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CSQCBS Sustainability QuarterlyVolume 3, October 2012

Green IT - Sustainability from an

Information Systems Perspective

Sustainability labels and certifica-

tions: Do they make a difference?

PhD Cohort in Sustainability

Sustainable Business Minor

Project Smart Grid

The Intelligent Electrical system is the way forward...

New CBS Sustainability Platform Co-Director Stefano Ponte writes in the CSQ “Researchers’ Corner”

Interview with coordinator Associate Professor Christian Erik Kampmann on the CBS Sustainable Business Minor

A PhD Cohort in Sustainability has been launched with help from the CBS Sustainability Platform

How IT can work as an influential catalyz-er for sustainability

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Editorial

During the past year, CBS Sustainability Platform has engaged in a number of research, edu-cation and outreach activities to set the stage for developing a more focused strategy within the broad area of sustainability. With the help of colleagues across CBS, we called upon internal and external scholars to contribute with guest lectures, seminars and a large international conference, and, not least, a number of colleauges have engaged in various research activities supported by the platform such as: a Mini-Smart Grid Project at CBS, a research project on “Enterprise Sus-tainability in Developing Country Industrial Clusters”, CBS Goes Green’s Extended Research Project and Paper Series “How CBS is ‘Walking the Walk’ in Sustainability”, the Convener’s Thematic Opening with the theme of ”Copenhagenization” at the joint 4S/EASST conference in October and a research workshop at CBS titled “Organizational Transparency between Myth and Reality: The Sustainability-Transparency Nexus”.

During this first year of engaging in an inclusive “bottom-up” process to identify ongoing sustaina-bility initiatives, the Sustainability Platform is now in a good position to start thinking about how to better communicate the rich variety of sustainability-related research carried out at CBS, identify possible areas that need further development, as well as organize this variety in a more coherent way. To this end, the Platform is starting a process of establishment of up to five affiliated Sus-tainability Research Clusters. The main goals of establishing such clusters are: 1) to develop a core group of committed CBS researchers across departments that can facilitate interdisciplinary research around common themes; 2) to enhance the impact and overall output of sustainability research at CBS; and 3) to attract external funding for sustainability-related activities and re-search at CBS.

The Sustainability Research Clusters will be led by Cluster Leaders and ideally involve the par-ticipation of at least two different departments. With a focus on an interdisciplinary approach, the clusters are expected to enhance and add value to both individual and collective CBS research initiatives. The Clusters can apply to receive support from the Platform for relevant initiatives, such as research/student assistance, conference and workshop activities, publications, and pilot meetings to facilitate collective research funding applications. Cluster Leaders will be part of the governance structure of the Sustainability Platform and operate in cooperation with the Platform Directors.

Given the broad range of competences and relevant research activities on sustainability at CBS, a number of different themes can be developed to reach beyond departmental boundaries and foster innovative approaches. The following are only a few indicative ideas:

• Multistakeholder governance of sustainability (including civil society engagement)• Management, leadership, strategy and sustainability• Green industries and supply chains, technology, design and innovation• Ethics, responsibility and sustainability• Managing sustainability in emerging and developing economies• Sustainable investment, finance and accounting• Sustainability communication, marketing, branding and consumption

We hope to facilitate the launch of the first Sustainability Clusters before the end of 2012, with the first Cluster meetings, strategies and plans of action in place in early 2013. If you have ideas for Sustainability Cluster themes and/or want to be involved in the brainstorming phase, please contact the Sustainability Platform Directors.

Mette Morsing and Stefano Ponte

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In this issue:

News

News

News

ScandSust

Students

Students

CBS

CBS

CBS

Research

Research

Education

Education

Education

Education

Platform Projects p. 5

- New Projects Supported by the Platform p. 6

- UNDP internship p. 7

- Mini Smart Grid at CSB p. 8

- PhD Cohort in Sustainability p. 10

Sustainability Minor p. 12

PhD Focus: Post Retail Sustainability of Clothes p. 15

Scandinavian Sustainability Spotlight p. 18

Researchers’ Corner p. 21

- Sustainability Labels and Certification p. 22

- Scaling up sustainability p. 26

- Green IT p. 29

- Succesful African Firms and Institutional Change p. 32

Practitioners’ Corner p. 34 - Industrial PhD Collaboration p. 35

CBS News p. 38

- Chinese Delegation at CBS p 39

- Visible Hands p. 42

- Update from 360⁰ Students p. 43

- Update from 180 Degrees Consulting p. 44

- Update from PRME p. 45

- Update from CBS Goes Green p. 46

- Update from cbsCSR p. 47

Recent and Upcoming Activities p. 48

CBS Sustainability Platform Leadership and Staff p. 50

Research

Research

Research

Research

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Platform Projects

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New Projects Supported by the Platform

1. 3rd Organizational Governance Conference at cbsCSR - Linne Marie Lauesen (ICM)2. CBS Goes Green Extended Research Project and Paper Series - “How CBS is ‘Walking the Walk’ in Sustainability” – CBS Goes Green 3. Pilot Study Exploring the Possibility for Collaboration between Large Buyers and their Smaller Dan ish Suppliers concerning Sustainability Demands in Global Supply Chains – Jette Steen Knudsen (DBP)4. Enterprise Sustainability in Developing Country Industrial Clusters– Peter Lund Thomsen (ICM)5. Grant for attending the Social Enterprise World Forum – Nadine Köcher (student from 180 Degrees Consulting)

More information about each project or event can be obtained through email, by requesting it from the own-ers, or from the Platform.

Furthermore, CBS Sustainability Platform has several additional applications currently under assessment.If you would like to apply for support from the Platform, please email suggestions, with a description of the activity in approximately three-four pages, to:Sustainability@cbs.dk

Please include a brief answer to each of the following points:1. Type of activity that you seek support for2. The relevance and importance of the activity to the Sustainability Platform (either in terms of re search, teaching, outreach and/or further fundraising)3. Expected outcome of the activity & how it will contribute to further developing the Platform’s activi ties at CBS4. Participants inside and outside CBS5. External target group, if in addition to participants6. Budget, with a timeline7. Possible long-term future activities to be explored after the supported activity has taken place

We kindly ask that you hand in a short summary and preferably photos that we can add to the Sustainability Platform website once the activity has taken place.

Important information! From 2013, the Platform will operate with new tri-annual application deadlines. The first application deadline in 2013 will be January 18th, at noon. The next deadline will be announced in the next issue of CBS Sustainability Quarterly. Note: For the remaining part of 2012, the Platform will continue to receive applications on an ongoing basis.

CBS Sustainability Platform has been pleased to receive several new applications seeking support. The Plat-form has approved five new applications and looks forward to seeing the projects and events take effect. The following projects have been approved for support from the platform:

News

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UNDP Internship

Upon invitation, Professor Mette Morsing visited UNDP’s Istanbul International Center for Private Sector in Development (IICPSD) in September 2012 to explore potentials for future cooperation between CBS Sustain-ability Platform and the IICPSD.

One of the discussed options for future collaboration was potential student internships at the UNDP office in Istanbul. The Platform is currently negotiating terms and conditions with the partners involved.

Amongst other requirements, the UNDP requires that the student in question is:

• Enrolledinagraduate-leveldegreeprogramasafull-timestudentinarelatedfield.• AvailableforworkingintheIICPSDforaperiodof3-6months.(Applicantsavailableforsixmonths are preferred).

The areas of relevant graduate studies are broad, as the UNDP’s private sector born solutions to development challenges require a good understanding of both technical and social disciplines.

For more information, please visit: http://www.undp.org.tr/Gozlem2.aspx?WebSayfaNo=3361

Three study programs at CBS have already shown interest in the internship program. The three study pro-grams are: BaDS, HA Com, and DBP. One of the initial opportunities currently being discussed is to let the first intern participate in a preliminary study on market inclusiveness in Liberia and possibly Somalia.

Education

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The MSC@CBS project seeks to investigate the busi-ness opportunities and issues that arise from this new technology. The project revolves around the concepts of Smart Grids, Smart Meters and prosumers. Smart Grids are a new method of managing electricity and power supply. It has not reached its full potential yet, but it offers a more interactive platform for both the consumer and the main supplier e.g. Dong Energy. The Smart Grid will collect and control the behavior of consumers and suppliers in order to make the sys-tem more effective and sustainable. The consumers or suppliers will be able to control certain appliances in their homes so that they become a resource for the system. For example, the customer or supplier can choose to switch off the freezer for 30 minutes during the night to save energy.

What is a smart meter? A smart meter is an electrical meter and it records consumption of electric energy. One of the benefits of this new technology is that it enables two-way com-munication between the meter and the central sys-tem. This two-way communication gives rise to new business opportunities and consumer benefits. The centrals can offer lower rates at off-peak times and the consumers will have the possibility of selling back electricity to the central. Smart meters may be part of a smart grid, but does not constitute a smart grid. The concept of a prosumer is rather new, but it entails a consumer that strategically uses a commodity e.g. electricity. To give an example: when Smart Meters are implemented, the prosumer will be able to sit at work

Mini smart grid at CBS

(MSG@CBS) Projectby Associate Professor Rasmus Pedersen, Depart-ment of IT Management, CBS and Head of depart-ment Professor Peter Møllgård, Department of Economics, CBS.

and check the prices of electricity and when it hits a low, the prosumer will e.g. turn on the washing ma-chine or the dishwasher which are already loaded and thereby save money in comparison to starting it at 6pm when everybody else consumes electricity and the price is higher. One of the implications of this new consumer is outlined in the questions below.

The non-trivial and perhaps even more interesting effect of conducting a smart meter project is that we (CBS) can address some of the challenges that are as-sociated with a new more dynamic electricity market:

•Possibleethicalmisbehavior:Mr.andMrs.Prosum-er try to trick smart meter consumers into buying electricity at the wrong times.

•Financedepartment:Howdopricesfluctuateinsucha system where mass hysteria can make the electricity market very unstable? How to regulate it (optimally)?

The MSC@CBS Project A budget of approximately 50.000 EURO has been allocated to complete the project, which Lars Ringe from RobotLab and designer of minmaaler.dk, or also a part of. The project will through a constructed, yet realistic experiment, look into the different challenges that arise with implementing the new technology.The experiment, which will take place at CBS, centers on a large gas driven generator can produce enough electricity for 4-10 student “smart houses” (which may be tents for practical reasons). A main generator will supply the houses with electricity at one price pr. kW while the household would also supply electrici-ty at another price pr. kW. We expect to experiment with various set ups in terms of gas generator supplied electricity and prices at which the students can either consume their own electricity or sell it back. The overall idea is to conduct research related to a scenar-io where each house is having a smart meter that can turn energy-intensive appliances on and off at home aselectricitypricesfluctuate.

Project Smart Grid: The Intelligent Electrical system is the way forward.

In 2012 Peter Møllgaard from Department of Economics and Rasmus Pedersen from Depart-ment of IT Management initiated a new project supported by CBS Sustainability Platform. The purpose of the project is to establish an under-standing of micro-economic and IT challenges related to Smart Grid technology.

Education

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The Sustainability Platform visited the experiment that was set up in front of Kilen on October 5th. Rasmus Ulslev Pedersen from the Department of IT Management presented the different components of the experiment; a gas run generator which can supply 6.5 kW and a “test suitcase” from Zensehomes with 4 plugs, an internet router and a control system. The students were able to control their virtual homes i.e. the test suitcase from their android phones. The ex-periment had three phases for selling and consuming electricity. In the first round of the project there was no restrictions for selling and buying electricity; in the second round, one group was the placebo group and the other an actual consumer; in the third round, there was time restrictions on selling and buying elec-tricity. Through this exercise, the students became prosumers; buying the electricity at the best rates.

The data that the students and researchers gathered from this experiment and exercise will be used for a small project and further analysis into the micro-eco-nomic implications of the new technology.

