Blog entries

How to fail at communicating Rio+20

Stuart Singleton-White — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 17:55:48 +0100

The Rio+20 Earth Summit is only weeks away. Not that you’d notice. Apart from specialist media it doesn’t seem to have registered with anyone. Politician aren’t talking about it, Cameron is unlikely to go, business isn’t discussing it and the media are simply ignoring it. So as communicators how are we going to break through? How are we going to get readers, consumers, citizens to engage and to realise this is, by far, the most important e...

Communicating sustainability in times of austerity.

Stuart Singleton-White — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 18:24:43 +0100

It would be difficult to find anyone who doesn’t think 2011 has been challenging for sustainability. The global economy is at best fragile, hugely unstable and we teeter on the brink of another global recession. In Europe, not only is the Euro under strain, the whole European project is being called into question. And in the UK our government has embarked on a seeming all out assault on the environment, with the forests debacle, the ripping up of planning laws and most...

Will Facebook be the must have accessory for sustainability communications in 2012?

Stuart Singleton-White — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 18:07:07 +0100

In February 2010 the leading Sustainable Business and CSR thinker, Fabian Pattburg, wrote a blog entitled, Facebook – A useful Sustainability and CSR platform? In it he concluded that Facebook wasn’t a great platform for sustainability.

February 2010. In the world of social media that’s a lifetime ago. Or even two. So I want to suggest that in 2012 Facebook will become the central place for communications, information sharing and discussi...

From green blooded capitalism to 1984!

Stuart Singleton-White — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 22:11:01 +0100

In the past few days I have been involved in two starkly different but strangely related events. The Unilever and Guardian Sustainable Business’ Sustainable Living Debate: Mainstream or pipedream? And Sony and Forum for the Future’s Futurescapes workshop. I found both events to be inspiring and yet limiting at the same time. To bring optimism and despair.

The Unilever event looked at the question of how in relation to changing consumer behaviour. Can and w...

Brands, social media and sausages – a tale of country folk.

Stuart Singleton-White — Fri, 18 Nov 2011 10:54:24 +0100

It’s been a good couple of weeks for communicators who happen to be fans of The Archers on BBC Radio 4. Hasn’t the on-going story line of Pat and Tony Archers’ business falling off the cliff and almost taking Tom’s – their son – sausage business with it been fascinating?

For those of you who are not quite up to speed on this here is a short résumé. Thanks to Clarrie Grundy returning to work in the dairy too soon after ...

Temples and money lenders

Stuart Singleton-White — Tue, 08 Nov 2011 13:52:20 +0100

I found myself reading the latest report from the St Paul’s Institute, Value and Values: Perception of Ethics in the City Today. It has attracted some media coverage, much more than it probably expected. But I think for the wrong reasons. We all know the media thrive on controversy. So the controversy surrounding the handling of the Occupy LSX encampment on the steps of the cathedral has provided them with a great deal of fodder to pontificate, to condemn, to spe...

CSR 2.0? Is there a need for a new basis for judging CSR?

Stuart Singleton-White — Wed, 02 Nov 2011 19:55:16 +0100

I was recently the guest of a local Fairtrade group. The subject under discussion was ethical consumption. It was brought about because of the understanding by the group that a simple answer, such as buy Fairtrade, is no longer a good enough response (other independent certification systems are available – he says in a BBC kind of way). What does “buy Fairtrade” actually mean for today’s consumer? And with more and more big brands using the Fair...

When the government dithers business leads.

Stuart Singleton-White — Fri, 21 Oct 2011 12:02:07 +0100

Today sees another report confirming a rise in global mean surface temperatures. It is yet another report completely unable to disprove the impact that humans are having on that temperature rise (natural fluctuations accepted). Yet our government dithers. Worse, the recent speech by George Osborne, addressing the Tory faithful, and the subsequent about face by his junior energy ministers, shows that not only are elements of this Coalition Government beginning to see the need to ta...

Does CSR have its limits? A modern story of business folk

Stuart Singleton-White — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 19:33:02 +0100

When do you reach the limits of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)? There are a number of leading companies in the UK who are building a strong reputation and leadership credentials in the CSR and business sustainability debate. Many of them are doing some great things and delivering real impact. This leadership comes from across different sectors of the UK economy and includes some of the UK’s most familiar companies; M&S and Unilever to name but two.

NotW: Shock – it wasn’t Twitter what won it!

Stuart Singleton-White — Mon, 11 Jul 2011 10:45:40 +0100

What a week it’s been. From a story that has bubbled around for a couple of year and stayed in the realms of politicians and celebrities to an explosion of industry rocking proportions. At the end of which the 168 year old title which was the News of the World is closed. And hasn’t it been exciting with so much of the drama being played out on Twitter. From tracking the news as it broke – even before it broke – to seeing the speed and impact of ...

Another hard day at the home/office.

