Using sex to sell ice cream at Nestlé

By now, anyone that reads the CSR Reporting Blog knows how much I love ice cream. So perhaps it's not by chance that a Facebook post about ice cream caught my eye. Yesterday, I noticed a such a post by Eyal Carmi who criticized an advertisement for Joya ice cream in Israel by Osem, which is 63.7% owned by Nestlé. His Facebook comment drew attention to the soft-porno nature of the ad, apparently aired on prime time TV.

I don't wish to promote Nestlé ice cream or lend any sort of support to this marketing campaign, but, before I offer my thoughts, I have to let you judge for yourself. A screen shot and the ad itself on Youtube - proclaiming Joya ice cream the hottest ice cream around.

I have to wonder how this kind of marketing passes the ethics test at Nestlé.

Beyond the fact that I personally find this ad rather nauseating, serving only to make me resolved NOT to try Joya ice cream,  I wonder why it is even necessary to create such a campaign that borders on pornography. Why does Nestlé need sex to sell ice cream? Does fabricated sensuality really make people buy ice cream? What does this ad say about the way Osem-Nestlé thinks about women, when corporate marketeers are prepared to air a voluptuous woman lustfully sucking on a phallus-shaped ice cream bar, vigorously licking her fingers, in what appears to be the way advertisers think women scheme to attract a man's attention? Is this the kind of ad that should be seen by kids on prime time TV?  Or on YouTube alongside fun ads for kids' snacks on the company's YouTube channel?

I sought another opinion from a respected colleague who is an expert in corporate and business communications. This is what he said:

“I recall putting the issue of responsible marketing to the director of sustainability who was speaking at a conference one day while his company was running an ad featuring almost voyeuristic images of a woman’s body that bore no relation to the product being sold. His reply - the the effect of “it wouldn’t happen if I was in charge of marketing” - spoke volumes about the lack of integration of sustainability into day-to-day practices, which is so often claimed by corporations. How companies approach marketing is emblematic of the way they understand consumers but so often merely seeks to plug into stereotypical, out-dated attitudes in order to grab (men’s) attention for the brand name."
James Osborne, Senior Partner, Lundquist  

Nestlé's Consumer Communication Principles is a four page document that prescribes the way Nestlé companies should develop and air marketing content. It states: "The Nestlé Communication Principles have been defined as the highest standard on which all marketing and communication to consumers must be based." Here are some of the principles:

• The content of consumer communications must reflect good taste and social responsibility in accordance with each country’s laws and regulations and voluntary codes and standards. Although standards will vary from country to country, it must not display vulgarity, bad manners and offensive behavior and there must never be an intention to shock or offend. 
• Advertising content must not depict attitudes that are discriminatory or offensive to religious, ethnic, political, cultural or social groups. 
• Advertising should avoid exploiting media events that could be in bad taste.

Nestlé is no stranger to ethical problems. In fact, it's one of the corporations that exemplifies the most extreme levels of emotion, as, one the one hand, the most boycotted company in the UK, and on the other hand, the most admired for its' work in "creating shared value" and advancing global food science and technology for the benefit of everyone. A quick internet search brings up a host of ethical issues over the years related to different parts of the Nestlé business, including a recent $680,000 fine for anti-competitive marketing tactics in the coffee business. In fairness, Nestlé claims to be addressing many of the concerns of stakeholders around the world with several supply chain assessments, and a host of other initiatives under the CSV banner, as you can read in the 2013 Nestle Shared Value Report. The company even made a bold commitment to no deforestation traceable palm oil, after the Greenpeace campaign disaster that had everyone associating Kit-Kats with bloody orang-utan fingers.

It seems that as soon as one ethical problem dies down, another one crops up. This ice cream advertisement is, in my view, poor judgment and poor ethics. If the marketing is in bad taste, I wonder if the ice cream comes with a bad taste too.

Perhaps it's time to refresh that set of consumer communication principles and get the folks that market ice cream at Osem-Nestlé up to date with today's values.  

