Over the long weekend I managed to find some free time to watch Interstellar, the critically-acclaimed movie about mankind trying to survive by leaving a dying Earth for a new planet in an entirely new galaxy. While the movie was certainly entertaining (almost 3 hours long!), perhaps it is too soon to consider leaving Earth just yet. Here is a fascinating talk on why Earth’s oceans, not deep space, are our next frontier:

From an environmental sustainability perspective, the idea of floating cities or “seasteads” appears very promising. Joe Quirk talks about growing kelp for food and utilizing the ocean’s solar potential for energy. Kelp serves multiple functions in contributing to a seastead’s sustainability: food for residents, food for farmed fish, and waste absorption. Solar energy is an intuitive choice for a city floating in the ocean since oceans receive a vast majority of the Sun’s energy. Despite the benefits, I do have one reservation against floating cities: why can’t we employ these innovations now even without floating cities?

The other argument Quirk makes for seasteads is the opportunity to create better governments that properly serve public needs. In the video, Quirk provides convincing case studies of nations that correlates their economic development with their relatively modern origins. He attributes the success of countries like the USA and Singapore to their newer government methodologies. Applying this concept to floating cities, the idea is that residents will be able to easily establish political rules within their seastead, allowing for advanced social development. While the concept is reasonable, I worry for the feasibility of everyone being able to create their own form of government – what’s going to stop the inevitable rebels from creating havoc?

Despite my doubts, it appears that The Seasteading Institute is close to launching a prototype city and already has 1,000 people ready to take the plunge. All they need now is a host nation in an attractive climate willing to house the prototype on their coastal waters. Come to think of it, I could use a vacation myself!

Initially, two factors drove me to pursue a part-time sales associate position at Banana Republic, an apparel brand under Gap Inc. Firstly, I was seeking customer service experience and one of the best ways to achieve that is through retail. Secondly, I was a fan of their menswear so I really wanted their employee discount. What I had never considered was the sustainability of the company; and it dawned on me that after a year and a half of working at Banana Republic (plus 3 months of sustainability courses), I still had no clue whether Gap Inc. was a socially responsible company!

After a few clicks from Google it became apparent that Gap Inc. had a strong sustainability presence. On their corporate website, Gap Inc. provides 4 infographics about their commitments towards the environment, the global community, their employees, and human rights. Gap Inc. also publishes a Corporate Social Responsibility Report and maintains a hub dedicated to their promise to ‘do more than sell clothes‘. Personally I found the social responsibility initiatives for women in their factories to be the most intriguing aspect of their CSR report rather than their environmental initiatives, especially when you consider the human rights scandals that Gap has faced over the years.

According to their 2011/2012 Social & Environmental Responsibility Report, Gap Inc.’s P.A.C.E. program provides female garment workers with “the foundational life skills and enhanced technical skills needed to advance in their personal lives and in the workplace.” What’s special about P.A.C.E. is that the program’s effectiveness was measured, making the claims more credible. Below is a graph taken from the same report:

As you can see, there was a noticeable improvement with respect to women’s personal lives after implementation of P.A.C.E. With 80% of garment workers in world being women, I believe Gap Inc. is doing the right thing by focusing their efforts on their female workers.

What are your thoughts on Gap Inc.’s CSR report? Is there anything I missed that deserves to be recognized?

Have you ever stood in front of a vending machine craving a chocolate bar only to struggle choosing the one you want? I have, and let me tell you that choosing one chocolate bar among your favourites is certainly as difficult as any exam question! Do I want the biscuit taste of Twix, the pop of Nestle Crunch, the sharing potential of Kit Kat, or the decadence of Hershey’s Cookies ‘n’ Creme? Honestly, I find all of them to be equally delicious. Thankfully GoodGuide.com is here to introduce an X-factor in my decision making process – the sustainability of each brand!

Which one of these iconic brands is the most sustainable?

Let’s start with Twix. GoodGuide gives Twix’s parent company (Mars, Inc.) an environmental score of 7.0 and a societal score of 6.9. Initially I was impressed, until I saw a 3.0 for ‘Customer Health and Safety Controversies’. Uh oh.

Next up is Nestle Crunch. This was the only brand that GoodGuide provided with a health rating, which was an abysmal 1.7. Environmentally Nestle scored 7.1 and socially Nestle achieved 6.2.

Kit Kat and Cookies ‘n’ Creme are both owned by The Hershey Company, but strangely GoodGuide provided different ratings for each brand. Kit Kat, with an environmental score of 6.2 and and social score of 6.3, is rated much more sustainable than Cookies ‘n’ Creme, which only has 4.6 for both metrics. My best guess is that the folks at GoodGuide forgot to update the Cookies ‘n’ Cream page, because further research supports the Kit Kat ratings. (As an aside, this is a great example on why you should cross-reference your sources, especially for things like sustainability ratings!)

While Nestle Crunch was the only brand with a health rating, I assume that all four chocolate bars would have similarly terrible health scores after comparing their nutritional values. Therefore, based on GoodGuide’s information, I’m going to make sure I purchase Nestle Crunch the next time I’m pondering in front of a vending machine. Despite Twix’s higher overall scores, the 3.0 for Health Controversies is a bit scary, don’t you think?

Feel free to comment on your own usage of GoodGuide before making a purchase decision – I’d love to hear it!

As a senior accounting student, I was very interested in the idea of treating people as an asset rather than an expense that was introduced in HIPInvestor and Sustainable Brands’ presentation – Surprising Business Value from New Metrics of Sustainability. The presentation had some valid points. Firms constantly communicate to external parties about their people being their most valuable assets. Additionally tech firms and service firms, which form a growing majority of companies worldwide, have very few tangible assets. To say that the economic value of one of these firms is tied to the number of desks and computers the firm owns would be plain ignorant.

Human Capital may be the real driver behind profitability.

Supporters of this movement also claim recording Human Capital as an asset to have social sustainability benefits. One common metric of social sustainability is employee happiness and the presence of a positive work environment. Although studies show that companies who invest in their employees to create a positive work environment perform better financially than their competitors, shareholders require more information than study results to justify the expenses. Therefore by capitalizing (recording as an asset) the value of employees, companies are provided an incentive to invest in their employees. Paying for a new office wellness program would be akin to paying for upgrades of machinery within the financial statements, the latter being widely accepted by shareholders as a ‘proper’ use of cash flows.

Studies say that a happy office is a productive office.

Lastly, there is even an argument from a technical or GAAP standpoint that humans should be treated as an asset! However, I will spare you the boredom in this blog post. If you are really inclined to read about it – AccountingToday has got you covered.

While these social and technical arguments are compelling, in my opinion our current accounting system would not function well if every company began recording their intangible assets on their balance sheets. The ability to exploit this idea by greedy evildoers is too great. We finally recovered from the housing mortgage recession of 2008, let’s not enable another potential financial crisis.