Corporate Watchdog Radio

Sunshine is the Best Disinfectant: Shareholder Activists Promote Corporate Transparency

2008-07-23T13:18:00.003-04:00

Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis famously said, "Sunshine is the best disinfectant." Shareholder activists have long promoted transparency in corporate reporting. Now, the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) acknowledges its rules governing company disclosures aren't good enough. So FASB is proposing new rules. Today, we speak with Corporate Watchdog Radio co-founder Sanford Lewis about his shareholder activism promoting better corporate disclosure on environmental and human health risks. Lewis, who serves as general counsel for the Investor Environmental Health Network (IEHN), identifies several strengths -- as well as some disconcerting weaknesses -- in the proposed rules. IEHN has issued an action alert outlining these strengths and weaknesses to guide submissions during the public comment period ending August 8.

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Investor Environmental Health Network

SocialFunds article with interview transcript

Video excerpt of CWR interview with Sanford Lewis

IEHN Action Alert on FASB Rulemaking

FASB Exposure Draft on "Disclosure of Certain Loss Contingencies"

CWR Headlines: Listen

--US Chamber of Commerce Wants to Curb Shareholder Activism
--European Shareholder Activists Go After Executive Pay
--World Bank Critical of Its Own Environmental Impact

CWR ViewPoint: Listen or read.

Stacy Malkan, co-founder of the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics, comments on toxics in cosmetics. Malkan points out that companies are allowed to label products ‘natural’ or ‘organic’ and still use harmful synthetics. Her award-winning book, Not Just a Pretty Face: The Ugly Side of the Beauty Industry (New Society, 2007), tells the inside story of the campaign’s five-year effort to hold the beauty industry accountable to women’s health.

Campaign for Safe Cosmetics

The Community-Building Power of Wind

2008-07-16T15:34:00.003-04:00

When it comes to renewable energy, wind is taking the lead--at least at this stage of technological development. But what's the best model for developing it? Should we follow the centralized utility model with big wind farms set up in a few places -- offshore Massachusetts or the state of Texas -- and then send the juice over wires to power homes and businesses far away? That's the dominant model in the US. Or should we follow the community-owned wind power model, where the people using the power have a financial stake in it, too? Maybe a healthy mix of both would be best. Today, CWR co-host Francesca Rheannon speaks with Dan Juhl of Juhl Wind Development, which is helping communities around the country develop locally owned wind power cooperatives. The company has developed about 140 megawatts -- or several hundred million dollars worth -- of community-based wind projects. Francesca met him at the Sustainable Energy Summit at the University of Massachusetts in June. And Rheannon speaks with journalist Elizabeth Kolbert. Her recent New Yorker article, "The Island in the Wind," profiles the Danish island of Samso, known internationally as the "renewable energy island" because residents get most of their power from windmills they cooperatively own.

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Juhl Wind Development

Community-Based Energy Development

Sustainable Energy Summit

Complete interview with Dan Juhl

Elizabeth Kolbert: "The Island in the Wind"

CWR Headlines: Listen

--The US can achieve 20 percent energy from wind by 2030 with help from GE and T. Boone Pickens
Updates: --European parliament votes to include aviation emissions in Emissions Trading Scheme
--EPA report links climate change to human health risks, but Bush blocks GHG emissions regulation under Clean Air Act

New Generations in Sustainability

2008-07-09T15:47:00.004-04:00

Each generation reinvents the world inherited from the previous generation. A new generation is inheriting a wounded planet and a dysfunctional economy. Youthful energy seeks to heal our world and revitalize our economy using new strategies and adapting existing tools. Today, we focus on new generations in sustainability. First, we hear from Tim Cohen-Mitchell of the Young Entrepreneurs Society in Orange, Massachusetts, from a presentation he made at the recent Pioneer Valley Sustainable Investing Summit that Corporate Watchdog Radio helped organize. Then, CWR co-host Francesca Rheannon speaks with Jeremy Daw about the BioTour, an initiative brainstormed by an enterprising group of 20-somethings at Burning Man, an annual art event and temporary community based on radical self expression and self-reliance in the Black Rock Desert of Nevada. The BioTour is about to embark on a journey across the US in a biofuel bus to raise awareness on sustainability.

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Young Entrepreneurs Society

Tim Cohen-Mitchell's complete presentation and Q&A

BioTour

Burning Man

CWR Headlines: Listen

--WWF to G8: “Your Climate Solution is ‘Pathetic’”
--Senate May Subpoena White House for Ignoring EPA Carbon Warnings
--Toyota Responds to Report on Labor Abuses on Prius Production Line

CWR ViewPoint: Listen or read (thanks to our partner CSRwire for posting the text of CWR commentaries)

Robin Giampa tells about Timberland’s trendsetting use of social networking sites like Facebook and YouTube to advance its corporate sustainability initiatives.