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

Hershey's real real CSR report

Christine Arena, CEO of SparkUp and great CSR author, blogger and #CSR Debate moderator, made me aware on Twitter of the "real" Hershey report. And that is well worth a blop (= blog post for those not used to my lingo. Yet).

Let's set the scene:

First, Hershey, with great fanfare, published their first ever CSR Report (GRI Level C). This is the real report. This report, as might be expected, presents Hershey's strong commitment to Corporate Social Responsibility in all aspects of its operations, including management of the Hersey supply chain and cocoa sourcing.

Second, a group of activists and campaigners for human rights including Global Exchange,  Green America, The International Labor Rights Forum and Oasis USA  published a mock CSR report attacking Hershey for human rights abuses in the production of cocoa. This is the real "real" report. In this report, the campaigners focus primarily on what they allege to be forced labor, child labor and trafficking  in the Hershey supply chain, greenwashing regarding charitable and community activities in West Africa which mask the underlying human rights problems and urge Hershey to increase transparency and adopt full sourcing of Fair Trade Certified (TM) Cocoa. 

So which is the real real real report ?

First a look at both reports and then some perspectives of my own.

The real report

The report published by Hershey confirms that the Company is no stranger to CSR, in fact the story goes that when Milton S. Hershey started the firm that would become The Hershey Company in 1984, he conducted his business according to the following principles:

**  make and sell a high-quality product at a fair price

**  provide meaningful work and fair wages to employees

**  give back to the communities where the company operated

**  be a good steward of the land and its resources

The Hershey report follows the Quadrant Model (marketplace, workplace, environment and community) and, despite no evidence of materiality thinking and proiritization, the key headlines are covered in greater or lesser detail. These include promoting responsible consumption of snacks and treats as part of a healthy lifestyle (really?), supplier diversity, nutrition labelling and nutrition research (how many phytonutrients in your daily diet, hmm?), promoting health and fitness, marketing with integrity, plus all the regular disclosures and case studies relating to environmental stewardship, repsonsible workplace and community contribution. There is a two page section on "Addressing the Challenges in Sourcing Cocoa" which reconfirms Hershey's commitment to  "embrace our responsibility to ensure that the cocoa  we buy is grown and harvested in a sustainable manner. That means encouraging a cocoa supply chain that provides adequate incomes to small cocoa farmers, advances efforts to promote responsible labor in cocoa-farming communities, promotes gender equity and protects and preserves the environment." All in all, Hershey says, through their efforts in West Africa, "Hershey and its industry peers have made a positive impact on an estimated 500,000 farmers and their families—about 2.5 million people altogether."  There is no doubt that this is a good news report, very skillfully copywritten, designed to paint a very rosy picture of the Hershey Company. Its transparency is limited to the direct impacts that are non-controversial in terms of disclosure and the report is not assured. Nonetheless, it  does demonstrate a certain level of CSR commitment and practice, which cannot be denied.

The real real report

This report represents the "dark side" of Hershey's chocolate production and focuses on four key issues, alleging that:

First: In sourcing much of its cocoa from West Africa, Hershey does not have a system in place to ensure human rights abuses are eliminated.
Second: Hershey does not disclose its cocoa suppliers in West Africa, therefore making it difficult to monitor human rights issues.
Third: Hershey engages in greenwashing by reporting on charitable programs whilst masking underlying supply chain abuses
Fourth: Hershey does not adopt the Fair Trade Certification for Cocoa, "the strongest certification system available" for all but one of its chocolate products.

The report refers to a shareholder resolution submitted in 2006 to Hershey, that was rejected, to push Hershey into reviewing and reporting on supply chain sourcing and addresses why Hershey is purchasing from "the three companies,Archer Daniels Midland, Cargill, and Nestlé, which are involved in the ongoing lawsuit in US courts on child labor claims". Similarly, the alternative report looks at leading practices in cocoa sourcing and commitments by other manufacturers and shows how Hershey is lagging behind. Additionally, the report makes recommendations to Hershey for resolution of this issue through to the year 2022.

