Different proprietary databases have been used extensively in research to assess the environmental performance and environmental risk of companies. This study explores the convergent validity of the environmental ratings of MSCI ESG STATS, Thomson Reuters ASSET4 and Global Engagement Services. The study shows that the ratings have common dimensions, but on aggregate, they do not converge. On the environmental opportunity side, KLD environmental strengths, and ASSET4 and GES environmental performance metrics correlate highly and provide convergent scores for US companies from (...) 2003–2011. On the environmental risk side, KLD environmental concerns converge with the GES environmental industry risk and company emissions from the ASSET4 database. Further analysis confirms that industry-related risks are drivers of company-specific environmental performance. (shrink)

Shakespeare's romantic comedies, interpreted in the light of doctrinal material familiar to Shakespeare and his contemporaries, reveal Shakespeare's close and consistent affinity with St. Paul.

Chinese medicine (CM) is one ofseveral ancient systems of medical care basedupon a different worldview than the prevailingbiomedical model; it employs its own language,systems of logic, and criteria forunderstanding health and diagnosing illness.Medicinal herbs play a central role in the CMsystem of practice and knowledgeable CMpractitioners have extensive clinicalexperience using them. However, the establishedscientific and regulatory organizations thatrely upon biomedical understandings ofpathology do not accept the definitions formedicinal herb quality used by CMpractitioners. Furthermore, local medicinalherb growers within the upper Midwest (...) are in aposition to grow many herbs, but are unclearabout the demand for and desired qualities ofthe medicinal herbs they produce. Given thissituation, the Medicinal Herb Network wasfounded as a partnership effort of small-scalemedicinal herb growers and practitioners of CMto develop more appropriate standards ofmedicinal herb quality and to encourage locallygrown, high quality medicinal herbs consistentwith these standards. An overview of CM servesas grounding from which to articulate thedilemmas experienced by CM practitioners ofperceiving medicinal herb quality andintegrating knowledge across divergent medicalsystems. A Network initiative designed toovercome these dilemmas illustrates thepossibility of developing a lexicon of qualitydescriptors for medicinal herbs using Chinesemedical theory, while drawing from descriptivesensory analysis procedures currently practicedby a sub-group of food scientists. (shrink)