Phase 1Goals for the next 12-18 months:

•Fall2012:Teachingwith”smartmeter” themeandstudent awards for Cand Merc(it.) students • Spring 2013:Demonstration ofmini grid atOSDconference•Publications(2-3conference-level)•SecuremorefundingtotheBusinessinSocietySus-tainability Platform on sustainability

During the next couple of months, we are trying to get a sense of the important parameters for the MSG@CBS project. A 7th semester graduate class at Cand. Merc. (it.) is undertaking a task to design “smart-something”, which will result in a collection of consumer household appliances and possibly a house-hold windmill and solar panels.

The latter two can produce electricity at either the car battery level of 12 volts or the normal voltage of 220 volts. When hooked up to an electricity outlet, the windmill and the solar panels can produce electrici-ty, which can either feed into the household directly or be sold back to the main supplier. This has usually been referred to as “having the meter run backwards”.

Expectations of the Experiment We expect large deviations in demand at a rate should

operate, but a number of experiments where we intro-duce instruments to dampen the minute to minute ac-tivity will be conducted. The instruments at this point in time under consideration, is a fee (i.e. transaction cost) for changing the time when a certain appliance is set to run: This would serve as to demotivate the prosumers from rapid changes in their demand or production patterns. This stored energy can also be sold back to the electricity grid if the price offered suddenly spikes upward. We do not hypothesize that this is bad per se, but the interesting issue here in the first phase of the MSG@CBS project is to see if we can spot this behavior in (constructed) realistic situations. We expect to write about this project in the upcoming issues of Sustainability Quarterly.

If you have any ideas or thoughts on how to conduct these experiments then please feel free to contact ei-ther Associate Professor Rasmus Ulslev Pedersen, rup.itm@cbs.dk or Professor Peter Møllgaard, hpm.eco@cbs.dk.

Peter Møllgaard is Head of department at the Department of Economics at CBS. His primary research areas are competition policies and in-dustrial organizations.

Rasmus Ulslev Pedersen is an Associate Pro-fessor and industrial Researcher at the Depart-ment of IT Management.

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PhD Cohort in

Sustainabilityby Associate Professor Steen Vallentin, Center for Corporate Social Responsibility, Department of Man-agement, Politics & Philosophy

The CBS Sustainability Platform has helped es-tablish and launch a PhD Cohort in Sustainabil-ity. This cohort is designed to assist and inspire PhD fellows, giving them focused knowledge of sustainability from a business school perspec-tive. Cohort coordinator Steen Vallentin elabo-rates:

CBS has welcomed a lot of new PhD students engaged in projects that are, in one way or another, related to sustainability/CSR. We have seen this critical mass of students – constituting a cohort – as an occasion to develop a range of different course modules catering to the needs of PhDs that are entering the field. This includes an introductory course entitled “Perspectives on Sustainability” (see below), a three-day methodol-ogy course entitled “Qualitative Research Methods and Publication Strategies”, and two one-day semi-nars on selected topics. At the time of writing, the first course is up and running.

“Perspectives on Sustainability” consists of a three-day (plus an induction day) intensive introductory course plus eight weekly reading seminars that runs from September 2012 to February 2013. At the end of the course students are required to write a paper wherein they reflect on their project in light of thereadings and discussions of the course. The introduc-tory course took place on September 17-19. The fo-cus of the first day (presented by professor Andreas Rasche) was Global Governance and Regulation and its relations to social and environmental sustainabil-ity, whereas day two was devoted to a broad over-view of developments in the field of CSR (presented by associate professor Steen Vallentin) and day three (presented by associate professor Søren Jeppesen) was about Sustainable Development, i.e. CSR from a de-velopment studies point of view. The weekly reading seminars cover topics such as institutional theory, sustainability reporting and social accounting, CSR as governmentality, Habermasian approaches to CSR, CSR and top management, social media and non-state market-driven certification systems.

Steen Vallentin is Associate Professor at De-partment of Management, Politics and Philos-ophy, Copenhagen Business School.

His Primary research areas are:

•TheSocialresponsibilityofcompanies•TheFormingofPublicOpnion•SociologicalSystemTheory•EthicalInvestment•StakeholderManagement•Value-basedManagement•Corporategovernance•Sustainability•CivilSociety/SocialActivism

Education

These topics are presented by Andreas Rasche, Steen Vallentin, Robert Strand (cbsCSR) and Itziar Cas-tello (Universidad Carlos III de Madrid). In all, the course is meant to give students a broad and critical introduction to the sustainability field and to provide them with analytical ideas and tools for use in their respective projects.The methodology course, which takes place on October 29-31, is presented by profes-sors Eva Boxenbaum (Ecoles des Mines de Paris, Cen-tre for Management Science) and Jean-Pascal Gond (Cass Business School, City University London). The first one-day seminar is entitled “Accountability and Transparency: Theoretical Perspectives and Applica-tions”. It takes place on November 22 and is presented by professors Lars Thøger Christensen (University of Southern Denmark, Dep. of Marketing & Manage-ment) and Brendan O’Dwyer (Amsterdam Business School).

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The second of these seminars is entitled “Activism and CSR: NGOs, Norms and Networks” and is presented by professor Frank de Bakker (VU University Amster-dam). It takes place on February 4.

11 students are enrolled in the “Perspectives on Sus-tainability” course. Six of these are cohort students are

The PhD students engaging in an active evaluation of the “Perspective on Sustainability” on the last day of the course.

from CBS, whereas the remaining five are from other Danish universities. Thus, participation in the cohort activities is not mandatory for CBS PhDs engaged in sustainability-related projects. They are occasions to engage in critical discussion of vital topics with some of the leading scholars in the field, and students are strongly urged to sign up and participate.

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Sustain-abilityMinor

Interview with Christian Erik Kampmann

Copenhagen Business School has five different minor programmes available for master students. The structure of the minors is fixed and contains a three-course package, thus allowing of very inter-disciplinary programmes. We interviewed the coordinator for the minor in Sustainable Business, Associate Professor Christian Erik Kampmann from the Department of Innovation and Organizational Economics (INO).

CBS Sustainability Quarterly (CSQ): Can you give a brief introduction to the minor and why is it important for CBS to have a minor in Sustainable Business?

Christian Erik Kampmann:The minor in Sustainable Business has existed for eight years, but has gained momentum over the last couple of years where there has been an increase in demand from both CBS students and from the cor-porate sector. In the Sustainable Business minor, the three-course cluster is taught by three different de-partments at CBS which allows for interdisciplinarity

and an introduction to different perspectives.

The minor provides a framework for looking at the complexity of sustainability and for understanding many of the issues that can arise. Understanding that sustainability is a systemic phenomenon is central. For example, one cannot claim that a shirt is sustainable before the whole life cycle of the shirt has been scruti-nized. This entails a holistic approach to sustainability and an understanding of the business issues that arise when producing sustainable products. From a busi-ness school perspective, it is important to have a set of

Education

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courses that make students appreciate some of the specific issues related to sustainability. Given that sustainability is systemic, this presents a number of challenges in terms of creating or running a business – everything is connected to everything else, and it is dynamic. I experienced some of these central chal-lenges first-hand, while running an organic farm some years ago. People tend to think that organic farming is fantastic because produce is grown without the use of pesticides and so on; but if you are not careful with your crop rotation, soil treatment and use of manure, you will wash NO3 into the subsoil water, reducing the overall sustainability of the farm. Another exam-ple is the strategic business issues that arise with elec-tric cars; their design, infrastructure and so on. We are talking about a complete redesign of our energy and traffic systems. When and how this will happen is not a trivial question.

CSQ: Which competencies do the students that obtain this minor gain and how are they equipped for entering the labour market?

Christian Erik Kampmann: Students that take the minor in Sustainable Business gain an overall understanding of tools and approaches that are useful when strategically operating within the sustainable business sector. The minor operates more on an awareness level and not on a skill-building lev-el, as we do not have time for an actual application of the tools they have been introduced to. A central fea-ture of the minor is the cross-disciplinary nature, as the students work together across a range of different study programmes, allowing them to gain a deeper in-sight into other perspectives which hopefully broad-ens their academic skills.

CSQ: What’s in the future for the minor? Which devel-opments and potential challenges do you foresee?

Christian Erik Kampmann: In survey, after survey, managers speak of the chal-lenge of translating sustainability into concrete busi-ness cases, which is exactly the focus of our minor. Sustainability continues to gain attention among busi-ness leaders so the corporate sector will continue to be hungry for graduates with this kind of qualification. I expect that most of our graduates with a minor in Sustainable Business will find employment in the pri-vate sector. The big management consultant firms like Rambøll, Grontmij-Carl Bro, Cowi and KPMG have shown a great interest in graduates with these kinds of competencies.

My overall ambition for the minor is to continue to increase the emphasis on developing business cases and also emphasize some areas a bit more, such as business model innovation, product service systems, clean tech innovation, and environmental manage-ment, while decreasing a bit the emphasis on more traditional CSR topics such as the triple bottom line, ethics, and communication. In this manner, I hope we can make this minor more distinct from the other minors, like the minor in Social Entrepreneurship and Not-for-Profit Management. My personal dream for my course in Sustainable Business Strategy and Inno-vation is to integrate students from DTU. This would enhance the level of interdisciplinarity and gather a wider range of skills. I currently teach a joint course in systems analysis for DTU and CBS graduate students, which is a wonderful opportunity for them to get ac-quainted with how different disciplines think. Also, I would like to have a larger focus on entrepreneurship, which is a crucial part of sustainable business devel-opment, since the majority of innovations take place in startup companies.

Christian Erik Kampmann is Associate Profes-sor at Department of Innovation and Organ-izational Economics, Copenhagen Business School.

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Courses in the Minor, 2012/2013:Corporate Social Responsibility in Global Supply Chains is taught by faculty members from the Department of Intercultural Communication and Management; Innovating Sustainable Products and Business Development is taught by faculty members from the Department of Organization; Sustainable Business Strategy and Innovation is taught by the minor coordinator, Associate Professor Christian Erik Kampmann, from the Department of Innovation and Organizational Economics.

Corporate Social responsibility in global supply chains.An increasing number of companies in the Western world outsource parts of their production to low-wage countries with poor social and environmental standards. Such long-distance outsourcing makes it difficult for companies to ensure that their products are being produced under socially and environmentally sound con-ditions. The course attempts to make the students capable of understanding and managing the opportunities and barriers facing companies, which wish to exercise social and environmental responsibility in their supply chains.

Coordinator:Esben Rahbek Gjerdrum Pedersen - Department of Intercultural Communication and Management

Innovating sustainable products and Business DevelopmentThe course is structured around three overarching themes: The first theme addresses the dynamics of inno-vation and the making of dominant designs that tend to become ‘normalized’ and locked-in as techno-eco-nomic structures with specific institutional logics and meanings. The second theme addresses how companies initiate Sustainable innovation by addressing ‘concerns’ outside normal market frames. Further, it addresses the dilemma of when to ‘open innovation’ and include other stakeholders, and how they can evaluate the ex-isting lock-in, and the role of business models as a systemic instrument. The third theme addresses the strat-egies, non-linear processes, allies and tools that the innovator can use to unlock the stakeholders and revenue streams of the existing lock-in and re-assemble stakeholders to economic worth and value.

Coordinator:Peter Karnøe - Department of Organization

Sustainable Business Strategy and InnovationThe course approach the issue of sustainable business strategy and innovation in three themes. The first theme includes alternative concepts of sustainability and tools for measuring environmental impact, the significant roleofgovernmentregulation,publicattitudes,the“greenconsumer”andotherstakeholderinfluences,bar-riers and drivers of the green payoffs, underlying causes of current controversies, and the implications of the highly systemic nature of sustainability for implementing green technologies. The second theme is based on selected theories from the strategy and innovation literature, such as industrial-organization economics (Porter), the resource-based view of the firm, strategic alliances, first- and second-mover advantage, platform strategy, and open innovation, all applied to greentech innovation. The third theme presents frameworks spe-cifically addressing sustainable innovation such as the “natural resource based view”, systems thinking and sys-tem dynamics, environmental management, and alternative classifications of archetypical greentech strategies.

