2Sustain

Where will your company focus its sustainability initiatives in the year ahead?

New survey results from corporate sustainability research and advisory firm Green Research show that, looking ahead to 2012, the majority of the businesses polled have decided to devote significant time and financial resources on two initiatives above all others: employee engagement and supplier sustainability performance.

The in-depth survey of nearly 50 top North American and European senior sustainability executives found that:

• 88 percent of companies plan to invest in employee engagement in 2012.
• 73 percent said they will focus on improving sustainability performance of their suppliers.

In addition, Green Research discovered that sustainability spending will rise significantly in 2012.

• 50 percent of those polled said their firms will increase spending on sustainability initiatives.
• 33 percent plan to add staff to their sustainability departments.
• 25 percent reported they will increase budgets of sustainability departments.

The report also includes insights regarding: (more…)

As I pointed out last week, many companies around the world are now developing strong, comprehensive corporate social responsibility programs.

But, have you ever wondered how these programs impact employee attitudes? What role, if any, do CSR initiatives play in, say, job retention and turnover?

Researchers at the Center for Creative Leadership (CCL) explored questions like those during their 2008-2009 World Leadership Study. They sampled the opinions of 2,215 workers around the globe and found that, as you might expect, perceptions of CSR do, indeed, make a unique and positive contribution to overall employee commitment and that a strong CSR program can positively impact employees’ perceptions and how they represent the company to customers and other stakeholders.

Specifically, data in the study showed that: (more…)

Does your company engage employees in sustainability initiatives as part of its comprehensive CSR program?

Many companies do. And yet, across the broader business community, not much is known about how these initiatives are administered and exactly how popular they have become.

Earlier this month, Brighter Planet released results of a new study that offers valuable insights about these issues. The 38-page report, Employee Engagement Survey: An Analysis of the Extent and Nature of Employee Sustainability Programs, attachments compiles the results of  1055 individual responses to a survey conducted in November 2009. This sample reflects a diverse set of respondents in terms of job role, employer size, industry sector, and geography (responses represented 44 states and the District of Columbia).

Here are a few key findings: (more…)