Are you ready for the future?

Getting future-fit is both a business strategy and a sustainability strategy.  This year, ECI's Sustainability Report, the fifth annual report, and the third GRI G4-based report, places the focus squarely on how the company has been transforming itself to become future-fit and help its stakeholders become future-fit. So many Sustainability Reports are full of gloom and doom, and the impending collapse of humanity as we know it. While no-one questions the need to transform the way our economies work and the way corporations behave, getting future-fit can be inspiring and positive. ECI's 2015 Sustainability Report reflects ECI's optimistic approach to getting ready for the future. Are you ready? 

ECI is a global provider of ELASTIC network solutions to Communications Service Providers (CSPs), critical infrastructures and data center operators. ECI provides packet-optical transport, SDN/NFV applications, end-to-end network management, a comprehensive cyber security solution, and a range of professional services.

At its core, ECI's future-fit strategy is based on an ELASTIC approach to business. ELASTIC means flexible, open, adaptable, customizable, controllable and resource-efficient. Much of this may sound like mumbo-jumbo technobabble to you.

Think about it this way. You live in Mumbai and wants to call a friend who lives in a remote area in Southern India. As you may know, fixed-telephone-line coverage in India is not comprehensive, so mobile is the most practical way to reach remote communities. According to Wikipedia, India had 24.81 million fixed line telephone subscribers in 2016, and more than one billion wireless subscribers. ECI has a strong presence in the Indian telecoms market and supports 4 leading mobile service providers, helping develop and upgrade their mobile and internet coverage and speed. The chances are that when you call your friend, the call will be transported over ECI's equipment.  

Or perhaps you live in Africa. As a result of the work of ECI in 11 countries in Africa, supporting local providers with efficient, state-of-the-art communications and internet infrastructures, people living in these countries are now able to gain access to advanced mobile and internet services.

Millions of people in the many countries that ECI serves have a similar experience. These individuals can achieve an enhanced quality of life because local providers develop and expand the quality, reach and choice of their mobile and internet services to their customers through the use of ECI's ELASTIC solutions that provide advanced, efficient, reliable, secure, future-fit technology, building on legacy installations for speed-to-market and affordable incremental costs. 

This is ECIs positive impact on society and the environment. In the 2015 Sustainability Report, ECI describes its work in developed and emerging markets, and the way new ELASTIC solutions are transforming lives for so many. 

All of this is aligned with ECI's material focus and specifically with five of the UN 2030 Sustainable Development Goals:

The 2015 Sustainability Report, in addition to all of this, describes the progress ECI has made across a range of social and environmental topics. This includes a first in 2015 for ECI -  a stakeholder round table attended by participants from civil society, ECI's supplier network, academic and business subject experts who engaged in a frank discussion about the expectations of ECI as a company and offered suggestions about the way ECI could improve its impacts. Environmental performance has continued to improve at ECI with, in 2015, further reductions in energy, emissions, water and waste.

ECI continues to promote women in technology, achieving a level of 24% of managers who are women in 2015, from 19% in 2014 (and 16% in 2011).

As a privately-owned company, ECI's commitment to transparency is part of a leading-edge approach to everything the company does. Future-fitting business is sustainability at its best. With optimism and inspiring ELASTICITY, ECI's report is worth a look.

  

It's not by chance that I write (again) about ECI's reporting. It has been my honor and pleasure to support this report, and every prior ECI report. I'd also like to call-out Eynat Rotfeld, ECI's CSR Manager who has driven reporting with a passion over the years and has slowly but surely engaged the entire ECI organization from the Chairman of the Board, through the CEO and all senior management and divisional management teams. Eynat is a CSR change-maker and an example of how trusting, collaborative relationships, consistent communication and gentle encouragement are ingredients that work in embedding a culture of CSR in an organization.

As always, take a look at the report. Give feedback!





elaine cohen, CSR consultant, Sustainability Reporter, HR Professional, Ice Cream Addict. Author of Understanding G4: the Concise Guide to Next Generation Sustainability Reporting AND Sustainability Reporting for SMEs: Competitive Advantage Through Transparency AND CSR for HR: A necessary partnership for advancing responsible business practices . Contact me via Twitter (@elainecohen) or via my business website www.b-yond.biz (Beyond Business Ltd, an inspired CSR consulting and Sustainability Reporting firm). Need help writing your first / next Sustainability Report? Contact elaine: info@b-yond.biz

Digitizing materiality



This week was a fun week! Amidst all the intensely intensive intensity of G4 reporting for several months as clients race to meet reporting deadlines and us with them, I was able to take a couple of serene days to spend time with fabulous people, enjoy fabulous food in a fabulous setting, and hear some fabulously new stuff.

