Glossary of terms
- Community Involvement and Development
- Consumer Issues
- The Environment
- Fair Operating Practices
- Human Rights
- Labor Practices
- Organizations and Organizational Governance
- Glossary of terms
- Organizations Involved in Various Aspects of Social Responsibility
- The Milton Friedman-John Mackey debate on social responsibility
Alternative energy — Carbon footprint — Corporate social responsibility
Ethical investment — Fair trade — Global warming
Green — Greenhouse effect — Greenhouse gases
Healthy community – ISO 26000 – LEED
Renewable energy — Sarbanes-Oxley – Social Capital
Social responsibility – Sustainability – Sweatshop
Triple bottom line
Alternative energy: Energy derived from nontraditional sources (e.g., compressed natural gas, solar, hydroelectric, wind).
Carbon footprint: A measure of the impact of human activities on the environment, expressed as the amount of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases produced by a person, organization, or operation in a given time.
Corporate social responsibility: See social responsibility.
Ethical investment: A financial investment strategy that factors social responsibility and business morality into the criteria for evaluating investment in companies or ventures.
Fair trade: An approach to international trade based on the principles of fair labor practices, fair prices paid to the growers and producers of products, and environmentally sound agricultural practices. It aims at sustainable development, enabling marginalized and disadvantaged producers and farmers to sustain their land and families.
Global warming: An average increase in the temperature of the atmosphere near the earth’s surface and in the troposphere, which can contribute to changes in global climate patterns. Global warming can occur from a variety of causes, both natural and human induced. In common usage, global warming often refers to the warming that can occur as a result of increased emissions of greenhouse gases from human activities.
Green: A term that has come to be used as a synonym for environmentally friendly. As in green manufacturing, green energy, green building.
Greenhouse effect: A natural phenomenon that helps regulate the earth’s temperature. Greenhouse gases act like an insulating blanket, trapping solar energy that would otherwise escape into space. Without this natural “greenhouse effect,” temperatures would be about 60ºF lower than they are now, and life as we know it today would not be possible. However, human activities, primarily the burning of fossil fuels and clearing of forests, have enhanced the natural greenhouse effect, causing the earth’s average temperature to rise.
Greenhouse gases: Gases that trap heat in the earth’s atmosphere. Some greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide occur naturally and are emitted to the atmosphere through natural processes and human activities. Other greenhouse gases (e.g., fluorinated gases) are created and emitted solely through human activities. The principal greenhouse gases that enter the atmosphere because of human activities are: carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, and fluorinated gases such as hydrofluorocarbons and perfluorocarbons.
Healthy community: A community that is continuously creating and improving those physical and social environments and expanding those community resources that enable people to mutually support each other in performing all the functions of life and in developing to their maximum potential.
ISO 26000: The international standard on social responsibility, currently in development by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). Expected publication date mid-2010. The standard is intended to assist organizations in addressing their social responsibilities by providing practical guidance related to operationalizing social responsibility, identifying and engaging with stakeholders, enhancing credibility of reports and claims made about social responsibility, and promoting common terminology, among other aims. The core areas of ISO 26000 address: organizational governance, human rights, labor practices, environment, fair operation practices, consumer issues, and community involvement and development. See the news release on the call for comments on the draft of ISO 26000.
LEED: The Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Green Building Rating System is a third-party certification program and the nationally accepted benchmark for the design, construction and operation of high performance green buildings. LEED gives building owners and operators the tools they need to have an immediate and measurable impact on their buildings’ performance. LEED promotes a whole-building approach to sustainability by recognizing performance in five key areas of human and environmental health: sustainable site development, water savings, energy efficiency, materials selection and indoor environmental quality. Provides independent, third-party verification that a building project is environmentally responsible, profitable, and a healthy place to live and work. Operated by the U.S. Green Building Council.
Renewable energy: Energy derived not from finite sources like fossil fuels but from sources that are, for all practical purposes, inexhaustible. These include solar, wind, moving water, biomass, and geothermal power sources.
Sarbanes-Oxley: Name given to a law (P.L. 107-204), enacted by the United States Congress in 2002, which contains provisions designed to enhance corporate responsibility, enhance financial disclosures, and combat corporate and accounting fraud.
Social capital: The individual and communal time and energy that is available for such things as community improvement, social networking, civic engagement, personal recreation, and other activities that create social bonds between individuals and groups.
Social responsibility: People and organizations behaving ethically and with sensitivity toward social, cultural, economic and environmental issues; being aware of and accountable for the impacts of one’s own decisions and activities on society and the environment. Striving for social responsibility helps individuals, organizations and governments have a positive impact on development, business and society with a positive contribution to bottom-line results. Although formerly it was common practice to use the term “corporate social responsibility,” it is now more often spoken of simply as “social responsibility” to acknowledge the role of individuals as well as organizations.
Sustainability: In a social responsibility context, sustainability means meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. The concept has been applied to biological organization and ecosystems such as wetlands or forests, human organization (“sustainable cities”) and human activities such as sustainable architecture or agriculture.
Sweatshop: A work place where labor abuses are rampant. Abuses include violations of the most basic labor laws including child labor, minimum wage, overtime and fire safety laws, and exposure to dangerous working conditions.
Triple bottom line: A set of criteria or framework for evaluating organizational or societal success that goes beyond economic measures to include measures of environmental and social performance. Sometimes referred to as “People, Planet, Profit.”