Coordinator:Christian Erik Kampmann - Department of Innovation and Organizational Economics

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PhD Focus

Each issue of the CBS Sustain-ability Quarterly will highlight a new PhD project in order to learn more about the sustaina-bility related research happen-ing at the PhD level.

In this issue: Industrial PhD Fel-low Kerli Kant Hvass introduces her research.

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Post-retail sustainability

of clothes

by Industrial PhD Fellow Kerli Kant Hvass, Center for Corporate Social Responsibility, Department of Interculturel Communication and Management

Background of the projectMy PhD project has grown out of my long-term in-terest in sustainability and CSR, and my practical ex-perience from the second-hand clothing industry in Estonia, US and Denmark. I have a close relation to clothes because I grew up behind the Iron Curtain where the choice of consumables was limited, and with a mother who was a tailor, reuse, recycling and redesign of clothes was a part of daily life. However, working hands-on in the industry opened up my eyes to the growing unsustainable patterns of fashion con-sumption and the unexploited opportunities for cap-turing value from used clothing. It urged me to act on this and in 2010 I developed a second-hand retail concept, which was entered into a business plan com-petition in Denmark and brought me 1st prize and the title of Female Entrepreneur of a Year with a Foreign Background. However, the available resources to im-plement the idea were limited and the market was still considerably immature, therefore the ideas ended up in a PhD proposal instead of a social enterprise, as in-itially planned.

Copenhagen School of Design and Technology (KEA), with its strong focus on sustainability, was im-mediately interested in the PhD project and hiring an Industrial PhD fellow so that we could learn together about the somewhat unexplored post-retail sustaina-bility field within clothes and use the knowledge to educate future fashion industry stakeholders.

In order to build a strong bridge between theory and practice, we approached Bestseller and Red Cross to be dialogue partners in this journey and in 2011 the multi-stakeholder PhD project got financial approval from The Danish Agency for Science, Technology and Innovation. The first part of my PhD project focus-es on the post-retail sustainability of clothes from a producer perspective while the second part looks at the field from second-hand and recycling industry’s perspective.

Kerli Kant Hvass is an industrial PhD fellow at the Department of Intercultural Communi-cation and Management with an international business economics background from Aalborg University (MSc) and social entrepreneurship from Roskilde University Center.

The aim of her cross-disciplinary PhD project is to explore the field of post-retail sustainability within clothes and provide new theoretical and empirical insights on why and how the fash-ion, second hand and recycling industries can innovate their business models and collaborate with each other in order to prolong the life of clothes, minimize textile waste and establish a circular economy of textiles. The project applies a systemic view to the field, as no single actor in the industry has the resources, power and competences to solve the growing textile waste problem alone.

The dialogue-driven collaboration with Bestseller throughout the first year turned out very interesting and fruitful and in the beginning of August 2012, two of Bestsellers brands, namely Jack & Jones and Name It, launched product-take back pilot projects in their stores.

“Within the last year - and especially in the idea and option generating phase - Kerli and her PhD work has added important inspiration-al value to our internal Bestseller discussions about addressing Post-retail Sustainability is-sues. We look very much forward to the next 2 years of her - and our - PhD.”

Søren Ellebæk Laursen, Global Environmental Coordinator, Corporate Sustainability, Bestseller

Research

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“With research in a complex phenomenon, sustainability, connect-ed with an industry known to have complex value chains it is espe-cially interesting and valuable for KEA to finance and support an Industrial PhD that focuses on creating a deeper understanding of these subjects.

KEA has already benefited from the research Kerli Kant Hvass has conducted, and is looking forward, with great interest and high ex-pectations, to follow the upcoming research. The network that Kerli has established through her research has already supported devel-opment of KEA’s educational programs and we expect that this will continue”

Pernille Berg, Head of Research and Innovation, Copenhagen School of Design and Technology (KEA)

Being part of the development process of these pro-jects has been highly valuable for my research and allowed me to study the post-retail phenomenon in-depth from global mainstream fashion brands’ per-spective.

Why post retail sustainability?For a long time the sustainability discussion within fashion has focused on manufacturing and other sup-ply chain related issues. Little theory and understand-ing of fashion products’ end-of-life processes exist, especially from the perspective of potential business opportunities, and how to capture the value from used clothes instead of ending up in landfills. Despite the different reuse and recycling methods for textiles such as used clothing retailing, recycling of products to dif-ferent other purposes and so on, millions of apparel products still end up in landfills worldwide and bur-den our environment.

In light of dwindling natural resources and growing consumer awareness of sustainability on one side and increasing amounts of textile waste on the other, it is important to look critically at the role and current business models of fashion brands who are behind the design and production of clothes, the second hand industry who prolongs the life of these garments and the recycling industry that tries to close the material loop of the garment. Consumers, who play a crucial role in the post-retail sustainability discussion, are, of course, not ignored, however they are not studied within the frame of this research, instead I collaborate with other international consumer researchers within the field and CBS colleagues in the frame of MISTRA Future Fashion research project that my PhD is affil-iated with.

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Scandinavia Sustainability SpotlightBy Assistant Professor Robert Strand, Center for Corporate Social Responsibility, Department of Intercultural Communication and Management

Announcing the New CSQ Series:

“ScandSust” - Scandinavia Sustainability Spotlight

In this Volume 3 of CBS Sustainability Quarter-ly, we are pleased to introduce you to the first “Scandinavia Sustainability Spotlight” in what will become a standing series within CSQ by this ti-tle. Robert Strand, CBS Assistant Professor of Leadership & Sustainability, will manage this se-ries that focuses attention on on all things sus-tainability related in a Scandinavian context

Robert is one of a growing number of research-ers who feels there is something uniquely spe-cial that can be drawn from considering sus-tainability in a Scandinavian context from which inspiration can be drawn by individuals operat-ing in contexts throughout the world. Robert and others have also highlighted looming challenges related to sustainability in a Scandinavian con-text for which reflection is needed as there are some indicators that the foundations contribut-ing to the traditionally strong sustainability per-formances across Scandinavia may be at risk. Therefore, in this series Robert and colleagues will explore some of the unique qualities as a means to further build this research paradigm focused on exploring sustainability in a Scandi-navian context while provoking conversations and reflection along the way.

In the previous volume of CSQ it was announced that a Journal of Business Ethics special symposium dedi-cated to exploring sustainability and corporate social responsibility (CSR) in Scandinavia is in the works and that we would provide more information in the next edition of CSQ.

Assistant Professor Robert Strand recently com- pleted and defended his Ph.D. He is affiliated with the Center for Corporate Social Responsi- bility (cbsCSR) and his Ph.D. was co-financed by PwC Denmark. His Ph.D. project focused on the role of leadership in cor- porate social responsibility (CSR), with a particular focus on CSR discussions and activities within the top management teams (TMT) in large companies (i.e. the “C-suite”).Robert is also a Lecturer at the University of Minnesota where he developed and leads the annual MBA course “Corporate Social Respon-sibility: A Scandinavian Approach” in which U.S. MBA students visit Norway, Sweden, and Denmark to meet with Scandinavian compa-nies, NGO’s, governments, and universities in-cluding the Copenhagen Business School.

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Scandinavia Sustainability Spotlight

We now turn it over to Robert to further describe this special symposium as the main topic of discussion within this inaugural edition of CSQ’s Scandinavia Sustainability Spotlight series

Scandinavia Sustainability SpotlightProfessor Ed Freeman (University of Virginia, Darden School of Business), Professor Kai Hockerts (CBS), and I are presently co-editing a special symposium for the Journal of Business Ethics by the title “The Scan-dinavian Approach to Corporate Social Responsibility & Sustainability.” The call for papers was due back in June 2012 and we are currently in the revise and re-submit phases. We received a strong suite of quality submissions, our many reviewers did a great job to of-fer their first round of valuable feedback, and we look forward to the publication of this special symposium sometime in 2013 that will be comprised of several articles.

In this inaugural edition of the Scandinavia Sustaina-bility Spotlight series I wish to highlight why and how this special symposium came to be and what we hope to accomplish with it. Through this discussion, we can set the stage for ongoing discussions and consid-erations related to exploring sustainability in a Scan-dinavian context as this is the focus of our new Scan-dinavia Sustainability Spotlight series in CSQ.

A call to action. After we received approval from the Journal of Busi-ness Ethics for this special symposium, we began distributing the associated call for papers in the lat-ter half of 2011. The first two paragraphs of that call for papers helps to set the stage why we feel this topic merited a special symposium of this nature:

“Few can contest Scandinavia’s place at the forefront of the corporate responsibility movement.” This was a claim that led a feature article in Ethical Cor-poration almost a decade ago (McCallin & Webb, 2004). Yet despite bold claims of this nature, the opportunity remains for a concerted focus to deeply explore the Scandinavian approach to corporate so-cial responsibility (CSR) and sustainability-- and to do so from multiple perspectives by scholars from differing disciplines and regions. This thematic symposium entitled “The Scandinavian Approach to Corporate Social Responsibility & Sustainabili-ty” addresses this opportunity with the intention to spur on further explorations.

Scandinavian companies are disproportionately

well-represented in the major corporate social re-sponsibility (CSR) and sustainability performance indicators (Gjølberg, 2009; Morsing, Midttun & Palmås, 2007; Strand, forthcoming) and the region as a whole has demonstrated strong and balanced macro economic, social, and environmental per-formances (Strand, 2011). This indicates that aca-demics and practitioners alike may find something of interest by exploring the Scandinavian approach.

1 German & 2 Americans. Hvad? The irony that none of the editors can claim Scandi-navia by birthright is not lost on Ed (American), Kai (German), and me (American). One may gather that we feel we know better than Scandinavians about CSR and sustainability in a Scandinavian context. As an al-ternative, I would propose that a tendency toward hu-mility in Scandinavia is more likely the reason where it took some “outsiders” like us to come in and boast a bit on the Scandinavians’ behalf about the strong CSR and sustainability performances found in Scan-dinavia. But to be more precise, we intend for this to be less about boasting of Scandinavian performances than it is intended to stir up meaningful conversations that we feel can come from closer consideration of a Scandinavian context.

Thus through this special symposium we intend to help facilitate conversations about the current state of CSR and sustainability in Scandinavia and to explore factors that could be considered as having contributed to Scandinavia’s historically strong sustainability and CSR performances.

The Journal of Business Ethics is included in the limited suite of Financial Times journals used in the FT’s global business school rankings.

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THE Scandinavian Approach? I must admit that I am a bit embarrassed for having proposed the title of our special symposium to begin with the words “The Scandinavian approach.” In the time since our call for papers went out, I have become increasingly drawn to instead describe this research paradigm as exploring CSR and sustainability in a Scandinavian context. I feel this more appropriately opens the door for deliberation that includes what it is we might mean when we employ the expression ‘Scan-dinavian.’ While geographical boundaries of Scandi-navian countries are undoubtedly very important in these discussions, there are much more deep-seated discussions to be had that transcend geographical boundaries. Furthermore, just ask a handful of peo-ple which countries exactly comprise Scandinavia and you quickly find that the lines are not so sharp.

Additionally, clearly there is no single approach as the title reads. Rather, I feel that we can more prosperously discuss tendencies toward such undertakings as par-ticipative leadership approaches, consensus building, stakeholder engagement, embracement of a coopera-tive strategic posture and institutional structures that are more likely experienced in a Scandinavian con-text and how these tendencies are likely to encourage stronger sustainability and CSR performances on the part of Scandinavian companies. But implying there could be a single Scandinavian approach is simple-minded that was probably my MBA talking. I am only recently beginning to grasp that the concept of culture is much more complex, dynamic, and nebulous than I had previously acknowledged.

