Download or read book B Corporation Redefining Success in Business and Creating Social Value written by KARIN C. HOLSTEIN PhD and published by Xlibris Corporation. This book was released on 2012-07-05 with total page 77 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Business Ethics for a New Economy Capitalism “as is” has served us well in the past and produced great wealth, but at a terrible price to the environment. Corporations arrived at the height of their growth and made enormous fortunes by abusing their power and doing business “at all cost”. The environment and humankind are paying a high price for “their progress.” They have endangered and depleted our vital resources such as our fertile soil and clean water, affected the world economy, and led to instability and conflict in many nations. The world is suffering from a “global burnout.” These are all symptoms of the same illness: greed. Corporate greed and corruption have led us into a world crisis. The crisis is not just caused by pollution or the use of technology but represents a crisis of the whole life system. The pollution and destruction of our natural resources are only the symptoms and consequences of the underlying problems. The problem itself is an ethical one. The old ethics in business of I want it now and more does not work anymore, we have seen what is has done to our lives and the economy. We need to create new social value and practice business in such a manner that helps to eradicate poverty and not solely for the sake of our own survival. The B Lab, a nonprofit, has created a new model, the B Corporation, which simultaneously creates social value and will redefine success in business. It is an alternative to traditional corporations, which only maximize profits for shareholders. The B Corporation is a new type of corporation that uses the power of business to solve environmental and social problems. It is a legal structure with higher standards of accountability and transparency. This new way of doing business is the first systemic response to address the underlying problems of our financial crisis. By 2050, an estimated 100 million people will go hungry if we do not find a solution to the food and water shortages. Over 60 percent of the world’s population will live in water-stressed areas by 2025, according to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization. Our soil has been destroyed after years of being abused through harmful farm practices and inorganic fertilizers and thus depleted our food resources of essential minerals. Besides ethical reasons to assist poor countries now and in the future, we must keep it our priority if we want to avoid more conflict caused in these regions due to the devastating effects of climate change. Food and water security will lead to increased migration and instability. Interdependence is the driving force of our time. With globalization all the environmental and humanitarian problems in countries far away have also become our problems. We have created them and must face the reality that we need to not just ‘fix’ them temporarily but solve them at their root. We need a new economic system- one that is more sustainable than our old system, which has failed. Our society is interlocked with the rest of the world through business and environmental interests, and we have a common interest to cooperate. We need a “greening of capitalism.” The answer to creating a new business model- which profits society, as well as shareholders- is in establishing a B Corp known as a Benefit Corporation. Blurb from Esquire:” B corps might turn out to be like civil rights for blacks or voting for women- eccentric, unpopular ideas that took hold and changed the world.”

Download or read book Redefining Student Success written by Ken Kay and published by Corwin Press. This book was released on 2021-07-23 with total page 197 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Be the leader of a fresh, bold, enduring vision of education for your district or school. The future of learning has arrived, and it requires bold educational leadership and a dramatic redefinition of what it means to be a successful student today. Redefining Student Success invites you to lead this transformation with audacity. It engages leaders with the concepts and actions needed to reimagine schools, address inequities, and help today’s students develop the skills they need for personal, economic, and civic success. This vital guide supports transformative leadership with Concrete guidance on how to create a Portrait of a Graduate and Portrait of an Educator which will help ensure teachers have a unified vision for professional growth and student success. Reflection prompts that help you recognize your strengths, spark discussion among stakeholders, and identify next steps for inspired action. Compelling examples of students already engaged in creative, self-directed problem-solving around issues that matter to them and their communities, together with stories that illustrate how districts and schools have arrived at their own vision of what education must become. Companion guides to 21st century learning for parents and students available online. The time is now to reset educational outcomes, sync schools with the demands of 21st century society, and meet the needs of every learner, in every community.

