I have been lucky…

Because I have travelled a lot, I have always been the little French, before being the black girl.

Racism is not an issue all the sudden.
This is not an issue for you (white people), but this is not all the sudden.

It is like when the people assume that I am the cleaning lady or the secretary; or when people talk to me as if I was retarded while I often know way more than them.

I have to say, I play with it and it does make me laugh to see their face when…

Demands create markets and vice versa.

Nowadays, not least due to public demand there is significant incentive for companies to become more socially responsible (or, at the very least, to be perceived as such).

Numerous companies and individuals offer Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) services and choosing the right one can be tricky.

Forbes has published a list hints to look out for.[1]

The article may be seven years old already but has lost none of its pertinence.

1. Depth and breadth of experience

The question you should ask a potential CSR consultant is not only “Have you done this before?” but also

“Have you done this…

What is Corporate Social Responsibility ?

You have heard about companies making huge profits while hiding their assets in some fiscal paradise, profiting from child labour, bribery, knowingly endangering their employees, the environment, and ultimately the society at large with harmful pesticides or other chemicals.

Corporate Social responsibility, often abbreviated as CSR, is the obligation of an organisation to make profit following sustainable development principles.

This involves:

· social responsibility (i.e. having a positive impact on the society),

· economic sustainability (i.e. making profit in an ethical way), and

· environmental sustainability (i.e. minimising the impact on the environment).

In honour of Black history month, we want to acknowledge the contributions of black scientists who changed the world of sustainability over the last 1.5 centuries — scientists you probably haven’t heard of.

Black people continue to face challenges as they pursue careers in Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics.

From a lack of role models to inequities or discrimination in the workplace, but some of them managed to overcome all these challenges in the greatest way possible.

Nevertheless, intersectionality is an issue.

Being black and a woman is a bad combination if you want to have your accomplishments recognised; even…

Did you know?

95% of companies on the planet are SMEs?

They account for up to 70% of the job created on the planet. [1]

They collaborate with governments, other SMEs, big corporations, or local communities.

SMEs are the backbone of the economy!

Why is it then that the message “Green your business” seems always directed at big corporations?

Why is it that SMEs seem to be forgotten from financing, building capability, finding value creation, etc?

“Greening up your business is expensive — green-washing your business is cheap!”

Unlike large firms that have the means to be pro-active and be more likely to engage in pre-emptive sustainability strategies, small firms tend to be reactive and…

If you are a woman and use birth control, if you have ever used steroids to treat an inflammatory disease or if you have ever used cortisone to relieve pain, you should know about Dr. Percy Lavon Julian.

If you are a chemist, you have probably never heard of this man, who was one of the greatest chemists of all time!

I don’t think that you can possibly embrace the kind of joy which one who has worked with plants and plant structures such as I have over a period of nearly 40 years, how wonderful the plant laboratory seems…

So you’ve heard about this CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) thing and perhaps you’re even sympathetic towards it.

But the fact remains that the economy is a shark pool and you’ve got nothing to give away for free, right?

It is Black history month and I have decided to highlight black scientists that have contributed to sustainability and corporate social responsibility.

In this first issue I would like to present George Washington Carver.

Black Leonardo (…)

The greatest Negro scientist alive”

TIME magazine [1]

This is how the TIME magazine described Georges Carver Washington in 1941.

I am not going to go into everything which is wrong in these sentences, but that was a compliment at the time!

I would prefer the quote of Henri Ford, who called him in 1940’s

“The greatest scientist alive”.

An artist, a scientist…