The last two weeks have been illuminating in terms of the challenges companies face when dealing with community development and disaster recovery. Both of these buckets are diffuse, abstract, and not easy to grasp.
We need to get our arms around different community support functions like education, health care, housing, and small business cultivation. Then, we need to figure out how they relate to each other and how businesses can make the most difference.
Two weeks ago in Suffolk, Virginia, the U.S. Chamber BCLC convened 80 experts to look at how disaster response leaders hand off their tasks to community recovery leaders. The answer is: not very well.
BCLC convened 80 experts to look at how disaster response leaders hand off their tasks to community recovery leaders. The answer is: not very well.
Most states and the federal government have 15 to 18 emergency support functions. These emergency support functions are represented at FEMA’s field headquarters or the state’s headquarters in order to improve coordination. For example, when someone has an issue getting emergency medical aid somewhere because the roads are down, they can report the issue to their health care coordinator in headquarters who can then relay the message to the transportation emergency support function to fix it.
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[7/29/10 update -- the audio recording and presentation slides are now available]
The U.S. Chamber BCLC is hosting a webinar on Friday, July 9th, about Daimler’s recently released report, “360 Facts on Sustainability.” Daimler’s Senior Manager for CSR, Dr. Wolfram Heger, with Department Manager of Public Affairs and Events, Jessia Altschul (both pictured right), will describe the company’s approach to keeping its stakeholders informed, examine best practices in the field, and discuss both performance and reporting challenges that industries face.
Here is a preview of the webinar: 
BCLC: You just published “360 Degrees – Facts on Sustainability 2010″ (Facts 2010). Which role does the report has for you in the context of overall CSR/Sustainability activities?
Daimler: Daimler has adopted an operative approach to CSR/ Sustainability, which means to address every aspect of the value chain with regard to CSR/Sustainability. In doing so, our Daimler report “Facts on Sustainability 2010” is the central tool for keeping stakeholders informed. All information about the different aspects of CSR/Sustainability is concentrated in this report. The report also serves as a performance driver and is crucial for our credibility.
BCLC: Facts 2010 seems to go well beyond the level of reporting required by law. Why do you do such in-depth reporting on sustainability at Daimler?
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Stephen Jordan is the executive director of the U.S. Chamber BCLC.
There’s nothing like being out of the country for practically a month to make you appreciate how great the United States is. Independence, and the desire to preserve it, has been at the core of the American experience for the last 234 years and one of the primary goals of the nation’s development.
In many ways, aiding and abetting this objective is a core part of many corporate social responsibility programs, as well.
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This past week, I was invited by several regional governments in the north of Argentina to discuss how public-private partnerships contribute to economic development. As I’ve learned more about the situation in Argentina, I realize that one of the biggest issues countries face is how the past can either enable or stymie the future.
In the late 19th and early 20th century, Argentina was one of the richest countries in the world. Fewer than 10% of its people were considered poor. Blessed with the fertile Pampas, it was as much a breadbasket as the U.S. At that time, the principal export markets were all in Europe so the country developed a radial pattern of development around the Atlantic ports. In short, all roads (and railroads) led to Buenos Aires.
Sound familiar? The same thing happened in the U.S. in successive waves. Pre-Civil War, the south was mainly agricultural and rural and sent raw materials up to the north for manufacturing and consumption or export through the great ports stretching from Baltimore to New York and Boston. Likewise, in the manufacturing era that took off after 1870, Kentucky, West Virginia, Pennsylvania and Tennessee either sent their goods up to Cleveland, Detroit and Michigan or south to New Orleans. Patterns of development emerged that made sense in an agricultural context and in an industrial context.
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Ah, welcome summertime. Baseball, cherry pie, vacation, some time at the beach with the family, a more languid pace overall, right?
If you’re involved in sustainable economic and community development and you’re tracking federal grants for your partners and projects – sorry, not so much. You’ll need to take your vacation in the fall. That’s because federal agencies, charged with obligating grant funds from their various programs before the end of the government fiscal year (September 30), are now issuing funding notices in droves to provide sufficient time for the gears of government funding to work.
These opportunities to apply for federal funding (known in government-speak as Notices of Funding Availability or “NOFAs”), provide all you need to know to apply for funding from the dizzying array of federal programs currently undertaken to promote sustainable development, particularly through the Partnership on Sustainable Communities.
Below are listed some of the current, recently issued NOFAs for sustainable development. But before you take the plunge into this world, you should be aware of a few key points:
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There’s no award (yet) for being the most sustainable city on the planet, but I’m guessing that when there is, the Copenhagen metropolitan region will be a front-runner for the honor. Or they’ll host the awards ceremony, and in doing so deliver the indelible (yet, in typically Danish fashion, understated) message that the Copenhagen region is the only place to discuss global sustainability issues every year.
