The prodigal son has returned!
Sorry it has been so long since my last blog post.
I've been caught up in an absolute storm of work and activities (and rain - cause lets face it, we are talking about England here.)
But the good news is that all of these days without a blog post just means I've been stockpiling all the good information for one monster post! Or better yet, a series of amazing blog posts! So let me just take a seat in my *badly drawn* lime green chair and get cracking.
Re: Office culture: It's great! Everyone is really helpful and kind. My coworkers are great at their jobs which is inspiring to see, and all of the different working groups have been more than willing to let me jump on board and lend a hand- which has been great for me because I get a taste of all different aspects of the industry- environment, water, biodiversity, oil spill preparedness, reporting, fuels and products, social responsibility, climate change and others.
I've also been told we're having an office-wide baking competition w/ money to charity included. So that's pretty coo-I MEAN TOTALLY AWESOME. (I am such a blog loser. I try and I try and I try and it never changes. sry)
ANYWAY.
Re: Georg Kell Retirement lecture: Georg Kell is the current executive director of the UN Global Compact- the world's largest voluntary corporate sustainability initiative. The lecture was meant to honor and reflect on his amazing career at UNGC, ahead of his retirement in September 2015. Perhaps this observation is obvious to the point of being trite, but I was struck by the polarity of Georg Kell's place in the world and my own. Here in front of me was this man, reflecting on a long, rich and productive career that has allowed him to do amazing amounts of good for businesses, for social issues and for humanity. And I'm, sitting in front of him on my second day of my first CSR oriented summer internship, with a spiral notebook and a pen, and (in comparison,) pretty much the blankest career slate there has ever been. And out of all of the resonating things that he said, the amazing career experiences he reflected on, and the significant progress he has made, what stuck with me the most was his opinion that there is still a long way to go in the CSR space. It was inspiring, intimidating, and a healthy reminder that there is always more and more work to be done.
And speaking of work, let me tell you some more about mine! I've settled into my own little niche at IPIECA a bit more, and while I do things with all of the working groups, my work so far has anchored on communications. Although I cannot talk about a lot of the specific work I do to protect the confidentiality of our members, I can say that I have really enjoyed getting to use my writing background to craft messaging about the important social and environmental issues undertaken by IPIECA and our member companies. The nice thing about this internship so far is that it really has given me the chance to do work that is a synergy of writing and learning about social responsibility and the private sector.
Ahh ok. So that wasn't SUCH a monster post right? We're all still here, hydrated and not cross-eyed. Next week I hope to write a post about the difference between a socially responsible private sector, and a private sector that does social responsibility work. (a seemingly subtle but massive difference in my opinion.) I've been tossing this subject around in my brain for a while and I think it's time to talk about it with all two of you who read this blog. (Hi Mom and Dad.)
Cheers!
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