 

Yes, I was at the Lundquist 6th annual CSR Awards conference and event in Milan, a gathering of specialist communications and CSR experts from all over Europe. Lundquist is a strategic communications consulting firm based in Italy, and the company boasts a team of leading thinkers in the digital corporate communications space. The recently published Lundquist survey results with trends and practices around CSR and the online universe can be downloaded here:

 

 

The research shows an acceleration of the uptake of social and digital technologies compared with previous editions of the research. Now, virtually all sustainability professionals (94%) are on social media with three quarters of these doing so in relation to CSR and sustainability. Video and infographic content are gaining popularity and CSR Managers have become the new social media stars, with everyone wanting to hear from them online. It's always fun to know what frustrates people and the Lundquist research confirmed what we already know - that too much good news is not good news.

 

 

 

 

The full results and the details of the CSR award winners can be downloaded here. Deutsche Post DHL took first prize, with Nestle and Unilever close behind.

 

 

In the Lundquist home market, Italy, Telecom Italia, Hera Group and Snam took the trophies.

Lundquist's research and analysis is really quite fascinating and contains much that should be of interest to CSR corporate communicators. Well worth studying!

During the two day conference, I was pleased to facilitate a workshop with presenters and panelists from Hera Group, Birra Peroni (SAB Miller) and Adidas. I opened up (my presentation embedded below) with an overview of opportunities and risks in the digitization of materiality and stakeholder engagement. While there is incredible potential to reach to stakeholders using online tools, there are also dangers arising from inappropriate use. Not everything that is online provides real insight that is relevant enough to deliver a robust materiality conclusion. The fact that Survey Monkey is free and there is a (G4) stakeholder engagement materiality box to tick does not mean that stakeholder engagement happens. As an element in a set of digital and non-digital tools, there is a place for online surveys. But let's not dumb down stakeholder engagement to the point of mindlessness by going through the motions without due planning and focus.

Materiality in a digital world - elaine cohen presentation at the Lundquist CSR Awards May 2014   

One of the questions that generated the most debate in our workshop was how to find the right balance between, on the one hand, targeted engagement of experts that can make a contribution based on knowledge, experience and critical analysis and, on the other hand, reach to the general mass consumer population that is, after all, the group that decides whether to buy a company's product or not. We shared lots of views and recognized that each company needs to assess what tools will deliver the most useful materiality input and most reflect stakeholder views in a representative way. Not all stakeholders are equal but no single algorithm can determine which are the most equal.

All in all, a stimulating couple of days, professionally and skillfully organized by the Lundquist team.

My photo gallery from the CSR Awards conference and event

a fabulous colorful place to stay - Hotel Mediolanum

Kicking things off with digital disruption

Joakim Lundquist who kept the two days moving at a pace

Are sustainability reports really dinosaurs? 

The Gala Dinner - in anticipation

The Gala Dinner - home straits

Gotta keep talking

James Osborne, the CSR social media stats and trends wizard

hate turgid

David Connor @davidcoethica raring to present on the ways of using social media

Christine Hermann of Orange talks about what's important

My daughter's new ear piercing  - oops, how did that get in here? 

elaine cohen, CSR consultant, award-winning Sustainability Reporter, HR Professional, Ice Cream Addict. Author of Understanding G4: the Concise guide to Next Generation Sustainability Reporting  AND  Sustainability Reporting for SMEs: Competitive Advantage Through Transparency AND CSR for HR: A necessary partnership for advancing responsible business practices . Contact me at www.twitter.com/elainecohen   or via my business website www.b-yond.biz   (Beyond Business Ltd, an inspired CSR consulting and Sustainability Reporting firm)

G4. It's a Hat Trick

I am proud to announce the publication of the third G4 CORE level report that my firm, Beyond Business Ltd, has supported this year, completing a Hat Trick of three G4 report publications in this reporting-history-landmark-month-of-December 2013. First there was GSK Romania. Then Caesars Entertainment. Now, ECI Telecom brings it home with the company's second Sustainability Report covering year 2012. 

