Porritt and Cheshire join ICRS as honorary fellows

Sir Ian Cheshire and Jonathon Porritt are among the first network of honorary fellows to join the UK's first professional body for people working in sustainability.


Former Kingfisher boss Cheshire and Forum for the Future founder Jonathon Porritt are two of six new fellows of the Institute of Corporate Responsibility and Sustainability (ICRS), which was established last year.

The other fellows include Institute of Business Ethics director Philippa Foster Back; Cranfield University’s professor David Grayson; 30 Percent Club founder Helena Morrissey; and vice-president of Business in the Community Dame Julia Cleverdon.

‘Powerful advocates’

ICRS chair Claudine Blamey said: “In appointing our first honorary Fellows, we wanted to recognise those who have had a transformative impact on business and wider society while also demonstrating a genuine commitment to the development of the profession.

“Those who are being honoured have played a leading role in implementing one or more of the Institute’s Guiding Principles. As such, they are more than worthy recipients and will act as powerful advocates and ambassadors for the Institute in the years ahead.”

With more than 4,000 CR and sustainability professionals in the UK, along with 25,000 people with a significant work-related interest in this area, the ICRS was launched to allow best practice to be shared among these people that guide and advise business leaders as they grapple with issues related to their ethical, environmental and social impact. 

Membership to the ICRS is open to everyone working in corporate responsibility and sustainability who meets the membership criteria, with affiliate membership open to anyone with an interest in the sector. Late last year, the ICSR announced it would be further widening its focus to incorporate groups of individuals who are leading change within UK organisations.

‘Force for good’

Speaking of the new fellowships, Cheshire – who now chairs the Prince of Wales’ Corporate Leaders Group on Climate Change – said: “I am very honoured to receive the honorary fellowship of the ICRS, and thoroughly support the impact it is seeking to have on business and wider society.  

“Business should be a positive force for good while still creating the economic value and jobs we rely on. The ICRS highlights how business can effectively do both and in a practical realistic way, not as some sort of marginal lip service.”

Porritt added: “The real challenge, as the Institute well understands, is to get this critically important notion of corporate sustainability out beyond ‘the usual suspects’ and into the warp and weft of the UK business community in general.”

In addition to welcoming the six honorary Fellows, the Institute also announced that applications for fellowship will be opened to all existing ICRS Members from mid-October.

ICRS chair Claudine Blamey is one of the expert judges of edie’s Sustainability Leaders Awards 2015.

Luke Nicholls

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