What’s next? We intend for this special symposium to be just the start of more special issues, conferences, workshops, discussions and debates about sustainability and CSR in a Scandinavian context. Judging by the overwhelm-ingly positive response we have received for our hum-ble first effort, we feel the ground is fertile for many years of fruitful discussions ahead.

Wefeelbydoingso,wecanencouragereflectionbyin-dividuals around the world operating in very different contexts. I have firsthand experiences on how benefi-cial this has been for business students and practition-ers from the U.S. that I have hosted here in Scandina-via over the past five years to explore issues related to CSR and sustainability. Moreover, we also intend to encouragereflectionbythoseoperatingwithinScan-dinavia upon the ongoing and looming challenges for Scandinavia to maintain its standing as a world leader.

Kai Hockerts

Ed Freeman

“I feel this Journal of Business Ethics special forum will highlight the thought-leading role that Scandinavian thinkers, companies, and societies have played in making capitalism fit for the 21st Century.”

Professor Ed Freeman, University of Virginia, Darden School of Business

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Researchers’ Corner

Perspectives on sustainability research

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Sustainability labels and certifications: Do they

make a difference? Researchers’ cornerBy CBS Sustainability Platform Co-Director Profes-sor Stefano Ponte, Department of Business & Poli-tics

Production, trade and consumption of goods and ser-vices in the contemporary global economy takes place through a complex system of international and na-tional regulation overlapping with emerging private and hybrid forms of governance, where business plays a central role. While national governments and inter-national organizations were traditionally in charge of regulating economic activity, businesses and industry associations have played an increasingly powerful role in the past two to three decades. New mechanisms of governance have also emerged – such as private, in-dustry and multi-stakeholder labels and certifications. Overall, governance of commodity production, trade andconsumptionisbecomingmorefluidandproneto constant reconfigurations as it needs to adapt to new commercial opportunities, changes in consump-tion patterns, and the fact that consumers valorize different kinds of quality content. As quality content increasingly includes ‘credence’ attributes (such as sustainability or ethics) that cannot be easily meas-ured or observed, a certification, auditing and accred-itation industry has developed to assure consumers that such credence claims are truthful.

While products that are certified on the basis of their environmental and social sustainability started as a small niche, in several sectors (and particularly in agriculture and food) they have grown considerably to gain important market shares. If you give a quick glance on supermarket shelves, you will find Fairtrade tea, Rainforest Alliance-certified chocolate, Utz ‘Good Inside’ coffee, Forest Stewardship Council (FSC)-cer-tified paper, Marine Stewardship Council (MSC)-cer-tified fish, Aquaculture Stewardship Council (AS-C)-certifed seafood products, and many others. The growth of these labels and certifications and the de-velopment of multi-stakeholder initiatives to establish base codes are moving sustainability issues further into mainstream consumer markets. We now have the Roundtable for Sustainable Palm Oil, the Roundtable on Responsible Soy, the Better Sugar Cane Initiative, the Better Cotton Initiative and the Roundtable on

Research

Stefano Ponte is Professor of International Po-litical Economy at the Department of Business & Politics. Before Joining CBS on 1/9/2012 he was Head of the research unit ‘Global Econo-my, Regulation and Development’ at the Dan-ish Institute for International Studies (DIIS). Stefano is interested in how the global econo-my is governed and in how developing coun-tries and emerging economies fare in it. His re-search, fieldwork and policy work is informed by global value chain analysis and convention theory and explores the overlaps and tensions between private governance and public regu-lation, especially in relation to sustainability. He is particularly interested in how standards, labels and certifications on food safety, quality and social-environmental conditions of pro-duction shape global value chains. In recent re-search, he has also been examining the increas-ing importance of celebrities and branding in mobilizing ‘compassionate consumption’ and new forms of corporate social responsibility that are ‘distant and disengaged’. His most re-cent books include Brand Aid: Shopping Well to Save the World (with Lisa Ann Richey, Uni-versity of Minnesota Press, 2011) and Govern-ing through Standards: Origins, Drivers and Limitations (co-editor with Peter Gibbon and Jakob Vestergaard, Palgrave, 2011).

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Sustainable Biofuels – to mention just a few in the ag-riculture, forestry and food sectors.

This is a fairly recent phenomenon, having started in the last two decades but with a clear acceleration in the past ten years. It is also becoming a global phe-nomenon both in terms of geographic coverage and of the number of certified products. As sustainability moves into the mainstream, understanding how sus-tainability certifications and labels are governed and what kind of actual impact they have on target groups and environments becomes essential.

I have spent a considerable proportion of my research efforts in the past decade and half examining some of these sustainability labels, certifications and mul-ti-stakeholder initiatives – with focus on coffee, wine, fish, aquaculture products and biofuels. The overall guiding questions in this work have been: (1) how do labels, certifications and multi-stakeholder initia-tives arise, what kinds of interests they represent and what kind of compromises they were built upon? (2) what strategic decisions were made during the pro-cesses of negotiation, setting, and management of standards, by which interested parties, on the basis of what processes and techniques of negotiation, and by enrolling which expert groups and what kind of ex-pert knowledge? (3) how are inclusion and exclusion in commodity production and trade reconfigured as a result, with what distributional effects between North and South, and between weaker (smallholders, local communities) and more powerful players (industry, international NGOs)? and (4) what is the actual im-pact of sustainability labels and certifications on target beneficiaries and environments?

Many of the findings in my work are specific to the in-dustry and/or the certification under analysis. Howev-er, some general traits also arise. Sustainability labels and certification systems can facilitate more direct relationships between producers and consumers and abetterflowof informationonmarkets,prices,andcustomer demand for ‘sustainability content’. If a pre-mium is paid by the consumer, they can also improve the distribution of value added along a value chain to the advantage of producers. If sustainability initiatives meaningfully included producers in the standard set-ting process, they can provide a more equitable forum for governing relations and activities along the val-ue chain than what is provided through the market alone. Yet, when mainstream businesses enter the sus-tainability realm, they often try to achieve recognition while minimizing costs – leading to small if not

negative impacts on sustainability. Also, if Northern actors decide alone what is included in standards and how they are measured, the impact of sustainability initiatives in the South (often where producers are lo-cated) is likely to remain limited. Some sustainability certifications may indeed yield substantial benefits for producers but power relations often remain essential-ly unaltered when producers are still on the receiving end of key decision-making processes. Most striking-ly, very few sustainability initiatives actually measure their actual impact on the ground.

Participation, transparency and governance have ac-tually improved dramatically in many sustainability initiatives in the past decade. The tendency is now to build standards, labels and certifications on the basis of consensus-making among a variety of stakeholders. But this does not necessarily translate in more power and control for Southern stakeholders, which would increase the chances of actually enacting sustainabili-ty. Standard setters and managers promote rule-mak-ing based on specific techniques, process manage-ment tactics and the mobilization of specific expert knowledge, often with the result of de-politicizing the whole process. Thus, in addition to overcoming important structural differences in endowments and access to resources, developing country (and especial-ly small-scale) actors’ ability to shape standard setting and management to their advantage is now also con-tingent on more subtle games – such as promoting the enrolment of one expert group or kind of expert knowledge instead of another, using specific formats of negotiation, and legitimating specific forms of en-gagement instead of others. Thus, smaller/artisanal actors and their organizations in developing countries thus need to be wary of strategic tools such as quick deliberative procedures that place time pressure on stakeholders, narrow identification of stakeholder cat-egories, the elimination or minimization of residual categories of stakeholders, the prioritization of prag-matic and short-term solutions, and heavily managed forms of participation and ‘voicing’.

These techniques, strategies and processes are taking place in an increasingly number of realms in com-modity production, trade and consumption, and are reaching deeper aspects of these realms. Often, they are being used to subtly manipulate participation and the space and modalities of expression of voice from weaker actors. These observations indicate that many sustainability initiatives are far less inclusive, trans-parent and participatory than they portray themselves to be. On the one hand, this may make the standards

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they promote more likely to succeed in terms of wider adoption by business. On the other hand, such pro-cesses do not bode well for the achievement of ‘sus-tainability’ on the ground.

In short, business has a potential key role to play in sustainability through labels and certifications. A large market for sustainable products has been created and consumer awareness has increased dramatically. Yet, it is far from clear whether these labels and certifi-cations actually have a positive impact on the ground. We need to know more about what works, where and how.

Case study: Sustainable fish

In the last couple of decades, international organizations, activists, researchers and conservation groups have repeatedly highlighted the plight of over-exploitation of fish stocks around the world and the impact of in-tensive fishing efforts on the overall aquatic environment. To address these challenges, a wide array of fishery management systems have been devised under public authority (such as global conventions and national/local fisheries laws) and under ‘softer’ legal frameworks (such as the FAO Code of Conduct for Responsible Fish-eries). In more recent years, however, due to the perceived failure of international and national law to control fishing behaviour, governance of fisheries has been increasingly carried out through voluntary codes of con-duct and market-based instruments, including sustainability labels and related certification systems.

As part of this process, in 1995, WWF began discussions with Unilever on how to tackle sustainability in cap-ture fisheries. WWF’s entry point was one of conservation. Unilever was at that time the world’s largest frozen fish buyer and processor and was concerned about not being able to source fish in the future for its dominant frozen food business. In 1996, the director general of WWF and Unilever’s chairman agreed to collaborate in the creation of a new organization called Marine Stewardship Council (MSC), partially inspired by the Forest StewardshipCouncil(FSC)thathadbeenestablishedin1993alsoundertheinfluenceofWWF.MSCwasformally established as an NGO in London in 1997 under the chairmanship of John Gummer, a Conservative MP and former UK fisheries and environmental minister. In addition to developing its own Sustainable Fish Initiative, at the MSC launch Unilever committed to buy fish only from sustainable sources by the year 2005. In 1999, MSC severed its ties to WWF and Unilever, and in 2000 it certified its first two fisheries.

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Despite the development of other seafood ecolabels, MSC has grown into the dominant player in this field, giving it a quasi-monopoly both in the market. Other labels and certifications are either species-specific and/or location-specific (e.g. the Australian Southern Rocklobster Clean Green Program, the Salmon Safe label, the Flipper Seal of Approval for tuna, the Marine Ecolabel Japan), or relate mainly to aquaculture (Global Aqua-culture Alliance, GlobalGAP, various Aquaculture Dialogues, various organic labels). The only other existing label that includes capture fisheries which could create competitive pressure on MSC is ‘Friend of the Sea’ (FOS), although Naturland has also developed a certification system for sustainable fisheries. There are now 180 MSC-certified fisheries, with over 100 undergoing assessment – accounting for over seven million metric tons of fish, or 12 per cent of the world’s total wild harvest for human consumption. More than 15,000 prod-ucts now bear the MSC label in more than 70 countries, for an estimated retail value of USD 2.2 billion (2011), an increase of over 70 per cent over the previous year. At the retail level, in addition to early adopters such as Sainsbury in the UK, Whole Foods in the US, and Migros and Coop in Switzerland, the most important developments have been commitments of a various nature by Wal-Mart, Carrefour, Target, the Dutch Retail Association, Marks & Spencer, Aldi, Lidl and Metro. MSC fish products are increasingly used in foodservice as well, including by Sodexo (the leading foodservice provider in North America). In other words, MSC has been able to create a market for ‘sustainable fish’. But has it created ‘sustainable fisheries’? The evidence in this case is much more mixed, with some studies showing no impact of certification on fishery stock and ecosys-tem indicators. Equally disturbing has been the failure to certify a significant amount of fisheries in the global South. This has resulted in a peculiar configuration of the sustainable fish market. While it is not surprising that consumer markets for sustainable fish are still mainly located in the global North, a large majority of MSC-certified fish is captured in Northern fisheries, despite the fact that around half of total global exports of fish originate in the global South. This means that, while the market for fish in general has indeed become more global in the past three decades, and sustainability is indeed moving into the mainstream, the market for sustainable fish remains a Northern affair.