Download or read book Negotiating Climate Change in Crisis written by Steffen Böhm and published by Open Book Publishers. This book was released on 2021-09-28 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Climate change negotiations have failed the world. Despite more than thirty years of high-level, global talks on climate change, we are still seeing carbon emissions rise dramatically. This edited volume, comprising leading and emerging scholars and climate activists from around the world, takes a critical look at what has gone wrong and what is to be done to create more decisive action. Composed of twenty-eight essays—a combination of new and republished texts—the anthology is organised around seven main themes: paradigms; what counts?; extraction; dispatches from a climate change frontline country; governance; finance; and action(s). Through this multifaceted approach, the contributors ask pressing questions about how we conceptualise and respond to the climate crisis, providing both ‘big picture’ perspectives and more focussed case studies. This unique and extensive collection will be of great value to environmental and social scientists alike, as well as to the general reader interested in understanding current views on the climate crisis.

Download or read book Americans and Climate Change written by Daniel Rhame Abbasi and published by Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies. This book was released on 2006 with total page 222 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Part I of this report is a synthesis that highlights eight selected themes, each of which relates to diagnoses, recommendations, and important lines of debate or inquiry. Part II describes the diagnoses and 39 recommendations from the eight working groups.

Download or read book Carbon Politics and the Failure of the Kyoto Protocol written by Gerald Kutney and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-02-03 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Carbon Politics and the Failure of Kyoto charts the framework and political evolution of the Kyoto Protocol negotiations and examines the ensuing failure of the international community to adequately address climate change. The focus is not on the science or consequences of climate change but on the political gamesmanship of the major players throughout the UNFCCC negotiation process. More than an updated history of the subject matter, this book provides a detailed study of the carbon targets which became the biggest influencing factor on the reaction of nations to Kyoto’s binding agreements. The book provides an in-depth analysis of the leading nations’ motives, including the US, China and Germany, in entering the negotiations, in particular, their economic interests. Despite the effort to combat climate change in politics that the negotiations represent, the book concludes that an agreement which requires almost 200 very different nations to agree on a single protocol is doomed to failure. The book offers a novel contribution to our understanding of this failure and suggests alternative frameworks and policies to tackle what is arguably the most complex political issue of our time.

Download or read book Getting to We written by J. Nyden and published by Springer. This book was released on 2013-09-09 with total page 234 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Drawing on best practices and real examples from companies who are achieving record results, Getting to We flips conventional negotiation on its head, shifting the perspective from a tug of war between parties to a collaborative partnership where both sides effectively pull against a business problem.

Download or read book Social Dimensions of Climate Change written by Robin Mearns and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2009-12-02 with total page 348 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: While major strides have been made in the scientific understanding of climate change, much less understood is how these dynamics in the physical enviornment interact with socioeconomic systems. This book brings together the latest knowledge on the consequences of climate change for society and how best to address them.

Download or read book Managing the Risks of Extreme Events and Disasters to Advance Climate Change Adaptation written by Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2012-05-28 with total page 593 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Extreme weather and climate events, interacting with exposed and vulnerable human and natural systems, can lead to disasters. This Special Report explores the social as well as physical dimensions of weather- and climate-related disasters, considering opportunities for managing risks at local to international scales. SREX was approved and accepted by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) on 18 November 2011 in Kampala, Uganda.

Download or read book Realising REDD written by Arild Angelsen and published by CIFOR. This book was released on 2009-01-01 with total page 390 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: REDD+ must be transformational. REDD+ requires broad institutional and governance reforms, such as tenure, decentralisation, and corruption control. These reforms will enable departures from business as usual, and involve communities and forest users in making and implementing policies that a ect them. Policies must go beyond forestry. REDD+ strategies must include policies outside the forestry sector narrowly de ned, such as agriculture and energy, and better coordinate across sectors to deal with non-forest drivers of deforestation and degradation. Performance-based payments are key, yet limited. Payments based on performance directly incentivise and compensate forest owners and users. But schemes such as payments for environmental services (PES) depend on conditions, such as secure tenure, solid carbon data and transparent governance, that are often lacking and take time to change. This constraint reinforces the need for broad institutional and policy reforms. We must learn from the past. Many approaches to REDD+ now being considered are similar to previous e orts to conserve and better manage forests, often with limited success. Taking on board lessons learned from past experience will improve the prospects of REDD+ e ectiveness. National circumstances and uncertainty must be factored in. Di erent country contexts will create a variety of REDD+ models with di erent institutional and policy mixes. Uncertainties about the shape of the future global REDD+ system, national readiness and political consensus require  exibility and a phased approach to REDD+ implementation.