Stuart Singleton-White — Fri, 03 Jun 2011 16:59:51 +0100

I thought I’d return to the subject of working from home. A recent survey from the Office of National Statistics (ONS) may have surprised many when it revealed that the vast majority of us commuted for less than half an hour a day. But it also hid some other interesting facts. Firstly that most of our commuting is by car, about 70 per cent. And that those that commuted further tended to be paid more. I would imagine that a lot of this was because of people ...

A green office or no office?

Stuart Singleton-White — Mon, 16 May 2011 19:32:28 +0100

Last week was Green Office Week. Did you notice? A part from a couple of mentions on twitter me neither. I think we can safely say that as a campaign to get us all thinking about our working lives in the office and the impact we are having on the environment it didn’t really break through. Considering so many of us spend so much time in the office; lights on, air conditioning at full pelt while the heating remains turned up, computers, printers and photocopies le...

Sustainability from CSR backwater to mainstream?

Stuart Singleton-White — Fri, 11 Mar 2011 19:35:29 +0100

I’ve been in a number of meetings in recent weeks where I’ve heard a number of professionals in the Corporate Social Responsibility and sustainability industries (I choose my words carefully) talk about how sustainability is moving from it being a CSR issue within companies to being mainstreamed in the way people do business. And I think to myself; is this really true?

At best the picture is surely mixed? With some companies showing, or attempting to show, real leader...

Sustainable agriculture – common problems across the world

Stuart Singleton-White — Thu, 03 Mar 2011 22:18:14 +0100

I’m lucky enough to sitting in my hotel in Nicaragua writing this blog. The hotel basks in the warming sun and 300C heat in Granada on the shores of Lake Nicaragua, Central America’s biggest lake. And the city of overlooked by the stunning Mombacho volcano. But I’m not here for a holiday but for work (I know it’s tough but someone’s got to do it). Part of that work is to look at a coffee farm which has been certified by the Rainforest Alli...

Carbon Cloud Computing

Stuart Singleton-White — Mon, 28 Feb 2011 22:47:42 +0100

First of all a confession. I’ve broken one of my own golden rules. When I started this blog in 2010 I boldly set out what I thought were the principles of good blogging for business. One was to keep your blog up to date by making regular entries. I had in mind at least once a week, if not more. So what happened in February? I failed to take my own advice and in a very busy month this blog slipped off the agenda. An easy mistake, but one we shoul...

The story of home insulation

Tue, 01 Feb 2011 18:31:44 +0100

Some would say it pales in comparison to recent government revelations about civil servants getting sent on chocolate-making jollies, but recently the Great British Refurb team, of which I am Campaign Director, got to visit its sponsor Knauf Insulation's mammoth factory at Cwmbran, South Wales.

Being a bit of a geek I knew I'd enjoy it but it was seriously impressive. As one would predict a load of materials were injected in one end of the factory in their raw form (crushed recycled g...

Time for all you Apple lovers to rise up.

Stuart Singleton-White — Fri, 21 Jan 2011 18:25:16 +0100

I see Apple is in trouble again over their environmental record. Is it time for Apple fans and customers to rise up once more and call on the company to take its responsibilities more seriously and to be straight and open with us about their supply chain?

A report published this week by the group Green Choice Initiative, and featured in the Guardian, puts Apple bottom on a list of 29 major IT firms in a transparency study drawn up by this coalition of leading environmental groups...

An Opti-pessimist.

Stuart Singleton-White — Thu, 13 Jan 2011 17:02:28 +0100

A new decade has begun. The second of the 21st century and with this new decade is a chance to think ahead and ponder on the sustainability challenges to come. OK confession time. I’m not going to look ahead a whole decade. I’d venture far too far into the realms of fiction if I did. But I will take a look at 2011 and suggest some of the challenges for CSR and sustainability communicators in the year to come.

At the beginning of any year I ofte...

Is tax a CSR issue?

Stuart Singleton-White — Tue, 21 Dec 2010 21:19:22 +0100

With this being my last blog for 2010 I’m not going to succumb to the temptation of re-caping the year passing. Instead I want to look at what I think should be one of the Corporate Social Responsibility challenges of 2011. It is certainly something that should be a matter of debate within and among the CSR community.

Much of the CSR debate focuses on issues around social and environmental responsibility. It looks at issues ranging from the global, such as equit...

Cancun climate summit: too early to claim success.

Stuart Singleton-White — Wed, 15 Dec 2010 18:25:16 +0100

For environmentalist December is becoming one of the busiest months of year. Add to the annual meeting of EU Fisheries Ministers – and their annual spat about quotas – the now annual meeting of the parties as part of the UN’s climate change framework; the UNFCCC. This year is took place in Cancun, Mexico and right at the very end the Mexican government seemed to pull a deal out from the teethe of utter defeat. But what sort of deal? And can anyone cla...