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How your company’s social purpose can also drive profit

Thomas W. Malnight and Ivy Buche

Is it possible to implement corporate purpose in a way that achieves multi-stakeholder impact and high financial growth? To answer this question, 12 companies employing various industry-specific strategies were studied. 

Five steps to a transformative corporate advocacy strategy

Amy Coulterman, Medium

Corporate advocacy is no longer only stodgy political lobbying for profit motives. These days, it’s about being vocal and making...

Designing a climate advocacy strategy

Sophie Dembinski, Charmian Love, and Beth Thoren, Harvard Business Review

Although the business community has made progress toward climate goals since the 2015 Paris Agreement, fewer than one-fifth of net-zero targets set by national and subnational governments and only a third of the largest public corporations with net-zero targets meet science-aligned criteria. Further, anti-climate...

Chinese activists lament the end of the last major US social media platform in China: LinkedIn unlinked

Joyce Cheng, ABC News, 22 October 2021

LinkedIn will shut down in China later this year after increased monitoring and censorship from the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). It will be replaced by a new platform, InJobs, which only allows career networking. LinkedIn is the last major US social media platform in China, and activists say "the CCP has been using the great firewall...

Conscious capitalism or partisan profits? Why firms should not play sociopolitics

Aaron Poynton, Forbes, 14 September 2021

In April, the US Major League Baseball announced moving the All-Star Game out of Atlanta to protest against changes in Georgia’s revised voting laws. In a survey following the announcement, only 39 per cent approved of the decision, with opinions strongly divided along political lines. One week later, the All-Star Game saw a 12 per cent decline...

Investors are ignoring a dangerous crackdown on press freedom

Ian Marlow & Isabella Steger, The Sydney Morning Herald, 06 August 2021

With a crackdown on the world’s press comes a more challenging business landscape for investors. Restricted information flows can mask political and regulatory problems as well as potential fraud and corruption, raising the risks of doing business — particularly in more volatile emerging markets where good quality information may already be...

BlackRock throws its weight around

Lorraine Woellert & Catherine Boudreau, POLITICO, 20 July 2021

Investment giant BlackRock Inc. has more than doubled its support for shareholder proposals this year, throwing its weight behind efforts to oust corporate directors and force reporting on greenhouse gas emissions, lobbying and diversity. BlackRock's 2020-21 Investment Stewardship Report reveals the investment firm sided with...

Shareholder activists advocating for gender equality focus on tackling sexual harassment

Bonnie Chiu, Forbes, 20 June 2021

A shareholder resolution is urging Microsoft to detail its sexual harassment policies and investigations into alleged incidents across the company, following misconduct allegations against its founder Bill Gates. The significance of the latest Microsoft shareholder resolution goes beyond the issue of gender pay equity, calling for disclosures...

Patagonia shows corporate activism is simpler than it looks

Andrea Chang, Los Angeles Times, 09 May 2021

Outdoor apparel retailer Patagonia has often found itself as the forefront of corporate activism. The company does not stay silent as part of being risk averse. Instead, it has managed to successfully mix business with activism throughout its 48-year history, its core business selling outdoor clothing is seemingly bolstered by its progressive...

In Conversation: Corporate Activism, Reputation, Trust & Climate Targets

In Conversation: Corporate Activism, Reputation, Trust & Climate Targets

Very Public Affairs Podcast, Centre for Corporate Public Affairs, 06 May 2021

On this episode of In Conversation, Llew Gartrell, Senior Manager Government Relations at Stockland, and Melanie McMillan, Senior Associate at the Centre for Corporate Affairs, join the Centre's Executive Director Wayne Burns to discuss the top news stories from March and April 2021.

Listen to this...