Our Amazon's cloud service has now been out more than 36 hours. During this period, our site has been down (and our blog takes a long time to respond). We have done all we can to fix the problem--it is entirely out of our control. Amazon has been poor about responding to our requests for help and has not communicated when we can expect a resolution of the problem. As a result, we are stuck waiting for them to fix things. Cloud serving is a generally good thing. It reduces the cost and environmental impact of using server computers and normally provides superior performance and up time. We have used cloud support since we first launched our company, three years ago. This is the first time we have had this type of problem. We will need to evaluate other sources for our hosting and we may need to distribute our... Continue reading

We recently offered ratings data from our CSRHUB CSR ratings tool on which countries have the most socially-responsible and sustainability-oriented companies. I thought I’d carry this analysis a step further, and see how company CSR scores in the US varied by state. While the scores vary, there is no clear connection between CSR scores and the social condition of states. We hope this may change as we get more data on smaller companies. Continue reading

It is easier not to report, not to examine one’s own prejudices and practices, and not to state one’s views publicly. However, the issues addressed by the B Corp process—and by the whole area of CSR and sustainability practice and theory—can’t be avoided. We are part of a community that intends to change the world and we need to show that we have whole-hearted dedication to our cause. How could we or any other business who believes as we do, not want to engage in this process? Continue reading

Want to know how your company’s social performance compares to that of its closest competitor? It can be hard to get even a general idea, without a lot of digging. The good news is that there is a lot of data available. The bad news is that the sources are scattered and they use a lot of acronyms and jargon. We appreciate the hard-working people who ask tough questions of companies to get us this data. It is better to have crowds of ratings than to stand alone. Continue reading

What if the Chief Technology Officers of leading global technology companies turned their attention to solving climate change? That’s exactly what they did at the FiReGlobal conference in Seattle several weeks ago, which I attended to hear several of these technologists address “the most critical problem facing the planet – the climate catastrophe”, and offer solutions. Continue reading

When people find out I am involved in a site that tracks Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) ratings, their first question is generally, “Who is the top company in CSR?” I believe that CSR and sustainability measurement cannot be done without an understanding of the bias of the person who is doing the measurement. When you use our system create your own profile (you need to register first, but that is free), you get to see who your top five companies are. You also get a new form of transparency and an easy way to exchange and compare your views with others. After all, we may not all agree on what is “right,” but we should at least know why our viewpoints differ. Continue reading

In what could be climate justice's first legal case to proceed to the circuit courts, the plaintiffs are using the same argument that worked against the tobacco companies, conspiring to spread false scientific information, against some of the nation’s largest producers of oil, gas, and electric power. The Native Alaskan Community Kivalina is built on melting permafrost and its 400 members and 107 buildings have to be relocated, at a cost of $95-400 million. The fact that the case has proceeded so far is yet another validation that that CSR factors — E, S and G — are inextricably linked. Continue reading

Do companies lead countries towards Social Development? Should there be a connection between data sets such as the UN Human Development Index and CSRHUB's ? One could hypothesize either that countries with a good HDI score produce socially positive companies or that socially positive companies help foster a business climate in their countries that addresses human development. Either way, we could see a correlation between our average Community rating (which contains information about community development, philanthropy, human rights, supply chain issues, and product quality) and the HDI. If companies follow the standards of their country—and improve as their countries improve—we should see the gap between the HDI score and our score close up, over time. If countries follow the example set by their leading companies, we might see company scores continue to improve and the HDI/CSRHUB Community score gap stay the same. We will try to revisit this analysis a year from now, and see how things have changed. Continue reading

Names have important foundational significance, and like many (all?) startups, Bahar, Stephen and I agonized over our name, and bought numerous URLs. We actually began our business as EkoHub. Recently my partners at EKOS and I did a quick study of the names of CSR reports in the Fortune 100. Of 63 reports, about 49% are referred to as Corporate Social Responsibility or Corporate Responsibility, and 30% are called Sustainability reports (with many derivations on these terms). So for now, we’re betting on CSRHUB rather than EkoHub, and moving forward as a hub for CSR ratings and information. Continue reading

Can businesses maximize both their profits and the social benefits they create? Or, do economic and social profits compete with one another? 100+ years of literature and lore have trained us to believe that businesses can’t optimize both their profits and their social benefits. However, a number of people seem to believe that this paradigm can be broken and businesses can start to operate in a "virtuous quadrant." Continue reading

The GIBN folks are taking their Solution Labs program to a number of locations. If you are interested in CSR and sustainability, you should consider joining a session and contributing your ideas. I know they would welcome your participation, and we’ll benefit from the information they capture and disseminate via their Wiki. Continue reading

After two years of hard work, we launched CSRHUB's alpha site this week. There are pages on the site that talk about us, about our data sources, and about how we build our database and set up our "schema." However, these pages probably don't give you a sense of what we want to accomplish. We like the idea that we can help offset the power of corporations and their ability to command attention from media and investors, with a transparent, easy-to-use information hub. We hope you will tell us more about what you would like us to do and what you feel we should not try to do, as we move forward, together. Continue reading