I had the honor of addressing the Regional Growth Council of the Copenhagen metropolitan region last week about global considerations that might affect their impending 4-year regional growth plan. (Denmark’s Capital Region includes Copenhagen, the world-famous city, but also a broader expanse of area north to Helsingore and South to Malmø in Sweden. Here’s a map and greater description of the Capital Region. With apologies to and recognition of the many other municipalities in this region, I’ll refer to this region as the “Copenhagen region” or the “Capital Region” throughout this article.) The work follows on from an OECD territorial review of Denmark’s capital region published in 2009, for which I served as a peer reviewer.
When I told a close friend of deep and proud Danish-American heritage about this opportunity, she couldn’t figure out what Danish government, business, and academic folk living in and around Copenhagen would stand to learn – not so much because the United States has nothing to offer, but because Denmark and Copenhagen are high performers, with a solid export-oriented industrial base (Denmark is a net energy exporter), numerous mature and knowledge-based sector clusters, a population that receives free education and health care and, according to the 2009 European Green City Index, developed by the Economist Intelligence Unit and sponsored by Siemens, the most sustainable city in Europe.
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By Bradley Googins and Philip Mirvis. Googins is executive director emeritus of the Boston College Center for Corporate Citizenship and a professor of organizational studies at the Carroll School of Management, Boston College. Mirvis is an organizational psychologist and senior research fellow at the Boston College Center for Corporate Citizenship.
The two of us recently participated in an international conference at the University of Pretoria in South Africa that showcased its new Center on Responsible Leadership. Across the various colloquia and plenary sessions, there was general agreement that corporate leaders have many more responsibilities to society than in years past and that exemplary leaders and their companies are embracing them creatively and constructively. There was a consensus, too, that new forms of collective responsibility are taking shape that have businesses working together, and with government and NGOs, to address a vast array of social and environmental problems. Our paper on this new model of responsible leadership is available by contacting us.
In the background was the run up to the World Cup with new roads being readied, stadia constructed or refurbished, hats, T-shirts, and vuvuzela horns on sale, and a palpable sense that, against all odds, South Africa was ready–on time and within budget–to host the world. Yes, there were a few labor protests, some ticketing foul ups, and concerns that crime could mar the games. But overall there was collective pride and the feeling that all of South Africa had pulled together for bafana bafana (the national soccer team).
It was therefore jarring as we returned home to the USA to find a frenzy of finger pointing over who was responsible for the drilling platform fire and subsequent oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Of course, BP and its gaffe-prone CEO Tony Hayward (“I’d like to get my life back”) were in the bull’s eye. But fingers also pointed at Transocean (who made the failed safety system) and Halliburton (who cemented the platform).
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As events unfold in the Gulf, we are seeing all of the different dimensions of the concept known as sustainability come into play. The graphic images of oil-covered fish and birds and wetland habitats bring into focus how fragile the natural habitat can be. We worry about the sustainability of these eco-systems.
Gulf Shores Public Beach, 6/24/10 (GulfShores.com)
We worry about the economic sustainability of the people who live along the Gulf too. The oil spill has made life much more difficult for the fishermen and the people who are co-dependent on this habitat. Chambers from Houma, La. to Mobile, Al. are against the proposed moratorium on deepwater drilling. They argue that a moratorium will drive major investment to other countries and threaten the livelihoods of thousands of workers up and down the Gulf Coast. This week one federal court heeded their call, although appeals of this decision are certain to follow.
And there is still yet another dimension to this question – the viability of future generations to have the opportunities of their predecessors. Ask businesses across the South about their view of sustainability and they talk about the quality of their schools and their youth programs. For them, sustainability is intimately linked to the cultivation of human potential and talent.
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I flew into Monterey, California, late last night for the Sustainable Brands 2010 conference (Twitter: #sb10), hosted by Sustainable Life Media. The schedule is jam-packed, and looks pretty amazing. I’m really looking forward to networking (in-person!) during tonight’s opening reception and tomorrow night’s gala at the world-class Monterey Aquarium. The conference sessions I’m excited about are just too numerous to list. I expect these next three days to be a whirlwind of activity, networking, and knowledge gain.
If you are here in Monterey, please stop by and say hi. If you’re not here but are interested in the conference, please follow my updates on BCLC’s Twitter page and CSRwire’s Twitter page.
Finally, many thanks to Joe Sibilia, Jack Wysocki, and the whole CSRwire team for inviting me to the conference as one of their bloggers. Both the CSRwire blog and BCLCblog will be updated with conference content.
The parties have ended, the thank you notes have been written, the expenses have been totaled and filed (well, almost). After 350 friends of BCLC’s Corporate Community Investment program gave their time and resources to attend and make this year’s CCI conference a terrific success, what does it all mean? Do we all just go back to our daily routines?
I sure hope not. More to the point, we can’t afford to. There’s too much work to do. Borrowing from the BCLC Business and Society program’s ten campaign, a “ten list” of takeaways from the conference is a good way to organize the cavalcade of good people, good ideas, and good times to move the program forward while remembering this year’s conference.
So here goes:
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