Best Buy does it's best!

Yesterday Best Buy organized a webinar to discuss it's sustainability efforts. It was fun. Four people behind the table discussing what was going on and in the mean time you could post your questions via Twitter. Which I did, and it is always amazing to hear that your question is actually addressed. You hear your name being called out and here it comes.

The best I liked was one of the Best Buyers saying like: "Yes, but I think we should do more in that area." That's what really counts in the first place. No transparency, no belief.

And Best Buy is doing it's best. Some amazing schemes I never heard about here in Europe. E.g. the Buy Back scheme, yes, also making sure consumers dare to buy, but also taking care of waste that consumers do not like to take care of.

I found this experience intriguing. You just invite the world, and whoever you are, you can comment. Not just the usual friends, the friendly NGOs, no, just you and me. And isn't that what it is all about in sustainability. That we get a grip.

Intern internal international

Over time we have learned to love all the interns and assistants that worked with us over the years. First in Ghana, then in South Africa, now in A'dam. Most of the time ladies. You get so tired of those guys. All this macho career building, lots of talk, less action. Hé guys, bring it up down! Yesterday we said goodbye to David, our last intern so far. A man, a real man, yes. But we loved him too. Lots of guts, critique, humor, laughs. Hard working also, where do you find a man like that? Sorry to see him leave, hiring for new interns, yes we are. Write to Angelica and send your motivation and cv and we will have a look. So, now you know, we love diversity. We love arguments, culture, being different. Are you next?

The report, the report and the report

I did not know that CR reporting was so boring sometimes. It takes forever and in the end you are discussing numbers till nobody knows anymore what reasons there were to publish those number in the first place. And editing text. You edit, they edit, we edit. And sometimes coming back to the same text we had three months before...

But now we are out with the report. On line. And printed in a summary with the Annual Report. Last year I promised the investors that our new report would be a lot duller. And we kept that promise! It looks and is a lot duller than last year. Less glamour, more data, that does the trick. Actually, that was one of the remarks of the investors present at our Monday investors meeting. They missed the passion of last year. And that made me wondering. Do we indeed lack passion. I do not want to hear that. I love my job, passionately. But if that is not recognized anymore?

Anyway, we started working on the 2009 report and we will love it right from the start!