Sustainability/CSR

With the most recent employment numbers showing little improvement, you’d think most people would be clamoring for any job that would have them. Not true.

According to “Talent Report: What Workers Want in 2012,” research conducted by Net Impact, young workers are looking for jobs that are in line with their values and result in a positive difference in the world. More than half (58 percent) of student respondents say they will take a pay cut to find a job that matches their value system.

Net Impact polled 1,726 people, from college students to workers across generations, millennials to baby boomers.

Half of students say it’s important to work for a company that makes CSR a top priority. That figure falls to 38 percent when you look at more experienced workers, but half or more of both students and older workers agree that having a job that helps create a better world is important.

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Launch a social media campaign that will build your brand and deliver results in our online Social Media Marketing Boot Camp starting June 7. Speakers include Abigail Cusick (Bravo Digital), Gregory Galant (Sawhorse Media), Alex Leo (Thomson Reuters Digital), Jim Tobin (Ignite Social Media), and many more. Read the reviews.

You see those ads about big companies cleaning up oil spills and ads about huge firms taking steps to “go green.” But do you believe them?

Not really. Results from the third annual “Gibbs & Soell Sense & Sustainability Study” show despite news coverage on corporations going green, most consumers are still highly skeptical of corporate commitment to the environment. But they are still intrigued.

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Hill+Knowlton Strategies‘ sustainability and CSR practice has launched an integrated reporting tool that brings together financial, environmental, social, and governance data together into one form.

The firm has partnered with Harvard Business School professor Robert Eccles and his firm Glenelg Partners on the new offering. Eccles’ research has found that companies that have taken big steps in the areas of sustainability and good governance do better financially in the long run, both for themselves and for investors. As such, this tool is being touted as a way to improve the financial performance of those who use it.

“Investors find less risk in more transparent companies because there is less uncertainty about their ability to deliver expected financial performance,” Eccles says in a statement.

Robert Ludke, SVP of H+K’s D.C. office will lead this new service and Eccles will advise.

John Havens has joined Yoxi, a branding and media organization for entrepreneurs and organizations focused on social good. Havens will serve as EVP of strategy and engagement. In this role, he’ll lead business development for the company and match businesses with Yoxi’s entrepreneurs.

Previously, Havens was EVP of social media at Porter Novelli. Havens was cut from the firm during a round of layoffs this summer that included other firm execs. He was working as an independent consultant for Yoxi before being appointed to this position.

Earlier this year, we reported on Yoxi’s “Trim the Waste of Fashion” contest, which sought out companies with ideas for reducing environmental waste in the fashion and design industry.

Yoxi also announced a new COO and executive producer, Randy Makiej. This is a newly created position.

NBCUniversal has an interesting factoid to kick off its Green Week campaign: if everyone used reusable mugs for their coffee instead of paper cups, we could have nine million trees.

Accordingly, the NBCU “Mugs Save Trees” campaign starts today with coffee carts around New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago handing out free reusable mugs and filling those with free coffee.

The idea of one small act making a difference is cropping up in ads and public service campaigns all around.

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Ruder Finn has launched a corporate social responsibility practice out of a new Boston office that will be led by SVP Sarah Coles. Coles has been with the firm for seven years and has worked on a number of CSR campaigns. CSR accounts were previously handled as part of the corporate communications practice.

The firm’s experience in the space includes Pepsi’s Dream Machine and a Novartis initiative targeting malaria. The firm has also published a CSR Index, which last found a high consumer interest in companies that do good. More recent global research continued that trend.

Lots of research this week. Our latest study comes from a group of WPP firms, which just released findings from its annual ImagePower Global Green Brands Study. WPP firms Cohn & Wolfe, Landor Associates, and Penn Schoen Berland along with independent consulting Esty Environmental Consulting polled 9,000 adults in the U.S., U.K., China, Brazil, India, Germany, France, and Australia between April 2 and May 3, 2011 .

The study found that 60 percent of consumers around the world want to spend their money with eco-friendly companies. But when you break it down by country, the findings get more interesting.

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