Timberland's Earthkeepers

Francesca and Bill ain't exactly spring chickens, but we've got a lot of youthful energy, so we're joining this trend in linking social networking with corporate sustainability by launching CWR pages on Facebook and MySpace this week. Thanks to our new intern, Tom Hartmann-Boyce, an international affairs student at Skidmore, for getting those pages up and running. Check out our website for links to these pages, and join us there as "friends."

CWR's MySpace page

CWR's Facebook page

The Myth of Clean Coal

2008-07-02T12:29:00.002-04:00

Utilities and coal companies are pushing to open over a hundred new coal-fired power plants in the US. But activists, investors, communities, consumers, and scientists are pointing to financial, regulatory, environmental, and social risks that far outweigh the potential benefits of coal. And they are pulling back the veil from the myth of clean coal, exposing that king coal is a naked emperor. Carbon capture and storage, the key to coal's "clean" claims, has years of technical and economic hurdles to cross. Leslie Lowe, director of the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibilty's Energy & Environment Program, speaks with us today about the risks of committing to a future of new coal plants.

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Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility

ICCR Report: Don't Get Burned: The Risks of Investing in New Coal-Fired Generating Facilities

New York City Comptroller letter asking Department of Energy to review tax-exempt status of bonds for new coal plants

CWR Headlines: Listen

--Airlines Flying to and From Europe Will Have to Pay for Emissions
--Coal plants get thumbs up -- and thumbs down
--Leading Climate Scientist calls Coal and Oil CEO's Criminals
--Clean coal gets a boost from the US Dept of Energy

James Hansen Congressional testimony: Global Warming Twenty Years Later: Tipping Points Near

CWR ViewPoint: Listen or read (Thanks to our partner CSRwire for posting text of CWR commentaries.)

Yochi Zakai of Co-op America points out that clean coal is dirtier than it's cracked up to be. He comments on the recent Georgia court ruling against a new coal plant proposed by Dynegy, and Co-op America's ongoing activism aimed at that company and others in the industry.

Co-op America "Stop the Coal Rush" Campaign

Bob Monks: ExxonMobil Exemplifies Corpocracy

2008-06-25T15:03:00.007-04:00

The ExxonMobil annual shareholder meeting this year carried high expectations from shareholder activists. Members of the Rockefeller family, descending from the founder of the Standard Oil monopoly that splintered into Exxon and Mobil, attended the meeting to support four different shareholder resolutions on corporate governance and climate change. Of these four, the resolution supported by most Rockefellers asked the company to split the CEO and Board Chair positions. Today's CWR guest, Bob Monks, has filed this resolution at ExxonMobil since the early 2000s. His struggle to hold ExxonMobil accountable exemplifies the broader struggle to hold corporations accountable described in his new book, Corpocracy. Monks is co-founder of Institutional Shareholder Services, The Corporate Library, Lens Governance Advisors, and a former Labor Department official in the Reagan Administration.

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Bob Monks' Website

Corpocracy: How CEOs and the Business Roundtable Hijacked the World's Greatest Wealth Machine -- And How to Get It Back

Web extra: Bob Monks chats with CWR co-hosts Bill Baue and Francesca Rheannon about the US presidential candidates' ability to take on corpocracy. Listen

CWR Headlines: Listen

--ExxonMobil loses appeal to Supreme Court on human rights abuse case

CWR ViewPoint: Listen or read (Thanks to our partner CSRwire for posting text of CWR commentaries.)

Longtime shareholder activist Steve Viederman presented this statement at the ExxonMobil Annual Meeting in May 2008 to introduce resolution 19 asking Exxon to adopt a renewable energy policy. He filed the resolution along with other individuals, families, foundations and religious orders, joined by 20 institutional investors worth over $740 billion in combined assets, including Exxon Mobil stock valued at more than $8.6 billion.

Steve Viederman Bio

Raj Patel on the Global Food Crisis

2008-06-18T12:07:00.004-04:00

Last week, the price of corn rose above $7 a bushel on the commodities market for the first time, and soybeans rose sharply, too, reacting to the harsh weather hampering crop production across the US Midwest. Soaring global demand in addition to the increased use of corn for ethanol, an alternative fuel, have shrunk the worldwide supply of staples that are the core of practically every continent's diet. Meanwhile, the price of oil has jumped, raising the cost of producing crops and feeding livestock and causing an increase in grocery bills here and abroad, sparking riots and protests in at least two dozen countries. CWR co-host Francesca Rheannon speaks about this global food crisis with Raj Patel, author of Stuffed and Starved. Patel is a visiting scholar at the Center for African Studies at the University of California at Berkeley and a researcher with the Land Research Action Network as well as the University of KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa.

