Simon Hodgson looks behind 'Net Positive', the next big topic in sustainability, and asks whether we've yet to clarify what it really means.

Simon Hodgson argues that conflating morality and the responsibilities of business isn't always helpful.

The fourth CR Salary Survey report contains some illuminating findings. The CR sector is evolving and growing at a faster pace than ever in spite of the uncertain economic climate. As was the case with the previous survey, in 2010, the results are taken from the responses of individual professionals in consultancies and in-house departments across the world. This report identifies the highlights and is supplemented by commentaries from significant industry figures.

Simon Hodgson looks behind 'Net Positive', the next big topic in sustainability, and asks whether we've yet to clarify what it really means.

Paul Burke and Simon Hodgson partner with ENDS magazine to produce this report, providing insights into how companies are incorporating sustainability into their business.

Simon Hodgson argues that conflating morality and the responsibilities of business isn't always helpful.

Simon Hodgson looks behind 'Net Positive', the next big topic in sustainability, and asks whether we've yet to clarify what it really means.

Simon Hodgson argues that conflating morality and the responsibilities of business isn't always helpful.

The fourth CR Salary Survey report contains some illuminating findings. The CR sector is evolving and growing at a faster pace than ever in spite of the uncertain economic climate. As was the case with the previous survey, in 2010, the results are taken from the responses of individual professionals in consultancies and in-house departments across the world. This report identifies the highlights and is supplemented by commentaries from significant industry figures.

We were asked by a major investment manager to assess the state of diversity and inclusion (D&I) among a group of 200 major companies, all listed in Asia and the Pacific.

There is no one way of doing D&I, especially in a region as culturally and economically diverse as this. As a result, there are no established benchmarks or frameworks that can be readily applied to assess performance. Noting this, we created our own template to understand and rank companies’ D&I performance.

Dr. Reddy's Laboratories, the Indian pharmaceutical company, came out top, closely followed by CSL (Australia) and Hang Seng Bank (Hong Kong). However, our findings indicate that the majority of companies in the research universe largely ignore – or at least show no signs of managing – D&I as a strategic business issue. This suggests that awareness and understanding of D&I as a driver of competitive advantage is limited to ‘an enlightened few’.

The report includes case studies and sets out a framework for companies interested in improving their D&I performance.

From 2013-2015, the Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI), the leading global network for responsible investors, coordinated a collaborative engagement with the aim of improving employee relations reporting and performance at 27 major retailers. Carnstone supported the process as the primary research partner, analysing in detail the extent to which employee relations are financially material and tracking the progress made during the engagement. The findings and insights have now been summarised in a guide, laying out why and how investors should engage with retailers on topics such as training, turnover rates and employee engagement. The research and subsequent engagement enjoyed the support of 24 investors with US$1.5 trillion of assets under management.

Companies have spent considerable resources on understanding the sustainability agenda and trying to manage the threats and opportunities. It is now seen as an integrated part of doing business, with many companies building their brand around it. Many pension schemes equally recognise that, as long-term investors, they need to be conscious of the sustainability of their investments.

If sustainability is accepted as good business practice at the corporate level, surely the company’s pension scheme should incorporate the same belief and the same practical lessons into the management of its money? Some pension schemes are already doing this. But why not more?

On 9th February, Carnstone in partnership with the NAPF, the UN PRI and WHEB Asset Management, brought together industry experts to discuss what lessons pension schemes could learn from their corporate sponsor, and vice versa, in order to both achieve greater sustainability.

The 2011 UN Guiding Principles turned societal expectations of the role of business in human rights into global standards which companies are expected to meet. However, many companies find it difficult to practically implement them through existing business processes. This pragmatic guide was written with business practitioners in mind to address this difficulty. It summarises Ruggie's recommendations and communicates human rights standards in an engaging and user-friendly format. It also includes case studies highlighting significant human rights issues by industry.

As a follow-up exercise, we recently analysed to what extent FTSE 100 companies meet the new reporting requirements. Our analysis demonstrated decidedly mixed progress. You can access the full findings by clicking the article link below.

Simon Hodgson looks behind 'Net Positive', the next big topic in sustainability, and asks whether we've yet to clarify what it really means.

Simon Hodgson argues that conflating morality and the responsibilities of business isn't always helpful.

Since March 2013 businesses across Europe have been responding to the EU Timber Regulation; a law prohibiting illegal timber from appearing on the European market. We wanted to gauge the feeling across the retail and manufacturing sectors so, eight months on from the law’s introduction, we conducted a short survey to understand how companies were facing the new requirements. We presented the findings to the Chatham House Illegal Logging Update in February 2014. The results are summarised in our report Still Feeling Stumped?

Simon Hodgson looks behind 'Net Positive', the next big topic in sustainability, and asks whether we've yet to clarify what it really means.

Simon Hodgson argues that conflating morality and the responsibilities of business isn't always helpful.

Simon Hodgson looks behind 'Net Positive', the next big topic in sustainability, and asks whether we've yet to clarify what it really means.

Simon Hodgson argues that conflating morality and the responsibilities of business isn't always helpful.

The fourth CR Salary Survey report contains some illuminating findings. The CR sector is evolving and growing at a faster pace than ever in spite of the uncertain economic climate. As was the case with the previous survey, in 2010, the results are taken from the responses of individual professionals in consultancies and in-house departments across the world. This report identifies the highlights and is supplemented by commentaries from significant industry figures.

The LoCaT project’s study has been released and we are thrilled to have been a part of this significant project, bringing together broadcasters from across Europe to analyse the energy consumption of different methods of watching TV – antennas, Freeview boxes, satellites and online apps.

