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The results are not always what you would expect, and are dependent on a good image set from Flickr, but The Color Of is addictive and mesmerizing. Just try it.

Photo from Imprint: Daily Heller

Simplicity is never a goal; it is a by-product of a good idea and modest expectations.

Paul Rand, From Lascaux to Brooklyn

Direct downloads here and here.

The researchers set out to determine if mandatory sustainability reporting (CSR) actually causes companies to make socially responsible improvements, or if it’s just another PR exercise. Here’s what they found:

The researchers show that mandatory sustainability reporting effectively promotes socially responsible managerial practices. Overall, supervision of managers by boards of directors improves, bribery and corruption decreases, and credibility of managers in society increases. In companies where sustainability reporting is a requirement, employee training becomes a higher priority, and corporate boards supervise management more effectively. These positive results are more pronounced in countries that have stronger law enforcement, countries where assurance of sustainability data is more frequent, and countries that are generally more developed.

Researchers Serafeim and Ioannou compared countries that require sustainability reporting with a sample of countries that don’t. They then looked at a number of measures of CSR, including “social responsibility of business leaders, sustainable development, employee training, efficiency of corporate boards, ethical practices, and avoidance of bribery and corruption”. Next they performed a time-series analysis to try to correct for variance in one country to the next (e.g. the possibility that countries which require CSR reporting are just inherently more conscientious about social issues). Upon analysis, they found that indeed countries requiring CSR reporting improve on the aforementioned categories significantly.

We’ve long talked about the importance of transparency, honesty, and that advertising must be coherent with reality. It’s encouraging to know that when a brand or company publishes a CSR report, it’s not just greenwashing, it actually works.

Pink Tentacle has posted an excellent collection of Japanese political posters from the last five decades of the 20th century. Here are a few of my favorites.

Poster for exhibit in support of Vietnamese women and children (Makoto Wada, 1968)

Anti-pollution poster (Kenji Ito, 1973)

Hiroshima Appeals (Yusaku Kamekura, 1983)

Goodbye whale (Mamoru Suzuki, 1994)

See more here.

Detail of infographic by GOOD and Column Five Media

According to the United Nations, unsanitary water kills more people worldwide than war. As the precious water supply dwindles, it may prove to be more than just a crisis for developing countries.

More images and a good interview at Dazed Digital.