Jim Brumm: Long-Term Thinking for a Short-Sighted World

What would the world look like if we didn't have courageous entrepreneurs, risk-takers, visionaries, believers and success-seekers? Most companies wouldn't be here. Development would have been slow, life expectancy still low, etc. Not so with entrepreneurs, who identify an unsolved problem, or an unmet need or want, which they then proceed to satisfy. In the process, they transform the existing status quo into a future opportunity and turn ideas into a commercial reality.

Hardly surprising, thus, that in a world with more and more environmental problems, ecopreneurship is gaining ground. Environmental problems they seek to solve, with the potential to be a major force in the overall transition to a more sustainable business  paradigm. Or so argues Michael Schaper, Adjunct Professor at Western Australia's Curtin University's Business School, in the second edition of his book called Making Ecopreneurs (Gower Publishing, 342 pages).

For Schaper it is evident that "In a market-based economy, entrepreneurs play a critical role in the eventual adoption of green business practices by the wider business community, because of the leading role which they provide to other firms. In many market-based economies, entrepreneurs are often lauded as exemplars and heroes: their success helps give guidance and motivation to other practising and aspiring businesspeople. By demonstrating the economic benefits which come from being greener, ecopreneurs act as a ‘pull’ factor that entices other firms to proactively go green, as opposed to the ‘push’ factors of government regulation, risk minimization factors and stakeholder or lobby group pressure."

The first edition of 'Making Ecopreneurs: Developing Sustainable Entrepreneurship' looked at the emergence of 'ecopreneurs'  - environmental entrepreneurs gaining competitive advantage for their firms through understanding and utilising green issues. These green entrepreneurs have led the way in enabling market forces to generate economic growth whilst protecting the environment and encouraging sustainability.

This new edition continues the examination of what distinguishes these green entrepreneurs from others. It draws on a diverse range of case studies embracing examples of both successful and unsuccessful ecopreneurial ventures on at least four continents. Contributions have been updated and a number of entirely new chapters describe sustainable business projects in places ranging from the USA, India, Western Europe, UK, Australia, central America and New Zealand.

Making Ecopreneurs, second edition, charts recent developments and remains highly relevant to researchers in the fields of sustainable business development and entrepreneurship, to policymakers within governments and NGOs, and to those running businesses.

'...Must reading for researchers, educators, students, policy makers, and practitioners.  Global in scope, it has the ability to speak directly to you about the world of sustainability, entrepreneurship, and business across timeless text and compelling cases.  Professor Schaper has assembled an outstanding array of chapter authors writing on topics that are both timely and informative.  Whether you read it cover to cover or jump around from chapter to chapter, my bet is you will want to read more.' -

Charles H. Matthews, PhD, Distinguished Teaching Professor, University of Cincinnati, Past President, International Council for Small Business (ICSB).businesses.

Find out more about the book Making Ecopreneurs by Michael Schaper and Gower's Corporate Social Responsibility Series.

By Florian

Journalist and Blogger on sustainability, CSR and climate change

Picture credit: Book cover, Gower Publishing

This is the final excerpt from a series of interviews I conducted with four MBA candidates (see footnote for biographical information) who graduated—or expect to soon—with a focus on corporate social responsibility (CSR). In this portion, the graduates discuss their internship experiences and the dilemmas of conducting a job search in corporate responsibility.

For Ashley Jablow, the traditional MBA summer internship search was only the beginning of a long road ahead. "I had a lot of trouble looking for an internship because I wanted to get a CSR internship, but didn't have any relevant experience. I didn't get any bites when I was applying for jobs that said 'CSR intern' in the title," she said. Eventually, she settled for building on her fundraising experience by working in corporate communications with a large consumer goods agricultural co-op that considers community a part of its DNA.

Geetanjali Singh, on the other hand, wanted to do an internship with a nonprofit to complement her corporate experience. Her internship search also had a unique catch: She wanted to do an internship in India. And it worked out: she spent her summer in India interning with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). For Singh, working for an organization with UNDP's global scale resulted in some key realizations:

"What it taught me first and foremost was how unsuitable I was for the nonprofit world. Even though UNDP is a global nonprofit, the mentality, the attitude and the way work is conducted is very different from a corporate setting. This was when I decided to connect my passion for working with grassroots and inclination toward a corporate setting by focusing on CSR."

