August 29, 2008   

Max Oliva, Associate Director, Social Impact Management

The WBCSD has developed a new tool in order to assess the social impact of business. Through a stakeholder engagement framework, it follows four steps in order to have both, better relations and make better decisions. These four steps are: Setting boundaries, measuring direct and indirect impacts, assessing contribution to development and prioritizing management response.

It looks very interesting and has both content, contribution from various stakeholders, and practicality, which allows it to be accessed by different companies in order to engage on the conversation.

The WBCSD measuring impact framework can be used across sectors, by operations in different settings and environments and can be tracked overtime. It offers an analysis on governance & sustainability (including corporate governance and environmental management), assets (infrastructure, products and services), people (jobs, skills and training), and financial flows (procurement and taxes).

It certainly deserves the time to understand the framework, go through the "easy to use guide" and use the excel model, which allows to implement the model according to your company's specific needs.

   August 28, 2008   

Max Oliva, Associate Director, Social Impact Management

I have always had a struggle to find a compelling and inclusive way to address ethics, that is until now. Luckily for me, I had the chance to meet Oscar Motomura at the 2008 IC of AIESEC. If we consider ethics to be the choice for the common good, I share with you the "Reflections on ethics and the process of making things happen: effective implementation of solutions for critical sustainability equations."

If ethics is the choice for the common good (global reach and including all living beings):

1. Deciding to act small because it is more comfortable… is not ethical;
2. Deciding to hold back (your proposals, ideas and actions) because you don’t want to go against “the group” … is not ethical;
3. Deciding to doing the possible instead of trying to make the impossible possible… is not ethical;
4. Deciding to use just a part of your potential (to “save” it for self interest purposes) … is not ethical;
5. Deciding not to act, to stay silent, letting fear stay in the way… is not ethical;
6. Deciding to conform to the “letter of the law” instead of persisting on the path defined by the “spirit of the law” … is not ethical;
7. Deciding not to try because nobody tried it before… is not ethical;
8. Deciding not to pursue the perfection and conform to what seems “negotiable” … is not ethical;
9. Deciding to postpone bold actions again and again “waiting for the right moment” … is not ethical;
10. Deciding to “play the game” and pretend that you are not seeing the manipulations underway… is not ethical;
11. Deciding to live in the realm of ideas, diagnosis and theories instead of taking the risks and going for actions… is not ethical;
12. Deciding to act only when all is scientifically proven, even when the truth is self evident… is not ethical;
13. Deciding to reject all radically creative ideas (yours including) when the “traditional-not-so-radical ideas” have not been working… is not ethical;
14. Deciding to reject every proposal that looks “idealistic” or “utopic” … is not ethical