The real real real issues

So what should we make of all this?  Here are some thoughts:

Whether you are transparent or you are not transparent, you are transparent.
No company can hide from transparency. It's either forced or it's voluntary. In the same way that Gap Inc and Nike and others realised that the only way to gain benefit from transparency is to embrace it and work with it, so Hersheys, sooner or later, will have no option but to go this route. Whilst a first CSR report is a step in the right direction, transparency on the most material and critical issues cannot be avoided.

Don't cherry-pick at stakeholder engagement 
Hershey lists the stakeholders they engage with in their CSR report, which includes interest groups, NGO's and the World Cocoa Foundation (established in 2000, Hershey is a founding partner), but they don't drill down into the details of their engagement. The coalition of human rights activist groups who wrote the alternative report don't appear to rate this foundation, which focuses on good work without the same activist edge. In deciding whom to engage with, a company should not cherry-pick around who to talk to. If you do not engage with your strongest critics, you are at risk of them engaging you in a way you may not have anticipated. On the other hand, engaging with such critics may well provide a platform for your business to create new commercial opportunities and longer term sustainability.

Communications should be balanced
Both the real report, which is good news, and the real real report, which is bad news, are guilty of imbalance in communications. Both tell one story only. The one which advances their agenda. And let's make no mistake. The profit agenda of a corporation and the non-profit agenda of NGO's are also driven by people with personal interests and much to gain, one way or another. This approach to one-dimentional reporting undermines the crediblity of both players in this sad scenario.

Convert words into action
There is no doubt in my mind that, even if Hershey people have an adequate defense to the allegations in the real real report, they must respond and disclose an action pan to address the issues raised. Whether or not everything is true, or not, there is surely something that Hershey can accept as a way forward. I don't believe that Hershey can maintain a credible  CSR positioning without doing this. The first response should be a public invitation to the real real report authors to meet with Hershey leadership and table all issues at a facilitated conversation in open and positive spirit. Wow. That' s a conversation I would be happy to facilitate!

This story reminds me of two other anecdotes:

The story of the Hershey Trust decision to sell the Hershey Foods Company to the highest bidder, which was recounted by Andy Savitz in his book, The Triple Bottom Line. The story is amazing and shows how Hershey blundered through a process that caused stakeholder uprisings and ultimately had to back down, "squandering valuable social capital". Hmm. A lesson not learned, it seems.

The story of Starbucks and the Ethopian coffee farmers, which was the subject of an Oxfam led  campaign, which went pretty viral with people from all over the world posting videos in support of Ethiopian farmers, eventaually forcing Starbucks to give in. Starbucks did, and went on to build stronger reciprocally positive relationships with Ethiopian coffee farmers. A lesson learned, apparently.

Seems like Hershey has a knack for doing things the hard way. At least, as I have a few (ok, a lot of) pounds to shed, I wont have to ponder the issue of whether to eat Hershey's chocolate or not, for the time being. I will be watching for Hershey's to respond, however. Hopefully they will do so before my diet turns once again, into the tomorrow diet. Haha.

(Oh, and in case you are wondering, I did write directly to Hershey with my queries about this issue. I hope they have something to say).

elaine cohen, CSR consultant, Sustainabilty 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/en  (BeyondBusiness, an inspired CSR consulting and Sustainability Reporting firm)

Does size really matter ?

Should small Companies report ? Do you agree with the statement that "CR reporting is for companies with large footprints" ? Does the size of the Company, and its footprint dictate whether a Company should be transparent and accountable to its stakeholders? Is it true that "that large companies have many more resources than small firms" and therefore, large Companies can afford to report and small Companies cannot ? Should a small Company content itself with "more written policies and statements about our impacts"?