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Stuffed and Starved

CWR Headlines: Listen

--Floods may cause famine and food prices to rise
--Workers illegally trafficked from india call off hunger strike
--Green collar jobs grow bullish despite global credit crunch
--Cashew nuts fight global warming

CWR Viewpoint: Listen or read (Thanks to our partner CSRwire for posting text of CWR commentaries.)

Dean Cycon of Dean's Beans Organic Fair Trade Coffee Company comments on the link between climate change and coffee as experienced by indigenous Arhuaco coffee farmer Javier Mestres in the Sierra Nevada Mountains of Colombia.

Dean's Beans

Dean Cycon: Will Coffee Be a Casualty of Climate Change?

Tar Sands Perpetuate Petro-Addiction

2008-06-10T15:43:00.006-04:00

In a 2006 Rolling Stone interview, Al Gore infamously likened the practice of extracting oil from tar sands to "junkies find[ing] veins in their toes" to inject heroin. Gore's image simply extends to its logical conclusion George Bush's 2006 State of the Union "addicted to oil" metaphor. Clean, renewable energy represents a healthy cure for petro-addiction. Tar sands, which increase the carbon intensity of petroleum extraction, represent an exacerbation of the climate-changing addiction--kind of like trying to cure heroin addiction by injecting arsenic. CWR co-host Bill Baue speaks with Shelley Alpern, director of social research and advocacy at Trillium Asset Management, about her shareholder activism asking oil companies such as ConocoPhillips and BP to assess and disclose the social, environmental, and financial risks of tar sands exploitation. We also hear from the Environmental Integrity Project and Environmental Defence Canada about their brand new report, Tar Sands: Feeding U.S. Refinery Expansions With Dirty Fuel.

Listen

Shelley Alpern of Trillium Asset Management

SocialFunds.com article with interview transcript

Investor Statement to BP on Tar Sands

Environmental Integrity Project-Environmental Defence Canada report: Tar Sands: Feeding U.S. Refinery Expansions With Dirty Fuel

CWR Headlines: Listen

--Shell frets over Canadian tar sands
--Postal services around the globe to begin tracking emissions
--Labor organization charges the US violates rights of workers
--James Bond to go after greenwashing villain

Corporate Watchdog Report: Commentaries from the Business Ethics Network: Listen or read (thanks to CSRwire.com for posting text of CWR commentaries.)

Susan Casey-Lefkowitz of the Natural Resources Defense Council with NRDC's take on tar sands.

NRDC

NRDC Stop Dirty Fuels Campaign

The Climate of Transportation

2008-06-04T15:45:00.007-04:00

Today CWR takes you to a conference at the intersection between climate change and transportation held last week at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. There, climate scientists, engineers, government officials and activists gathered for a “Climate Change Think Tank” to brainstorm solutions to the problem of transport accounting for some 30 percent of carbon emissions. CWR co-hosts Francesca Rheannon and Bill Baue spoke with Representative John Olver, chair of the House Appropriations Sub-committee on Transportation; Paul Brubaker, head of the US Department of Transportation Research and Innovation Technology Administration; Michael Replogle of Environmental Defense Fund; and Jeff Brown of RideBuzz.org, a regional ride-sharing initiative.

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Climate Change Think Tank Symposium

Extended version of interview with Michael Replogle of Environmental Defense Fund: Listen

CWR Headlines: Listen

--Senate Debates Climate Bill, US Companies Prepare for Carbon Price--culled from the following sources: US power firms risk value hit over climate
Deutsche Bank raises 2008 EUA forecast to 40 euros
Senate to take up climate bill
Bush would veto U.S. climate change bill
US emissions bill a "first step": UN climate chief
--Chevron profits shadowed by human rights complaints
CWR Greenwash Exposé Headline:
--ING Video Trumpets Green Initiatives, Omits Opposition of Climate and Toxics Resolutions

Susan Aaronson: Trade for Human Rights

2008-05-28T16:12:00.003-04:00

Human rights and trade--the relationship dates back millennia. Despite this long history, however, we still have very little understanding of how to use trade to promote human rights. This according to today's guest, Susan Ariel Aaronson, author of Trade Imbalance: The Struggle to Weigh Human Rights in Trade Policymaking, out from Cambridge University Press in late 2007. Aaronson, a professor of international affairs at George Washington University, illustrates her research findings using current examples such as how trade sanctions against Burma have complicated relief efforts in the wake of Cyclone Nargis or how the earthquake in China may prove more effective in improving human rights there than boycotting the Beijing Olympics. Aaronson also discusses opportunities--and limitations--on using the World Trade Organization, or WTO, to promote human rights through trade.

