Building Global Societies Towards An Esg World

This book provides insightful approaches to how to improve business sustainability. The volume includes an integrated analysis of different relevant aspects of Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) and provides an international view of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). The book explores these topics with the aim to share ideas and visions for a sustainable future and to provide useful tips for academics, practitioners, and policy-makers in the context of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development of the United Nations.

The first edition of A Better World, Inc. showed how companies can profit by solving global problems. Increasingly, companies and investors are capitalizing on these opportunities. The three factors necessary for success were revealed to be effective corporate governance, stakeholder engagement, and collaboration. Racial equity and justice, and gender equity, were also themes in the original edition. By drawing on new research and case studies, this updated edition shows that inclusion and sustainability are in fact fundamental prerequisites for prosperity for companies and society. Specifically, racial inequity and injustice, and gender inequity, are systemic problems that impede businesses from achieving their greater potential in the global marketplace; in the meantime, society suffers as well. The second edition of A Better World, Inc. builds on the first by showing that companies have the power and incentives – and their boards of directors have the responsibility and the authority – to drive solutions to social, economic, and environmental challenges. Readers will learn how companies and their boards, together with nonprofits and governments, can drive prosperity by centering equity and sustainability. This edition is organized to address environmental, social, and governance practices, which are priority interests for investors, media, the public, government, and others to assess company practices and profitability.

The scale, effectiveness and legitimacy of global governance lag far behind the world's needs. This path-breaking book examines how far civil society involvement provides an answer to these problems. Does civil society make global governance more democratic? Have citizen action groups raised the accountability of global bodies that deal with challenges such as climate change, financial crises, conflict, disease and inequality? What circumstances have promoted (or blocked) civil society efforts to make global governance institutions more democratically accountable? What could improve these outcomes in the future? The authors base their argument on studies of thirteen global institutions, including the UN, G8, WTO, ICANN and IMF. Specialists from around the world critically assess what has and has not worked in efforts to make global bodies answer to publics as well as states. Combining intellectual depth and political relevance, Building Global Democracy? will appeal to students, researchers, activists and policymakers.

Public libraries, through their mission, vision, and position in the community, play a significant part in building community sustainability and are already positioned to serve as a “backbone support organization” for collective impact initiatives.

Discover how to invest your capital to achieve a powerful, lasting impact on the world. The Global Handbook of Impact Investing: Solving Global Problems Via Smarter Capital Markets Towards A More Sustainable Society is an insightful guide to the growing world-wide movement of Impact Investing. Impact investors seek to realize lasting, beneficial improvements in society by allocating capital to sources of impactful and sustainable profit. This Handbook is a how-to guide for institutional investors, including family offices, foundations, endowments, governments, and international organizations, as well as academics, students, and everyday investors globally. The Handbook´s wide-ranging contributions from around the world make a powerful case for positive impact and profit to fund substantive, lasting solutions that solve critical problems across the world. Edited by two experienced and distinguished professionals in the sustainable investing arena and authored by two dozen renowned experts from finance, academia, and multilateral organizations from around the world, the Global Handbook of Impact Investing educates, inspires, and spurs action towards more responsible investing across all asset classes, resulting in smarter capital markets, including how to: · Realize positive impact and profit · Integrate impact into investment decision-making and portfolio · Allocate impactful investments across all asset classes · Apply unique Impact Investing frameworks · Measure, evaluate and report on impact · Learn from case examples around the globe · Pursue Best Practices in Impact Investing and impact reporting While other resources may take a local or limited approach to the subject, this Handbook gathers global knowledge and results from public and private institutions spanning five continents. The authors also make a powerful case for the ability of Impact Investing to lead to substantive and lasting change that addresses critical problems across the world.

Based on an interdisciplinary investigation of future visions, scenarios, and case-studies of low carbon innovation taking place across economic domains, Decarbonising Economies analyses the ways in which questions of agency, power, geography and materiality shape the conditions of possibility for a low carbon future. It explores how and why the challenge of changing our economies are variously ascribed to a lack of finance, a lack of technology, a lack of policy and a lack of public engagement, and shows how the realities constraining change are more fundamentally tied to the inertia of our existing high carbon society and limited visions for what a future low carbon world might become. Through showcasing the first seeds of innovation seeking to enable transformative change, Decarbonising Economies will also chart a course for future research and policy action towards our climate goals. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.

Climate change and environmental degradation have intensified the pressures on crucial resources such as food and water security and air quality. In this collection, academic researchers and practitioners who have lived and worked in countries as geographically and culturally diverse as Brazil, China, India, Ghana, Palestine, Uganda and Venezuela draw on their wide-ranging international and inter-sectoral experience to offer valuable comparative insights into the relationship between research and evidence-based policy for sustaining natural resources. Their contributions provide a novel mix of disciplinary perspectives ranging across geography, ecology, social policy, the political economy, philosophy, international development, engineering technology, architecture and urban planning. They examine the institutions involved in generating and mediating evidence about the sustainability of natural resources in a changing environment, and the different methodologies employed in collecting and assessing evidence, informing policy and contributing to governance. The authors demonstrate not only that social science evidence on governance and policy implementation to sustain natural resources must complement natural science inputs, but also that local communities must be an integral part of any programme development. This book was originally published as a special issue of Contemporary Social Science.

With reference to Singapore's smart urban initiatives, this book provides insights into how urban planning, digital technology and sustainability issues are impacting people and businesses.The chapters are loosely structured with regards to key dimensions of smart cities such as urban innovation spaces; open innovation ecosystems; smart manufacturing; undergraduate education with regards to A.I. readiness, gamified leadership & team-building skills, and digital sustainability; ESG, environmental handprint, workplace sustainability and climate resilience; pillars of successful aging & inclusiveness; and smart city management challenges.How does Singapore develop vibrant urban innovation spaces? In what ways can living labs create sustainable impact? How can SMEs benefit from the adoption of Industry 4.0? What is the role of chatbots in making undergraduate students 'AI-ready'? How does gamification help learners to acquire leadership and team-building skills? Why is digital sustainability important and how can educators sensitize youths toward cultivating more sustainable ways of living? What is the business case for ESG (environmental, social, and corporate governance) stewardship? How to steer Singapore's built environment towards a sustainable future? How to connect companies and help them to combat climate change by regenerating our planet? How to induct new employees to an organization and acclimatize them to the company's culture of sustainability, job roles and workplace sustainability? How to enable smart(er) aging? What is the future of inclusive smart cities? What are some of the opportunities for more theory-based, empirical research on smart city management challenges from a purpose-driven business perspective linked to human betterment? These questions and more are addressed in this book.Visions for the Future is a complementary reading resource suitable for anyone interested in understanding how the concept of Smart Cities can improve lives and livelihoods for all in a sustainable manner — from undergraduate and graduate students to smart city stakeholders in business and society as well as educators and municipal leaders.