Good Marketing

Business is increasingly aligning its activities with the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). A recent report shows that 43 percent of the world’s largest 250 companies are now linking their sustainability reporting to the SDGs. This is important: The SDGs cannot be achieved without actively engaging business. However, it is not always clear where business efforts on the SDGs are best directed.

+ POOL is a wildly ambitious idea to make the City’s notoriously polluted Hudson River swimmable with the help of a floating, water-filtering pool. Now, through a partnership with Heineken and its Cities Project, + POOL is catching the attention of a much larger audience through a multi-faceted campaign. We spoke with + POOL Deputy Director Kara L. Meyer and Heineken USA's Raul Esquer Lopez, about their unique partnership model and what it will take to make + POOL a reality.

The renewable and electric vehicle markets may be growing at an unprecedented rate, but approximately 1.3 billion people around the world still live in communities where power generation is restricted and access to electricity is virtually non-existent. Auto giant Nissan is gearing up to change that, announcing three new sustainability pilot projects aimed at improving access to energy and mobility for communities most at risk or in need.

Giving back to the communities that supply your business with labor and raw materials isn’t just a matter of ethics or public relations; it’s also a wise business practice to adopt for its own sake. Taking care of the people who live and work in your company’s shadow ensures the long-term sustainability of your supply chain and improves the quality of the talent pool that may someday produce your best and brightest employees.

Our very own Scott Nelson who heads up Viber in North America sat down with Richard Jackson of Voxburner to discuss all things Viber, YMS16, and what Viber are doing to stand out in the crowd. This post was first published on Voxburner. 

Disney Consumer Products and Interactive Media and Dole Food Company have announced a co-branded assortment of fresh fruits and vegetables featuring iconic Disney, Pixar, Star Wars, and Marvel characters at grocery and retail stores nationwide to promote healthy eating among American children. The first program is rolling out this fall, and the partnership will continue in 2017 with a host of other health and nutrition education programs themed around other Disney, Star Wars and Marvel films and characters.

For all the talk about the importance of CSR, the truth of the matter is most executives don’t believe it drives direct bottom line business benefit, or that it effectively addresses societal problems. A shift away from CSR towards what I call “profitable good,” where both society and shareholder value are created in mutually reinforcing ways to create large scale social impact, is the future of business. Here are three reasons why your business must embrace this future if it hopes to continue to profit and grow.

The fight against food waste in the U.S. is being fought on many fronts, but large-scale progress has been slow. Jordan Figueiredo and Jordan Bloom, who have been targeting major U.S. retailers with lax policies on food waste through their @UglyFruitandVeg campaign, are also supporting a bill called The Food Recovery Act, HR 4184.

The extrinsic case for CSR — the pursuit of sustainability for financial gain — has been harder to make, until recently. Indeed, for all of you out there who might be struggling with how to succeed in a world that all too often seems to care only about making money, I've got good news: When a company demonstrably improves its sustainability performance and takes steps to be seen as such, its market cap will go up — measurably so.

Climate and development standard and certification body Gold Standard and WWF have published a new report that seeks to help the private sector define and deliver ambitious strategies to achieve the goals outlined in the UN Sustainable Development Goals. The report highlights the advantages for business in catalyzing the SDG agenda, details the common challenges and pitfalls that companies face today, and offers a clear, actionable set of good practices for business leaders to inform their strategies moving forward.

More evidence has emerged linking a company's performance with its purpose beyond profit. Global customer agency C Space has released a new study detailing how companies can generate consumer-inspired growth. The study describes the behaviors that consumers actively seek from companies, translating them into five distinct customer imperatives matched against company behaviors, and providing a blueprint for how a company can act more human.

As part of a $20 million learning investment, HP Inc. has launched the HP School Cloud, featuring the HP Open Learning Platform. HP School Cloud is a hybrid cloud appliance, acting as both an advanced wireless router and state-of-the-art file and content server. Each device will leverage a range of free, open-source educational materials, giving schools without the Internet access to millions of e-textbooks and thousands of lessons on reading, science, mathematics and more. The announcement marks a significant step forward in advancing HP’s goal of improving learning outcomes for 100 million people by 2025.

Has your company ever thought about going zero waste? These 10 firms working toward zero waste to landfill prove it's possible. And no, it won't kill jobs or hurt profits.

Increasing access to clean, safe and sustainable sanitation to 10 million people by 2022 is a top priority for personal care corporation Kimberly-Clark’s Sustainability 2022 goals, and on November 19, World Toilet Day, the company renewed its commitment to its Toilets Change Lives program, a multi-national commercial program that leverages the power of its well-known brands to educate and engage consumers and help solve the global sanitation crisis.

Two-thirds of U.S. employees feel their work and personal life are becoming increasingly blended and nearly all (93 percent) want to work for a company that cares about them as an individual, according to the 2016 Cone Communications Employee Engagement Study. The study reveals an increased expectation for companies to provide not only basic benefits but also ones that allow employees to bring their passions for social and environmental issues to the workplace.

How important is corporate social responsibility to a company's brand today? We speak with JetBlue's CSR manager, Kate Wetzel, about how skilled volunteering helped to build the airline's image as well as the communities it calls home.

Factoring society into mainstream business decision-making cuts to the heart of what a post-CSR world looks like. But many companies are wrestling with how to define social impact, not least measure it. Having purpose is all well and good, but at what point does it interfere with short-term profit pressures? And how can the risk factor of ‘doing good’ be best managed?