We developed our own approach, in collaboration with leading academics in this area. We are pleased that the findings from our independent methodology was aligned with other studies in this area, whilst also providing some unique perspectives. We are very proud to have been a part of it and are excited to finally share the findings with you!

The bottom line is that, for individual viewers, the emissions per hour across all viewing methods are still quite small when compared with other every day activities like driving to the shops. When you’re comparing delivery methods of TV content, the many-to-one distribution of terrestrial TV comes out most efficient when compared to linear TV distributed over the internet. What’s still to be explored is the consequential effects of significant increase in internet traffic from viewing TV will affect the internet energy consumption in the longer-term.

As COP26 starts, the Responsible Media Forum (RMF) have published a summary of the progress the Media Climate Pact signatories have made on:

• Setting science-based targets to reach net zero as early as possible and 2050 at the latest
• Driving climate-friendly lifestyles through content

"The efforts of 7 leading media companies to reduce their emissions and drive behaviour change towards climate-friendly lifestyles through content are encouraging. Systematically putting climate at the heart of editorial & creative decisions would have been unthinkable 5 years ago."

The Carbon Trust have released a white paper on the carbon impact of video streaming. This publication is an important milestone for DIMPACT, a collaborative project run by Carnstone with the University of Bristol to help the digital media industry map and manage its carbon impacts.

The study estimates the average carbon footprint in Europe per hour of video streaming is approximately 55gCO2e, equivalent to boiling an average electric kettle three times.

It also shows that the viewing devices are responsible for the largest part of the overall carbon footprint. For example, the footprint of watching on a 50-inch TV is shown to be roughly 4.5 times that of watching on a laptop, and roughly 90 times that of watching on a smartphone.

Large companies give huge amounts to charity. Last year the FTSE 100 handed over a combined total of £2.1bn in charitable giving, approximately 1.6% of their pre-tax profits. And companies are doing great things for, and with, charities – Sainsbury’s alone has donated over £100m to Comic Relief since 1999. Lots of money flowing, professionally managed relationships and plenty of good ideas. All at a time when the charity sector is feeling the pinch. What is not to like?

Our opinion piece in Blue & Green Tomorrow argues that there is lots of room for improvement.

Do oil company employees operate in morality-free zones? Jonathon Porritt suggests so in a recent article for Guardian Sustainable Business. Reflecting on Forum for the Future’s decision to cease working with BP and Shell - due to a perceived lack of traction towards real transformation – he argues that it is becoming morally unacceptable for oil company employees to carry on in their jobs.

At Carnstone, we like a good discussion. We spend a great deal of time debating the role of ethics in business, internally and with our clients. Our view is that blankly rejecting other people’s position as immoral or lacking morality is unproductive. Instead, we see the ability to appreciate – and sometimes critically engage with – other moral framings of particular social, economic or economic challenges as a core skill of good consultancy.

In his response to Jonathon Porritt’s criticism, Christian Toennesen argues that it is wrong and divisive to say oil companies and their employees do not have morals.

The United Nations-supported Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI) Initiative is an international network of investors working together to develop a more sustainable global financial system. It has grown exponentially since 2006, now comprising over 1,200 signatories, with a combined US$45 trillion in assets under management.

Due to the rapid growth and changing nature of the PRI, Carnstone was appointed to carry out a formal review of the PRI’s governance structure and processes. The aim of this review is to assess what governance structure the PRI should adopt to fulfil its mission.

After an extensive fact-finding mission, comprising interviews, desk research, legal reviews and peer benchmarking, we produced a set of 10 practical recommendations to support the future growth and aims of the organisation. We presented these to the PRI Advisory Council at the United Nations Headquarters in July 2014. The PRI is currently consulting with its signatories on the 10 recommendations for change, a process also facilitated by Carnstone.

Please click below to see the full report with our recommendations. The ‘article’ link provides more information about the next steps of the governance review.

The 2020 PSCI Annual Report summarises the progress and achievements the PSCI have made in advancing responsible supply chain practices within the pharmaceutical and healthcare industries over the past year.

Key developments in 2020 include:

• Growth in membership, with over 45 member companies now committed to the initiative and having adopted the PSCI Principles
• A new three-year strategy adopted to deliver our refreshed vision for excellence in safety, environmental, and social outcomes across the whole of the global pharmaceutical and healthcare supply chain
• Pioneering remote audit standards aligned with the PSCI Principles, now available to members on our community platform The Link, alongside valuable resources, news, and training materials
• Strengthened partnerships with our Indian and Chinese partners, recognizing the importance of those countries for the pharmaceutical supply chain
• Unprecedented levels of supplier engagement through two large-scale virtual supplier conferences in China and India, reaching 700+ supplier delegates
• Expansion of our Board to support the delivery of our ambitious strategy
• Measured improvement in PSCI member companies’ contribution to and use of PSCI resources to address supply chain issues.

Simon Hodgson looks behind 'Net Positive', the next big topic in sustainability, and asks whether we've yet to clarify what it really means.

Simon Hodgson argues that conflating morality and the responsibilities of business isn't always helpful.

Simon Hodgson looks behind 'Net Positive', the next big topic in sustainability, and asks whether we've yet to clarify what it really means.

Simon Hodgson argues that conflating morality and the responsibilities of business isn't always helpful.

The fourth CR Salary Survey report contains some illuminating findings. The CR sector is evolving and growing at a faster pace than ever in spite of the uncertain economic climate. As was the case with the previous survey, in 2010, the results are taken from the responses of individual professionals in consultancies and in-house departments across the world. This report identifies the highlights and is supplemented by commentaries from significant industry figures.

