ICYMI: Our Top Sustainability Insights from 2018

Authors

• Elisabeth Best

  Former Manager, Sustainability Management, BSR

2018 was a big year for many of the issues that BSR works on: We saw climate, human rights, and women’s empowerment make headlines around the world, from the release of the new IPCC reports and protests in France, to the removal of military officials from social media in Myanmar, to the #MeToo and #TimesUp movements in the United States.

We also spent this year thinking about the major forces that we see shaping our world for decades to come, from artificial intelligence (AI), automation, and blockchain to the increasing impacts of our changing climate on people and supply chains globally.

We know it can be easy to miss a blog post or a report launch in today’s news cycle, so we’ve rounded up some of your favorite pieces of content from this year.

Without further ado, here they are, for your end-of-year reading pleasure.

Blogs and Case Studies

• Seven Things Every Company Should Know about Artificial Intelligence and Sustainable Business explores—you guessed it—how your organization can start thinking about AI and sustainability.
• Announcing a New Collaboration Using Tech to Combat Human Trafficking introduces our Tech against Trafficking collaborative initiative.
• We Need to Talk about Blockchain—Together considers why collaboration will be essential to realizing the sustainability promise of blockchain.
• Our Human Rights Impact Assessment of Facebook in Myanmar summarizes our work with the company on its programs and policies in this space.
• How Luxury Can Lead the Future of Sustainable Business describes the opportunities the Responsible Luxury Initiative identified for the industry to increase its sustainability leadership.
• The Coca-Cola Company: Building a Climate-Resilient Value Chain is a case study of our work with the company to examine climate risk and resilience beyond its direct operations.
• Three Hot Debates in Sustainability Reporting Today addresses questions like whether companies should move to more real-time sustainability reporting or stop using “materiality” outside of investor relations.
• An Exciting New Era for ESG and Socially Responsible Investing in Japan shares an update on key developments in this space and the global implications.
• How Do We Solve the Plastic Waste Puzzle? provides an overview of our work on this topic with companies in the Asia-Pacific region.
• How Businesses are Collaborating for the SDGs gives five examples of private-sector collaboration toward the accomplishment of the Global Goals.

Reports

• Redefining Sustainable Business: Management for a Rapidly Changing World is a guide for sustainability practitioners in today’s dynamic environment.
• State of Sustainable Business 2018 details the results of our 10th annual BSR/GlobeScan survey of BSR member companies.
• Private-Sector Collaboration for Sustainable Development shares insights on how companies can contribute to the realization of the UN SDGs.
• Doing Business in 2030: Four Possible Futures leverages futures thinking to share four possible scenarios for 2030, which you can use to help your company develop a more resilient business strategy.
• Win-Win-Win: The Sustainable Supply Chain Finance Opportunity describes the massive opportunity for business to leverage supply chain finance to realize sustainability objectives.

We published a lot of great content on other cross-cutting issues, too, including a series of reports about the nexus between climate and other key sustainability topics, a set of papers on the human rights implications of artificial intelligence, a new video and guidance for more gender-sensitive supply chains, and the Sustainability Short Takes video campaign on hot topics in our space, which we will continue next year.

This is my last post as the editor-in-chief of the blog—while I’m staying here at BSR, I’ll be moving over to do more work directly with companies on sustainability management and strategy. Of course, you’ll be in great hands with my successor, Aimee Louise Bataclan, and we’ve got lots of exciting content lined up for you in 2019.

From me and my colleagues here at BSR, we wish you a safe and happy new year, and we look forward to working with you next year to create a more just and sustainable world.