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Trade Imbalance: The Struggle to Weigh Human Rights Concerns in Trade Policymaking

Susan Ariel Aaronson

CWR Headlines: Listen

--Rockefeller family members join fight to move ExxonMobil beyond petroleum
--Burger King Lets Tomato Pickers "Have it Their Way"
--US senate panel votes to give California the go-ahead to regulate greenhouse gas emissions

CWR co-host Francesca Rheannon speaks with Bay Area Air Quality Management District Board Chair Jerry Hill about its recent precedent-setting implementation of a fee on carbon emissions by companies in 9 counties in the San Francisco Bay Area of California. This development represents the first time that business carbon emissions have been officially regulated in the US, leapfrogging over federal and state regulations.

Air quality board to fine Bay Area polluters

Bay Area Air Quality Management District

Michael Conroy on Activist Campaigns and the Certification Revolution

2008-05-21T16:06:00.003-04:00

CWR co-host Bill Baue speaks Michael Conroy, author of Branded! How the "Certification Revolution" is Transforming Global Corporations. Conroy discusses how activist campaigning for improved corporate social and environmental practices has gotten companies to respond. The two sides moved from antagonism to tense collaboration in the creation of certification schemes that solved activist concerns while preserving--and often boosting--companies' profitability. Conroy brings a hands-on view to the story as a program officer at the Ford Foundation and Rockefeller Brothers Fund, where he helped fund the activists NGOs as well as the resulting certification processes. He also serves as chair of TransFair, the Fair Trade certifying body in the US, as well as serving on the board of Forest Stewardship Council, which certifies lumber and paper practices.

Listen

Branded! How the "Certification Revolution" is Transforming Global Corporations

Interview transcript on SocialFunds

CWR Headlines: Listen

--China quake may cut carbon offset supply
--Energy executives fear a bubble brewing in renewable technology
--New report says obesity contributes to climate change

CWR Commentary: Listen or read (Thanks to our partner CSRwire for posting the text of CWR commentaries.)

Michael Ash of the Political Economy Research Institute (PERI) at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, provides this week's commentary on the Toxic 100 list of the top corporate polluters that PERI produces.

Toxic 100

Gary Hirshberg on Business as the Cause and Solution of Global Crises

2008-05-14T17:20:00.003-04:00

CWR co-hosts Bill Baue and Francesca Rheannon speak with Gary Hirshberg, CEO of organic yogurt maker Stonyfield Farm, and author of Stirring It Up: How to Make Money and Save the World. Hirshberg believes that business is a necessary force for creating a sustainable economy and society, as outlined in his book. Yet he admits that business is a primary cause of our current unsustainable economy, a seeming contradiction that he explains in our conversation.

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Stonyfield Farm

Stirring It Up: How to Make Money and Save the World

CWR Headlines: Listen

--Chevron Donates $2 m in Disaster Relief to Burma but New Report Charges the Company with Abetting Human Rights Abuses
--Military Contractor in Iraq Hires Translators Who Can't Translate, Putting Iraqi and US Lives at Risk
--Climate Counts Releases 2008 Ranking of Commitment by Companies to Reversing Climate Change

CWR Commentary: Listen or read (thanks to our partner CSRwire for posting CWR commentaries.)

Mindy Lubber, president of Ceres and director of the Investor Network on Climate Risk, provides commentary on a recent Ceres report examining how mainstream mutual funds vote on shareholder resolutions that urge companies to address climate change. A 2004 SEC rule requires mutual funds to disclose their proxy voting records each year. The report finds that mainstream mutual fund opposition to climate resolutions is thawing--but ironically, support for climate resolutions is also decreasing. Filling this gap is abstentions, which have doubled from 2004 to 2007. For the sake of disclosure, CWR co-host Bill Baue co-authored the report.

Ceres

Ceres Report: Mutual Funds and Climate Change: Opposition to Climate Change Resolutions Begins to Thaw

Michael Klare: Declining Energy Resources Spur Increasing Global Conflict

2008-05-07T15:12:00.003-04:00

CWR co-host Francesca Rheannon speaks with Hampshire College Professor Michael Klare about his new book, Rising Powers, Shrinking Planet: The New Geopolitics of Energy. Klare defines the term "resource nationalism," whereby access to energy increasingly drives global politics. For example, the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline runs from the Caspian Sea to the Mediterranean Sea, through Georgia, thereby circumventing Russia. In the interview conducted last week, Klare predicted possible conflict over energy access between Russia and Georgia, ensnaring the US. As this episode of CWR was in production, Georgian officials announced they are "very close" to war with Russia. Klare ends the interview suggesting renewable energies as a solution for diverting energy access from conflict to peace.