The Book Chain Project (BCP) have finally released their Design Guide to the public.

After researching design processes, collecting data on every stage of the supply chain, and interviewing publishers and suppliers, BCP are sharing this guide to help inform all actors in the design process about the environmental and social impacts of different materials and processes that can go into making a book.

The purpose of the Design Guide is not to tell readers which materials and processes they should or should not use – the purpose is simply to give everyone at all stages of the design process the tools they need to further understand the impact of each material and process in order to make informed choices about the spec of their publication.

The Book Chain Project is a collaborative initiative run by Carnstone, involving 28 leading book and journal publishers, over 400 print suppliers and more than 300 paper manufacturers. The publishers participating in the Book Chain Project have one common aspiration – to make informed buying decisions and minimise the impact their books have on the environment, as well as those who manufacture or read their books. 📚

With a powerful foreword by Christiana Figueres, this report is a progress update and a call to arms for media companies. Focusing on what we call the ‘brainprint’, the report is concerned with media’s superpower: the ability to shift hearts and minds, and the enormous social, political and environmental change this can create.

In the report, we explore how the sector’s management of its content impacts has moved on since the publication of Mirrors or Movers I in 2013. Media responsibility has often been creative and innovative, putting the sector’s talents to good use. But our research shows that rigour and measurement now also characterise media responsibility. This is timely, because society's expectations of what it means to be a 'responsible' media company have developed rapidly.

Based on our insights from convening the Responsible Media Forum for over 15 years, as well as interviews with experts within and beyond the sector, the report also outlines a framework for good practice in content impact measurement and six steps to impact.

As conveners of the Book Chain Project, we’ve produced this guide to help publishing companies make informed decisions around the design, purchasing and production of their books, magazines and journals. It contains an overview of the current situation, looks at some of the common misconceptions, charts the new developments in this area, and presents good practice from other sectors.

From 2013-2015, the Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI), the leading global network for responsible investors, coordinated a collaborative engagement with the aim of improving employee relations reporting and performance at 27 major retailers. Carnstone supported the process as the primary research partner, analysing in detail the extent to which employee relations are financially material and tracking the progress made during the engagement. The findings and insights have now been summarised in a guide, laying out why and how investors should engage with retailers on topics such as training, turnover rates and employee engagement. The research and subsequent engagement enjoyed the support of 24 investors with US$1.5 trillion of assets under management.

The past year has witnessed continued controversies surrounding the supply chains of big retailers. From the traceability of meat to collapsing factories in Bangladesh, the risks associated with product sourcing and labour standards in a globalised world are firmly on the radar of companies, consumers and investors. Conversely, the issue of how retailers manage their direct employees appears to have been relegated to almost secondary importance. We recently completed a research project for the UNPRI (Principles for Responsible Investment) to identify what investors should look for when assessing the human capital management (HCM) practices of large retailers. The report is available to download below. We also summarised the findings in an article for Guardian Sustainable Business.

Simon Hodgson looks behind 'Net Positive', the next big topic in sustainability, and asks whether we've yet to clarify what it really means.

Simon Hodgson looks behind 'Net Positive', the next big topic in sustainability, and asks whether we've yet to clarify what it really means.

Simon Hodgson argues that conflating morality and the responsibilities of business isn't always helpful.

The fourth CR Salary Survey report contains some illuminating findings. The CR sector is evolving and growing at a faster pace than ever in spite of the uncertain economic climate. As was the case with the previous survey, in 2010, the results are taken from the responses of individual professionals in consultancies and in-house departments across the world. This report identifies the highlights and is supplemented by commentaries from significant industry figures.

The Carbon Trust have released a white paper on the carbon impact of video streaming. This publication is an important milestone for DIMPACT, a collaborative project run by Carnstone with the University of Bristol to help the digital media industry map and manage its carbon impacts.

The study estimates the average carbon footprint in Europe per hour of video streaming is approximately 55gCO2e, equivalent to boiling an average electric kettle three times.

It also shows that the viewing devices are responsible for the largest part of the overall carbon footprint. For example, the footprint of watching on a 50-inch TV is shown to be roughly 4.5 times that of watching on a laptop, and roughly 90 times that of watching on a smartphone.

With a foreword by Dr Steve Waygood, Chief Responsible Investment Officer at Aviva Investors, this report takes the temperature of the environmental, social and governance issues facing the media sector.

Our analysis prioritises issues - from fake news to environmental management - into three categories: material, strategic and operational, based on the financial risk posed by each issue. It replaces and builds on previous materiality assessments conducted in 2004, 2009 and 2013.

With a plethora of organisations now evaluating media companies for a living, the aim of the report is to support a conversation between the sector and its stakeholders – particularly those evaluating companies on behalf of investors – leading to more constructive discussions and ultimately better long-term planning.

Obviously, all companies have a desire to stay alive and be profitable. But above and beyond mere survival, increasingly we expect businesses to play a positive role in society or at least reduce their negative social and environmental impacts as much as possible.

How do such concerns apply to the media sector? What are the key impacts of media companies? How will society hold them to account in the future?

In our newest report, The Future of Responsible Media, we articulate four interrelated challenges, the management of which, we believe, will set ‘good’ companies apart from the ‘bad’ over the next 10 years. We summarise these four challenges as follows:

• The future of privacy – getting serious about understanding users’ appetite for
  personalised content vs privacy;
• Coming to grips with being movers – owning up to the fact that media content doesn’t just mirror society, it moves it;
• Becoming organisations without walls – finding ways of managing impacts in an increasingly splintered media landscape; and
• Managing the workplace of the future – rethinking existing notions of ‘purpose’, ‘progression’ and ‘hierarchy’ as the competition for critical talent heats up.