Founded in 1961, ECI Telecom Ltd, headquartered in Israel, is a privately-owned provider of transport and access solutions for communications networks. ECI designs, develops, manufactures, markets and supports telecommunications solutions for voice, data, video and multimedia services. ECI serves over 250 customers - wireline and wireless service providers and utilities and government organizations -  in over 70 countries. At the end of 2012, ECI employed over 2,000 people in over 25 countries. 

ECI's main sustainability contribution, that has a positive impact on society, is providing the capabilities for telecoms companies to connect their customers to the worldwide web. Most users (like me) are completely oblivious to the technology and infrastructure that is required to help us watch Fast and Furious 6 on demand from the comfort of our own iPad, whatsapp our Jerusalem-in-the-snow photo collection to our friends enjoying the sunshine in Buenos Aires, singalong to Alex and Sierra's latest X Factor USA offering  which we downloaded from iTunes, check out the Golden Girls bloopers on YouTube without stopping to reload every second, or send important business files over a high-speed broadband connection without them turning up at the other end missing page 33. High-speed broadband is changing the way we live our lives in so many ways, and ECI's technology is helping the people of many countries, from Togo to Philippines, from Russia to Germany, and from anywhere to everywhere, get a piece of the action. 

ECI's sustainability communications journey started in 2009 with the publication of a first standalone Communication on Progress (COP) to the United Nations Global Compact, which was followed by another standalone COP in 2010. In 2011, ECI Telecom decided to further consolidate its reporting efforts by progressing to the more widely recognized and respected reporting framework of the GRI and delivered an Application Level B Sustainability Report. This time around, for the 2012 Sustainability Report, ECI took the step of reviewing its sustainability journey and performance, and the issues that matter, and engaged in a materiality process to support adoption of the most advanced sustainability reporting framework available, GRI's G4. 

This makes ECI Telecom the first telecoms company in the world (as far as I can tell) to report in accordance with the G4 framework, demonstrating agility, adaptability and responsiveness to stakeholder expectations which are characteristics, not only of the company's reporting approach, but also of its approach to serving its customers around the world. My personal experience of working with ECI Telecom for the past four years confirms this. I have come to know well many people in the company, including most of the executives whom I have met personally, and a wide range of other management team members. Despite the competitive challenges of the telecoms infrastructure market, and the ongoing need to review the company's structure in response to market pressures, ECI's commitment to sustainable practices has never wavered. In the Israeli context, where very few companies publish sustainability reports (Israel came in with the lowest ranking out of 41 countries for rate of reporting among the 100 largest companies in each country, in the recently published KPMG Survey of Corporate Responsibility Reporting for 2013), ECI Telecom stands out as a company that values accountability and transparency.   

There is a certain satisfaction I gain from supporting the evolution of a company's reporting progress. UNGC Communication on Progress reports are a mixed bunch, and not always terribly revealing. Ranging from a collection of one-pagers, which barely even respond to the description of Communication, let alone Progress, to the more sophisticated 100+ page GRI A+ full-blown sustainability reports which include a brief mention of UNGC participation, seeking out a COP is never a very safe bet. It is because ECI took a different approach, and treated the COP as an important and relevant way of communicating progress to all stakeholders, and not just filling in the UNGC online COP submission form, that the transition to a Sustainability Report was a natural next step. It is because the approach to Sustainability Reporting was not just about reporting, but more about what matters, that the transition to G4 was within early reach. 

After an internal process, ECI Telecom prioritized four categories of sustainability impacts that support the company's ongoing sustainability approach. 

ACCESSIBILITY - EFFICIENCY  - NETWORKS - INTEGRITY

Nine most material issues were selected for detailed reporting and inclusion in the G4 CORE report.

Performance highlights from the report include:

• Major progress in auditing main suppliers in the supply chain – ten audits on key suppliers performed in 2012. 
• Increase in customer loyalty scores from 90.8 to 91.6 
• Second time award of the Diamond Mark by the Israeli Standards Institute for compliance to seven quality standards. 
• 9,600 hours volunteered in the community by ECI employees.
• 31.7% absolute energy consumption reduction between 2008 – 2012, and 31.5% reduction in corresponding carbon emissions. 
• Waste reduction from 500 tons in 2008 to just 70 tons in 2012. 
• New Human Rights policy published. 
• Highest possible ranking, Platinum Plus, in local responsible business ranking in Israel. 
• Further improvement in E-Tasc scores to 97.2.

