Mutagenesis isn’t new: Breeders have relied on it for decades to produce thousands of varieties of lettuce, oats, rice, and other crops. Pharma-chem companies sell high volumes of mutant breeds, ranging from wheat to sunflowers, in markets that reject genetically engineered seeds. It just doesn’t sound very nice and might even be a dangerous idea. …
Continue reading People said no to GMO, so now big agroindustry and pharma-chem businesses are engineering mutagenic food. Yum!
Category:Responsible Investing
Facing down immorality might not pay, but it’s the only option.
Ethical Corp, an on-online magazine, published an article Executive whistle blowing: what to do when no one listens (with useful comments too). It is difficult to broach the subject of dealing with immoral behaviour in companies because people who are immoral don’t care and those that do can rarely change the culture. The culture comes …
Continue reading Facing down immorality might not pay, but it’s the only option.
Deforestation of 100 hectares per week, in one instance alone.
Scientists monitoring satellite images noticed a swathe of tropical forest disappearing in Peru. It toook a few weeks to get accurate imagery but once done they estimated estimated a deforestation rate of roughly 100 hectares (247 acres) per week in the tract they observed. At least one thousand hectares were cleared near Tamshiyacu. An estimated …
Continue reading Deforestation of 100 hectares per week, in one instance alone.
Most big companies don’t care about sustainability.
Only 3% of the world’s largest companies report on the first generation of sustainability indicators according to Corporate Knights report on Trends in Sustainability Disclosure. The seven indicators are: employee turnover, energy, greenhouse gases (GHGs), lost-time injury rate, payroll, waste and water. Sadly, but unsurprisingly, Corporate Knights recommends mandatory disclosure because voluntary disclosure is plainly …
Continue reading Most big companies don’t care about sustainability.
Divest fossil fuel holdings, or die.
That’s a big picture perspective, presented starkly to attract some attention. Sadly, few people feel the pressure, but that doesn’t mean it’s not the right thing to do. Let’s have a look at some of the detail. A 2012 article in Rolling Stone , by Bill McKibben of 350.org, galvanised a fossil fuel divestment campaign …
Continue reading Divest fossil fuel holdings, or die.
It’s not easy to do the right thing.
So, I must confess that for three years we let a field to a neighbour for use in conventional tillage farming. Previously, that field had been managed organically for over a decade, but we found we could not use it and the rent money would be welcome. Now, we’re regalvanised to protect the environment and …
Continue reading It’s not easy to do the right thing.
Measuring ethics in business.
When we started managing portfolios with an ethical and socially responsible objective having a pre-screened universe of stocks saved a lot of initial work reviewing every listed company to see how green and clean it was. In 1999, we came across the Domini 400 which was a great place to start. It was focussed on …
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Does philanthropy work?
Yes, of course it does. But being an analyst, and one who must count the pennies too, it has always been a pertinent question. I’ve always found it difficult to give money to an organisation that has high paid, educated staff taking a third to half the donations in administrative overhead. I know that when …
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Roundup (glyphosate) is a broad based biocide
Here’s just one reason Monsanto is in the hot seat. According to Green Medical News: “ . . . “within the scientific community and educated public alike, there is a growing awareness that Roundup herbicide, and its primary ingredient glyphosate, is actually a broad spectrum biocide, in the etymological sense of the word: “bio” (life) …
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Why tell lies in reports?
It’s not news that there are false claims in sustainability reports. Nevertheless, a recent post caught my eye. A post on SustainableBusinessForum.com by Elaine Curtis noted that the lying can be huge. Labor Indicators: 86% of companies claim they report and only 11% actually do. Human Rights Indicators: 62% of companies claim they report and only …
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