Author: anngoodman

Speaking of Rio+20: A Conversation with UN Assistant Secretary General Liz Thompson

Imagine: You’ve been a practicing lawyer for 20 years. You’ve been elected to Parliament. You’ve run the environment Ministry for a whole country. You’ve been a Cabinet member. You own a successful business, including the building from which it operates. You have an impeccable financial record.

Then imagine: You go to ask for a loan for a larger building to support your expanding energy and environmental consulting practice, and the bank clerk asks you to bring in your husband — to sign the loan papers.

“No mature man with a successful business and a track record with the bank walks in and hears the desk officer say ‘you must bring your wife in to sign, or you can’t get a loan,'” explains H. Elizabeth (Liz) Thompson, now U.N. Assistant Secretary General and co-Executive Coordinator for the June Rio+20 Conference on Sustainable Development.

Her personal experience at the bank in her native Barbados, where she was the first graduate of the University of the West Indies to be appointed to the Cabinet and served as an elected Parliamentarian for 14 years, 12 of them as Minister of Environment, is among the many graphic indignities women face that have made Thompson an ardent supporter of women’s development, access to jobs and investment in the ‘green economy’ that is a central theme and objective of the upcoming international meetings in Rio.

Recruited by the U.N. in 2010, Ms. Thompson’s role “is to support the objectives and themes of the conference, build consensus around the objectives and themes, work with stakeholders at the political level, as well as non-state actors internationally, including the NGO community, business leaders and multilateral development world,” she explains.

As if that weren’t enough, she and a miniscule staff also support the negotiations and the U.N. Millennium goals and process, providing strategic messaging and producing papers and articles for U.N. agencies like U.N.EP and U.N.CTAD, as the Summit approaches.

A big role for big business

Thompson’s vision for the Rio summit outcomes includes a bigger role for business in sustainability — and a better role for women. Continue reading “Speaking of Rio+20: A Conversation with UN Assistant Secretary General Liz Thompson” →

3 Pillars of Sustainability: Upcoming Panel

Please join Ann as she moderates UN Women’s panel, “Three Pillars of Sustainabilty” at Saatchi & Saatchi offices in NYC on Tuesday, May 8, 5:30 pm to 9pm.

For more information, and to purchase tickets, go to the event page: http://3-pillars-of-sustainable-development.eventbrite.com/

What Companies Can Learn From Cities: Rosenzweig on Climate

How might urban climate change affect business? What can business—and cities—do about it? And how might each help the other prepare for a potential threat to what’s clearly a mutually beneficial relationship?

Who better to answer the questions than Cynthia Rosenzweig, Senior Research Scientist at NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies and the Columbia University Earth Institute, and Adjunct Professor at New York City’s Barnard College.

The world-renowned urban climate change expert is the Co-Editor of the recently released book, Climate Change and Cities: First Assessment Report (ARC3) of the Urban Climate Change Research Network (UCCRN) published in 2011 (Cambridge University Press). The UCCRN was hatched at the C40 Large Cities Summit in New York City in 2007, with more than 300 members in cities around the world.

Urban Climate

Depending on scientific estimates, cities account for 40-80 percent of total greenhouse gas emissions worldwide. The urban population is forecast to nearly double to 6.4 billion, or 70% of the world’s population, by mid-century, according to the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division. That would lift emission levels, along with urban temperatures. ARC3 projects that temperatures in 12 cities it studied (including New York, London, Shanghai and Sao Paulo), could rise between one and four degrees Celsius by 2050.”

Those radical changes challenge cities to re-evaluate how to protect people, prioritize investments, deploy assets, and rethink growth and development.

Read more, first posted on January 30, 2012, on Ann Goodman’s blog on GreenBiz

The 6 Biggest Trends in Sustainability Reporting

At the GreenBiz Forum in New York City last week, Ernst & Young offered a preview of fall 2011 survey results of sustainability program and reporting trends at leading companies in 24 sectors. Of the more than 270 respondents, 85 percent are based in the U.S.

The session, led by E&Y assurance and sustainability and climate change practice experts, highlighted six trends:

1. A rise in sustainability reporting;
2. An increase in the CFO’s sustainability role;
3. The emergence of employees as a key sustainability stakeholder force;
4. Strong reporting on greenhouse gas emissions and mounting reporting on water use — despite regulatory uncertainty;
5. Growing concern about access to raw materials (including so-called conflict minerals) as a business supply chain issue;
6. Special attention to outside rankings and ratings on the part of corporate executives.

What the Trends Mean… read more, first posted on January 30, 2012, on Ann Goodman’s blog on GreenBiz

A Crash Course in Sustainability for CFOs

Who better to offer some sustainability advice to CFOs than the former EVP and Global Head of an international ratings service, who delivered double-digit growth for nine years running?

As she leaves The McGraw-Hill Companies, Vickie Tillman, who for two years has headed the company’s sustainability initiatives for its Global Strategy Group as Senior VP of Global Sustainability Business Development and previously ran its subsidiary, Standard & Poor’s (S&P), has some financial tips for sustainability executives (and sustainability tips for finance professionals).

Read more, first posted on January 13, 2012, onAnn Goodman’s blog on GreenBiz