And by now, you absolutely know what I am going to say next:
Read the report. Give feedback.


elaine cohen, CSR consultant, winning (CRRA'12) Sustainability Reporter, HR Professional, Ice Cream Addict. Author of Understanding G4: the Concise guide to Next Generation Sustainability Reporting  AND  Sustainability Reporting for SMEs: Competitive Advantage Through Transparency AND CSR for HR: A necessary partnership for advancing responsible business practices . Contact me at www.twitter.com/elainecohen   or via my business website www.b-yond.biz   (Beyond Business Ltd, an inspired CSR consulting and Sustainability Reporting firm)

Liberty Global: Discovering New Possibilities

It's always a pleasure to tell CSR Reporting blog readers about reports that I have been involved with. Last year, I posted about Liberty Global's inaugural Corporate Responsibility Report  and now, I am delighted to bring you an update in the form of the second global report, called Discovering New Possibilities, which was published last week.

 

This report represents a step up in transparency for Liberty Global with a GRI G3.1 report at Application Level B, more extensive than the first C Level report, and covers operations in including UPC (Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Austria, Czech Republic and Hungary), Unitymedia Kabel BW (Germany), Telenet (Belgium), VTR (Chile) and Liberty Cablevision Puerto Rico.

 

A lot can change in a single year, which is reflected in this new report from Liberty Global. The company is now the largest international cable company in the world, following the acquisition of Virgin Media in June 2013, and expansion of presence in different markets, generating a whole lot of economic and social value with revenues of over $17 billion and employing over 36,000 employees. With 24 million customers and over 48 million subscribers to video, internet and voice services, Liberty Global maintains an operation which is transforming access to the digital world - a transformation which is relevant to the quality of life of millions of people in the markets in which the company operates. Liberty Global's approach to delivering this transformation is routed in a compelling vision of the role that Liberty Global can play in society. It's much more than selling modems or set-top-boxes. It's about changing the way people live their lives. It's not enough to connect. It's about knowing what to do with that connection. In the language of Liberty Global, this means Discovering New Possibilities.

 

 

Possibilities for New Digital Skills

The Digital Agenda for Europe (DAE) recognizes that access to next-generation broadband with speeds exceeding 100 Mbps (megabytes per second) by 2020 is vital for long-term economic development and competitiveness. The goals of the DAE range from fast broadband for all to increased online commerce to 60% of disadvantaged people using the internet regularly. This is because digital technologies have "enormous potential" to benefit our everyday lives and support the economic wellbeing of Europe, as well as contribute to environmental resource efficiency. Liberty Global, as a seriously large player, recognizes that continually improving technology is not going to do the job. The technology needs to go where it's needed and people need to understand how to use it for their own benefit and for that of others. For example, in Belgium, Liberty Global's company, Telenet, installed 450 multimedia monitors in patient rooms at a hospital, providing video conference capabilities for patients and secure access to patients’ medical information for use by hospital staff, helping to increase the efficiency of staff while providing patients with opportunities to engage with their families and friends. Also in Belgium, Telenet Foundation developed an award-winning program called Recup PC, which helps people to get online, understand how to use the technology and develop digital literacy.

 

Possibilities of Buttons

Another great example of helping people not only to be aware of new technology but also to increase their capabilities is Liberty Global's innovative web tool called Internet Buttons. This enables people who have some experience in using the internet to create easy-to-use customized starter page for family members and friends who are new to the internet or find it confusing. Large, brightly colored ‘buttons’ act as shortcuts to websites such as email, search engines, Skype, eHealth or other services tailored to the user. These can be saved to a personal homepage, easily accessible at the click of a button and a whole lot less confusing than a bunch of unrecognizable icons and symbols that only experienced users can navigate around. New digital skills – button-wise – is a way to bring the internet to those who otherwise would probably never be able to figure it out on their own. Like most things, it's easy when you know how. But if no-one helps you, you never know how.

 

 

 

Possibilities of Engaging Children in Innovation

In Romania, Liberty Global company UPC has developed a platform to get kids interested in technology involved by submitting ideas with the possibility of winning a trip to attend a NASA educational summer camp. Over 230,000 visits to the Tech School website and 570 ideas later, the winning ideas included a super bionic hand, a mobile-phone-charging-T-shirt and a mobile astronomy observatory, showing that, when you provide the tools, kids get engaged and discover new possibilities. The overall winner of Tech School 2012 developed a prototype of a bionic hand with enhanced control and strength, which has wide-ranging implications for surgery, telemedicine and other remote interventions. A UPC Tech School grant will help develop an advanced version of this prototype.