The quotes (in red) above are from Toby Webb, the founder and manager of Ethical Corporation.(The questions are mine!)  I have met Toby briefly a couple of times, when I have attended Ethical Corp's conferences, which are very good. I regularly follow his blog Reflections on Ethical Business which I genuinely find to be one of the best blogs around on CSR, full of sharp insight and commentary. Recently Toby posted "Twelve reasons why I won't read your corporate responsibility report", and my response, which was basically that the twelve reasons Toby mentions for not reading CSR reports, are precisely the reasons he should read reports (call me argumentative if you like, but check it out), led to a ping-pong of why reporting is for all organizations, irrespective of size (me) versus why a small business doesnt need, or have the resources, to report (Toby). This prompted me to bring  the ping-pong on to my territory, a blog about reporting, for all organizations (ALL organizations) and elaborate on why I believe this to be so.

What is reporting ? It's a process by which a business, after reasonable dialogue with stakeholders, considers the most material issues for them, the stakeholders, and for its business sustainability, and is transparent about how it performs on matters of stakeholder interest. Reporting is part of the loop of dialogue - we listen, we act, we respond, we listen again. The report is the periodical output of this cyclical process. The process itself builds relationships, trust, management discipline, identifies risk and oportunity, contributes to positive reputation and enhances investor interest, to name but a few benefits. The resources required to produce a report are do not need to be overwhelming - more often than not, the design, printing and dispatch of reports can cost more than the investment in wirting them, or the consultant fee. Most of these cost elements can be avoided by a producing a PDF download or an online report, with modest graphics. The content is what counts. In a small business, personnel resources may be more limited, but the issues are far less complex than in a big global business, and require less personnel.  So i think this  we-ain't-got-the-resources line is a cop-out for not applying rigorous thinking to sustainability, or accepting accountability. Oh, and let's face it, no-one reads reports, anyway, right ?

Let's take a look at some stuff relating to SME reporting:

In Spain, 822 SME's  now produce CSR reports. Why ? It enables them "to increase their competitiveness in a setting where transparency and distinguishing features play an important role. ...... the preparation of the reports initiates the enterprise in the main aspects of CSR while encouraging it to develop its skills of self-diagnosis." This is reported on the Instituto de Crédito Oficial website, an organziation which assists SMEs to report.

The Global Reporting Initiative website has a  section dedicated to support for SME's , and  lists a whole string of SME's who report. In an interview with  Scott McAusland on the GRI website, he says that SME's " account for about 90% of businesses worldwide and 50 - 60% of employment."  Often SME's are part of MNE (multinational enterprise) supply chains, and therefore may have a need to demonstrate ethical, accountable and transparent behaviour in order to stay competitive.

CorporateRegister.com's 2010 CR Reporting Awards has a special category for SME's , as in previous years. You can find many SME reports in the CorporateRegister.com database. The European Commission produced an excellent guide for SME's for communicating CSR.  Whilst the focus of this guide is communications, of which reporting is only one element, it lists many compelling reasons for SME's to communicate abobut their CSR activities, with a CSR report included in the different channels reletvant to different stakeholder groups.

In a post back in July 2009, called You don't have to be BIG to do CSR, I gave an example of an SME from Moldova who reported many positive impacts which almost certainly no-one would ever know about had they not reported themselves. Local competitiveness and reputation are just as crucial here as for bigger businesses.

Many of the reporting SME's confirm that both the process and the report deliver significant benefits as mentioned above. It is important to note that the process cannot succeed without the product of that process - the report itself - a periodical health-check of strategy and metrics, and renewed commitment. A report is the most appropriate vehicle for this - as part of a total csr and communications strategy. I dont see this as a privilege reserved  for only the big blockbuster corps.

What might a Company like Ethical Corporation have to gain by a reporting process and publication of a report? 

