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.

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.

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.

Does media content, in all its forms, merely mirror society or does it move it? Should the sector actively seek to shape public debate, change behaviours and promote sustainable lifestyles as its contribution to social responsibility? This report is the first of its kind highlighting a sensitive area for most media organisations. Based on interviews and discussions with industry experts, this report provides a framework and structure for the debate.

Christian Toennesen shares the key findings of the Mirrors or Movers report here, published by the Guardian. The report seeks to provide a framework and structure to a contentious debate that asks if media companies should promote social good through their content.

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 took part in a discussion, along with other senior industry professionals, about the ethical issues facing the media industry. The discussion was hosted by Ethical Performance and Lumina CR, and was summarised in Ethical Performance's magazine.

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.

A clear trend is emerging; more companies are increasing their involvement in corporate social responsibility (CSR) and more customers want to trust that business practices are ethical. Yet customers are sceptical of the validity of ethical claims, and businesses have doubts about the sincerity of customer interest. In an effort to better understand why businesses are often slow to engage customers on CSR, this report looks firstly at the evidence for customer interest in environmental and social issues, then secondly at some of the common barriers preventing businesses from engaging with customers and markets on the subject of CSR. Finally it reviews best practice in this area to identify approaches taken to overcome some of these barriers and suggests practical steps for better customer engagement.

Corporate Responsibility is often challenging, and there are already heavy demands placed on Directors of large companies. However, effective Board action on sustainability issues need not involve onerous work. The secret of success is to ensure that - in choosing strategy, approaching regulation, designing incentives, shaping the organisational culture, and overseeing internal control - 'virtue' is rewarded.