Further to this, we identify eight social and technological forces that are likely to transform society generally and the world of media more specifically.

The report is based on rigorous desk-research, the collective insights of the 25 companies participating in the Responsible Media Forum as well as input from some of the brightest sparks in business, politics and academia.

How do multinational enterprises (MNEs) promote decent work in their global supply chains?

This International Labour Organization (ILO) report provides a comparative analysis of good practices across four different sectors to help understand the structure of MNE supply chains and how decent work is encouraged.

Carnstone provided insights into the tourism sector, writing Study 2. Among the key findings, the research indicates that hotel ownership models have a strong influence on the ability of a multinational chain to maintain standards and effect change throughout their supply chain. The approaches to maintaining standards through franchising agreements, informal agreements and through outsourcing and agency labour contracts, including the business opportunities and risks associated with these diverse arrangements are explored.

The ILO is the United Nations specialised agency devoted to advancing opportunities for women and men to obtain decent and productive work in conditions of freedom, equity, security and human dignity. This report was produced to encourage the exchange of ideas and provide inputs to the discussion on decent work in global supply chains at the 2016 edition of the ILO’s International Labour Conference.

To mark Human Rights day 2014, Carnstone provided input to the International Tourism Partnership’s ‘Know How Guide’ on Human Rights for the Hotel Industry. The document provides an introduction to human rights – what human rights are, the context of the hotel industry, steps to implement the UN Guiding Principles and resources for further reading.

Simon Hodgson looks behind 'Net Positive', the next big topic in sustainability, and asks whether we've yet to clarify what it really means.

Simon Hodgson looks behind 'Net Positive', the next big topic in sustainability, and asks whether we've yet to clarify what it really means.

Simon Hodgson argues that conflating morality and the responsibilities of business isn't always helpful.

The fourth CR Salary Survey report contains some illuminating findings. The CR sector is evolving and growing at a faster pace than ever in spite of the uncertain economic climate. As was the case with the previous survey, in 2010, the results are taken from the responses of individual professionals in consultancies and in-house departments across the world. This report identifies the highlights and is supplemented by commentaries from significant industry figures.

Simon Hodgson looks behind 'Net Positive', the next big topic in sustainability, and asks whether we've yet to clarify what it really means.

Simon Hodgson argues that conflating morality and the responsibilities of business isn't always helpful.

The fourth CR Salary Survey report contains some illuminating findings. The CR sector is evolving and growing at a faster pace than ever in spite of the uncertain economic climate. As was the case with the previous survey, in 2010, the results are taken from the responses of individual professionals in consultancies and in-house departments across the world. This report identifies the highlights and is supplemented by commentaries from significant industry figures.

As COP26 starts, the Responsible Media Forum (RMF) have published a summary of the progress the Media Climate Pact signatories have made on:

• Setting science-based targets to reach net zero as early as possible and 2050 at the latest
• Driving climate-friendly lifestyles through content

"The efforts of 7 leading media companies to reduce their emissions and drive behaviour change towards climate-friendly lifestyles through content are encouraging. Systematically putting climate at the heart of editorial & creative decisions would have been unthinkable 5 years ago."

This guidance document was created and published by the Pharmaceutical Environment Group (PEG) and the Pharmaceutical Supply Chain Initiative (PSCI) in collaboration. Both groups are convened and organised by Carnstone.

The guidance offers a consistent way for pharmaceutical companies to calculate emissions in their upstream and downstream value chains. It provides methodologies consistent with recommendations from the GHG Protocol for calculating emissions which are tailored for each different category.

For this briefing, we reviewed the corporate community investment landscape in China. We find that community investment in China is still largely about making cash donations or giving gifts in kind, but we also note an increase in volunteering activity and some progressive companies starting to match employee skills with the needs of community groups.

We also find that companies more often than not partner with GONGOs (government-organised non-governmental organisations) with impact evaluation activities still at an embryonic stage.

The analysis is based on a review of the activity of 26 major companies with operations in China; half of them Chinese enterprises, half headquartered elsewhere.

Large companies give huge amounts to charity. Last year the FTSE 100 handed over a combined total of £2.1bn in charitable giving, approximately 1.6% of their pre-tax profits. And companies are doing great things for, and with, charities – Sainsbury’s alone has donated over £100m to Comic Relief since 1999. Lots of money flowing, professionally managed relationships and plenty of good ideas. All at a time when the charity sector is feeling the pinch. What is not to like?

Our opinion piece in Blue & Green Tomorrow argues that there is lots of room for improvement.

In 2018 Carnstone analysed the first round of Gender Pay Gap reporting from the 350 largest listed UK companies. We have repeated and updated that analysis for 2019, again producing simple comparison tables for the FTSE 100 and FTSE 250, and again comparing companies on a sectoral basis.

Want to know who has the largest or smallest gap in your sector? This report collates the mean and median gaps, the mandatory quartile data and boils it all down into a simple single-figure rating.

Our 2018 report was widely used by HR and Governance teams wanting to know how they compared against peers. So this year, we have expanded the basic data with an analysis of the biggest movers; those companies reporting the largest rises or falls in their data, and their quoted reasons for the change.

Lastly, the report also contains some initial modelling work to try and link data to cause, by exploring some of the most common drivers of gender pay inequality and investigating the tell-tale signatures they might leave in company data.

The United Nations-supported Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI) Initiative is an international network of investors working together to develop a more sustainable global financial system. It has grown exponentially since 2006, now comprising over 1,200 signatories, with a combined US$45 trillion in assets under management.