• Stakeholder engagement and materiality analysis could throw up new insights about ways to serve stakeholders and do more, better, business. At worst, it will provide an external reality check of how the Company is percieved by those who can influence its sucess.
• An environmental risk and impact assessment, followed by an Environmental Policy and Action Plan could deliver several benefits - cost savings through improved internal environmental practices, travel habits, printing and sustainability in events management.
• A statement of mission, values and perhaps even a Code of Ethics could serve to align employees and all contributing writers to the Company's "what we stand for" and support the building of alignment, trust and reputation. Marketing practices for example are an important element of this too.
• A review of Human Resources practices - even with a small team - could assist the business in improving employee engagement and beoming more attractive to potential employees.
• A review of how the Company contributes to the public good through its business activities, and involves its employees in community activities or supporting social causes could contribute to positive reputation, improved egagement and skill development.
• And more than anything else,  scoping of Ethical Corporation's indirect influence on its many readers and conference attendees could provide the business with a platform to measure and increase its influence and potential readership. Through a "Green Conference Facilities", for example, the Company could provide attendees with an opportunity to make their own contribution to environmental sustainability.
• And finally, the compiling of all of this into a periodical, coherent report would provide a basis to maintain this cycle of planning and improvement, track performance and maintain a leading edge.  

Would this sell more mags or bring more people to summits ? Maybe not in the short term. But we all know that sustainability is a long haul and not a quick-buck thing. And it really doesn't matter how many people the Company employs or how many $ it earns. It's all about impacts. As Dolly Parton said, as far as i recall, "If you think you are too small to influence, you have never been in bed with a mosquito".

Note that i haven't even touched on the sense of duty we might assume of a Company whose core business is communicating about business ethics and "encouraging debate on responsible business" . The GRI produces a report, BSR produces a report, The Guardian produces a report.

Enough said.  I don't hope to convince Toby or Ethical Corporation, and i understand that every business must choose its own ways of doing things. My comments could apply to any small business, not just Ethical Corp. I just felt the need to share my perspective in good spirit on something i have, as you may have noticed, strong views about. And by way of disclosure, I am a CSR report-writing consultant so i am not totally objective.  Thanks to Toby for allowing this debate on his blog  - I expect i am getting on his nerves a bit. Oops!  Next time i see him at a conference I will buy him a Chunky Monkey!

elaine cohen is the joint CEO of BeyondBusiness, a leading reporting and social-environmental consulting firm . Visit our website at: www.b-yond.biz/en

The catch 22 of CSR reporting and the paradox of trust

The purpose of a CSR report is to build trust. By operating transparently and responding openly to stakeholder concerns and aspirations, through a "fair and balanced" presentation of the material issues relating to your organization's sustainability and corporate responsibily efforts, you build trust. Trust, so that stakeholders can hold your Company's integrity  in high regard and make educated decisions about whether they want to invest in you, work for you, buy your products or services, supply to you, collaborate with you, complain about you to the regulators, approve your license to operate in their neighborhood or simply recommend you to their friends. But quite often, reports are met with cyncism and mistrust. Why should we believe what is written in CSR reports. And more importantly, why shouldn't we believe what's reported? 

MANY PEOPLE SAY:

CSR Reports are just a form of marcom or PR - self-gratifying do-gooding self-promotion.

i.e. you cant trust CSR reports and you can't trust reporting companies. People may be right. CSR reports look like  PR. They are  full of superlatives and positives and superlapositives (like that ? It's a hybrid. Using one word instead of two is sustainable best practice... or bractice. Less typing energy, less server power, less carbissions). 

Which is why i find it interesting that so very few PR professionals are actually involved in managing CSR communications in their businesses, or in leading the writing of CSR reports. See some examples from reports published in September 2009:

Corporate Express Austrailia's 2008 report :  CSR is led by a CSR manager reporting to the CEO. There is a CSR Steering Committee with representation from all functions including the New Zealand person who reports to the Head of Marketing. But there seems to be no dominant PR or comms-related presence.
WestLB AG 2009 report : The Sustainability Department, which is responsible for planning, steering and controlling all sustainability activities, is a part of the Group Development business unit and reports to the Chairman of the Managing Board. Do you detect a mention of Marketing or PR in this structure ? Nope. Me neither.
Teck 2009 Report :The Safety and Sustainability Committee  of the Board of Directors provides policy direction and monitors  environmental, social and safety performance. The Corporate Environment and Risk Management Committee is a senior management committee that sets priorities and direction for EHS programs, tracks performance and measures results. No PR stuff here.
MTR Corporation 2008 Report : The Corporate Responsibility Steering Committee is chaired by the Legal Secretary and members from different parts of the business are on the team. Sounds pretty PR-less. 

