For anyone who’s not been introduced, TED is a website dedicated to ‘ideas worth sharing’. I love it. It’s full of interesting, informative videos from experts on all sorts of subjects and they’re not allowed to be more than 20 minutes long. The videos are filmed at TED’s live events, and there are all sorts of other ways they encourage idea sharing and learning (I had the pleasure of working on the TED Studies module ‘Understanding Happiness‘ and look forward to the rest of the TED Studies series).
One of TED’s new features is a playlist function, grouping together videos by subject matter, or inviting people to curate lists (Bill Gates, Bono, Bjork and Bobak Ferdowsi to name just a few. You might know the last one better as “NASA mohawk guy”). While I wait for my invitation, I’ve decided to post my own little CSR playlist on here.
I’m going to start with another new function, TED Ed, and a lesson called ‘Re-thinking progress: The Circular Economy‘. There are some big subjects covered at a high level, including design, manufacture and private ownership; I think it’s a wonderful, simple introduction to the circular economy concept. The key theme is taking inspiration from nature, which also feature in the next clip I’ve chosen.
Arthur Potts Dawson – ‘A vision for sustainable restaurants’ is a very practical talk, as Arthur shares the steps he’s taken in his own restaurants and when setting up a sustainable supermarket. So many people just talk about the need to take action, it’s great to hear about what someone’s specifically been doing.
Moving from a small organisation to the big ones, my third choice is Jason Clay – ‘How big brands can save biodiversity’. There are so many stakeholders involved in sustainability that actually making a global impact can seem impossible, especially if we’re relying only on discerning consumers as the impetus for change. Clay believes that the nature of our organisational structures means the tipping point could be reached by getting 100 key players on board. His roundtables get these big businesses to interact with NGOs, scientists and suppliers, until they reach a point where they’re influencing their entire industries.
This supply side approach would mean we’d have no choice but to buy ethically, and while that would certainly make shopping much easier, we’re not there yet. By behaving as responsible consumers we do have the potential to speed this process up from the other direction too. Tim Leberecht (‘3 ways to usefully lose control of your brand’) and John Gerzema (‘The post crisis consumer’), talk about how this is already playing out and driving change in organisational behaviour. Both discuss the benefits, indeed necessity, of corporate transparency and authenticity. Of course if your organisation’s closet is going to be transparent, you better make sure you don’t have any skeletons in there -attempting to curb the spread of bad press on social media is like trying to put toothpaste back in the tube.
A lot of my selections so far have focused on environmental issues, but CSR also covers the responsibility companies have to their employees, which is why I’ve included Auret van Heerden’s – ‘Making global labor fair’.
I’m going to finish off with a selection that sums up why we need to be doing all this, Alex Steffen – ‘The Route to a Sustainable Future’. Steffen says of our current trajectory “on the one hand we have the unthinkable; on the other hand way we have the unimaginable”. He goes on to outline the kind of game changing ideas that will help create the vision and action we need to create a third option. TED is full of talks on bright new ideas, but I’ve chosen this one because Steffen pulls together some nice examples which makes the challenge sound exciting, rather than insurmountable.
I know there are plenty more very worthy speakers that could have made this list, if you have any favourites do share them below.
CSR Scrapbook 