Due to the rapid growth and changing nature of the PRI, Carnstone was appointed to carry out a formal review of the PRI’s governance structure and processes. The aim of this review is to assess what governance structure the PRI should adopt to fulfil its mission.

After an extensive fact-finding mission, comprising interviews, desk research, legal reviews and peer benchmarking, we produced a set of 10 practical recommendations to support the future growth and aims of the organisation. We presented these to the PRI Advisory Council at the United Nations Headquarters in July 2014. The PRI is currently consulting with its signatories on the 10 recommendations for change, a process also facilitated by Carnstone.

Please click below to see the full report with our recommendations. The ‘article’ link provides more information about the next steps of the governance review.

Paul Burke and Simon Hodgson partner with ENDS magazine to produce this report, providing insights into how companies are incorporating sustainability into their business.

For this briefing, we reviewed the corporate community investment landscape in China. We find that community investment in China is still largely about making cash donations or giving gifts in kind, but we also note an increase in volunteering activity and some progressive companies starting to match employee skills with the needs of community groups.

We also find that companies more often than not partner with GONGOs (government-organised non-governmental organisations) with impact evaluation activities still at an embryonic stage.

The analysis is based on a review of the activity of 26 major companies with operations in China; half of them Chinese enterprises, half headquartered elsewhere.

Large companies give huge amounts to charity. Last year the FTSE 100 handed over a combined total of £2.1bn in charitable giving, approximately 1.6% of their pre-tax profits. And companies are doing great things for, and with, charities – Sainsbury’s alone has donated over £100m to Comic Relief since 1999. Lots of money flowing, professionally managed relationships and plenty of good ideas. All at a time when the charity sector is feeling the pinch. What is not to like?

Our opinion piece in Blue & Green Tomorrow argues that there is lots of room for improvement.

Christian Toennesen outlines how Guardian News and Media is hoping to align skills development amongst its employees with furthering the objectives of local community partners. Carnstone has been involved in helping Guardian News and Media deliver its annual Volunteering Week for a number of years.

Carnstone supports large companies and NGOs with their sustainability strategies. As the focus on climate change intensifies, we are speaking with increasing numbers of small and mid-sized companies looking for our advice.

As a useful first step, we have put together this short Environmental Checklist to help SMEs understand the typical environmental impacts of business, and how to measure and reduce them.

As conveners of the Book Chain Project, we’ve produced this guide to help publishing companies make informed decisions around the design, purchasing and production of their books, magazines and journals. It contains an overview of the current situation, looks at some of the common misconceptions, charts the new developments in this area, and presents good practice from other sectors.

The Task Force on Climate-related Disclosures (TCFD) published recommendations for voluntary climate-related financial disclosures in 2017. These recommendations aim to make such disclosures consistent, comparable, reliable, clear, and efficient. Improved information would help investors, lenders, and insurance underwriters appropriately assess and price climate-related opportunities and risks.

The TCFD recommendations are gaining traction among investors as governments and companies grapple with the message of urgency from last year’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)’s 1.5°C report. Investors are asking more questions about companies’ climate change governance, strategy, risk management, and metrics and targets. This short briefing paper will help you understand what the TCFD recommendations are, their benefits, and how you can prepare to respond to questions from investors and other stakeholders.

In 2018 Carnstone analysed the first round of Gender Pay Gap reporting from the 350 largest listed UK companies. We have repeated and updated that analysis for 2019, again producing simple comparison tables for the FTSE 100 and FTSE 250, and again comparing companies on a sectoral basis.

Want to know who has the largest or smallest gap in your sector? This report collates the mean and median gaps, the mandatory quartile data and boils it all down into a simple single-figure rating.

Our 2018 report was widely used by HR and Governance teams wanting to know how they compared against peers. So this year, we have expanded the basic data with an analysis of the biggest movers; those companies reporting the largest rises or falls in their data, and their quoted reasons for the change.

Lastly, the report also contains some initial modelling work to try and link data to cause, by exploring some of the most common drivers of gender pay inequality and investigating the tell-tale signatures they might leave in company data.

The new Gender Pay Gap reporting regulations produced a flood of data in April 2018. Carnstone has sifted through it to provide like-for-like comparisons for the FTSE 100 and FTSE 250. Which companies have the highest gaps in their sector and which the lowest? Who has the most equal pay in the FTSE 100? Which sectors are most equal and which least? This Review sets the data out simply and comparably to form an essential reference document for this first year’s disclosures.

We were asked by a major investment manager to assess the state of diversity and inclusion (D&I) among a group of 200 major companies, all listed in Asia and the Pacific.

There is no one way of doing D&I, especially in a region as culturally and economically diverse as this. As a result, there are no established benchmarks or frameworks that can be readily applied to assess performance. Noting this, we created our own template to understand and rank companies’ D&I performance.

Dr. Reddy's Laboratories, the Indian pharmaceutical company, came out top, closely followed by CSL (Australia) and Hang Seng Bank (Hong Kong). However, our findings indicate that the majority of companies in the research universe largely ignore – or at least show no signs of managing – D&I as a strategic business issue. This suggests that awareness and understanding of D&I as a driver of competitive advantage is limited to ‘an enlightened few’.

The report includes case studies and sets out a framework for companies interested in improving their D&I performance.

Carnstone supports large companies and NGOs with their sustainability strategies. As the focus on climate change intensifies, we are speaking with increasing numbers of small and mid-sized companies looking for our advice.

As a useful first step, we have put together this short Environmental Checklist to help SMEs understand the typical environmental impacts of business, and how to measure and reduce them.

This guidance document was created and published by the Pharmaceutical Environment Group (PEG) and the Pharmaceutical Supply Chain Initiative (PSCI) in collaboration. Both groups are convened and organised by Carnstone.

