SustainabilityHQ.com Weekly Highlights July 30, 2013

Top Story of the Week

Women-Power:  We read somewhere that 70% or  more of car-buying decisions in the USA are the result of personal recommendations or prior experience with the brand.  And a good amount of those decisions are made by the female in the family -- or a female buyer if the car is for her.  The American population is more female than male.  The undergrad and grad school graduation rows are increasingly dominated by young and older women.  Women make or influence US$8 trillion of buying power.  The ranks of the professions are swelling with females. 

So who or what is not recognizing the trend...or ignoring or resisting the trend?

Look to the board room, says a study just completed with a thorough review of Catalyst resource.  Lots of qualified females are MIA (missing in action) in U.S. corporate board rooms -- only 15% of the top firms have elected women to the board; 3% of the top 1,000 firms have no women in the board room.  And companies are missing out on the benefits of more female directors, say the study authors.

Companies are missing out, say Kellie McElhaney, the Whitehead Faculty Fellow in Corporate Sustainability for the Haas School of Business at University of California, Berkeley and Sanaz Mobasserir, a PhD candidate at the Haas School, because:

• Companies with women on boards are reported to enjoy Higher ROE (at least by 53%).
• Superior Sales: Boards with higher percentages of female directors outperformed those with the least by 42 percent.
• Higher ROI: On average, by 66 percent

We recommend reading our top story:

Having Women on Boards Increase Profits and Sustainability     
(Tuesday - July 23, 2013)
Source: Triple Pundit - Imagine running an oil company where only one or two of the directors on your board have oil industry experience. Imagine running a computer company where none of the board uses a computer, tablet or smart phone. Now imagine...

Sustainability in Focus

Sequenced palm oil genome paves the way for sustainable plantations 
(Friday - July 26, 2013)
Source: Guardian.cp.uk - Few environmentalists feel any fondness for the oil palm, with its connections to deforestation in the tropics. But the waxy orange pods the tree sprouts in vivid bunches generate 45 percent of the globe's edible oil, and...

Green Sells: Ford’s Commitment To Sustainability Drives Sales Success
(Wednesday - July 24, 2013)
Source: Triple Pundit - Ford’s sales growth is proving that competitively priced, well-designed products that are more sustainable will outsell less-sustainable products. Ford’s line-up of fuel-efficient cars and trucks that deliver lower tail pipe...

This is just a sample of some of the articles from this weeks SustainabilityHQ Highlights.  You can view the full Highlights by using the following links.  Sustainability | ESG, Highlights for the Week of July 30,2013