My Mother always used to say ‘Charity begins at home’, but as the first Mrs Hanson was called Charity I could never be sure what she meant.  Poor of Mrs Hanson, she didn’t get on with Mother Hanson.  But it appears that my friends over at Grant Thornton are starting charity at home, and then shipping it off to Kenya and India to help with community projects. Margaret Bowler, head of corporate social responsibility at Grant Thornton, told the HR magazine bunch why: “Even in a recession it would be disastrous to cut back on an initiative like this. It makes people see our values, helps them work as part of a team and develops confidence - there are so many advantages to the business.”  You can find out more about Grant Thornton with this handy video

Tags: charity, community project, Finance, grant thornton, voluntary work

The credit crunch and an increased awareness of ethical shopping are to thank for a 7% jump in Oxfam’s sales, £80m across their 730 stores (that’s 100 more stores than WH Smith fact fans). Their 123 bookshops alone took over £19m last year and an extra £1million was raised selling secondhand M&S clothing after people donating them in received £5 M&S tokens. That made them the UK’s second biggest seller of second-hand books. Of course, it’s a little easier for Oxfam to shine against others on the high street: only 5% of Oxfam’s staff of almost 25,000 are paid. And while Oxfam pays the same rents as its High Street neighbours, as a charity it stumps up only one fifth of the business rate. Still, with and income “leveling off” expectations have been set for £100m in sales this year, so one thing Oxfam wont be selling is it’s brown trousers.

Tags: charity, fashion, Growth, High Street, Increased sales, Reail

Shell make a press ad that claims their Canadian oil sand extraction operation was sustainable. While the majorty of us ignore this because when the words “Canadian+oil+sand+extraction+operation” appear, our brains shut down, the World Wildlife Fund in the UK looked into the claim and decided it was “bullwash” or “greenshit,” as I call it. More importantly the Advertising Standards Authority agreed with them. Keen to remind us that the WWF is there for the environment, not just pandas, the charity has taken a huge screen at Waterloo to run a 20” ad telling commuters how Shell tried to pull the wool over their eyes. It’s a good reminder to us all that the WWF exists and isn’t in fact the World Wrestling Foundation. I have it on good authority that HSBC has just made a donation of $33m to the charity to support environmental projects over the next five years, so this is a serious contender for your attention. Shell agrees that to meet vast energy requirements it had to look beyond normal sources of oil and gas, and that includes unconventional rescources , such as oil sands. But because Shell had not provided evidence that it was “effectively” managing carbon emissions from its oil sands projects “in order to limit climate change”, the ASA deemed that the ad was misleading.

Tags: advertising, ASA, charity, Environment, fuel, Greenwash, Oil, Shell

The impact of Tesco on local high streets is to become part of the syllabus in a modern “make-over” for GCSE geography - which will include the influence of retail giants and climate change. Tesco’s expansion has drawn criticism from those who fear that it threatens the diversity of local, independent shops - with accusations that it was creating “Tesco towns”. Geography students will be able to examine the retailer’s “socio-economic impact on high streets”. The environmental campaigners’ education co-ordinator, Vicki Felgate, says that “issues such as how our consumer choices impact upon the world around us is vital to giving young people an understanding of how they can be responsible citizens”. Pupils will also be allowed to present work as cartoons, videos or poems. Or songs, or potato prints, or mood charts, no doubt. Jamie feels “raincloud.” No wonder think-tank civitas is worried about the hollowing-out of academia.

Tags: Public Sector, Retail, Supermarkets, Teaching

The London office of Goldman Sachs is on record at Companies House as having pre-tax profits of $2,744bn. Gulp. So how much of that goes to chairty? just under $4m. Not much? That’s double what the firm gave in 2006 - a pretty miserly $2m. That’s how the rich stay rich. Tight bastards. Read original article

Tags: charity, goldman sachs