UK non-profit organisation Carbon Disclosure Project began in 2000 with a simple idea: ask the world’s largest companies to publicly share information about their carbon emissions and the actions they’re taking to manage them. Ten years later an astonishing 82% of the 500 largest companies in the world, now answer the CDP’s questions.
This week’s gathering in Auckland of dairy industry leaders from around the globe for the International Dairy Federation 2010 conference emphasises once again the huge power and influence the industry has on the New Zealand economy. “It is difficult to overstate how important the success of the agriculture sector, and the dairy industry in particular, is to the future of the New Zealand economy,” says Brendon O’Donovan, Westpac’s chief economist.
When interest rates soared on Irish government bonds, it served as a grim warning to other indebted nations of how difficult and even politically ruinous it can be to roll back decades of public sector largesse, the New York Times reports. It says a recent run-up in interest rates highlights a real concern throughout Europe: that the first round of spending cuts and economic changes put forward by countries that also include France and Britain may not be enough to bring deficits down to the target levels of three percent of gross domestic product by 2014.
Considering the recent turbulence of financial markets and the real economy, true value creation is now the most important job for every executive. Yet corporate finance often remains the hunting ground of CFOs and technicians. Since all executives – and CEOs in particular – should understand the basics of value creation for strategy, McKinsey & Co has boiled them down to a few essential principles that are both understandable and actionable.
If you and you and your organisation have dismissed Facebook, Twitter, and blogs as passing fads, think again say a bevy of communication experts. Embracing and effectively harnessing the power of social media will be crucial to understanding and succeeding in the brave new business world of the future, they argue. NZ Management has a five-step guide for managers on how to set up and use social media.
Business conditions are gradually improving, the Reserve Bank encouragingly says in its latest Financial Stability Report released this week. But size is a consideration: a more sombre tone is struck in the outlook for small- to medium-sized enterprises says Executive Update economic commentator Bob Edlin.