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Scaling up Sustainability – The Role of Voluntary

Standards

Businesses are increasingly embracing the sustain-ability agenda and have moved the discussion from philanthropy to competitiveness and value creation. However, while sustainability has matured as a con-cept, the goal that it seeks to promote – the long-term reconciliation of social, environmental, and economic demands – requires that more organizations (public and private) become more deeply engaged in relevant practices. In other words: we need scale, if we want to achieve the transformative change that is necessary to address some of the pressing problems surrounding us. More than one billion people lack access to elec-tricity, safe drinking water, and food; the gap between the rich and the poor is widening, both within and among countries; and some of the world’s ecosystems are in steady decline.

In this commentary I argue that voluntary standards (e.g., the Forest Stewardship Council and the Fair La-bor Association) provide an opportunity to ‘scale up sustainability’, particularly since transnational hard law for social and environmental issues remains lim-ited in various ways. By ‘scaling up’ I mean that more companies become more deeply engaged in sustain-able business practices. However, I also caution that, while standards may help us to achieve more scale, they are also facing numerous problems that poten-tially impede their impact.

The Rise of Sustainability Standards I define a standard in general as a rule for a common purpose and voluntary use, decided by several indi-viduals or organizations.1 In modern life, standards areabounding.Standards influenceour life inava-riety of ways and are designed for different purposes, ranging from the size of paper to interface technolo-gies for telecommunication devices. With rising con-cerns about unsustainable business practices and the

By Professor Andreas Rasche, Center for Corporate Social Responsibility, Department of Intercultural Communication and Management

1For a more elaborate discussion of the role of standards in general, see Brunsson, N., Rasche, A, and Seidl, D. (2012). The Dynam-ics of Standardization: Three Perspectives on Standards in Organization Studies. Organization Studies 33: 613-632.

Andreas Rasche is Professor of Business in Society at the Centre for Corporate Social Re-sponsibility (cbsCSR) at Copenhagen Business School. He holds a PhD (Dr. rer. pol.) from Eu-ropean Business School, Germany and a Habil-itation (Dr. habil.) from Helmut-Schmidt-Uni-versity, Hamburg. His research focuses on corporate responsibility standards (particularly the UN Global Compact), the political role of corporations in transnational governance, and the governance of global supply networks. He regularly contributes to international journals in his field of study and has lectured on cor-porate social and environmental responsibility at different institutions in Europe. He co-edited The United Nations Global Compact: Achieve-ments, Trends and Challenges (Cambridge University Press). His latest book Building the Responsible Enterprise (with Sandra Waddock) was published in May 2012 by Stanford Univer-sity Press. Andreas collaborated with the UN Global Compact in the context of different pro-jects and currently serves on the Global Com-pact LEAD Steering Committee. He joined Co-penhagen Business School from the University of Warwick in August 2012. More information is available at: http://www.arasche.com.

Researchers’ corner

Research

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inability of some governments to address social and environmental problems, a variety of sustainability standards have emerged in recent years. These stand-ards represent soft law implying that corporations commit to them voluntarily.2

I classify sustainability standards into four categories: (1) standards that reflect general principles for sus-tainable corporate conduct (e.g., the UN Global Com-pact), (2) standards that certify production facilities against predefined criteria (e.g., Social Accountability 8000), (3) standards that outline indicators for sus-tainability reporting (e.g., the Global Reporting Ini-tiative), and (4) standards that define processes and key terms to enable the creation of management sys-tems around sustainability issues (e.g., ISO 26000). Of course, there is overlap between these categories (e.g., ISO 14001 defines management systems that can be certified).

Why Sustainability Standards Can Provide ScaleWhy, then, can standards scale up sustainable busi-ness practices? First, standards help firms to trans-late qualitative sustainability problems, which are often based on disparate interpretations, into quanti-fiable indicators. Standards make sustainability issues measurable and hence allow firms to set up relevant management systems. For instance, while water sus-tainability can cover numerous dimensions and mean different things to different firms, the Global Report-ing Initiative offers indicators to measure water with-drawal, pollution, and recycling. This translation of qualitative information into common metrics enables benchmarking and allows for performance measure-ment. In other words, it moves sustainability from concept to facts. Second, standards are swifter to glo-balize than hard law regulations. The emergence of hard law depends on the willingness of governments to move forward. While some governments have tak-en a proactive stance when it comes to regulating so-cial and environmental issues, others are lagging be-hind. Sustainability standards already affect regions where legal regulation is either weak and/or not exist-ing. For instance, the UN Global Compact has helped to globalize the sustainability agenda by creating local participant clusters in India and China. Of course, even the Global Compact has a long way to go in these economies, but given that both countries make up for almost 40% of the world’s population, there is certain-ly an opportunity for scale.

2 The concept of soft law is much richer than to state that it is about non-binding obligations. For a detailed discussion, see Abbott, K. W. and Snidal, D. (2000). Hard and Soft Law in International Governance. International Organization 54: 421-456.

Finally, some standards enjoy high degrees of legiti-macy, as they are based on multi-stakeholder govern-ance processes, balancing voices from various actors geographic domains. Initiatives that are perceived as legitimate are likely to grow their participant base, as the case of the Forest Stewardship Council shows. Hence, we should expect that legitimate standards are able to increase their impact on relevant problems over time. Of course, this is not to deny the superior regulatory authority and legitimacy of democratically elected governments. It is to say, however, that once a standard is perceived as legitimate by potential adop-ters and the wider public, it becomes attractive to a broader set of companies (largely because the latter are interested in positive legitimacy spillover effects).

The Limits of Voluntary Standards While standards have proliferated, their potential to scale up sustainability is also limited in a variety of ways. One limit concerns the existence of too many unconnected, and partly competing, initiatives. For instance, there are multiple standards trying to en-roll firms in supporting fairtrade coffee production. There are also various initiatives for certifying fair la-bor conditions in global supply chains. It is unclear whether the market for sustainability will support this multiplicity in the long run, particularly since sup-pliers often have to obtain multiple certifications at the same time. Practitioners have also criticized the lack of interfaces between apparently complementary standards, such as the Global Reporting Initiative and the UN Global Compact.

Standards can also be challenged on the grounds that they are not yet capturing the interaction effects be-tween different problem areas. While standards offer a wealth of indicators, these indicators usually remain isolated and do not acknowledge interdependent ef-fects between social and environmental challenges. For instance, climate change has a profound effect on water availability in many countries, which in turn influences agricultural production and poverty lev-els. Making these links is not always easy, as causal-ity chains are long and effects between variables not yet well documented. However, ignoring these inter-dependencies is equally dangerous, as it can lead to a false security that problems are already adequately addressed.

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Another limitation relates to the lack of accountabil-ity mechanisms when looking at selected standards. Participants may select their level of compliance stra-tegically when not being held accountable for their actions, or, in some cases, may even completely de-couple talk from action. For instance, the UN Global Compact has been criticized for its weak accountabil-ity processes making it hard to determine to what ex-tent a participant adheres to its principles, while other standards such as SA 8000 do not make certification reports publicly available and hence lack transparen-cy. Weak accountability mechanisms can impede the further uptake of standards, since commitment to these initiatives depends on them being seen as legiti-mate alternatives to other forms of regulating business conduct.

The Bottom Line It may seem contestable to argue that voluntary stand-ards can help to scale up sustainable business practic-es. After all, voluntary solutions only reach a selected number of firms and, as a result, have to remain limit-ed in terms of their overall impact. But we need to be careful when selecting our point of reference for judg-ing standards’ influence. Transnational hard law forsocial and environmental issues is unlikely to emerge in the near future making standards an attractive, albeit imperfect, tool to enhance corporate sustaina-bility. Especially when compared with other forms of self-regulation (e.g., firm-specific codes of conduct), standards can level the playing field by encouraging firms to live up to a common set of rules. However, the bottom line is that rules by themselves are not enough; rules need to be embedded into the strategy, structure, and culture of an organization in order to unfold their full impact.

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Green IT - Sustainability from an Information Sys-

tems Perspective Researchers’ cornerBy Associate Professor Jonas Hedman, Department of IT Management (ITM) and Assistant Professor Stefan Henningsson, Department of IT Management, Copenhagen Business School

IntroductionSustainability is one of our grand societal challenges and it is everywhere, including in national and global policy documents, at university campus, on the man-agement agenda, in corporate strategies, on product descriptions, in research programs, and even in infor-mation technology (IT). The issue addressed in this essay is; what has IT to do with sustainability?1

IT is paradoxical. In the case of sustainability this becomes evident, since IT is both a part of the prob-lem and a part of the solution (Group 2008; Watson, Boudreau and Chen 2010). For instance, Gartner Group found that the IT sector stands for 2 percent of the global CO2 emissions2 and the IT sector’s own emissions are expected to grow to 1.43 billion tons carbon dioxide equivalent in 20203. But at the same time, IT has a fundamental role in reducing environ-mental impact in other sectors. For instance, the ener-gy sector is developing and implementing smart grid solutions to optimize the use of the produced energy, video conferencing systems are used to reduce the need of travelling, and the digitalization of products and processes reduces the need of physical material (Chen, Boudreau and Watson 2008; Melville 2010).

The Role of IT in SustainabilityThe increasing interest in environmental sustainabili-ty from practitioners has led to a surge in research on sustainability aspects of IT from the information

1The department of IT Management has a number of publications in the area of Green IT, including a retrospective case study from Nordea (), an article on developing a green process model (), a paper on Green IT strategies (), and a green teaching case. 2 Gartner, Green IT: The New Industry Shockwave, presentation at Symposium/ ITXPO conference, April 2007.3 The Climate Group (2008) SMART 2020: Enabling the low carbon economy in the information age.

Research

Jonas Hedman is Associate Professor at the Department of IT Management, Copenha-gen Business School. His areas of expertise includes:

•E-Business:CashlessSociety

•InformationTechnology:GreenIT

•Strategy:Businessmodels,ISintegration,Mergers and acquisitions

Stefan Henningsson is Assistant Professor at Department of IT Management, Copenhagen Business School.

“The role of Green IT is to design, imple-ment, use, and maintain IT so that it leads to eco-efficiency, eco-equity, and eco-effec-tiveness”

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systems discipline (Melville 2010; Watson et al. 2010). Green IT spans the design, implementation, use, and maintenance of IT to achieve or improve eco-effi-ciency, eco-equity, and eco-effectiveness (Chen et al. 2008). IT can be used to change and transform every-day processes in three ways: automating, informating, and transforming.

Automating leading to eco-efficiency

When it comes to automating, Green IT contributes to eco-efficiency by reducing resource consumption in business process and in IT. For instance, one way is to reduce energy consumption by replacing old comput-ers, laptops, and screens with more efficient ones. An-other area where organizations can make a substantial impact on power consumption is to virtualize servers and consolidate server halls. Virtualization, some-times referred to cloud solutions, of servers is to make physical server, e.g. CBS mail server, digital and have them on another server. This leads to both reductions in power consumption and lower maintenance costs. Consolidation or centralization of server halls often involves moving one company’s servers (physical and virtual) to one location. One example is Nordea who are in the process of moving all their servers to Sweden. Another example is to move or build server halls in “cold” places, like Sweden, or to locate servers halls close rivers. A third way of reducing firm impact on the environment is to use video conferencing systems, including Skype and Communicator. This will reduce the need for physical meetings and the need for travelling with, in particu-lar, airplanes. So, using IT to automate processes and resources is about digitalizing and telecommuting. Digitizing processes and resources enables companies to reduce their environmental impact. One area that attracts attention from CBS and other organizations is paper use. The production and use of paper consumes a lot of energy. Therefore our printers print on both pages. Another example is also from Nordea, who are trying to print archival documents on A10 paper in-stead of A4. Telecommuting focus on replacing the physical component in human interaction with digital communication, including email, electronic files and data interchange exchange. For instance, electronic data interchange (EDI) digitalizes orders, confirma-tions, invoices, and payment documents. This pro-vides huge savings by reducing overhead, transpor-tation costs and materials. In the automating mode, Green IT enable organizations to achieve eco-efficien-cy by using IT in ways so that business processes and organizational resources are automated.

