Top Stories

January 26, 2012

Social Investment

The Walmart Foundation and non-profit partners launch free tax preparation programme

The Walmart Foundation has donated $4.35 million to United Way Worldwide, One Economy and the National Disability Institute’s Real Economic Impact Tour to provide free tax filing services to eligible Americans nationwide. The MyFreeTaxes programme is expected to help return an estimated $175 billion in total tax refunds, credits and tax preparation fee savings to eligible taxpayers this year.

CSR Wire

http://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/33675-The-Walmart-Foundation-and-Leading-Nonprofits-Launch-the-MyFreeTaxes-Program-Offering-Eligible-Taxpayers-Free-Tax-Preparation-in-2012

Environment

Industry and green hail solar ruling

Business and environmental groups have welcomed the Court of Appeal’s decision to uphold a ruling that government cuts to household solar subsidies are illegal. Three judges ruled on Wednesday that parliament did not have the power to change “with such a retrospective effect” the “feed-in tariffs” paid to homes, businesses and communities for generating small-scale renewable electricity. The government must now pay the solar industry’s legal costs. It will also have to pay its original higher subsidy for customers who install panels between mid-December and early March – this could eventually run into tens of millions of pounds.

Financial Times p4 http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/8efd46b4-473f-11e1-b847-00144feabdc0.html?ftcamp=rss#axzz1kYXr29JA

Research & Policy

Corporate Knight releases its ranking of the world’s most sustainable companies

Corporate Knights has just announced its eighth-annual list of the world’s most sustainable companies. Corporate Knights worked with three other organisations that do sustainability research to determine the world’s 100 most sustainable companies. The Corporate Knights research group evaluated those 400 companies using 11 environmental, social and governance performance measures.

Forbes

http://www.forbes.com/sites/jacquelynsmith/2012/01/24/ranking-the-worlds-most-sustainable-companies/

Global survey reveals that most companies are naïve when it comes to energy management

Epicor Software Corporation, a global leader in business software solutions for manufacturing, distribution, retail and services organisations, today announced the results of its first ever global carbon accounting survey, which offers insight into the fact that despite forthcoming legislation mandating carbon accounting, most companies are still lagging in their comprehension of carbon accounting as a whole, and in the execution of said carbon accounting initiatives.

MarketWatch

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/global-survey-reveals-most-companies-naive-when-it-comes-to-energy-management-2012-01-25

Corporate Reputation

The most ethical Olympics ever? Not according to Boris’s ‘ethics tsar’

One of Boris Johnson’s “ethics tsars”, Meredith Alexander, will quit her post today over the controversial Olympics stadium contract awarded to Dow Chemical. Dow is the owner of Union Carbide Corporation (UCC), the company responsible for the 1984 gas disaster in Bhopal, India, which killed 25,000 people. Alexander stands down after accusing Olympics organisers and the 2012 ethical watchdog of acting like “apologists” for Dow Chemical, stating “It is inexcusable that Locog did not find reference to Bhopal when they looked at Dow from a sustainability perspective. The site is still an ongoing environmental disaster.”

COMMENTS