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More than money: Building social capital

Deutsche Bank enhances its Corporate Social Responsibility programme / Management Board Chairman Josef Ackermann: "Social responsibility must be part and parcel of the way we do business."

"We do not consider our corporate social responsibility programme to be charity with our shareholder's money," said the bank's chief executive Ackermann, "but rather as an investment in our own future, as well as in the future of society. As a responsible corporate citizen, we want to create social capital to form a basis on which private capital can also flourish better.

Tuning innovation policy to the characteristics of industries Innovation policy tools fit more or less the needs of industries. We try to understand which kind of industry is more impacted by which tool, therefore allowing a better tuning of the policy mix to suit the characteristics of targeted industries and the national priorities. Management of innovation We would like to contribute to fill the gap between the needs of companies wanting to improve the efficiency of their innovation system and academic research where most teams pursue a deep understanding of very focused issues. We organize (together with colleagues of Ecole polytechnique and universities of Paris) many workshops where professionals and scholars meet to discuss real practices. We focus on organizing ‘open innovation’ relying on building networks in order to combine and integrate the best technologies or to realize the potential of a technology, on a better understanding the behavior, expectations and latent needs of users, on the design of new business models.

Indeed, Songdo IBD was recently named a winner of the first annual Sustainable Cities Award from the Urban Land Institute, the only project in Asia so honored. The Sustainable Cities Award honors global examples of sustainable land use that have demonstrated financial viability, a capacity to inspire and an ability to be replicated. With more than 120 buildings registered for LEED certification, Songdo IBD also is one of the world's most ambitious LEED developments. Songdo IBD's extensive use of green materials, systems and planning principles includes such innovations as the following, which are being detailed this week for the first time: -- Water-cooled central air conditioning units were developed by Carrier and LG specifically for Songdo IBD, the first time such systems will be used in Korea. These custom-engineered units will provide a 20% energy savings over industry standard air-cooled units and will now be marketed

the government announced its "Green New Deal" project on Jan. 6.

The "Green New Deal" is an ambitious project designed to create 960,000 jobs by investing 50 trillion won ($36.4 billion) over the next four years

The Korean government has taken the position that this crisis is an opportunity to advance eco-friendly economics; by pumping investment into "green technologies," we will be both helping the economy and setting the stage for future economic growth.

Many of the changes have gone deep. After the crisis, foreign investors were welcomed, and now around half of the shares of Samsung Electronics and LGE are foreign-owned.

In practice the new rules were hardly draconian.

Moreover, no South Korean government appears able to resist the temptation to use the chaebol for policy ends.

The facilities are expected to attract high-calibre international scientists, and have already succeeded in securing US researcher Professor Simon Pimblott as the centre's director.