James Farrar

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Vodafone's Big(ish?) Adventure

It's fun to think of similes to categorise the headlong rush towards CO2 reductions or at least the pledges for such. I think of Vodafone's pledge of a 50% cut of the 2007 baseline by 2020 as a 'Big Adventure'. They have not yet clearly identified how they will get there yet...

Tags: Vodafone Group Plc., Carbon Dioxide, Climate Situation, Jonathon Porritt, Performance Management, Human Resources, Workforce Management, James Farrar

Blog posts 2008-06-19

HP CSR Report: A Triumph for Transparency (but back slides on blogging)

Ground breaking stuff in HPs latest CSR report released last week - HP becomes the first in its sector to publish details of the major players in its supply chain. Now it seems the tech sector will follow the apparel industry on supplier transparency. The apparel industry tried to resist this for...

Tags: Sustainability, Hewlett-Packard Co., Supplier, Blogging, Nothing, Channel Management, Marketing, James Farrar

Blog posts 2008-04-16

What is a sustainable business anyway?

Once you penetrate some of the sustainability hype the key question at board level is this: what action are you actually prepared to take? For a problem like climate change, where there is no regulatory hurdle and action is voluntary though enlightened by self interest, what action is enough? ...

Tags: Carbon Dioxide, General Motors Corp., James Farrar

Blog posts 2008-04-10

Edelman on Sustainability Reporting: Call in the PR Pros

It's a conundrum every company faces when thinking about sustainability reporting - who reads this stuff anyway and do these reports actually assure anyone of anything? Sustainability reporting methodologies have grown up, for better or for worse, to ape financial reporting, replete with their own standards of assurance audit and...

Tags: Sustainability, Public Relations, Standards, Financial Reporting Methodology, Edelman, Assurance Standard, James Farrar

Blog posts 2008-04-02

Headaches in Armonk but will green lose out?

No doubt the IBM top team will be passing around the Tylenol today in Armonk as they figure out what to do next after their temporary exclusion from further contracting with the US Federal government. Sadly it is not an April fool's joke - the US Attorney's office for the Eastern...

Tags: U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, IBM Corp., FCW, Purchasing & Procurement, Financial Management, Government, Business Operations, Financial Planning, Finance, James Farrar

Blog posts 2008-04-01

Facebook: Revolution, Weed and Philanthropy

At the risk of endlessly re boiling the cabbage on the now infamous Sarah Lacy interview of Mark Zuckerberg at SXSW, it is worth highlighting some pretty important things he had to say on Facebook & corporate philanthropy before the reporter became the bigger part of the story.  The flippant style of interview...

Tags: Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, Web 2.0, Government, Homeland Security, Strategy, Internet, Management, James Farrar

Blog posts 2008-03-21

The Cassiterite Crisis - How Tech Boom Fuels Human Rights Risk in Africa

A disturbing article this week in the FT reports how cassiterite sourced through the use of child and slave labour has made it into the supply chains of global electronic goods manufacturers. Cassiterite is a derivative of tin ore necessarily used in circuitry and its use has, ironically, enabled...

Tags: Supply Chain, Industry, Microsoft Corp., Cassiterite, Safety Condition, Supply Chain Management (SCM), Strategy, Enterprise Software, Software, Management, James Farrar

Blog posts 2008-03-07

Tech Sector Takes a Kicking in Ethics Ranking

Quite honestly it is hard to take too, too seriously sustainability ratings such as the CRO 100 Best Corporate Citizens of 2008 but they are kind of fun to pull apart none the less. Predictably these rankings generate a fair degree of false humility from the ascendant and gnashing and...

Tags: Sustainability, Ethics, Emotion, Intel Corp., Tech Sector, James Farrar

Blog posts 2008-03-06

PWC On Tech Sector Going Green: Efficiency, Ambivalence and Pretty Pictures

PwC is to be congratulated at the very least for the aesthetics of their latest report: Going Green: Sustainable Growth Strategies. This is a truly handsome report with pretty brown coloured text interspersed with striking images of wind turbines, sail boats, happy children, adults playing in autumn foliage and even...

Tags: Sustainability, Technology Sector, PricewaterhouseCoopers Consulting, Industry, Strategy, Management, James Farrar

Blog posts 2008-03-05

McKinsey on Corporate Philanthropy: Mind Your Own Business

If only the Big 4 and the top consultancy firms could run on sustainability thought leadership white papers instead of free cash flow, 2008 would surely be a banner year. The latest epistle is from McKinsey who this week publish an insightful survey on corporate philanthropy. The...