Now, in an outstanding piece of research by Sherie Winston of Georgetown University, in which she charts the positioning of CSR in a business, 125 CSR jobs were studied and only half had some form of CSR communications content. When hiring CSR people, companies dont' look for communications specialists. "Few are pure communications jobs, and most fall under administrative, managerial or business development categories."  

Logic might dictate that if companies were intending their CSR reports to be PR brochures, they would have PR people leading their CSR report publication. Does that make sense? I mean, in any business i have ever worked in, the Finance guy counted the profits and the IT person decided when to upgrade my laptop. So why would a PR-motivated CSR report not be led by the PR person, arguably the most competent person to produce PR content ? 

Do you have kids ? What happens when someone asks you about your kids? You dont start off by listing all their bad points (well, unless your kid is Dennis the Menace). You dont spend all your time saying what they dont do well. You start off by saying how wonderful they are. Perhaps you might throw in the odd comment about the fact they total-lossed yourcar again last week, but on the whole, you stay with the good stuff. They are not bottom of the class, they are 28th from the top. They are not hyperactive, they have lots of energy. Most mom's are natural PR agents for their own kids. Mom's  tell the REAL truth about their kids (my son is two rungs short of a ladder) only  when they are with their closest family members or friends. The people who they trust the most.

And it's a bit like that with CSR reports. Each report is someone's kid. No CSR reporter wants to scoop up the dirt when writing about the organization in whose success he has a vested interest. So fair and balanced reporting is acually counter-intuitive, requires a degree of maturity and confidence that most corporations have not yet achieved.

Actually, it requires trust. It requires the organization to trust that the stakeholders who read the report will do so with a fair and balanced mindset, and not look for the first opportunity to beat the company about the head for everything that it admits is not perfect.

and here we have it, the CATCH 22.

To engender trust, you have to show trust though balanced reporting.
But balanced reporting is risky, as stakeholders might react negatively to anything that is less than perfect. If you dont trust them, they wont trust you.  If you don't trust your stakeholders, your CSR report will always lack authenticity. Because you will always be too scared to present your Company in a balanced way.


Like mommy (above), a corporation will have greater trust in those stakeholders that it is closest to. Those the company has invested time in getting to know, in engaging and dialoging with. The corporation will feel safe in providing with a balanced picture to this greater critical mass of stakeholders.

and here is the PARADOX

Paradoxically, despite the fact that stakeholder engagement is crucial to building trust and therefore balanced, trustworthy reporting, most Companies do not pay much attention to this. We can see this evidenced in the brief one-pagers in most reports which do no more than pay lip-service to stakeholder engagement. Not many corporations realize how core this is to their entire CSR program, and to building trust through CSR reporting. 

At this point, you are wondering how Chunky Monkey fits with reporting, catch 22's and paradoxes (gotcha!) . Here's the thing: I did a Free Astrology Destiny Reading on Astrology.com for Chunky Monkey , and this is part of what what is says: ...... chunky monkey, if you are a business person, you may feel that your employees and customers (especially the loyal, long time ones) are your family and try to take care of them as such. You care about their personal lives and feel for their troubles, and can like a good mother you see them through tough times.   Get that ? Chunky Monkey is all about values and stakeholder engagement. Phew. That's a relief!


elaine cohen is the joint CEO of BeyondBusiness, a leading reporting and social-environmental consulting firm . Visit our website at: www.b-yond.biz/en

Bank secrets... not any more

An interesting thing popped into my email box from Banktrack newsservice - Banktrack is the site that tracks banks (funny, eh?) .. which means that it scrutinizes the activities of banks and their effects on people and planet, something us cr reporters would call.. indirect impacts. See, the true impact of the banking sector is not the checking accounts or the home loans or even the savings accounts that make up their current business, but the large, significant chunks of money they use to finance major energy or infrastructure projects, the arms industry, the nuclear sector and a whole host of things that negatively (or positively) impact us, the planet and future generations. The owners of these initiatives rely on banks to finance them. The banks that do so should be held accountable for these indirect impacts of their financing policies. And this is where Banktrack comes in. Anyway, back to my inbox (ugh!), a press release is what popped into it.