The guidance offers a consistent way for pharmaceutical companies to calculate emissions in their upstream and downstream value chains. It provides methodologies consistent with recommendations from the GHG Protocol for calculating emissions which are tailored for each different category.

Since March 2013 businesses across Europe have been responding to the EU Timber Regulation; a law prohibiting illegal timber from appearing on the European market. We wanted to gauge the feeling across the retail and manufacturing sectors so, eight months on from the law’s introduction, we conducted a short survey to understand how companies were facing the new requirements. We presented the findings to the Chatham House Illegal Logging Update in February 2014. The results are summarised in our report Still Feeling Stumped?

The report presents an outline framework for what, in the authors' view, Best Practice in Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) governance looks like. This framework consists of seven basic principles covering: director competence; director roles and responsibilities; culture, standards and values, strategic implications; performance management, internal controls; organisational structure.

To mark Human Rights day 2014, Carnstone provided input to the International Tourism Partnership’s ‘Know How Guide’ on Human Rights for the Hotel Industry. The document provides an introduction to human rights – what human rights are, the context of the hotel industry, steps to implement the UN Guiding Principles and resources for further reading.

The 2011 UN Guiding Principles turned societal expectations of the role of business in human rights into global standards which companies are expected to meet. However, many companies find it difficult to practically implement them through existing business processes. This pragmatic guide was written with business practitioners in mind to address this difficulty. It summarises Ruggie's recommendations and communicates human rights standards in an engaging and user-friendly format. It also includes case studies highlighting significant human rights issues by industry.

As a follow-up exercise, we recently analysed to what extent FTSE 100 companies meet the new reporting requirements. Our analysis demonstrated decidedly mixed progress. You can access the full findings by clicking the article link below.

The media sector faces many unique social and environmental challenges, setting it apart from other sectors. This report builds on previous stakeholder surveys to identify not only what those issues are, but whether they are operational, strategic or material. The research is based on input from media professionals within the industry as well as media analysts from financial institutions.

The United Nations-supported Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI) Initiative is an international network of investors working together to develop a more sustainable global financial system. It has grown exponentially since 2006, now comprising over 1,200 signatories, with a combined US$45 trillion in assets under management.

Due to the rapid growth and changing nature of the PRI, Carnstone was appointed to carry out a formal review of the PRI’s governance structure and processes. The aim of this review is to assess what governance structure the PRI should adopt to fulfil its mission.

After an extensive fact-finding mission, comprising interviews, desk research, legal reviews and peer benchmarking, we produced a set of 10 practical recommendations to support the future growth and aims of the organisation. We presented these to the PRI Advisory Council at the United Nations Headquarters in July 2014. The PRI is currently consulting with its signatories on the 10 recommendations for change, a process also facilitated by Carnstone.

Please click below to see the full report with our recommendations. The ‘article’ link provides more information about the next steps of the governance review.

How does IT contribute to sustainability? In sustainable development, the IT sector is usually seen as a force for good. The direct impacts of the sector itself – energy, waste, pollution – are small, especially when compared with other industries. Moreover, these effects are offset by big indirect benefits as IT enables social advances, and offers routes to lower environmental impacts. This new report, supported by Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) and written by Carnstone, explores the extent to which the sector is delivering on that promise.

It argues that IT companies must stay on top of their direct impacts. More importantly, however, they must help their customers get the biggest possible benefits from their products. They also have a role to understand their influence on long-term societal changes which will likely make or break IT’s contribution to sustainability. The report concludes by setting out a practical agenda for how IT companies can play their part in maximising sustainability benefits.

The Carbon Trust have released a white paper on the carbon impact of video streaming. This publication is an important milestone for DIMPACT, a collaborative project run by Carnstone with the University of Bristol to help the digital media industry map and manage its carbon impacts.

The study estimates the average carbon footprint in Europe per hour of video streaming is approximately 55gCO2e, equivalent to boiling an average electric kettle three times.

It also shows that the viewing devices are responsible for the largest part of the overall carbon footprint. For example, the footprint of watching on a 50-inch TV is shown to be roughly 4.5 times that of watching on a laptop, and roughly 90 times that of watching on a smartphone.

The 2020 PSCI Annual Report summarises the progress and achievements the PSCI have made in advancing responsible supply chain practices within the pharmaceutical and healthcare industries over the past year.

Key developments in 2020 include:

• Growth in membership, with over 45 member companies now committed to the initiative and having adopted the PSCI Principles
• A new three-year strategy adopted to deliver our refreshed vision for excellence in safety, environmental, and social outcomes across the whole of the global pharmaceutical and healthcare supply chain
• Pioneering remote audit standards aligned with the PSCI Principles, now available to members on our community platform The Link, alongside valuable resources, news, and training materials
• Strengthened partnerships with our Indian and Chinese partners, recognizing the importance of those countries for the pharmaceutical supply chain
• Unprecedented levels of supplier engagement through two large-scale virtual supplier conferences in China and India, reaching 700+ supplier delegates
• Expansion of our Board to support the delivery of our ambitious strategy
• Measured improvement in PSCI member companies’ contribution to and use of PSCI resources to address supply chain issues.

Carnstone has been in business for close to 20 years. During that time, we have become one of the biggest independent consultancies focusing exclusively on sustainability, with a deliberately low profile. We realised early on that we’d much rather be known for what we do than what we say we do. As a result, this is the first and only Impact Report we have ever published. It covers some highlights of our work over the last decade, and also offers a few reflections on the process that got us here. We hope our clients, partners and future colleagues enjoy reading it (if not, rest assured the next edition won’t be out until 2030).