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Michael Klare: Rising Powers, Shrinking Planet: The New Geopolitics of Energy

Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline

May 6 Reuters article: "Georgia says 'very close' to war with Russia"

Complete interview with Michael Klare on Writer's Voice

CWR Headlines: Listen

--Dock Workers Close West Coast Ports in Iraq War Protest
--EPA Official Ousted While Fighting Dow
--Shareholders Target Over 50 Companies on Toxic Product Concerns

Corporate Watchdog Report, commentaries from the Business Ethics Network: Listen

Jodie Van Horn of the Rainforest Action Network analyzes biofuels, which divert agriculture from food to fuel, spurring food riots globally and driving deforestation.

Rainforest Action Network Biofuels Campaign

Business Ethics Network

Richard Heinberg: From Peak Everything to Resilient Communities

2008-04-28T18:09:00.005-04:00

CWR co-hosts Bill Baue and Francesca Rheannon speak with peak oil expert Richard Heinberg, senior fellow at the Post Carbon Institute and author of The Party's Over, Powerdown, The Oil Depletion Protocol, and, most recently, Peak Everything. CWR caught up with Heinberg during his northeast speaking tour, where he is addressing local officials in the Pioneer Valley of Massachusetts where Corporate Watchdog Radio originates. In the absence of federal leadership addressing climate change and peak oil, Heinberg has turned his attention to creating resilient communities, and he proposes 10 steps to create local disaster response plans to prepare for peak oil as well as environmental and economic collapse. While the data Heinberg presents paints a dire picture, he also advocates for hope and optimism as a strategic response to existing and impending crises.

Listen

RichardHeinberg.com

Post Carbon Institute

CWR Headlines: Listen

--Coalition of Immokalee Workers Petitions Burger King for an Extra Penny a Pound for Tomatoes
--JPMorgan Chase Aims for 20 Percent Carbon Reduction
--Climate change could spark century long World War

Climate Guides: Policy and Business Solutions to Global Warming

2008-04-23T14:26:00.005-04:00

Two slim guides have recently been published on climate change solutions, one written to CEOs on how business can profit by helping mitigate and adapt to climate change, one addressing what government policies are most promising. CWR co-host Bill Baue speaks with University of Michigan Professor Andy Hoffman, co-author with John Woody of Climate Change: What's Your Business Strategy?, published May 1 by Harvard Business Press as part of its "Memo to the CEO" series. Baue also speaks Working Assets Co-Founder Peter Barnes, author of Climate Solutions: What Works, What Doesn't, and Why--A Citizen's Guide, out recently from Chelsea Green.

Plus, we hear commentary from Sierra Club Executive Director Carl Pope on the failure of the Environmental Protection Agency to regulate carbon dioxide emissions, even after being ordered to do so by the Supreme Court. Thanks to Sierra Club Radio for this commentary.

Listen

Climate Solutions: What Works, What Doesn't, and Why--A Citizen's Guide by Peter Barnes

Climate Change: What's Your Business Strategy? by Andy Hoffman and John Woody

CWR Headlines: Listen

--Stern Report Underestimated Consequences of Climate Change
--Canada Bans Bisphenol-A in Baby Bottles
--57 Nations Endorse Report Promoting Shift from Industrial to Small-Scale Local Agriculture

Chris Martenson on Decoupling Growth from Prosperity (Part Two)

2008-04-16T14:16:00.005-04:00

The second in a two-part conversation with Chris Martenson of the Martenson Report, who recently spoke about the convergence of economic, environmental, and energy crises at the Northeast Sustainable Energy Association (NESEA) Annual Conference. Martenson has a doctorate in neurotoxicology from Duke, an MBA in finance from Cornell, and is a former vice president at Pfizer. In the early 2000s, Martenson quit his high-status position when he recognized profound instabilities in our economic, environmental, and social structures. The interview culminates with Martenson mapping out the idea of re-imagining and transforming the stories we tell ourselves as a culture about growth, surplus, and prosperity.

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The Martenson Report

Part One: Chris Martenson on Economic, Environmental, and Energy "Hockey Sticks"

We also hear commentary from Jennifer Taub of the Isenberg School of Management at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst on how mutual fund conflicts of interest intersect with genocide-free investing.

Jennifer Taub working paper: Able But Not Willing: The Failure of Mutual Fund Advisers to Advocate for Shareholders' Rights

CWR HEADLINES: Listen

--Senate Extends Energy Tax Credits in Housing Bill
--New Report Lists Top 100 Polluters
--Amount of Farmland Certified by Rainforest Alliance Reaches Million Acre Milestone
--Brazilian Lovers Can Now Show Their Love--For the Planet

Chris Martenson on Economic, Environmental, and Energy "Hockey Sticks"

2008-04-09T16:27:00.002-04:00

The first in a two-part conversation with Chris Martenson of the Martenson Report, who recently spoke about the convergence of economic, environmental, and energy crises at the Northeast Sustainable Energy Association (NESEA) Annual Conference. Martenson sees "hockey stick graphs," or exponential graphs that rise slowly and steadily before suddenly shooting upward, increasingly happening in all three of these areas. Martenson has a doctorate in neurotoxicology from Duke, an MBA in finance from Cornell, and is a former vice president at Pfizer. In the early 2000s, Martenson quit his high-status position when he recognized profound instabilities in our economic, environmental, and social structures. He developed the End of Money seminar series, which has evolved into the Crash Course on these instabilities and options for navigating them.