Informating leading to eco-equity

The second role for Green IT is to use IT to informate (eco-equity) individuals and organizations, by using the computational power to collect, store, analyze and distribute data. This can, for instance, be used to inform individuals and stakeholders about energy consumption so that they can take subsequent cor-rective actions. A good example is CBS’ own efforts to measure its own water and energy consumption, which has led to a number of local initiatives on our campus. Nordea did a similar thing and found that the individual branch offices consumed the same amount of energy during daytime as nighttime. Consequent-ly, they began to identify power consumption during the night and found lighting and computers to be the main night thieves of energy, which initiated a num-ber of initiatives, including turning of lights and shut-ting down computers at night. Another useful avenue to use IT in an informating role, which is to create a public understanding of certain environmental issues. IT can be used to enhance and distribute information more quickly, broadly and cheaply. At CBS, facebook is used to engage students in the work of creating a greener campus. With the informating role, IT will increase the aware-ness of ecological issues, namely the nature and extent to which the organizations have an impact on the envi-ronment. IT makes information on the environmental impact of organizations more accessible not only to the organizational members, stakeholders, customers and suppliers but also to governance institutions and society at large. An example of this is the “Carbon dis-closure project” which is a program founded in Lon-don, allowing firms to disclose their carbon footprints and strategies. This data is also linked to financial data in Google Finance. Another area where Green IT has a huge impact is geographical information systems (GIS) linked to weather data, catastrophic data (such as tsunamis), and population data is widely used to monitor changes in the environment. IT can also be used to elicit emotional response from organizations and individuals. The use of pictures and video clips in social media, such as slaughtering of seals and dol-phins arouse deep feelings. A more positive use of IT is the so-called The Fun Theory (www.thefuntheory.com), sponsored by Volkswagen, where short video clips are used to hopefully change people’s behavior. So, the use of IT to informate people and organiza-tions is about eco-equity through informating stake-holders.

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Transformating leading to eco-effectiveness

Finally, Green IT can be used to transform organi-zations or industries – eco-effectiveness. This way of using IT requires both eco-efficiency and eco-equity. We see this as stages of progression to greener or-ganizations. For instance, the music industry, which relied upon physical products, is today mainly digi-talized and thereby requiring less physical resourc-es in the production and distributions of music. The involvement of students and staff at CBS fused by Facebook is another example of how IT can contrib-ute to a transformation of an organization. This area is so far limitedly addressed in the information sys-tems community. One exception is an ongoing study by Hedman et al. (2012) on the greening process of Nordea. The findings indicate that eco-effectiveness is an evolution that progresses over time and needs to firmly link to organizational goals and strategies as well as the individual employee. Green IT contributes towards “organizational eco-effectiveness if, and only if, initiatives are located in a bottom-up and top-down nexus.” Because Green IT initiatives are connected to other green initiatives, they must be understood in relationship to other ecological sustainability initia-tives. Green IT involves innovation through improved collaboration and co-ordination, including the intro-duction of telecommunication, networking and busi-ness intelligence, which can, if properly used, funda-mentally change current business models. So, IT can transform industries and organizations by fundamen-tally changing the relationships among stakeholders and thereby leading to eco-effectiveness.

To sum up, the role of Green IT is to design, imple-ment, use, and maintain IT so that it leads to eco-effi-ciency, eco-equity, and eco-effectiveness.

References

Chen, A.J.W., Boudreau, M.C., and Watson, R.T. 2008. “Information systems and ecological sustaina-bility,” Journal of Systems and Information Technolo-gy (10:3), pp. 186-201.

Group, T.C. “SMART 2020: Enabling the low carbon economy in the information age.”

Melville, N.P. 2010. “Information systems innova-tion for environmental sustainability,” MIS Quarterly (34:1), pp. 1-21.

Watson, R.T., Boudreau, M.C., and Chen, A.J. 2010. “Information systems and environmentally sustaina-ble development: energy informatics and new direc-tions for the IS community,” MIS Quarterly (34:1), pp. 23-38.

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Successful African Firms and Institutional Change:

Contributions to sustainable development

by Associate Professor Søren Jeppesen, Centre for Business and Development Studies, Department of Intercultural Communication and Management

The Centre for Business and Development Studies, ICM collaborates with partner universities in Den-mark (Roskilde University) and in Africa (Universi-ty of Nairobi, University of Dar es Salaam-Business School and University of Zambia) on a 4 ½ years re-search project on identification of factors that con-tributions to more or less successful performance of local African firms in the three countries. The project aims to contribute to enhanced understanding of eco-nomic growth and employment through new knowl-edge on firm development in the African private sec-tor. Through understanding the origins of local firms’ success in Kenya, Tanzania and Zambia, we hope to provide means to inform firm strategies and econom-ic development policies in these countries.

How does that then relate to sustainable develop-ment? Well, in the sense that if we look at the histor-ical evidence on what has led countries around the globe to develop to a high level of economic standards (though not necessarily environmentally high stand-ards), development of a strong local private sector has been a key feature. Particularly, this feature is one of the often lacking dimensions of development in many African countries, so our view is that ‘sustainable de-velopment’ will only be possible through local eco-nomic development. In contexts with high levels of poverty and inequality, not to mention potential en-vironmental challenges, such development needs to include enhancement of both ‘social, environmental and institutional’ dimensions. So, we may call our un-derstanding of such sustainable development a kind of ‘societal triple-bottom-line’ approach. This is in line with our aim to promote an agenda on ‘Business AND development’.

Focusing on the local private sector is not equivalent to not having a sole focus on ‘African owned and man-aged firms’. Clearly, foreign firms (MNCs) do have a role in enhancing local economic development, how-ever, as the existing literature has had an inclination to emphasis the role of MNCs and Foreign Direct Invest-ment (FDI), we find it important to provide a counter focus.

Søren Jeppesen is Associate Professor, and PhD at the Department of Intercultural Communi-cation, Copenhagen Business School.

His research concerns the development of firms in developing countries, focusing mainly on the under-researched issue of the strategies and practices of the developing country firms. He works on issues regarding the local factors that influencesthedevelopmentandgrowthpoten-tial of the developing country firms (or lack of same). It is particularly the firm internal condi-tions, but also industry, market and institution-al (political, economic and socio-cultural) con-ditions. He also focus on issues regarding small and medium-sized firms (SMEs), corporate social and environmental responsibility (CSR) and which driving forces (or lack of same) that influencethestrategiesofSMEsindevelopingcountries in engaging in CSR issues (or not en-gaging).

Research

Researchers’ corner

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On top of this, substantial parts of the existing liter-ature also tends to lend itself to (macro) economic perspectives, where prices, trade issues etc dominate, while the firm seems forgotten or at least overlooked. The same goes for the local institutional setting, where we will investigate the role of formal and informal in-stitutions on the firm’s success.

In addition to the ‘traditional’ research and policy out-puts of the project, we also seek to contribution to the (sustainable) development of our partners in the three African countries. Through capacity development the project aims to enable our partner to improve in fields like attracting external research funding, publishing in international journal articles and not the least pro-ducing a generation of younger scholars with exper-tise in the field.

Hence, we hope to see advancement from post-docs positions, five PhDs theses by African PhD scholars,

and 21 master theses graduated by the end of the pro-ject. And obviously, we also expect to have benefitted from the activities and hence enhanced our capabili-ties too.

Søren Jeppesen,Associate Professor, ICM, Centre for Business and Development Studies

Email: sj.ikl@cbs.dk

For project information: See www.cbs.dk/cbds/safic

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Practioners’ corner

35

Practioners’ corner

Industrial PhD

CollaborationResearching in Maersk’s social impact in emerging markets:Interview with Head of Group Sustainability A.P. Moller - Maersk, Anette Stube & industrial PhD Fellow Majbritt Greve CBS & AP Moller Maersk

Research

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In 2008, A.P. Moller – Maersk employed Annette Stube as Head of Group Sustain-ability. Since then, A. P Moller - Maersk has worked increasingly with implement-ing Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and sustainability initiatives systematical-ly and strategically throughout the compa-ny. Maersk’s ambition is to be innovative and develop sustainability concepts that support the core business while also ad-dressing some of the world’s major social, economic, and environmental challenges.

To assist Maersk in this journey, Group Sustainability has engaged in an industri-al PhD collaboration with CBS and CBS student Majbritt Greve.

We spoke to Annette Stube and Majbritt Greve to find out why Maersk chose to engage in this collaboration and the value it will bring to Maersk and its stakehold-ers. Maersk has applied the concept of the Triple Bottom Line (TBL) and unlike other companies they have a strong fo-cus on especially the economic part of the framework. Together with industrial PhD Majbritt Greve, the company is trying to develop a tool and method that will ena-ble Maersk to understand, measure, and document their societal impacts.

CBS Sustainability Quarterly (CSQ): Why has Maersk chosen to engage in and financially sponsor this 3 year Industrial PhD collaboration? Which process has led you to engage in this collaboration?

Majbritt was contacted by our sustainability team in Maersk Line to discuss an impact case study which Majbritt had previously done with Maersk in South East Asia as a research assistant at CBS; this coincided with our work at Group level to better understand our socio-economic impacts, so when she suggested the industrial PhD, we said yes.

There are several benefits to having a former CBS stu-dent conducting the PhD. Majbritt has an inherent understanding of the business world, the processes and the terminology used; therefore the gap that is in-evitable between academia and the business world is bridged by the qualifications that Majbritt possesses by being a former CBS student. Since 2009, we have

Annette Stube is Director of Group Sustainability in A.P. Moller – Maersk, a global conglomerate with businesses within transportation, energy and retail, employing 115,000 people in 130 countries. In 2008, Annette established a new CSR unit at the Group headquarters in Copenhagen which in 2009 turned into Group Sustainability, including Envi-ronment, Climate, Health & Safety and Social responsibil-ity. A main pursuit has been to systematise the approach to sustainability in Maersk and turn it into a business ad-vantage by integrating economic, social and environmental considerations into business strategy and decision making.

Annette Stube serves on the Danish Council for Corporate Social Responsibility; The Council, established in 2009, ad-vises the Danish Government on CSR regulation and top-ical issues. Previously, Annette was Director, Global Business Ethics Development at Novo Nordisk, and headed up its Business Ethics/Anti-corruption and Responsible Sourcing pro-grammes. Annette worked with Novo Nordisk since 1997 and was part of the team that developed the Triple Bottom Line approach on Corporate Responsibility since 1998.

With an MA in organisational psychology from Copen-hagen University, Annette has previously worked within Human Resources. She started her career with SOS-Inter-national, a Nordic alarm centre, as a Manager for psycho-logical crisis intervention teams and as Manager of supplier relations in Eastern Europe and Africa.

Email address: Annette.Stube@Maersk.com

Annette Stube

been working on socio-economic impact studies, in order to get in-depth knowledge about our impact on the societies that we operate in; We wanted to system-atize the approach and make it available to managers around the world, and therefore Majbritt’s interests are right up our alley. The PhD focuses on Maersk’s main sectors in emerg-ing markets; transportation, infrastructure and oil and gas. The project investigates the role of the A. P. Moller - Maersk Group in the economic development of emerging markets. The project has two main re-search agendas; firstly, it will measure and demonstrate the A.P. Moller - Maersk Group’s impact in emerging markets across social, economic and environmental dimensions. Secondly, it will investigate how we can

37

best use the knowledge accumulated in the impact studies to develop new commercial concepts that sup-port Maersk’s core business in ways that also add val-ue to the society. Put simply, one can say that the PhD will aim at developing concepts that create shared value for Maersk and the society. The assumption be-hind shared value argues that CSR and sustainability should be viewed as a source of opportunity, innova-tion and competitive advantage for firms rather than applying CSR approaches that are disconnected from business and strategy.

