The world is well aware of the climate finance gap ' the gap between the $100 billion currently annually committed by donor countries and the $2.4 trillion needed per year to fund the climate transition. In Namibia, we know that many businesses are now under increasing pressure to green their supply chains and reduce emissions across their product lines. That's why the government has established the Namibia Sustainable Supplier Database in partnership with the World Economic Forum. The database platform is a searchable online tool of Namibian businesses. Investors and global firms looking to source from Namibia can view company details as well as their engagement with five sustainable development criteria. Companies on the database indicate whether they have a corporate social responsibility (CSR) plan in place, whether they are working to reduce emissions or save energy, if any measures are taken on water saving or biodiversity conservation, compliance with Namibian labour laws and employee or community engagement....

As climate change, social inequities, and other critical issues grow ever more urgent, many companies have built dedicated departments focused on corporate social responsibility (CSR). But while this is an important first step, the authors’ new research suggests that organizations with the most mature CSR programs are often actually those with the smallest CSR departments. Based on an in-depth analysis of several Swiss firms as well as a review of prior research on CSR implementation, they identify a three-phase process through which many companies progress as their CSR operations advance from high-level vision to on-the-ground impact: A nascent stage in which the CSR department centralizes and coalesces, an intermediate stage in which it decentralizes and orchestrates, and a final stage in which it retreats and consults. Through this process, resources shift from the central CSR team out into functional units, meaning that the size and budget of the CSR department is often a poor indicator of the maturity of its CSR execution. To paint an accurate picture of a company’s performance — and to identify opportunities for improvement — the authors ultimately suggest that it’s essential to recognize these nuances and calibrate expectations and evaluations accordingly....

MIT Sloan Management Review and Boston Consulting Group (BCG) have assembled an international panel of AI experts that includes academics and practitioners to help us gain insights into how responsible artificial intelligence (RAI) is being implemented in organizations worldwide. This month's question for our panelists: Should an organization tie its RAI efforts to its overall corporate social responsibility (CSR) efforts' The results present a mixed picture. While 52% of panelists (11 out of 21) believe that an organization's RAI and CSR efforts should be linked, 24% do not (5 out of 21 disagree or strongly disagree), and an equal percentage expressed ambivalence (5 out of 21 neither agree nor disagree). Despite the lack of consensus, there are some common characteristics among those who agree that organizations should link their RAI and CSR efforts, as well as some concerns shared among the remaining panelists. Leaders are the most mature of three maturity clusters identified by analyzing the survey results. An unsupervised machine learning algorithm (K-mean clustering) was used to identify naturally occurring clusters based on the scale and scope of the organization's RAI implementation. Scale is defined as the degree to which RAI efforts are deployed across the enterprise (e.g., ad hoc, partial, enterprisewide). Scope includes the elements that are part of the RAI program (e.g., principles, policies, governance) and the dimensions covered by the RAI program (e.g., fairness, safety, environmental impact). Leaders were the most mature in terms of both scale and scope....

The challenges posed by climate change are formidable and the sense of urgency to act has never been higher. The world is uniting to address the existential challenge ' offering an encouraging sign of shared purpose and common destiny. Importantly, we are also at a transformative moment in solving the challenges. Just as the world is prioritizing global action, companies are transitioning to taking the lead in delivering solutions for the decades to come. More than one-fifth of the world's public companies have committed to net-zero carbon emission targets. And more significant than just reducing emissions, these corporate ambitions represent commitments to innovate, finance, and install the technology the world needs going forward. As the world transitions to a global era of sustainability action, the who, what, how, and when to succeed in solving the world's most pressing challenges are transitioning too, with corporations increasingly acting as the unifying theme. One of the defining characteristics of corporate social responsibility is engagement with stakeholders in real-time. This means that employees, investors, customers, communities, and non-governmental organizations all have levers of influence on corporate action....