Listen

The Martenson Report

CWR HEADLINES: Listen

--World Bank Accused of Seizing Control of Climate Change Funds
--Agribiz Lobbying Against Certification of Imports as Free from Slave Labor

How to End Child Labor on West African Cocoa Farms

2008-04-02T20:32:00.001-04:00

CWR co-host Bill Baue speaks with Mil Niepold, senior policy advisor at Verité, a supply chain monitoring and auditing nonprofit that serves as secretariat of the International Cocoa Verification Board, and Bama Athreya, executive director of the International Labor Rights Forum, an advocacy organization that combats child labor and has collaborated with other NGOs and Fair Trade chocolate companies to propose a "Commitment to Ethical Cocoa Sourcing. Niepold and Athreya present diverse views on how best to address child labor in the cocoa supply chain in Cote d'Ivoire and Ghana--Niepold promotes Verité's multistakeholder initiative supported by industry and West African governments, while Athreya points to progress occurring outside of industry and government influence.

Listen

Verité

International Cocoa Verification Board

International Labor Rights Forum

Commitment to Ethical Cocoa Sourcing

February 4, 2008 Fortune article by Christian Parenti: "Chocolate’s Bittersweet Economy: Seven years after the industry agreed to abolish child labor, little progress has been made"

January 30, 2006 edition of CWR: Independent Monitoring of Corporations: Verité

CWR Headlines:

--'Kyoto II' climate talks open in Bangkok,
--Carbon prices rising, carbon markets are booming
--Produce giant Ag-Mark settles a pesticide exposure case

Listen to CWR headlines

Field Report from the UN Investor Summit on Climate Risk

2008-03-26T16:26:00.004-04:00

CWR co-hosts Francesca Rheannon and Bill Baue attended the conference, hosted by investor-environmentalist coalition Ceres and its Investor Network on Climate Risk. Rheannon speaks with British Telecom Pension Scheme Trustee Donald MacDonald about the impact of war on climate change and what institutional investors can do to address it. Baue speaks with Co-op America CEO Alisa Gravitz about its multi-tiered approach to address climate change through member company actions, investor advocacy, and consumer activism. And Ian Gray of Ceres speaks with McKinsey Global Institute Director Diana Farrell about its new report on energy efficiency. We also excerpt highlights from the presentations by Harvard Professor and Woods Hole Research Center Director John Holdren outlining the current science on climate change and AFL-CIO President John Sweeney placing climate change in the social context.

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Institutional Investor Summit on Climate Risk

McKinsey Global Institute report: The Case for Investing in Energy Productivity

John Holdren presentation: Global Climatic Disruption

John Sweeney speech

6 September 2006 CWR interview with John Holdren: "Will Nuclear Power Save Us from Global Warming?"

13 May 2006 CWR interview with Ceres President Mindy Lubber: "Climate Risk and Investors"

CWR Headlines: Over a quarter of Fidelity fund shareholders support genocide-free resolution.

Listen to the headlines

Investors Against Genocide

Investors Against Genocide webpage on Fidelity resolution vote

19 March 2008, Associated Press: "Fidelity Holders Defeat Investment Limit"

19 March 2008, Reuters: "Fidelity funds reject genocide-linked proposal"

Greg Palast Links Spitzer Bust with Bernanke Bailout of Banks Behind Subprime Meltdown

2008-03-19T12:03:00.003-04:00

CWR co-hosts Bill Baue and Francesca Rheannon speak with investigative journalist Greg Palast, who notes the coincidental timing of revelations of Eliot Spitzer’s hiring of a prostitute on the eve of Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke’s $200 billion bailout of banks implicated in the subprime meltdown. The former New York Governor was set to unveil plans to pursue prosecution of the banks for predatory lending that is illegal under New York State law, where most of the banks are headquartered, according to Palast. So instead of being busted by Spitzer, the banks behind the subprime mess were rewarded with a fifth of a trillion dollars, printed by the US government.

