It’s been a busy first quarter for the related Councils of the Sustainability Center, with a dozen meetings across Europe, North America, and Asia-Pacific. Notably, we just wrapped up the second meeting of our newly formed China Corporate Responsibility and Sustainability Council. The theme was how to use corporate citizenship and sustainability as value drivers in China. If you’re interested in regulatory developments in China, be on the lookout for our forthcoming report on how China’s environmental clean-up policies are affecting the steel industry. We will also release a report on UN SDG implementation in China later this month.

Until then, I encourage you to read the recently released Council Perspectives paper from the Product Stewardship & Regulatory Affairs (PSRA) Council. The paper describes the approaches PSRA Council members use to engage and influence their external stakeholders, including NGOs. Crucially, the members offer some real-world examples of how they’ve moved the needle from adversarial to consensual on key sustainability questions.

Finally, I would like to invite you to attend a webcast on May 21 hosted by The Conference Board Governance Center which will discuss the state of sustainability reporting and examine the work of the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB). I hope you can join us at this and other upcoming events.