The Book Chain Project (BCP) have finally released their Design Guide to the public.

After researching design processes, collecting data on every stage of the supply chain, and interviewing publishers and suppliers, BCP are sharing this guide to help inform all actors in the design process about the environmental and social impacts of different materials and processes that can go into making a book.

The purpose of the Design Guide is not to tell readers which materials and processes they should or should not use – the purpose is simply to give everyone at all stages of the design process the tools they need to further understand the impact of each material and process in order to make informed choices about the spec of their publication.

The Book Chain Project is a collaborative initiative run by Carnstone, involving 28 leading book and journal publishers, over 400 print suppliers and more than 300 paper manufacturers. The publishers participating in the Book Chain Project have one common aspiration – to make informed buying decisions and minimise the impact their books have on the environment, as well as those who manufacture or read their books. 📚

The Task Force on Climate-related Disclosures (TCFD) published recommendations for voluntary climate-related financial disclosures in 2017. These recommendations aim to make such disclosures consistent, comparable, reliable, clear, and efficient. Improved information would help investors, lenders, and insurance underwriters appropriately assess and price climate-related opportunities and risks.

The TCFD recommendations are gaining traction among investors as governments and companies grapple with the message of urgency from last year’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)’s 1.5°C report. Investors are asking more questions about companies’ climate change governance, strategy, risk management, and metrics and targets. This short briefing paper will help you understand what the TCFD recommendations are, their benefits, and how you can prepare to respond to questions from investors and other stakeholders.

How does IT contribute to sustainability? In sustainable development, the IT sector is usually seen as a force for good. The direct impacts of the sector itself – energy, waste, pollution – are small, especially when compared with other industries. Moreover, these effects are offset by big indirect benefits as IT enables social advances, and offers routes to lower environmental impacts. This new report, supported by Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) and written by Carnstone, explores the extent to which the sector is delivering on that promise.

It argues that IT companies must stay on top of their direct impacts. More importantly, however, they must help their customers get the biggest possible benefits from their products. They also have a role to understand their influence on long-term societal changes which will likely make or break IT’s contribution to sustainability. The report concludes by setting out a practical agenda for how IT companies can play their part in maximising sustainability benefits.

The Task Force on Climate-related Disclosures (TCFD) published recommendations for voluntary climate-related financial disclosures in 2017. These recommendations aim to make such disclosures consistent, comparable, reliable, clear, and efficient. Improved information would help investors, lenders, and insurance underwriters appropriately assess and price climate-related opportunities and risks.

The TCFD recommendations are gaining traction among investors as governments and companies grapple with the message of urgency from last year’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)’s 1.5°C report. Investors are asking more questions about companies’ climate change governance, strategy, risk management, and metrics and targets. This short briefing paper will help you understand what the TCFD recommendations are, their benefits, and how you can prepare to respond to questions from investors and other stakeholders.

We were asked by a major investment manager to assess the state of diversity and inclusion (D&I) among a group of 200 major companies, all listed in Asia and the Pacific.

There is no one way of doing D&I, especially in a region as culturally and economically diverse as this. As a result, there are no established benchmarks or frameworks that can be readily applied to assess performance. Noting this, we created our own template to understand and rank companies’ D&I performance.

Dr. Reddy's Laboratories, the Indian pharmaceutical company, came out top, closely followed by CSL (Australia) and Hang Seng Bank (Hong Kong). However, our findings indicate that the majority of companies in the research universe largely ignore – or at least show no signs of managing – D&I as a strategic business issue. This suggests that awareness and understanding of D&I as a driver of competitive advantage is limited to ‘an enlightened few’.

The report includes case studies and sets out a framework for companies interested in improving their D&I performance.

Companies have spent considerable resources on understanding the sustainability agenda and trying to manage the threats and opportunities. It is now seen as an integrated part of doing business, with many companies building their brand around it. Many pension schemes equally recognise that, as long-term investors, they need to be conscious of the sustainability of their investments.

If sustainability is accepted as good business practice at the corporate level, surely the company’s pension scheme should incorporate the same belief and the same practical lessons into the management of its money? Some pension schemes are already doing this. But why not more?

On 9th February, Carnstone in partnership with the NAPF, the UN PRI and WHEB Asset Management, brought together industry experts to discuss what lessons pension schemes could learn from their corporate sponsor, and vice versa, in order to both achieve greater sustainability.

Carnstone supports large companies and NGOs with their sustainability strategies. As the focus on climate change intensifies, we are speaking with increasing numbers of small and mid-sized companies looking for our advice.

As a useful first step, we have put together this short Environmental Checklist to help SMEs understand the typical environmental impacts of business, and how to measure and reduce them.

The Book Chain Project (BCP) have finally released their Design Guide to the public.

After researching design processes, collecting data on every stage of the supply chain, and interviewing publishers and suppliers, BCP are sharing this guide to help inform all actors in the design process about the environmental and social impacts of different materials and processes that can go into making a book.

The purpose of the Design Guide is not to tell readers which materials and processes they should or should not use – the purpose is simply to give everyone at all stages of the design process the tools they need to further understand the impact of each material and process in order to make informed choices about the spec of their publication.

The Book Chain Project is a collaborative initiative run by Carnstone, involving 28 leading book and journal publishers, over 400 print suppliers and more than 300 paper manufacturers. The publishers participating in the Book Chain Project have one common aspiration – to make informed buying decisions and minimise the impact their books have on the environment, as well as those who manufacture or read their books. 📚

The 2020 PSCI Annual Report summarises the progress and achievements the PSCI have made in advancing responsible supply chain practices within the pharmaceutical and healthcare industries over the past year.

