Practising corporate social responsibility is no longer just the “right thing to do,” it’s necessary for business to be competitive, says a senior executive at Nexen Inc.

              “Studies have shown that the share values of companies that are perceived to operate with a high degree of social responsibility outperformed those with no particular commitment to social responsibility,” said Randy Gossen, Nexen’s vice-president of environment and social responsibility and recently elected president of the World Petroleum Council.

              The growth in socially responsible investments funds shows that investors “do not just focus on the corporation’s financial bottom line, but also include…

By Elona Malterre

            Collaboration between private-sector corporations and non-governmental organizations can help the business’s bottom line, the community and the environment, GLOBE 2008 heard.

            Engaging communities to help achieve business objectives while protecting the environment is “an investment” rather than an expense, Paul Hunt, director of sustainable development and stakeholder relations at Calgary-based Enbridge, told a session on “NGO Collaborative Models: Emerging Trends.”

            Companies must earn a ‘license’ to operate in a community, he said, adding that “the community bar is higher than the legal limit.” Corporate involvement in communities will continue to grow as “governments continue to devalue and abdicate”…

VANCOUVER – Canada’s cement industry has developed a ‘roadmap’ to sustainability but some provincial regulations are hampering efforts, industry executives told GLOBE 2008.

            The industry has reduced emissions of sulphur dioxide by 14 per cent and nitrogen dioxide by 23 per cent since 2003, even with a 10-per-cent increase in production, Alan Kriesberg, president of Lafarge North America’s western region cement division, told a GLOBE session on “Sustainability & the Global Cement Industry.”

            The Canadian industry’s absolute levels of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions increased by 8.5 per cent, or one million tonnes of CO₂e between 2003 and 2006,…

By Elona Malterre

            Global companies can benefit society while becoming both more profitable and sustainable, GLOBE 2008 delegates heard.

            Discussion at the “Dialogue: Business – A Force for Good” session was framed around the report, Tomorrow’s Global Company: Challenges and Choices, written by a team of business and civil society leaders from East and West and signed by 19 corporate executives. The report, produced by Tomorrow’s Company in London, U.K., is available at: (www.infosys.com/beyond-business/global-company-tomorrow.pdf).

            Tony Manwaring, chief executive of Tomorrow’s Company and moderator of the GLOBE session, described his firm as a “think and do tank” focused on the role of business…

By Elona Malterre

VANCOUVER – Efforts to commercialize Canadian clean energy technology are hobbled by timid and impatient venture capital investment and too little government support, experts told GLOBE 2008.

            “What’s broken in Canada is the venture capital system . . . (it is) too risk-averse – too little money, too late in the stage,” Dave Gerwing, president of Menova Energy Inc., told a session entitled “A Toolbox for Technology Commercialization.” Venture capitalists want too much of a company for the investment they’re making and they demand too short a payback time, he said.

            Gerwing, whose company is based in Kanata,…

VANCOUVER – Canadian companies have been slow to tap a $100-billion opportunity for environmental services and products in the Middle East, GLOBE 2008 delegates heard.

            The World Bank has estimated the need for such services and products in the Arab world will be $100 billion over the next 10 years, Ronald Portelli, managing director of Alturki Environmental in Saudi Arabia, told a GLOBE session on “Greening the Gulf.”

            Investment banker Goldman Sachs projects that the six countries that make up the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) which includes Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates, will reap a US$5-trillion ‘windfall’ from oil and gas as world prices…

              RBC is contributing $50 million over 10 years to charitable groups working on water-related initiatives, prompted by the banking group’s view that water will be the defining environmental issue of this century.

              “Our stakeholders frankly are asking for more” in terms of the corporation’s commitment to the environment, RBC spokesman Nelson Switzer said in an interview. “We thought, ‘How can we best communicate that?’ . . . and we thought by coming up with an environmental issue . . . that everybody could understand (and) would really resonate . . ..”

              Although Canada is a water-rich nation, the country ranks…

           A computerized system to ensure that the oil and gas industry and other businesses have qualified personnel able to handle increasingly complex work – including environmental challenges – is achieving good results, says AMEC.

           The consultant firm, which provides engineering and project management services around the globe, is getting positive feedback from industry on its online Capability Development and Competence Assurance (CDCA) system, says Anne Kitchen, management of business development for AMEC’s training and development services division.

           Only a few years, an employee at an oil and gas processing facility would have been handed a procedure and told…

           A Calgary businessman wants to turn a hardy tropical plant into a new energy source for Cuba and other developing countries.

           Adam Gagnon, president of Crude Country Biofuels, is working on a proposal with the University of Eastern Cuba to generate electricity in rural Cuban communities using locally produced biofuels. He believes that the perennial Jatropha curcas could be used to produce plant oil that could be readily processed and used as a fuel.

           Jatropha, which can grow in wastelands and fertilizes the soil in which it grows, yields more than four times as much fuel per hectare as soybean and…