Download or read book Climate Change and Human Rights written by Stephen Humphreys and published by ICHRP. This book was released on 2008 with total page 127 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate written by Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2022-04-30 with total page 755 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is the leading international body for assessing the science related to climate change. It provides policymakers with regular assessments of the scientific basis of human-induced climate change, its impacts and future risks, and options for adaptation and mitigation. This IPCC Special Report on the Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate is the most comprehensive and up-to-date assessment of the observed and projected changes to the ocean and cryosphere and their associated impacts and risks, with a focus on resilience, risk management response options, and adaptation measures, considering both their potential and limitations. It brings together knowledge on physical and biogeochemical changes, the interplay with ecosystem changes, and the implications for human communities. It serves policymakers, decision makers, stakeholders, and all interested parties with unbiased, up-to-date, policy-relevant information. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.

Download or read book Critical Small Schools written by Maria Hantzopoulos and published by IAP. This book was released on 2012-02-01 with total page 268 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Critical Small Schools: Beyond Privatization in New York City Urban Educational Reform features the most current empirical research about the successes and challenges of the small schools movement and the implications of such for urban public educational policy. Situated in a climate of hierarchical reform, many of the principles of the original small schools movement——which are rooted in community participation, innovative pedagogies and assessment, and equity and social justice——have become obscured by an educational agenda that emphasizes top-down mandates and standards-based reform. With the increased popularity and the rapid proliferation of small schools, the emphasis on ‘‘size only’’ has resulted in a bifurcation of the small schools movement; on one end are the small schools which have embraced the democratic, participatory, and self-governing nature of the original movement, while on the other end are schools that have simply reduced their size without rethinking school structures and practices. This book distinguishes the small schools featured and researched in this volume from schools that are simply small and labels them ““critical small schools.”” By documenting the practices that take place in various critical small schools in New York City, we show how these schools have narrowed the achievement gap and increased graduation and college acceptance rates. Although smallness is an essential feature in the design of these schools, it is certainly not the only one and this volume illuminates the other elements that contribute to these schools’’ successes and shortcomings. Critical Small Schools also challenges the recent emphasis on charter schools as a panacea for urban educational reform. By featuring research about the inner workings of public schools, this volume challenges this new direction that steers successful school development away from public education. Moreover, as every site is fraught with some tension, Critical Small Schools not only offers glimpses into intellectually vibrant and democratic learning communities, but also acknowledges that these concepts are not static and necessitate continual reflection and renewal. At this pivotal moment in educational reform, this volume provides keen insight into the challenges and possibilities of the small schools movement and is indispensable for anyone interested in comprehensive public school reform.

Download or read book Global Environmental Change written by National Research Council and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 1991-02-01 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Global environmental change often seems to be the most carefully examined issue of our time. Yet understanding the human sideâ€"human causes of and responses to environmental changeâ€"has not yet received sustained attention. Global Environmental Change offers a strategy for combining the efforts of natural and social scientists to better understand how our actions influence global change and how global change influences us. The volume is accessible to the nonscientist and provides a wide range of examples and case studies. It explores how the attitudes and actions of individuals, governments, and organizations intertwine to leave their mark on the health of the planet. The book focuses on establishing a framework for this new field of study, identifying problems that must be overcome if we are to deepen our understanding of the human dimensions of global change, presenting conclusions and recommendations.