Key developments in 2020 include:

• Growth in membership, with over 45 member companies now committed to the initiative and having adopted the PSCI Principles
• A new three-year strategy adopted to deliver our refreshed vision for excellence in safety, environmental, and social outcomes across the whole of the global pharmaceutical and healthcare supply chain
• Pioneering remote audit standards aligned with the PSCI Principles, now available to members on our community platform The Link, alongside valuable resources, news, and training materials
• Strengthened partnerships with our Indian and Chinese partners, recognizing the importance of those countries for the pharmaceutical supply chain
• Unprecedented levels of supplier engagement through two large-scale virtual supplier conferences in China and India, reaching 700+ supplier delegates
• Expansion of our Board to support the delivery of our ambitious strategy
• Measured improvement in PSCI member companies’ contribution to and use of PSCI resources to address supply chain issues.

As COP26 starts, the Responsible Media Forum (RMF) have published a summary of the progress the Media Climate Pact signatories have made on:

• Setting science-based targets to reach net zero as early as possible and 2050 at the latest
• Driving climate-friendly lifestyles through content

"The efforts of 7 leading media companies to reduce their emissions and drive behaviour change towards climate-friendly lifestyles through content are encouraging. Systematically putting climate at the heart of editorial & creative decisions would have been unthinkable 5 years ago."

This guidance document was created and published by the Pharmaceutical Environment Group (PEG) and the Pharmaceutical Supply Chain Initiative (PSCI) in collaboration. Both groups are convened and organised by Carnstone.

The guidance offers a consistent way for pharmaceutical companies to calculate emissions in their upstream and downstream value chains. It provides methodologies consistent with recommendations from the GHG Protocol for calculating emissions which are tailored for each different category.

The Carbon Trust have released a white paper on the carbon impact of video streaming. This publication is an important milestone for DIMPACT, a collaborative project run by Carnstone with the University of Bristol to help the digital media industry map and manage its carbon impacts.

The study estimates the average carbon footprint in Europe per hour of video streaming is approximately 55gCO2e, equivalent to boiling an average electric kettle three times.

It also shows that the viewing devices are responsible for the largest part of the overall carbon footprint. For example, the footprint of watching on a 50-inch TV is shown to be roughly 4.5 times that of watching on a laptop, and roughly 90 times that of watching on a smartphone.

The 2020 PSCI Annual Report summarises the progress and achievements the PSCI have made in advancing responsible supply chain practices within the pharmaceutical and healthcare industries over the past year.

Key developments in 2020 include:

• Growth in membership, with over 45 member companies now committed to the initiative and having adopted the PSCI Principles
• A new three-year strategy adopted to deliver our refreshed vision for excellence in safety, environmental, and social outcomes across the whole of the global pharmaceutical and healthcare supply chain
• Pioneering remote audit standards aligned with the PSCI Principles, now available to members on our community platform The Link, alongside valuable resources, news, and training materials
• Strengthened partnerships with our Indian and Chinese partners, recognizing the importance of those countries for the pharmaceutical supply chain
• Unprecedented levels of supplier engagement through two large-scale virtual supplier conferences in China and India, reaching 700+ supplier delegates
• Expansion of our Board to support the delivery of our ambitious strategy
• Measured improvement in PSCI member companies’ contribution to and use of PSCI resources to address supply chain issues.

With a powerful foreword by Christiana Figueres, this report is a progress update and a call to arms for media companies. Focusing on what we call the ‘brainprint’, the report is concerned with media’s superpower: the ability to shift hearts and minds, and the enormous social, political and environmental change this can create.

In the report, we explore how the sector’s management of its content impacts has moved on since the publication of Mirrors or Movers I in 2013. Media responsibility has often been creative and innovative, putting the sector’s talents to good use. But our research shows that rigour and measurement now also characterise media responsibility. This is timely, because society's expectations of what it means to be a 'responsible' media company have developed rapidly.

Based on our insights from convening the Responsible Media Forum for over 15 years, as well as interviews with experts within and beyond the sector, the report also outlines a framework for good practice in content impact measurement and six steps to impact.

Carnstone supports large companies and NGOs with their sustainability strategies. As the focus on climate change intensifies, we are speaking with increasing numbers of small and mid-sized companies looking for our advice.

As a useful first step, we have put together this short Environmental Checklist to help SMEs understand the typical environmental impacts of business, and how to measure and reduce them.

As COP26 starts, the Responsible Media Forum (RMF) have published a summary of the progress the Media Climate Pact signatories have made on:

• Setting science-based targets to reach net zero as early as possible and 2050 at the latest
• Driving climate-friendly lifestyles through content

"The efforts of 7 leading media companies to reduce their emissions and drive behaviour change towards climate-friendly lifestyles through content are encouraging. Systematically putting climate at the heart of editorial & creative decisions would have been unthinkable 5 years ago."

With a powerful foreword by Christiana Figueres, this report is a progress update and a call to arms for media companies. Focusing on what we call the ‘brainprint’, the report is concerned with media’s superpower: the ability to shift hearts and minds, and the enormous social, political and environmental change this can create.

In the report, we explore how the sector’s management of its content impacts has moved on since the publication of Mirrors or Movers I in 2013. Media responsibility has often been creative and innovative, putting the sector’s talents to good use. But our research shows that rigour and measurement now also characterise media responsibility. This is timely, because society's expectations of what it means to be a 'responsible' media company have developed rapidly.

Based on our insights from convening the Responsible Media Forum for over 15 years, as well as interviews with experts within and beyond the sector, the report also outlines a framework for good practice in content impact measurement and six steps to impact.