CSR Minute: October 8, 2009 – Coca-Cola’s Sustainability Initiatives; Newsweek’s 500 Green Rankings; GoodBusiness Joins UN Global Compact

Corporate Social Responsible News: Coca-Cola’s Sustainability Initiatives; Newsweek’s Top 500 Green Rankings; GoodBusiness International Joins UN Global Compact

Financial Crisis Inspires Doing Well by Doing Good

Nothing has put the mandate for doing well by doing good more front and center than the financial collapse one year ago. For three decades, Greed has been Good! Better than good, it was great!

In America in the 1930s, a chicken in every pot was the social goal. People in the Great Depression were literally starving. Anyone with parents or grandparents who lived through those times is familiar with stories of struggle and strife. In the 1940s, defending our freedom was the call of duty for every citizen. War brides dreaded the sight of uniformed men at the door and mothers prayed for their sons to return home alive. Honor and freedom were the goals citizen’s strove for on both sides of the Atlantic. In the 1950s, a safe and secure life climbing up the corporate ladder was all any family could want. Moms stayed at home baking apple pie and dads worked to put two cars in the garage. Father’s Knew Best, kids were respectful, and a common morality ruled.

In the 1960s, things got a bit more real again. A throwback to the 1940s, principles of right and wrong, justice and injustice threw the nation into a state of turmoil. We didn’t always believe the same thing, but at least we had beliefs. The 1970s brought with it a new restlessness in post-war America. There was no cause to fight for anymore. The apathy led to the Culture of Greed.

Oliver Stone made a movie ironically intended to expose the superficiality of the world of finance. Instead the Hollywood version of the money machine made Greed a Star. Gordon Gekko became an American idol and profit at any cost became glamorous.

It didn’t matter how you made money anymore, just that you made it. You could beg, borrow, and steal to get to the top and it was all acceptable. It was simply “good” business…

Now a new kind of good business is breaking through to the other side. No longer a fringe idea for those outside of society, the Business of Good is one of the biggest industries in the New Economy.

The Wall Street Journal, one of the Greed culture’s loudest voices, reported this week on the move of talented college grads out of finance and into “doing good” professions. A MIT graduate student who originally intended to go to Lehman Brothers switched his plan to engineering and solar-power technology. New grads are flocking in droves to social entrepreneurship careers, social advocacy start-ups, better world businesses, and environmentally sound green business endeavors.

Phew! More proof that there is silver lining in every dark cloud. And it only took a major economic catastrophe to do it!

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Posted via web from 3BL Media’s Posterous

3BL Media’s distribution network continues to grow with the addition of top CSR and Sustainability websites that will be running 3BL Media news.

CSR Digest, Good Business International, Zoosa.org, Realized Worth, the Institute of Green Professionals (IGP), CSR Info, and Social Funds are just a few of the triple bottom line organizations that have recently partnered with 3BL Media to run 3BL’s CSR, Sustainability and Cause Marketing news and information.

“When we were approached by 3BL Media earlier this year to be a part of their affiliate program, we were pleased to join, since 3BL Media’s mission and goals dovetail with ours,” says Good Business International’s Ron Davison. Good Business International is a free public service information and research center dedicated to innovating new business models and documenting values-based social, economic, and environmental trends. “Both GoodB and 3BL Media are committed to advancing and promoting CSR and Sustainability and we wish them every success.”

3BL Media continues to welcome new partnerships with triple bottom line affiliates.

“Each partnership is exciting because every affiliate is contributing something different to the CSR space,” says 3BL Media co-founder Greg Schneider. “What we all share is a desire to deliver the best triple bottom line news and information to the widest audience possible.”