CSQ: Why has Maersk decided to have such a strong emphasis on sustainability?

Maersk has a strong sense of responsibility in terms of the societies in which we operate. We understand the social and environmental part of the TBL quite well, but the he economic part (understood as both compa-ny and societal economic impacts) of the approach is especially important to us. We will start to put num-bers on the impacts; both the positive and negative ones. It will help us choose appropriate partnerships that can reduce industrial bottlenecks. This way we will be able to identify where we economically benefit society the most while making a good business.

It matters to us that we know and understand the im-pacts that we have on society. By understanding the positive impacts of our business we can seek to ac-celerate and amplify those impacts and thereby cre-ate more value for our stakeholders. We also need to know the negative impacts so we can take action and mitigate them. In order to collect information on our local impact, we are conducting surveys in the local environment and sometimes we get surprising infor-mation; we did a survey in Nigeria where what we thought employees valued the most, was actually not on top of their wish list. In this case, the local employ-ees valued family insurance and the health care as well as career opportunities offered by Maersk above other priorities such as salary.

CSQ: Which results do you hope this PhD collaboration will produce?

The ultimate goal of this industrial PhD project is to develop a method and tool that will help Maersk to calculate our socio-economic impact in the countries where we operate. We will be very proud if we are able to develop a tool or method that can help us calculate how many people we pull out of poverty by conduct-ing business in their region. A secondary goal of the

PhD is to develop a lighter version of the impact stud-ies, which managers internally at Maersk can use and apply in their areas without having to hire a consult-ant to help them implement sustainability practices.

Majbritt Greve is Industrial PhD at Group Sustainability in the A.P. Moller – Maersk Group. Her research focuses on the role of multinational corpora-tions in economic development. More specifically, Majbritt conducts extensive studies of the A.P. Moller – Maersk Group’s role in strategic growth markets within Contain-er Transport and Oil & Gas. Majbritt has previously pub-lished studies of the A.P. Moller – Maersk Group in South East Asia. Majbritt’s professional background also includes work within supply chain management and global produc-tion latest as a consultant for Ernst & Young and as project manager within business development for ECCO Shoes. Majbritt also has a background in international develop-ment aid. She holds a M.Sc. in International Business and Development Studies from CBS.

A Focus on: APM Terminals in Nigeria, West Africa.

Nigeria is the largest economy in West Arica. When APM Terminals bought the terminal they knew some-thing had to be done about the infrastructure; therefore they invested $176m in improvements of the terminal and the infrastructure in general. This has led to a highly improved efficiency of the ter-

minal. Over 800 containers arrives a day and 400-500 trucks pick up goods every day. The annual turnover of the terminal amounts to $175m, where an estimated 72% circulates back into the local society and Nigeria as a whole through taxes, salaries and procurement. APM Terminals estimate that the improved terminal and the increase in business opportunities in Apapa has created 32.000 new jobs throughout Nigeria.

Find out more about the case:

http://www.maersk.com/Sustainability/Pages/Wel-come.aspx

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CBS News

39

Chinese Delegation at CBS: Consumer protection, food

safety and sustainable consumption

By Professor Lucia A. Reisch, Center for Corporate Social Responsibility, Department of Intercultural Com-munication and Management

News

40

While the Chinese consumer markets are on an un-known and seemingly endless rise, consumer protec-tion, food safety and sustainable consumption issues are usually low on the business and political agenda. As the International Herald Tribune (June 21 2012) recently reported:

“There’s mercury in the baby formula. Cabbages are sprayed with formaldehyde. Gelatin capsules for pills, tens of millions of them, are laced with chro-mium. Used cooking oil is scooped out of gutters for recycling, right along with the sewage. Accounts of dubious or unsafe food in China are as mesmer-izing as they are disturbing — “artificial green peas,” grilled kebabs made from cat meat, contaminated chives, chlorine showing up in soft drinks. There have been stories of imitation soy sauce made from hair clippings, ink and paraffin being used to dress up cheap noodles, and pork buns so loaded with bacteria that they glow in the dark. A new investi-gation by the Chinese magazine Caixin has found that “these publicized food safety scandals represent only a fraction of unsafe food production practices. Hundreds of chemical food additives are pumped into products that Chinese people consume every day.” The official Chinese news agency Xinhua re-ported Wednesday that Chinese authorities have discovered 15,000 cases of substandard food so far this year while shutting down 5,700 unlicensed food businesses. Things are so bad that a new iPhone app was recently launched to track food scandals nation-wide. The app, which sends out daily updates on the latest outrages, was reportedly downloaded more than 200,000 times in the first week.”

Lucia A. Reisch is Professor at Department of Intercultural Communication and Manage-ment.

In 2010, Lucia started a new FP7 EU research project “Enhancing connectivity between re-search and policy-making in sustainable con-sumption” (CORPUS ) on Knowledge broker-age between policy and research.

Since 2006 and until 2012, she has been chair-ing the Working Area “Consumer Science” in a multidisciplinary EU FP6 Integrated Project on childhood obesity with the acronym IDEFICS (Identification and prevention of dietary- and lifestyle-induced health effects in children and infants).

Beyond that, she works with smaller research areas and works as a consultant for consumer and food policy issues to the German Federal government, to the government of the German State of Baden-Wuerttemberg, and to the DG Sanco in Brussels.

It is hence not astonishing that ordinary consumers in China – as well as land-rights activists, factory work-ers, forcibly evicted residents, arbitrarily censored netizens, and environmental activists —are increas-ingly committed to defending their rights. What they urgently need is consumer organizations that are able to voice the complaints, bring sustainable and healthy consumption issues on the political agenda and help empower consumers. Against this backcloth, the Si-no-German Consumer Protection and Product Safety Programme (CPPS), a technical assistance initiative in China implemented by Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit GmbH (German In-ternational Cooperation, GIZ) and commissioned by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Coopera-tion and Development (BMZ) organized a study tour on sustainable consumption and consumer protection in Europe for a high level Chinese delegation in late

41

August 2012. The countries chosen to visit were Ger-many and Denmark – both known for their long standing engagement in sustainable development, high food safety and hygiene standards and high pro-file consumer policy. The participants of the Chinese delegation comprised six (non-English speaking) rep-resentatives of the Qingdao Protection Commission of Consumers’ Rights and Interests (QPCCRI). With its many branches, QPCCRI provides a telephone hot-line for consumer advisory, publishes consumer in-formation and implements campaigns. The study tour aimed at deepening the understanding of consumer protection in Europe and the concept and policies of sustainable consumption. Copenhagen Business School and cbsCSR was chosen because of the ongo-ing EU research projects on sustainable consumption and consumer policy such as CORPUS, IDEFICS and I-FAMILY.

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Visible Hands: Government Policies on Corporate

Social Responsibility (CSR) in Denmark and the UK

by Associate Professor Jette Steen Knudsen, Depart-ment of Business and Politics

CSR has traditionally focused on voluntary initiatives undertaken by companies and not on government regulation. This dichotomy is no longer meaningful because governments increasingly regulate the social responsibility of companies. How can we explain the content of government CSR programs? What mo-tivates a government to regulate CSR programs by companies? This project takes its starting point in CSR regulation in Denmark and the UK and exam-ines the content of national CSR regulation focusing on social initiatives (e.g. employment initiatives and labor and human rights). The political science liter-ature has so far largely ignored CSR and has left the study of CSR initiatives to the management literature, which focuses on companies. Furthermore, the global governance literature views the nation state as weak and examines how transnational governance can be used to remedy a domestic governance gap. This lack of interest in government CSR programs by the polit-ical science literature is surprising because a key focus area for political science is to examine how market forces are embedded in domestic institutions such as legislation. Government CSR programs can be seen as an example of “embedded liberalism” that it is high-ly relevant for political scientists to examine: 1) How do national models of capitalism shape government interest in CSR regulation? 2) How can governments collaborate with companies and civil society actors to adopt CSR regulation that governs company conduct across national borders?

Jette Steen Knudsen is an Associate Professor at the Department of Business and Politics at CBS.Also Jette Steen Knudsen is affiliated with the CBS Cen- ter for Corporate Govern- ance and the CBS Center for Corporate Social Re- spon-sibility.

She has written numerous scientific articles and newspaper arti- cles, which have been pub- lished in journals such as Regulation and Gov-ern- ance, Journal of Business Ethics and Euro-pean Jour- nal of Industrial Relations.Some of her main research interests are:

•The changing relation- ship between publicand private regulation of CSR•Corporatesocial respon-sibility/sustainabil-ity•Corporategovernance•GlobalizationandnewcorporatestrategiesMainstreaming of responsible (ethical) in- vest-ment

The Danish Social Science Research Council has granted DKK 2.065.588 for the individual re-search project “Visible Hands: Government Poli-cies on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) in Denmark and the UK”. Associate Professor Jette Steen Knudsen elaborates:

News

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Update from 360° Students for Sustainability

After a nice summer break, 360° Students for Sustain-ability returns reinvigorated to a new semester full of exciting events and projects. Not only are we launch-ing the groundbreaking 360° Academy on September 12th, but additionally our competition in social entre-preneurship, 360° Develop Prize, will once again be held at CBS.Organization-wise, 360° Students for Sustainability has seen some major changes over the summer. First of all, our chairwoman for two years, Janni Raundahl, left her position in order to undertake an internship in South Africa. Humbly taking her place, I hope to continue her great work and build upon the many competencies and contacts our organization has de-veloped over time. I couldn’t be more excited to chair the dynamic and prominent organization that is 360° Students for Sustainability!360° Academy is, as mentioned, one of our new ini-tiatives starting this September. 360° Academy is an extracurricular elective, giving all interested students the opportunity to learn about CSR and sustainabil-ity. The five-session course will include theoretical sessions as well as more practice-oriented ones, and includes sustainability professionals from Maersk Line, the global consortium Sustainia, and Fairtrade Mærket. The CBS professors Christian Erik Kamp-mann and Peter Lund-Thomsen will contribute with insights from their research.

With 360° Academy, we aim to provide the students with an understanding and interest in sustainability that hopefully will have a lasting effect on their stud-ies and professional career. It is an ambitious goal, but ambition is not something that is lacking from 360° Students!

Besidesourtwo“flagship”events360°Academyand360° Develop Prize, we are starting to plan smaller events and projects. On September 20th, we are par-ticipating in Student Society Day, a “fair” presenting the multitude of student initiatives available at CBS. Despite the competition from the other student or-ganizations, I am sure we will successfully promote 360° Students and attract many new members. Not least because we will have Arnold Schwarzenegger come help us out. How the Terminator relates to 360° Students will be revealed later – so make sure to fol-low us on twitter or Facebook to stay tuned…

360° Students couldn’t continue without the amazing work done by our volunteer members. This year, we hope to structure our organization further, paying particular focus to our members in terms of their responsibilities and learning opportunities. This will enable 360° Students to evolve further, lifting bigger projects, and providing more students with the un-derstanding that sustainability is the future. Indeed, a huge task. But I, for one, am anxious to get started!

Best regards,Christina EkChairwoman

360

Students

360° Students for Sustainability is a non-profit stu-dent organization based at CBS.

Contact:Email: info@360students.dk

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Update from 180 Degrees Consulting

As a lead up to the Partnership2012 conference the student organization 180 Degrees Consulting togeth-er with DI created an innovative competition where students got the possibility to work on value creat-ing NGO-Business partnerships. DI and 180 Degrees Consulting matched five groups of students with five companies interested in establishing NGO partner-ships, namely Rynkeby, Coloplast, Pressalit, Ib An-dresen Industries and FL Schmidt. For a duration of nine weeks the respective teams worked in close col-laboration with each company in order to identify and plan the most suitable NGO partnerships.

