Arab Companies in the 21st Century (Report)

Role: Co-author with Tareq Emtairah and Suzanne Påhlman

Summary
The study, undertaken in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), is inspired by a series of initiatives undertaken by WWF with an intention to identify and to work with various proactive key players in emerging economies of the world like India,

China, Russia, Brazil and South Africa. This study focuses on the scope and potential for companies in the UAE and the rest of the Arab world to emerge as leaders in investment and export of sustainable goods and services, as well as becoming a key international actor in promoting and supporting sustainable development.

Download the full report

Indian Companies in the 21st Century (Report)

Role: Co-author with Mohmmed Saqib and Rajesh Sehgal

Summary
In a situation where the world requires innovative companies to address
the serious global challenges faced by humanity, including high resource consumption, pollution, population growth, demographic and geopolitical changes, India, with its rapidly changing business environment, may indeed prove to be one of the most important countries on the planet over the next several decades.5

This report shows that there exists significant interest within the Indian business sector in sustainable development and innovative solutions that can be applied to achieve this goal. The approaches utilised in this regard by lead- ers in the Indian corporate sector are well ahead of many of their western counterparts, which are often, and often erroneously, viewed as leaders in the eld of corporate social responsibility (CSR). A number of common denominators exist within the progressive approach of these Indian companies, and these have been collectively referred to by one Indian company as “third generation CSR”.

This third generation CSR is an approach where companies look to ensure that their core businesses deliver sustainable development results. This dif- fers from the rst generation of CSR, that looked at philanthropy as one way of using pro ts, and the second generation that was searching for ways of minimizing the negative impacts of the companies’ operations.

The most important element of the third generation CSR is that it examines the core activities of a company and determines means by which the company can evolve in order to ensure that it contributes to welfare, even if this does not translate into immediate returns. This approach means that environmental and social concerns are the starting point for the business activity, as opposed to being factored in at the end. Rather than compromising on pro t, companies provide information that allows government to proactively change business regulations in order to reward companies which deliver on social and environ- mental objectives, such as reducing the use of natural resources.

Download the full report

Chinese Companies in the 21st Century (Report)

Role: Co-author with Peng Lei and Baijin Long

Summary
This report is based on a survey of 182 of the largest and most important Chinese companies. WWF would like to highlight the following summarized results and outline possible steps forward.

1. A significant minority (22%) of Chinese companies say they are going beyond current regulation and some (13%) are even suggesting tougher rules. Many of these companies also have concrete suggestions that could help China become a leader in the provision of sustainable goods and serv- ices, not only in China but also for the rest of the world, and thereby move beyond the existing CSR discussion.

2. While one group of companies takes environmental issues seriously and is proactive, a large group could be described as almost hostile to environ- mental issues and do not even want to engage in discussions. 39% of respondents said “many” or “very many” Chinese companies were breaking the law, and 57% said companies were trying to lower standards.

3. There is a need to develop domestic solutions that support export of prod- ucts and services that help the environment, according to 78% of the com- panies surveyed.

4. 85% think traditional Chinese philosophical concepts like “union of nature and man” could help both Chinese and foreign companies become more environmentally friendly. 96% thought that the “circular economy”, a modern concept used widely in China today, also could be of help.

5. 85% of the companies said there is a need for stronger rules for environ- mental reporting, transparency and monitoring for large companies. Only 2% said there wasn’t and 13% said they didn’t know.

6. 53% said they would be willing to engage with NGOs like WWF in discus- sion about how sustainable development can be promoted, even though NGOs are not yet key actors in China and for many Chinese companies the idea of policy work with NGOs is new.

Download the full report

IT and sustainable development: Swedish Government established a Forum for IT and environmental issues (Report)

Role: co-author with Ewa Thorslund

Summary
In 2001, the Swedish Government established a Forum for IT and environmental issues with a mandate lasting until December 2003. The Forum’s purpose was to provide a natural platform for information and communication technology (ICT) and ecologically sustainable development. The Forum is run by a work group comprising representatives of the industrial and research sectors, the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency (Naturvårdsverket), ministries and environmental organisations.

The Swedish Environment Minister, Lena Sommestad, was appointed Chairperson of the Forum. The Forum’s aim was to analyse how increased use can be made of IT applications to promote sustainable development, and how various actors can be encouraged to contribute to this goal. The group’s mandate included studying ways in which IT use can contribute to the development of new infrastructures and products and services with lower resource consumption and environmental impact. The Environmental Protection Agency was responsible for the Forum’s secretariat. The present document was written by Dennis Pamlin and Ewa Thorslund within the framework of the Forum.

Link to report

GRI Telecommunications Sector Supplement (Paper)

Role: co-author with Sean Gilbert, Michael Kuhndt, Edoardo Gai, Dunstan Hope, Danilo Riva, Chris Tuppen, et.al

Comment
This was the first time "net-positive"/ "climate positive" effects of ICT was included in an international framework I think. Even 15 years later it is ahead of the GHG-protocol, CDP and others that dominate how companies should report (as they stick to only the "reduction" perspective). This is about to change, but as of 2017 the focus is still 99% on the reductions and not how companies can deliver what is needed. 

Summary
GRI is pleased to release the pilot version of the Telecommunications Sector Supplement for use in conjunction with the GRI 2002 Sustainability Reporting Guidelines (‘the Guidelines).

In 2001,GRI launched its supplement programme in response to consistent feedback on the importance of sector-specific guidelines built on the foundation of the Guidelines. GRI supplements capture issues essential to sustainability reporting in a specific sector, but which may not appear in the Guidelines since they are relevant primarily for a specific range of reporting organisations or sectors. By developing both the Guidelines and sectoral supplements, the GRI framework supports the comparison of reporting organisations both across within and across sectors.

Link to paper

WSIS PREP-COM-2 Contribution (Paper)

Role: co-author with Chris Tuppen, et.al

Comment
This was the first attempt at trying to change an international framework and I was surprised to learn how willing policy makers were to acknowledge the potential for ICT to deliver significant contributions (and this was many years before we saw the kind of major impacts that we are used to now). I also explored the gaps between internatinal commettments and national implementation.  

Summary
This contribution puts forward a series of issues that should be reflected in the WSIS summit Declaration and Plan of Action.

Increasing population, economic activity and consumptive lifestyles are placing unsustainable burdens on the earth's natural systems and finite resources. Creating prosperity through much less wasteful and harmful use of resources has been identified as the over-arching sustainable development challenge.

Enhanced connectivity enables people to transact businesses from home, saving commuting time, energy and pollution from transportation. Trends in ICT towards miniaturization of components, and its capacity to monitor resource and energy use through production processes, can greatly reduce environmental and economic costs. Mobile networks are allowing whole phases of 'hard-wired' infrastructure development to be 'leapfrogged' in many parts of the world."1

We suggest that it is essential for the WSIS to consider the Sustainability Implications of the Knowledge Society. In particular we suggest that the environmental dimension has not yet been given sufficient weight alongside the social and economic dimensions.

This proposal is therefore for sustainable development to be explicitly included in the Declaration of Principles and the Plan of Action to be adopted by the World Summit on the Information Society

The key elements of this contribution to WSIS address the following themes:

•  Sustainability Implications of the Knowledge Society (new theme)

• International Cooperation

• Opening the Gates and Overcoming the Digital Divide

• Services and Applications

Link to contribution