and 2) what results and impacts Alcoa is producing in the world, and 3) how those results and impacts compare with their competitors' and/or alternatives. Natural Logic recently conducted an analysis, using our Business Metabolics KPI system, of the 'leading CSR reporters' as noted in SustainAbility's 'Global Reporters' report, comparing actual performance with quality of reporting. Quick summary: good reporting and good perfomance are not necessarily correlated. 4:51:06 PM    comment []  trackback []