 

 

Possibilities of Keeping Kids Safe Online 

Another area in which this report demonstrates the impact and potential positive impact of a company as large and influential as Liberty Global is the ways in which it advances technology, awareness and education to protect kids online. As a mom who has had personal experience of my own child getting into a potentially very dangerous online situation, which I managed to catch in the nick of time, and with kids who are mesmerized by the big, medium and small screens, I am only too aware of the need to protect our children. Liberty Global's report discusses this in detail and provides examples of how the company is supporting media literacy for parents in the Netherlands, campaigning to keep passwords safe in Chile and working in partnership in Europe to create safe internet experiences. The focus of protecting children is on education and empowerment.

 

 

Corporate Responsibility Performance

The nice thing about Liberty Global's report is that stories such as these show how positive impact is created through Liberty Global's core business. This is not a report about switching off lights at the end of the day and retrofitting offices with low-flow toilets (although there is some of that too). The main content of Liberty Global's report is about the role that the Company plays in society, which includes significant discussion about public policy and the complexities of creating internationally aligned protocols for data privacy and more. Liberty Global is active in helping define and shape the future of our digital world, which makes this report quite relevant for almost everyone.

 

Liberty Global's report also covers areas of responsible performance in environmental impacts, people management, supply chain monitoring and management and other relevant issues which affect the sector such as conflict minerals and an important discussion about e-waste, one of the sector's most significant impact areas. Liberty Global achieves a 36% retrieval and recycling rate of set-top boxes and modems, which adds up to over 5,000 tons of e-waste which avoids landfill. That’s equivalent in weight to offering 10,000 people an annual supply of ice cream every year for over 25 years. Unless you are me, in which case an annual supply would last about two days.

 

Take a Look – Give Feedback – Think Future G4

The transition from first reporter to experienced reporter is not easy. Liberty Global has delivered an equally relevant and more transparent report this year, which places the Company on the right road for a G4 report next time around. With this in mind, I encourage you to take a look, and give feedback!

 

 

elaine cohen, CSR consultant, winning (CRRA'12) Sustainability Reporter, HR Professional, Ice Cream Addict. Author of Understanding G4: the Concise guide to Next Generation Sustainability Reporting  AND  Sustainability Reporting for SMEs: Competitive Advantage Through Transparency AND CSR for HR: A necessary partnership for advancing responsible business practices Contact me via www.twitter.com/elainecohen   or via my business website www.b-yond.biz   (Beyond Business Ltd, an inspired CSR consulting and Sustainability Reporting firm)

 

Go online - save lives

When you use online tools to manage your daily tasks, you may be saving someone's life. Sound a bit far-fetched? A bit surreal? A little like bluewash? Read on.

This week, I had the pleasure of facilitating a webinar on the subject of how everyday business and household activities can contribute to a low-carbon economy. The study that prompted the webinar was conducted by the Global eSustainability Initiative (GeSI), performed by John "Skip" Laitner of the American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy (ACEEE) and sponsored by some major telco's, including Verizon. The webinar was organized by CSRwire.com and presented the findings of this study, the bottom line being that, if we fully utilize the potential of broadband to engage in a certain set of online activities (teleworking, downloading music and books, taking educational courses, reading news, receiving online bank statements and billing and using email), in just 6 countries (U.S., France, Germany, UK, Italy, Spain), we can save 2% of carbon emissions in these countries, enough to take 55 million cars off the road.  55 million cars. That's some collective impact.

In this post, I wanted to reflect a little on the ways in which our online behavior is changing. For many, the main motivation of going broadband may not be to save the planet, but this study shows that doing more online in order to save our own time, money and endless pressure to get things done, also conserves the planet's resources.

I would consider myself an early adopter of online technology - way back in the mid 1990's, before anyone had conceived of Facebook and Twitter and many of today's online tools, I used to play bridge online at Yahoo with people from all over the world. That was just for fun. Today, I use online tools for a million other tasks, business, personal and pleasure: conference calling via VOIP; downloading books to Kindle; managing my personal and business bank accounts; reading Sustainability Reports; delivering lectures to MBA students and companies; downloading software; connecting with friends via Facebook; blogging; tweeting; learning through webinars and courses and generally staying up to date with what's going in on in the world. I work from home more and more, instead of driving to the office, and my latest recruit to Beyond Business is a teleworker.  Broadband has certainly changed my life and enabled me to build my consulting practice as a global business, serving international clients, in a way which would never have been possible in the "old" pre-broadband world. I have a broadband lifestyle because it works for me. My motivation was not green. I suspect most of us have drifted into broadbandland for the same reasons. However, for those of us who also like to be green, this new study shows that we are making a powerful contribution to a low-carbon economy. And it's not just about our own actions. There is a broader, more global effect.

