Corpobligation: What if information is not enough to motivate action and activism?
Of course to be fair, it is impossible for every individual to stop every crisis or human rights abuse.
However, what is the obligation of individual citizens and a university when police are beating, holding down and then actually tasering a student?
Youtube's most viewed videos of the last few
days were full of student recordings of a University of Florida student
being tasered, during a John Kerry speech, for apparently asking too
many questions.
Stephen Colbert has coined the word to describe the lack of solidarity illustrated in the lecture hall: "Solitarity". Solitarity, roughly defined, means the opposite of solidarity. While the student was tasered fellow students did nothing.
What were the obligations of those around him? What are the obligations of citizens when other human rights abuses are happening around us? Is blogging enough?
The customer, Rachel Hatton, said, "I was quite shocked - I took it back to the shop."
"Then obviously the shop assistants were quite shocked as well to find out this symbol was on there - it was not something that they'd noticed either straight away," she told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.
Health and the environment are linked profoundly as illustrated at a recent Public Forum: Our Environment is Our Health, at Ottawa, Canada on September 19, 2007. The Forum was hosted by the Ontario Public Health Association (OPHA), Canadian Public Health
Association (CPHA), David Suzuki Foundation (DSF), Canadian Institutes
of Health Research - Institute of Population and Public Health
(CIHR-IPPH). Panel speakers were as follows: Swedish Ambassador,
Ingrid Iremark, Swedish Ambassor to Canada, Dr. Lynn Marshal, Co-Chair of the Environmental Health Committee of the Ontario College of Family Physicians and Dr. David Suzuki, Chair David Suzuki Foundation. Each expert presented valuable insights into environmental impacts on health and potential solutions both political and personal.
Sweden was cited as an example for Canada in establishing effective environment policy beyond party lines. Ambassador Iremark outlined the three keys to Sweden's success: first, transparency in policy, objectives and evaluation of actions; second, precautionary principle approaches to toxins, meaning that decisions based on historical experience are made without waiting for complete scientific certainty; third, substition principle, substituting the safest possible materials or processes as soon as they are available.
Corpobligation: We will be preparing a directory of Green Power Providers / Offsets over the coming months. Stay Tuned!
Urban living requires electricity and if we continue with urban living, We need green power.
Green power offsets are a solution for those of us without the land or money to build windfarms or buy solar panels. What kind of alternative power is greenest? Is there any such thing as sustainable eletrical production? These are interesting questions that I will leave for another day. Here, the discussion is more practical: How can I and you use greener power in our homes or businesses?
Where is the corporate obligation: corporations like the rest of us face a hugely important choice around power options. Those who adapt now may be able to survive and make money from green power investments; those who don't may be washed away...
"Overall, the 20 highest-paid executives of publicly traded corporations make, on average, 38 times more than the country's
20 highest-paid nonprofit leaders."
Salaries are supposed to motivate behaviour and theoretically compensate employees for their contribution to a business, but how can salaries over 100 times those of the average employee be justified?
Limits on CEO salaries could be based on reducing corporate tax deductions based on a multiple that relates CEO salaries to the average employee's earnings.
Where is the corporate obligation? Corporate directors have an obligation to shareholders to look after their best interest. Can they justify astronomic salaries?
Corpobligation.com: Battling PR campaigns over the future of drug access, production and patents
A fight over the patentability of a cancer drug (Glivic, Gleevic, Imatinib) produced by Novartis has led to a wider debate around patents over drugs
Patents are Good: encourage innovation and risk taking, by preserving long term profits
Patents are Bad: prevent access to drugs because the patent holder charges more than generic drug makes would charge
Novartis challenged Indian patent law for failing to provide sufficient protection from the competition under WTO rules
Groups like Medicins Sans Frontieres (Doctors without Borders) disagreed arguing that drug access was vital for worldwide health, especially in developing countries
Corporate Obligation? Did Novartis do the right thing strategically? They donate many treatments in India (99% according to their site) of Glivic and they have been upfront with their position; yet, a worldwide coalition formed to attack them. How can NGOs and governments create incentives to drive drug innovation?
Corporation Obligation: CSR is ripe for satire - can it change behavior?
A few years ago, the Yes Men made a film that shook the halls of power...or at least the reputations of various media outlets and corporate reputations.
The Yes Men are set on "impersonating big-time criminals in order to publicly humiliate them." Some recent "hijinks" include a mock WTO Proposal for slavery in Africa and a Keynote address at a major Canadian oil company conference:
"We need something like whales, but infinitely more abundant," said
"NPC rep" "Shepard Wolff" (actually Andy Bichlbaum of the Yes Men),
before describing the technology used to render human flesh into a new
Exxon oil product called Vivoleum. 3-D animations of the process
brought it to life.
News and Analysis
The bag was externally sourced, according to Zara's spokesperson.
(CPHA), David Suzuki Foundation (DSF), Canadian Institutes
of Health Research - Institute of Population and Public Health
(CIHR-IPPH). Panel speakers were as follows: Swedish Ambassador,
Ingrid Iremark, Swedish Ambassor to Canada, Dr. Lynn Marshal, Co-Chair of the Environmental Health Committee of the Ontario College of Family Physicians and Dr. David Suzuki, Chair David Suzuki Foundation. Each expert presented valuable insights into environmental impacts on health and potential solutions both political and personal.
employees for their contribution to a business, but how can salaries over 100 times those of the average employee be justified?
