1. The main points of my workplace's sustainable development program
My work place aims to be sustainable in its internal and external operations.
Firstly, it supports sustainable growth by providing financing to projects that are environmentally sustainable. All projects are scrutinized from a environmental and social point of view. Secondly, corporate governance is of high priority, promoting transparency, predictability, accountability, responsibility and disclosure of financed projects. Thirdly, the work place is part of the WWF green office network.
The external operational elements have a daily effect since part of the work is to prepare transactions for decision-making that are sustainable. The policies give you the tools and and frameworks and it is easy to follow the guidelines.. The internal sustainability woudl have to do with use of .e.g electricity, recycling, travel etc. There the individual's choices make the difference.
The challenges would be to keep up with current best practices in many sectors. Luckily there are environmental analysts doing the analysis but all employees need to be aware of the developments in order to be able to finance the best projects. I think offices always can do more, but in comparison to many other work places I've seen, I think my work-place is doing very well.
4. How could I teach the principles of sustainable development in my own subject?
I'm teaching young adults right now in business skills in a European context. I have included corporate social responsibility (CSR) as one core area in the course. For a corporation to survive, it needs to be competitive, but it also needs to take responsibility in its actions. I like to reflect responsible business operations against e.g. the ISO 26000 (acceptable labour conditions, fair operational practices, environmental considerations etc). It takes much more time to fully understand what CSR is about. We only touched the surface in the course and in the future I will have a more profound angle and slower pace.
I think reflecting on the responsible business operations against (e.g. the ISO 26000) is a very good idea. I haven't emphasized this in my class enough but should do it in the future if I need to teach the course I taught before. Good reflections!
ReplyDeleteThanks Pai wien! ISO26000 is comprehensive, gives wide perspective. What class have you taught? Has the main focus been CSR or has it been embedded with other themes?
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