It goes something like this, well, exactly like this:

"Campagna per la Riforma della Banca Mundiale (Italy), Friends of the Earth (France), Netwerk Vlaanderen (Belgium), Platform (UK), SETEM (Spain) and Urgewald (Germany) expose investments in harmful practices and companies of thirteen large European banks in this new website. Despite of the banking crisis, financial institutions continue to do harmful investments in a sphere of secrecy. .......The thirteen banks have financed 11,4 billion euros in loans to the14 blacklisted companies as well as arranged and underwritten bond and share issues for a total value of 10,5 billion euros. In addition, the thirteen banks own or manage 17,7 billion euros of shares in the researched companies. "

The new website refferred to is BANK SECRETS. it's an amazing site. Amazing design. And the content is pretty impressive too . There are profiles of these 13 banks and the dubious investments they have made ...a click on Barclays shows 11 locations of negative financing, Deutsche Bank also 11, RBS 9, and BNP Paribas tops the chart with 12 locations. Another page focuses on controversial investments by sector such as coal or oils and gas, and another page invites you to send an ecard to your bank proposing that they adopt ethical financing principles, and offers you a checklist of points to help you verify just what your bank is doing with your money. Finally, the site offers a selection of ethical banks in 7 European countries which you could choose to bank with if you want your money to be used for good and not the opposite.

The Equator Principles were designed to provide voluntary regulation in this area. Over 60 major banks worldwide have joined this intiative, which was launched in 2003.The principles were revised in 2006, making them more stringent, and apply to project financing with capital costs above USD 10 million . Whilst the principles have made a major impact on project financing, there are still many inadequate applications , even amongst the signatories.

I decided to take a quick look at Citibank's CSR report for 2008. I was hoping that it would reveal some secrets. Such as the ones revealed by BankSecrets, for example, financing of EADS, the second largest european arms producer, involved in nuclear weapons production, or financing Dongfeng which supplies military equipment to Burma, strengthening the repressive Burmese junta. One of Citibank's citizenship goals is to continue to provide Equator principles leadership . I looked for a mention of Burma, Dongfeng, EADS or nuclear weapons but .. alas.... zilch. Of course, they would not tarnish their positive cr report with vivid description of the indirect impact of financing nucler weapons or supporting repressive regimes. And they didnt. to be fair, Citi does boast a good record of reponsible home-loaning and community involvement, but nothing about the hotspots of their financial lending activities. In 2008, Citi funded 10 transactions worth over 183 billion $, out of a possible 39 requested, after environmental and social risk management review. However, it is not clear whether financing was rejected due to ESR issues, or due to the fact that Citi judged they would not make enough money on the the projects. There is definitely room for more transparency in reporting by the financial sector.

To round off my foray into (un)ethical banking, i took a quick look at one of the recommended banks - GLS Bank. This bank describes itself as: "the first social and ecological bank in Germany. GLS stands for "Gemeinschaftsbank für Leihen und Schenken", which translates as "community bank for loans and gifts". The bank was founded in 1974 and it currently finances around 6.500 projects and businesses. The Bank focuses on cultural, social and ecological projects which try to tackle challenges in our society by developing creative solutions". Not only are your savings invested ethically, you can also choose which positive causes to route your money to support. Sounds neat, right ?