By utilizing broadband, we are funding the future growth of broadband technology. The increase in uptake of broadband enables the ongoing development of technology which will provide greater opportunity, greater choice and greater positive green effects in the future. How is this saving lives? Consider this (from Verizon's online Sustainability Report):

"Each year more than 200,000 people in the U.S. die of chronic diseases that are both treatable and preventable. Among the causes of these deaths is lack of ready access to medical care, because of such barriers as distance, geography, or simply the availability of doctors and nurses. Verizon is currently deploying and developing wireless services that will overcome these roadblocks, using the Verizon 4G LTE network, smartphones, tablets and advanced video technology to enable virtual visits between patients and health care providers."

This telehealth technology is transforming access to healthcare data and services, reliability of data and the speed at which life-saving information can be transmitted to the right healthcare professionals. As we do more on line, we are helping to make these solutions possible, going beyond green and addressing real social needs. This is just one example of the new potential of broadband technology. No wonder, then, that Verizon, in the Company's recent published online  Corporate Responsibility Report, Verizon first and foremost emphasizes the "Shared Success" of  building a "truer connection between business and real social needs".

Another social cause that Verizon has put its broadband weight behind is the issue of domestic violence. One in four women is affected by domestic violence, and Verizon's Hopeline which collects no-longer-used wireless phones, batteries and accessories in any condition from any service provider to donate to victims and survivors of domestic violence - so far, Verizon has collected more than 8.9 million mobile phones. This is in addition to raising awareness and supporting education to end domestic violence, including the "Telling Amy's Story" documentary, about a young woman killed by her abusive husband, funded by the Verizon Foundation. Take a look at the vid - none of us are unaffected by tragedies such as these. 

But the power of ICT to save lives and advance social causes is not the only aspect of corporate responsibility that we should expect from telco's. Behind all of this social and environmental impact, there is a large, complex business, employing, in Verizon's case, nearly 200,000 employees, which must control and manage its own direct operations in a responsible, accountable and transparent way.

Verizon's online report shows a commitment to environmental sustainability, and a clear set of performance progress updates and new goals in the format that Verizon has adopted in its reporting for the past few years: "What we said we'd do, what we did, what we'll do next". For example, Verizon's carbon-intensity goal reduction by 2020 is 50% versus a 2009 baseline, and this includes exceeding 2011 target with a 17.45% reduction from 2010. Other goals including increasing alternative-fueled vehicles as part of the Verizon fleet to 15% by 2015, achieving 250 Smart Buildings by 2015 and expanding the Verizon Green Team membership to 10,000 employees by end 2012 (6,000 members in 2011).  Verizon's key performance indicators and metrics in all areas of Corporate Responsibility performance demonstrate clear targets and achievements in all areas.

Clearly, telco's also have other serious responsibility issues to address, such as conflict minerals, digital safety, pricing and much more. They are not perfect, and positive impacts don't cancel out negative impacts. The negative impacts must still be addressed. However, facilitating this webinar on energy savings through greater use of broadband, and researching Verizon's programs and transparent sustainability performance, as well as chatting to Verizon's Director of Public Policy and Corporate Responsibility, Chris Lloyd, prompted me to think about my own lifestyle, and the broader impact of online activities.

It seems that, the more we do online, the more we contribute to a more equitable, safer, healthier, connected, transparent society, in an energy efficient way. We even have the potential to save lives. The chances are that if you are reading this post (online), then I am preaching to the converted, so thanks for bearing with me in my online ramblings.

I think it's time for me to go and place my online order for today's ice cream. I just hope they don't deliver it via broadband. 

elaine cohen, CSR consultant, winning (CRRA'12) Sustainability Reporter, HR Professional, Ice Cream Addict. Author of CSR for HR: A necessary partnership for advancing responsible business practices  Contact me via www.twitter.com/elainecohen   on Twitter or via my business website www.b-yond.biz  (Beyond Business Ltd, an inspired CSR consulting and Sustainability Reporting firm)