Listen

14 March 2008, GregPalast.com: "Eliot's Mess"

14 February 2008 Washington Post article by Eliot Spitzer: "Predatory Lenders' Partner in Crime: How the Bush Administration Stopped the States From Stepping In to Help Consumers"

CWR HEADLINES

Listen to CWR Headlines

17 March 2008, BusinessGreen: "Experts warn Bear Stearns crisis could curb cleantech growth"

13 March 2008, The Economist: The Green Exchange, the first US-based carbon emissions market, opened on March 17 ("The greening of Wall Street: Tackling the carbon crisis amid the credit crisis.")

16 March 2008, New York Times: "Hydrogen Fuel Station Opens in White Plains"

11 March 2008, New York Times: "Long Ocean Voyage Set for Vessel That Runs on Wave Power"

16 March 2008, New York Times: X-Prize Foundation announces contest for affordable, consumer-friendly car getting 100 miles a gallon

Post Carbon Cities: Planning for the Convergence of Peak Oil and Climate Change

2008-03-13T13:53:00.001-04:00

CWR co-hosts Francesca Rheannon and Bill Baue speak with Daniel Lerch, author of Post Carbon Cities: Planning for Energy and Climate Uncertainty and manager of the Post Carbon Cities project of the Post Carbon Institute. Lerch discusses the overlap as well as the distinctions between peak oil and climate change. He also responds to the question of how the policy void at the federal government level in the US is driving action at the municipal and state level to address climate change and peak oil.

The show also features CWR's new headlines segment:
--Nanotech is Exposed in Grocery Store Aisles;
--The Vatican says greenhouse gas emissions and genetically modified organisms are "Modern Sins";
--A new study says the Clean Energy Market will Hit $254 Billion by 2017.

Listen

Post Carbon Cities: Planning for Energy and Climate Uncertainty

Post Carbon Institute

CWR HEADLINES

Listen to the headlines

March 11, 2008 Friends of the Earth news: "Nanotech Exposed in Grocery Store Aisles"

March 10, 2008 Reuters article: Vatican lists "new sins," including pollution

March 11, 2008 GreenBiz headline: "Clean Energy Market to Hit $254 Billion by 2017, Says Study"

March 11, 2008 Clean Edge report: Clean-Energy Trends 2008

Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility Defines Past, Present, and Future of Shareowner Activism

2008-03-05T13:57:00.004-05:00

Corporate Watchdog Radio co-hosts Francesca Rheannon and Bill Baue speak with Laura Berry, executive director of the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility. Founded in 1971, ICCR pioneered the modern practice of shareowner activism by reviving an obscure rule allowing shareowners to file resolutions addressing social and environmental issues at company annual meetings and on their proxies. Now, over three-and-a-half decades later, ICCR is a coalition of about 275 faith-based institutional investors with over $100 billion in assets who filed over 300 resolutions this proxy season. Berry clarifies common misconceptions about how the ins and outs of shareowner activism. For example, media accounts often report a less-than-majority vote as a "defeat," when in fact, companies often implement what resolutions request when they receive 20 percent or more support. She also discusses transformations she sees taking place in the corporate social responsibility landscape.

CWR also debuts a new segment with headlines on corporate sustainability developments from the past week, the first in a series of exciting changes to enhance the show.

Listen

Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility

Edited transcript of this interview on SocialFunds.com

CWR HEADLINES:

Listen to the headlines

February 27, 2008 Geophysical Research Letters abstract: "Stabilizing climate requires near-zero emissions"

February 29, 2008 Reuters article: "Weyerhaeuser, Chevron Form Biofuels Joint Venture"

February 28, 2008 Gristmill blog on "Stabilizing climate requires near-zero emissions"

February 27, 2008 New York Times article: "Flooded Village Files Suit, Citing Corporate Link to Climate Change"

Activist Investors Promote Genocide-Free Mutual Funds

2008-02-27T10:32:00.002-05:00

CWR co-hosts Bill Baue and Francesca Rheannon speak with Eric Cohen, chairperson for Investors against Genocide and Tim Smith, senior vice president at Walden Asset Management and immediate past chair of the Social Investment Forum, about the campaign promoting targeted divestment by mutual funds from companies supporting the Khartoum regime in the Sudan. Smith, who helped pioneer the practice of shareholder activism encouraging companies to adopt more sustainable and responsible practices as a founder of the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility, discusses the novelty and efficacy of engaging mutual funds, which has rarely been practiced until now. Cohen explains the strategy in-depth, noting that the SEC upheld its validity after mutual fund giant Fidelity challenged it legally. He also cites a 2007 survey in which 71% of respondents said that mutual fund companies should take into account extreme cases of human rights abuses when investing overseas, rather than make their investment decisions on economic criteria alone.