Now, as the threshold for project financing is $10 million, i figure that this could fund around 1.7 million Chunky Monkeys. A further calculation is that this supply, if financing is secured, could last me around 3.17 weeks.

elaine cohen is the joint CEO of BeyondBusiness, a leading reporting and social-environmental consulting firm based in Israel. Visit our website at: www.b-yond.biz/en

Cuppa, anyone ?

I just returned from a vacation in north Manchester, where i grew up. Aside from my family, and Coronation Street (there are some that would say there is a resemblance :)), there are only two things i miss and which are unavailable in Israel. Bisto and Tetley tea. You just can't get a great cuppa in Israel. So, as i enjoy sipping my round-bag Tetley, the nostalgic taste of my adolescence, i wondered about the reporting practices of this iconic brand. Tetley is number one in the UK and Canada, number two in Australia and three in the US. So i am in good tea-sipping company.

The Tetley.co.uk site is not terribly revealing BUT i note that Teltey tea is ethically traded. "Growing and producing tea provides a livelihood for millions of people around the world. Assuring their living and working conditions is very important to us, and we manage this through our membership of a growing international organisation called the Ethical Tea Partnership (ETP). This is a non commercial alliance of 18 international tea packers who believe in a shared responsibility for the social and ethical conditions involved in the sourcing of tea." Other than this positive revelation, the 2 pager on corporate information - the media pack - contains a page on ethical, environmental and social impacts. Wonder why they think only the press would be interested in this ? But no CSR report. What a disappointment.

However, another revelation, at the bottom of the website there is a tag: A TATA Enterprise.

Aha! So, Tetley's belongs to Tata.

So by now you know that i dont like to leave my tea-bags hanging in mid-air, so i take a trip to CorporateRegister.com where i find Tata Tea's 2007-2008 Tata Tea Sustainability Report. I am impressed with the references to "holistic" management and "social awakening" - tea is really quite a spiritual thing, apparently. "In an attempt to migrate the Tata Tea brand medium of physical and emotional rejuvenation to a platform of intellectual and social awakening", Tata launched an award winning social marketing campaign. I am very gratified. Now i can not only enjoy my ethical cuppa, but i can be rejuvenated as well. Though organic instant tea isnt really my cup of tea. (Yes, that was a pun). Tata Tea is a Global Compact signatory, which is positive, and 100% of instant tea waste goes to the biofuel gasifier, which produces 200 tons of steam power per day to run the plants. A 54 page report written along GRI guidelines with an index and a UNGC index, this is a nice report and presents a credible picture of the way Tata and Tetley make my cuppa. Tata Group is a massive enterprise, in diverse sectors, turning over around $62 billion and employing around 350,000 people. So to have a focused report on their tea business is quite a refreshing surprise. Quite rejuvenating.

Makes me wonder about Tata-Tetley's indirect impacts - I mean - what do people do with tea-bags AFTER use ? How do Tata-Tetley influence consumer behaviour to manage tea-bag waste ecologically ? This site has some answers. Including soothing your eyes, curing your warts, scenting your drawers, mainating your meat, cleaning your mirrors and removing old polish from wood furniture. Removing old polish ? Oy, what is it doing to my intestines ?

Bisto (aaaaaaaaaaaah Bisto!. Remember those great TV ads ?), is less transparent but . Owned by Premier Foods, the CSR report is a 4 pager covering the headlines - Ethical Trading Initiative, WRAP for reduction of packaging weights, governance, employee practices, and adherence to the Five-Fold Environmental Ambition of the Food and Drink Federation. Good stuff on the whole. I am not tempted to think about what you can do with unused gravy, but Bisto makers could go that extra drop to make their sustainability a little more transparent.

Anyway, now that i am back home, awakened and rejuvenated, no warts, clean mirrors, depolished intestines and with full ethical gravy availability, i am glad that my nostalgic shopping spree was highly sustainable. Now, where did i put that used tea bag ..........

elaine cohen is the joint CEO of BeyondBusiness, a leading reporting and social-environmental consulting firm based in Israel. Visit our website at: www.b-yond.biz !