Tags: McKinsey & Co., Philanthropy, NetSuite Inc., Survey, Business Goal, Marketing Research, Marketing, James Farrar

Blog posts 2008-02-28

Human Rights: An Inconvenient Truth

The debate on business and human rights is set to heat up this year with the 60th anniversary of the UN General Assembly resolution adopting the Universal Declaration of Human Rights UDHR. The Beijing Olympics and a sharpened focus on the potential winners and losers in the climate change crisis...

Tags: James Farrar

Blog posts 2008-02-25

McKinsey and PwC On How Companies Think About Sustainability Management: All Hat, No Cattle

Two separate reports show a massive disconnect on sustainability between C-level strategic intent and real world performance. In the report Confronting Corruption, PWC surveyed executives and whilst 80% reported their companies had an anti corruption management programme, only 22% were confident such programmes were effective. On climate change, the McKinsey...

Tags: Sustainability, McKinsey & Co., PricewaterhouseCoopers Consulting, Corruption, Others, Climate, James Farrar

Blog posts 2008-02-21

Lawson on Corporate Social Responsibility:Thou Shalt Obey The Law

My, my! Industry Corporate Social Responsibility CSR white papers are becoming like buses - nothing for ages then all of a sudden three in a row. First the Economist Intelligence Unit supported by SAP, then IBM and now Lawson enters the fray with the oddly titled The Convergence of Corporate...

Tags: Compliance, Lawson Software Inc., Industry Corporate Social Responsibility White Paper, Corporate Social Responsibility, Business Ethics, Corporate Law, Leadership, Management, Business Operations, James Farrar

Blog posts 2008-02-20

IBM on Corporate Social Responsibility: Collaboration, Integration and NGO Foot Soldiers

Corporate responsibility at IBM is a class act so high expectations then when the IBM Institute for Business Value this week came out with a piece on CSR: Attaining sustainable growth through corporate social responsibility. Dazzling stuff but one or two clangers as well. IBM...

Tags: Wal-Mart Stores Inc., Collaboration, Revolution, Business, IBM Corp., Integration, NGO, Corporate Social Responsibility, Business Ethics, Corporate Law, Leadership, Management, Business Operations, James Farrar

Blog posts 2008-02-16

US Productivity Slip, A Threat to Sustainability?

Bob Suh, Chief Technology Strategist at Accenture writing in yesterdays Financial Times hits the panic button on US productivity. Apparently it is starting to slip relative gains in Europe and China. The reason is an under investment in technology. I know what you are thinking, I'd be surprised too if...

Tags: Sustainability, Accenture Ltd., Compliance, Investment, Suh, James Farrar

Blog posts 2008-02-14

Economist Intelligence Unit on sustainability

The Economist Intelligence Unit this week publishes a report on the state of business and sustainability entitled: Doing Good: Business and the Sustainability Challenge. (Disclosure: SAP was amongst a number of co-sponsors of this report) The report captures nicely the zeitgeist - most businesses have accepted sustainability as a mainstream...

Tags: Sustainability, Truth, James Farrar

Blog posts 2008-02-13

The Lantos/Yahoo! legacy

Tom Lantos may have made his very last stand for human rights last November when he recalled Yahoo! executives to challenge their earlier testimony surrounding the Shi Tao case. Shi Tao is a Chinese activist serving ten years in prison on trumped up charges and Yahoo! stand accused of handing...

Tags: Coalition, Yahoo! Inc., Shi Tao, Policies And Procedures, Internet, Strategy, Human Resources, Management, James Farrar

Blog posts 2008-02-12

On Sustainability

The first post on ZDNET! And if that isn't scary enough I kind of need to spend some time explaining the concept of ‘sustainability', the subject matter of this blog. Nailing custard to a wall would be so much easier. Ask ten people what sustainability means and you will get...

Tags: Sustainability, Globalization, Strategy, Management, James Farrar

Blog posts 2008-02-12

Hello world!

Welcome to WordPress. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging! by James Farrar

Tags: Wordpress, Blogging, Internet, James Farrar

Blog posts 2008-02-05

Additional Resources

MobileTechRoundup show #141, jkOnTheRun is aquired, Sony Reader, battery life, and more

I had a good time recording MobileTechRoundup show #141 with the two newest members of the Giga Om Media group, James Kendrick and Kevin Tofel. Don't worry listeners and readers, you will still get the same content from those two and from me here on the podcast for the foreseeable...

Tags: MobileTechRoundup, Sony Corp., Battery, Sony Reader, Kevin, Podcasts, Internet, Matthew Miller

Blog posts 2008-07-25