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edited transcript of this interview on SocialFunds.com

Investors against Genocide

Fidelity Confirms Vote on Genocide-free Investing

Walden Asset Management

Social Investment Forum

Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility

July 5, 2006 edition of CWR: "Sudan Divestment"

May 22, 2007 SocialFunds article: "Fidelity Divests Large Chunk of Sudan-Related Holdings"

July 21, 2006 SocialFunds article: "Filing Resolutions at Mutual Funds: The Next Frontier for Shareowner Activism?"

March 9, 2006 SocialFunds article: "Sudan Presents Investment Risk as Genocidal Regime and State Sponsor of Terrorism"

June 1, 2005 SocialFunds article: "Students and States Seek to End Genocide in Sudan Through Divestment Campaigns"

December 10, 2004 SocialFunds article: "Divesting From Genocide: A Conversation with Eric Reeves of the Divest Sudan Campaign"

December 14, 2004 SocialFunds article: "Divesting from Genocide: More Conversation with Eric Reeves of the Divest Sudan Campaign"

The Power of Unreasonable People: John Elkington on Social Entrepreneurs

2008-02-20T13:43:00.005-05:00

Corporate Watchdog Radio co-hosts Bill Baue and Francesca Rheannon speak with John Elkington, author of The Power of Unreasonable People: How Social Entrepreneurs Create Markets that Change the World. Elkington explains how social entrepreneurs use business strategies, such as scaling and replicability, to help solve social and environmental problems. He also discusses how this book finishes his trilogy, starting with Cannibals with Forks from 1997 that coined the term "triple bottom line" for measuring social, environmental, and economic progress and The Chrysalis Economy that predicts a 30-year period of creative destruction for business. Elkington founded the UK consultancy SustainAbility in 1987, which helped define the term "sustainability," and recently received a grant to support its work on social entrepreneurship from the Skoll Foundation and also received a Fast Company Social Entrepreneur Award.

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The Power of Unreasonable People: How Social Entrepreneurs Create Markets that Change the World

SustainAbility

John Elkington.com

Fast Company Social Entrepreneur Awards

Skoll Awards for Social Entrepreneurship

Green Drinks and Disposable Americans

2008-02-13T01:01:00.001-05:00

Every month all over the globe, people interested in the environment and sustainability get together for "Green Drinks" to schmooze and network. Today on CWR, hosts Bill Baue and Francesca Rheannon go to their local Green Drinks gathering at the Northampton Brewery in Northampton, Massachusetts. There, they talk with John Meyercak of the Center for Ecological Technology, based in Northampton, about CET projects like ReStore, which sells second-hand building materials. Then Chris Landry of the Sustainability Institute in Hartland, Vermont talks about balancing the need to support small farmers in developing nations with fair trade while also fostering living local economies in developed nations. We also hear about the Sustainability Institute's "Climate Bathtub".

Also, Francesca Rheannon talks with award-winning business journalist for the New York Times, Louis Uchitelle about his book The Disposable American: Layoffs and Their Consequences. It was published in 2006, but with the US facing what could be a long recession, followed by what some experts think might be a "jobless recovery", The Disposable American is as relevant today as it was when it was published. We talk about how layoffs devastate workers and communities -- and also how they hurt businesses.

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Green Drinks

Center for Ecological Technology

ReStore

Sustainability Institute

Climate Bathtub Simulator

The Disposable American

Vermont State Treasurer Uses Investing to Leverage Corporate Responsibility

2008-02-06T15:33:00.000-05:00

Vermont State Treasurer Jeb Spaulding delivered the opening address at the launching of the Marlboro College Graduate Center MBA in Managing for Sustainability program in Vermont where CWR co-host Bill Baue teaches. The talk was entitled, "Sustainability and State Finance: Strategic Decision-Making and 'Win-Win' Strategies." Spaulding discussed a number of different ways the state uses its investment assets to leverage corporate sustainability and responsibility, from aggressively voting its proxies to filing shareholder resolutions addressing issues such as Sudan and climate change to participating in the Investor Network on Climate Risk, a group of institutional investors launched by Ceres in 2003 to promote sustainable business practices. He also explains the complexities of implementing green investing through board-run state pension funds.

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Vermont State Treasurer Jeb Spaulding

"Vermont State Treasurer to Speak at Marlboro College Graduate Center"

Marlboro College Graduate Center MBA in Managing for Sustainability

October 8, 2007 SocialFunds article: "Investors, States, and Activists Petition Securities and Exchange Commission To Mandate Climate Risk Disclosure"

September 21, 2006 SocialFunds article: "Pennsylvania Treasurer Keys into Clean Tech Investing and Green Screens"

April 14, 2005 SocialFunds article: "Vermont Issues Call to Investment Managers for Environmentally Sustainable Portfolio"

March 25, 2005 SocialFunds article: "Shareowner Activists on Sustainability Take Baby Steps Into Sustainability Screening"

Investor Network on Climate Risk

Ceres