Sustainability is More than Being Green

Companies that concentrate their sustainability efforts exclusively on being environmentally responsible may be surprised to discover that it may not be enough. A company that pledges to reduce waste, cut fossil fuel emissions and reduce energy dependency may find itself struggling to be seen as socially responsible if it does not address the social issues of outsourcing, equal opportunity, wages and health insurance coverage for its workers. Yes, Wal-Mart is a prime example of a company that may find that its definition of 'sustainability' is not the same as its critics.

Fortune Mag Claims Jack Welch Model Passe

Fortune Magazine that once named Jack Welch the "manager of the century" has decided that the rules used to drive GE to the heights of success no longer apply. Fortune points out that the old rules served companies well but that the global realities have changed, and the rules must evolve with them. "The risk" the magazine states "is applying old solutions to new problems."

CEO Pay Near Record

It's great to be a CEO these days.

According to a recent report by the Economic Policy Institute, a Washington-based think tank, a typical chief executive at a U.S. company earned 262 times the pay of a typical worker in 2005. With 260 workdays in a year, that means that an average CEO earned more in one workday than an average worker earned in 52 weeks.

A study released earlier this year by the Corporate Library -- and titled "Pay for Failure" -- singled out some of the corner suite's worst offenders. Among them: Pfizer (PFE) CEO Henry McKinnell; Merck (MRK) former CEO Raymond Gilmartin; and AT&T's (T) Edward Whitacre.

The pay gap is the second-highest in the 40 years for which data are available (American CEOs fared even better in 2000 when they made an average of 300 times the salary of their workers.) It should be noted that EPI defines CEO pay as the sum of salary, bonus, value of restricted stock at grant, and other long-term incentive award payments. Worker pay is calculated as the hourly wage of production and nonsupervisory workers, assuming the economy-wide ratio of compensation to wages and a full-time, year-round job.

The Washington Post reported on July 10 in its annual ranking of local executive pay that "the median total compensation for the 100 highest-paid executives at local public companies rose 21.2 percent in 2005, to $6.4 million from $5.2 million the year before. Futher, many executives' paychecks swelled, no matter how they did . The list was topped by four chief executives who received more than $30 million each: SLM Corp.'s Thomas J. Fitzpatrick ($39.6 million); Capital One Financial Corp.'s Richard D. Fairbank ($31.6 million); United Therapeutics Corp.'s Martine A. Rothblatt ($31.1 million); and Sprint Nextel Corp.'s Gary D. Forsee ($30 million).

"Altogether, the more than 700 executives at 157 firms in The Post's study took home $467.5 million in salary and bonus. Their total compensation -- including options, perks and other items -- had a combined value of almost $1.4 billion, more than the budget of the D.C. public schools.

The average worker in the Washington area was making $50,000 in wages or salary as of May 2005, according to the most recent local snapshot from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. For private-sector workers nationwide, total compensation rose an average of 2.9 percent last year."

Washington Post: Why We Can't (And Won't) Stop Global Warming

Robert Samuelson, writing in the Washington Post on July 5 -- Global Warming's Real Inconvenient Truth -- harkens back to an earlier column - from 1997 - and points out that the problem with solving Global Warming is two-fold:

First, we don't know what to do.

Second, it is politically dangerous to suggest the stop-gap measures such as energy rationing that limit economic growth and personal freedom.

His piece concludes with the ultra-reasonable sounding conclusion:

Only an aggressive research and development program might find ways of breaking our dependence on fossil fuels or dealing with it. Perhaps some system could purge the atmosphere of surplus greenhouse gases?

The trouble with the global warming debate is that it has become a moral crusade when it's really an engineering problem. The inconvenient truth is that if we don't solve the engineering problem, we're helpless.