The three groups which had come up with the best recommendations regarding a NGO partnership were given the chance to present their findings in form of a case competition at the Partnership2012 confer-ence. The jury rating the presentations consisted of DIs General Director Karsten Dybvad, CBS Principal Per Holten-Andersen, Chief of Secrateriet at ISO-BRO Mette Holm, PWC-partner Birgitte Mogensen and President of 180 Degrees Consulting Emma Lindgren. The group chosen as winner was the team working with Pressalit because of their thorough as well as creative work and their ability to uncover the core aspects necessary for Pressalit to build a strong NGO-Business partnership.

This semester´s highlight will be international projects which are being undertaken during winter break. Similar to the case competition last semester, the international projects serve as incentive to con-sultants as only the best of them will have the chance to participate.

These projects give students the possibility to apply their gained consulting skills and knowledge in a developing country context and furthermore grant 180 DC the chance to leverage its best practice from the developed to the developing world.

Building on the successes from last year, 180 Degrees Consulting has arranged nine projects to be under-taken during the fall 2012 semester by 45 student con-sultants. Due to the large success of past projects 180 Degrees Consulting had the freedom to choose these projects among a range of various projects offered to the organization. The amount of received applications by students had furthermore tremendously increased to 139 for this application round, giving 180 DC the chance to truly select the most capable and dedicated students for the projects, ensuring a high continued quality of consulting.

Sustainable collaboration

between 180 Degress

Consulting and Dansk

Industri

Students

180 Degrees Consulting is an international student consultancy that works with geowing non-profits, helping them achieve a greater social impact.

Contact:phone no. +45 6061 6399e-mail: cph@180degreesconsulting.org

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CBS

CBS Responsibility Day

Social responsibility was the main focus when more than 2900 new undergraduate students had their first encounter with CBS classroom teaching at Responsibility Day.

Ethics, sustainability and responsibility are the key-words on Responsibility Day - the first school day for new bachelor students at CBS on 31 August 2012. In-troducing social responsibility at the first day of stu-dent life is not coincidental according to CBS profes-sor Kai Hockerts:

“The ways to operate a business has changed. Profit is still the main goal, but the ways to achieve it has changed. Today, companies are expected to consider climate change, labor standards, social responsibili-ty, ethics and moral. At CBS, we believe it is essen-tial that students from day one start considering how business and responsibility can go hand in hand, which is why the first day of their semester starts off with CBS responsibility day”.

The Responsibility Day is part of Copenhagen Busi-ness School’s ambition to educate responsible man-agers and make CBS globally known as one of the leading international business schools on responsible management education. The agenda included both presentations from CBS’ researchers and input from the corporate sector. Christian Stadil, Chairman and Owner of the Danish sports and clothing company – Hummel, discussed his company’s perspective on company karma

From Responsibility to RoskildeBefore Responsibility Day, the students had to chal-lenge themselves with a case from Hummel. “Chang-ing the world through sports” is part of Hummel’s company karma strategy, and was the main issue of the case assignment.

The winning group group from BA IMK, won The Re-sponsibility Day Case Competition 2012 and received tickets for Roskilde Festival 2013.

Update from PRME

Principles for Responsible Management Education

Contact:Project Manager, Cand.soc Lene Mette Sørensen Tel.: +45 3815 2651 E-mail: lms.ikl@cbs.dk

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Every year CBS Goes Green hosts Green Week, which engages and in-corporates all students on campus. The headline for this year’s Green week was “Sustainability 2.0”.

At Copenhagen Business School students are becom-ing increasingly interested in sustainability. As future leaders they are opting for classes, minors and re-search projects that emphasize the sustainability per-spective in creating smarter businesses.Companies that demonstrate leadership in the era of Sustainability 2.0 will not just inquire about the quan-tity of resources they use but will seek to learn wheth-er what they offer actually enhances the lives of their customers, stakeholders and planetary communities.

We believe that for the business leaders of tomorrow, it is essential to link vision with purpose. As business leaders we need to look at how we can use our core business, not only by doing better for society, but by making smarter businesses.

Collaboration with partner organizations and com-panies For Green Week we had invited CBS partner organi-zations and companies to give their view on Sustain-ability 2.0. Maersk, IBM, Novozymes, IC Companys and Danish Fashion Institute, all gave their perspec-tive on Sustainability. The goal was to give CBS stu-dents ideas on how they can apply the skills they learn at CBS on their sustainable career path. For the stu-dents with an entrepreneurial ambition we arranged an entire afternoon with Copenhagen School of En-trepreneurship showcasing examples of sustainable businesses in Clean Tech. Green Week was opened by Uffe Elbæk, The Danish Minister for Culture and Kim Østrup, Vice President at IBM who arrived in a Tesla Motors electric sports car.

For more information: Kathrine Johansen, Project

Manager CBS Goes Green, kj.mo@cbs.dk

Update from CBS Goes Green - Green week 2012, Sep-

tember 24-27

CBS

CBS Goes Green is an official unit on Copenhagen Business School, working to reach the 2020 goal - Reduce the CO2 emission by 40 pct. on CBS cam-pus.

Contact:CBS Goes GreenCopenhagen Business SchoolSolbjerg Plads 3, D 2.28, 2000 FrederiksbergT: (+45) 38152018

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New cbsCSR manager - Elise Lind Jacobsen

Since august 6th, Elise has taken over the responsibilities as cbsCSR centre manager. In addition, she will also serve as the project manager of the Responsible Business in the Blogosphere project (RBB), led by Professor Mette Morsing.

Elise comes from a position as project manager at CSR Europe in Bruxelles, which is the leading European business network for corporate social responsibility. Here, she was responsible for managing the Collaborative Project on Sustainable Supply Chains, Business and Human Rights. The project is a cross-industry, cross-sec-torial initiative to advance the practical implementation of the UN guiding principles on Business and Human Rights in corporate supply chains through tools development and best practice sharing. She has organized and led a number of European webinars and workshops, including one on Raising Human Rights Awareness and particularly Children’s Rights in Global Supply Chains in collaboration with the UN Global Compact.

Previously, she has worked at Save the Children Denmark working on a project intended to realize children’s rights in Bangladesh. She co-developed the organizations Work2Learn concept and overall Children’s rights strategy. She is also not a stranger to the ICM department, having worked together with Associate Professor, Søren Jeppesen on the Changing Course - A study into Responsible Supply Chain Management Publication for the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Here, she also did field research in Kenya and Bangladesh

Elise is a CBS graduate and has a MSc. in Business, Language and Culture. She has a strong interest in and focus on CSR and business and human rights. Her main interest is human and children rights in global supply chains.

The Copenhagen Business School Centre for Corporate Social Responsibility, is a common ground for col-leagues at CBS, with different academic associations, but with a common interest in the study of CSR, sus-tainabilityandbusinessethicsandhowtheseconceptsinfluencecorporationsandsocietytoday.

Contact details:CBS Center for Corporate Social ResponsibilityPorcelænshaven 18ADK-2000 Frederiksberg+45 3815 2643

Update from cbsCSR CBS

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October 17-20th Design and Displacement – Social Studies of Science and Technology. Joint 4S/EASST Con-ference, Copenhagen Business School, Denmark. The conference takes place October 17th-20th at Copenha-gen Business School to celebrate the 8th joint conference between EASST and 4S. The heading of the confer-ence is ‘Design and Displacement’. The theme ‘Design and Displacement’ invites careful analyses of the way design practices take part in shaping worlds. It investigates how design facilitates or hinders social inclusion, locally and globally. During the 4 days of conference, the participants will both participate in excursions, exhibitions, artwork, introduction to New Nordic Food movement and a scientific program. An App can be downloaded to see the full programme.

October 30th Sustainability Seminar on October 30th at Copenhagen Business School.Stefano Ponte and Lisa Ann Richey from CBS and RUC respectfully, will be presenting material from their latest book Brand Aid: Shopping Well to Save the World (University of Minnesota Press, 2011) and from a work-in-progress paper on cause-related marketing. Based on their recent book Ponte and Richey offer a deeply informed and stinging critique of “compassionate consumption” as an instrument of sustainability. Using Product RED as its focal point, but also examining other current campaigns, Richey and Ponte explore how corporations like American Express, Armani, Gap and General Mills promote compassionate consump-tion to improve their ethical profile and value without significantly altering their business model, protecting themselves from the threat to their bottom lines posed by a genuinely engaged consumer activism.

November 13th Social media for social purposes conference closed workshop, public seminar on November 14th. The Social Media for Social Purposes Conference takes place over two days November 13th and 14th. No-vember 14th will be a public seminar where both academics and practitioners can participate. The purpose of the conference and seminar is to explore and discuss a crucial element in social media: organizing for a social purpose.

Link: https://conference.cbs.dk/index.php/SocialMedia2011/media2011/schedConf/overview

Recent and up upcoming activities

Recent events:

Upcoming events:

August 31st Responsibility DayAugust 31st the 4th edition of CBS Responsibility Day took place. Lasting one day, the new students at CBS got introduced to the importance of CSR and keynote speaker Christian Stadil from Hummel gave a presentation on “Company Karma” and used Hummel’s practices in Sierra Leone and Afghanistan as examples.

September 24th to 27th Green Week hosted by CBS Goes GreenEvery year CBS Goes Green hosts Green Week, which engages and incorporates all students on campus. The headline for Green Week 2012 is Sustainability 2.0. Every day had a different theme that highlighted different aspects of sustainability. Keynote speakers included managers from IBM, Mærsk, and Novozymes.

September 17th Sustainability Seminar Series - André Spicer Professor André Spicer based the seminar on a recently published paper “Contested Imaginaries and the Cul-tural Political Economy of Climate Change” which analyzes the evolving cultural political economy of climate change by developing the concept of “climate imaginaries” as shared socio-semiotic systems that structure a field around a set of shared understandings. The authors argue that contestation over these imaginaries forms a key part of the struggle over responses to climate change and helps to explain the lack of effective organiza-tional response from firms and governments in the face of mounting evidence of a climate crisis

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November 12th to 14th The Rise of the BRIC countries and the Future of Corporate Social and Environmental Responsibility

November19th and 20th COBREN Bio-fuel conference. Governing sustainable biofuels: Markets, Certifica-tion and Technology. Organized by the Copenhagen Biofuels Research Network (COBREN), hosted by the Department of Business and Politics, Copenhagen Business School and the Danish Institute for International Studies

November 22nd To celebrate 10 years of academic work, the cbsCSR Centre hosts a conference on November 22nd. The purpose of the conference is to bring together some of the most engaged thinkers and practition-ers in Europe in a presentation of the challenges and opportunities that corporate social responsibility and sustainability are faced with and what the future might bring. The conference will both be a chance to discuss widely researched areas, but will also provide a forum for discussion of emerging issues. The cbsCSR Centre has been fortunate enough to get keynote speakers Prof.dr. Gail Whiteman from the Rotterdam School of Management, Susanne Stormer, Vice president, Corporate Sustainability at Novo Nordisk and Annette Stube, Director of Group Sustainability at A.P. Moller - Maersk to talk about the importance of corporate social responsibility in today’s dynamic world.

September 20th to December 20th India Today competition on India and Denmark

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CBS Sustainability Platform Leadership

and StaffCo-Director, Mette Morsing (Ph.D., MSc.)

Co-Director, Stefano Ponte (Ph.D., M.A.)

Project Manager, Kristina Walker Pedersen (MSc.)

Research Assistant, Jonas Sødergran (BSc.)

Research Assistant, Line Pedini Rasmussen (BSc.)

Mail: sustainability@cbs.dk

Tel.: 3815 3286

Mail: jes.ikl@cbs.dk

Tel.: 3815 3231

Mail: lpr.ikl@cbs.dk

Tel.: 3815 3286

Mail: sp.dbp@cbs.dk

Tel.: 3815 4265

Mail: mm.ikl@cbs.dk

Tel.: 3815 3205

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Porcelænshaven 18A, office 0.1412000 Frederiksberg, DenmarkTel.: 3815 3286Sustainability@cbs.dkwww.cbs.dk/sustainabilityplatform