Download or read book Thrive written by Arianna Huffington and published by Harmony. This book was released on 2014-03-25 with total page 370 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Thrive, Arianna Huffington makes an impassioned and compelling case for the need to redefine what it means to be successful in today's world. Arianna Huffington's personal wake-up call came in the form of a broken cheekbone and a nasty gash over her eye--the result of a fall brought on by exhaustion and lack of sleep. As the cofounder and editor-in-chief of the Huffington Post Media Group--one of the fastest growing media companies in the world--celebrated as one of the world's most influential women, and gracing the covers of magazines, she was, by any traditional measure, extraordinarily successful. Yet as she found herself going from brain MRI to CAT scan to echocardiogram, to find out if there was any underlying medical problem beyond exhaustion, she wondered is this really what success feels like? As more and more people are coming to realize, there is far more to living a truly successful life than just earning a bigger salary and capturing a corner office. Our relentless pursuit of the two traditional metrics of success--money and power--has led to an epidemic of burnout and stress-related illnesses, and an erosion in the quality of our relationships, family life, and, ironically, our careers. In being connected to the world 24/7, we're losing our connection to what truly matters. Our current definition of success is, as Thrive shows, literally killing us. We need a new way forward. In a commencement address Arianna gave at Smith College in the spring of 2013, she likened our drive for money and power to two legs of a three-legged stool. They may hold us up temporarily, but sooner or later we're going to topple over. We need a third leg--a third metric for defining success--to truly thrive. That third metric, she writes in Thrive, includes our well-being, our ability to draw on our intuition and inner wisdom, our sense of wonder, and our capacity for compassion and giving. As Arianna points out, our eulogies celebrate our lives very differently from the way society defines success. They don't commemorate our long hours in the office, our promotions, or our sterling PowerPoint presentations as we relentlessly raced to climb up the career ladder. They are not about our resumes--they are about cherished memories, shared adventures, small kindnesses and acts of generosity, lifelong passions, and the things that made us laugh. In this deeply personal book, Arianna talks candidly about her own challenges with managing time and prioritizing the demands of a career and raising two daughters--of juggling business deadlines and family crises, a harried dance that led to her collapse and to her "aha moment." Drawing on the latest groundbreaking research and scientific findings in the fields of psychology, sports, sleep, and physiology that show the profound and transformative effects of meditation, mindfulness, unplugging, and giving, Arianna shows us the way to a revolution in our culture, our thinking, our workplace, and our lives.

Download or read book FAO s work on climate change written by Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and published by Food & Agriculture Org.. This book was released on 2021-05-06 with total page 79 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) works towards ending hunger and poverty while using precious natural resources sustainably. The fisheries and aquaculture sector makes substantial contributions to food security, livelihoods and global trade. Global production of fish and other aquatic animals continued to grow and reached 179 million tonnes in 2018, and about 59.5 million people were engaged in the primary sector of capture fisheries and aquaculture. Fishery net exports generate significantly more revenue for developing countries than other agricultural commodities such as rice, coffee and tea. Millions of people are struggling to maintain reasonable livelihoods through the fisheries and aquaculture sector. These are the people who are the most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. Climate change adds to the many threats and obstacles that already confront them in their day-to-day lives. Particular attention must be given to the most vulnerable if the sector is to continue to contribute to meeting global goals of poverty reduction and food security. This publication presents FAO’s work on climate change and fisheries and aquaculture. It includes examples of FAO’s support to countries so that they are better able to adapt to the impact of climate change in the fisheries and aquaculture sector. It also brings together FAO’s most up-to-date knowledge on climate change, including a portfolio of adaptation tools and measures used to support countries’ climate commitments and action plans.

Download or read book Our Common Future written by and published by . This book was released on 1990 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Building on the Kyoto Protocol written by Kevin A. Baumert and published by . This book was released on 2002 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: According to the contributors of this volume, a wide range of options in addition to the Kyoto Protocol need to be considered to promote long-term climate protection and bridge the growing divide among nations over how to take action. This compilation explores some of the best alternatives, with special attention to options that promote participation by both industrialized and developing countries.