And finally, we got to the elephant in the room: where are the jobs? Whit Tice is the only one of the four who is currently employed. But even that development is recent: at the time of our chat earlier this year, Tice was still looking for work, and had been in the job market for over a year, using freelance consulting work to tide him over. At the time, he confessed that if it came to a choice between need and ideal, then employment was far more important than finding the right fit. He also admitted that many of the advertised job titles smacked of little more than green washing.

"While there's the challenge of 'I need to find a job' there's also the added challenge of finding the perfect fit of a job. Add the current economic climate and you get companies that have pushed their CSR and sustainability efforts much lower on the priority list, with almost no job openings in the field. Thus, on several different fronts, that ideal job is hard to find." Tice now works with Logic 20/20 as a change management senior consultant (see footnote).

For Jablow and Singh, graduation merriment is still in the air and their job searches are in their infancy. Singh also realizes that she is stuck amidst a key disconnect in the job market: While some companies are reactively ramping up their CSR initiatives, they are tending to hire externally only for senior level positions. The mid- and entry-level positions in these new CSR-focused teams, however, are being filled internally. This has created a framework that is restricting business school graduates who may be equipped with a deeper understanding of the issues than the internal employee base, but lack the "industry experience" to apply for the few available senior-level jobs.

"If you look on Simply Hired, Indeed or any other job site, anybody who is recruiting for CSR is only just catching on to the trend. So they’re recruiting directors and vice presidents and promoting others from corporate communications, public relations, and HR internally into CSR," observed Singh. For recent graduates like she and Jablow, this instantly reduces the value of their qualifications as a bridge to new industries.

As they're both finding out, getting hired into a different role that builds on their traditional experience might be the only way forward, as long as the company has a strong focus on corporate responsibility. For Jablow, who is very active in social media and regularly blogs on CSR on The Changebase, this is déjà vu. "I did numerous informational interviews over the last couple of years with CSR leaders at different companies, and their advice was always to go get functional business experience. Go work in marketing, finance, or strategy, and from there, after two or five or 10 years, create internal change and move into a CSR role internally within the company," she said. Today, she continues to run into the same advice.

Larry Furman, who is set to graduate as a founding member of Marlboro's MBA program this December, has a different mindset about the job market's offerings in CSR. "I don't know if it's tougher to find a job in corporate responsibility—it might be easier—I expect the companies that are built around CSR are healthier than their competitors and have more opportunities. Besides, I only want to work at a place in which I will thrive, so even if it’s tougher, why find a job only to work toward finding another one?"

If there is one thing all of the interviewees agreed on, it's the importance of networking and personal branding. Jablow and Tice have maintained regularly updated blogs for more than a year, where they discuss their http://blog.seattlepi.com/organizationalstrategist/" target="_blank">professional and educational experiences, always connecting change management with their respective audiences and focus.

As Tice put it, "You may not be able to get a sustainable consultant job, but it may become a facet of your job once you do some other great work. It’s just like any strategy: don’t give up and find a way to be sustainable yourself. Pull upon all of your resources and capabilities to make it happen and it will be that much more likely to happen. It may not be the right time—this year, this month—but it will be at some point in time."

Job Hunting in CSR, Part 2: Connecting Corporate Responsibility with Career Objectives

Job Hunting in CSR, Part 1: Will the Recession Serve as a Tipping Point for Corporate Responsibility?

Job Hunting in CSR: What's Next for These MBA Graduates?

And finally the blog that motivated this series: Does CSR Matter in Your Job Search?

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Ashley Jablow graduated from Boston University's School of Management with an MBA in CSR Marketing, Communications and Strategy in May, 2010. She is actively engaged in discussing CSR through Twitter and her blog, The Changebase. Currently, she is looking for a fulltime job in corporate responsibility in the San Francisco area.

Geetanjali 'Geet' Singh graduated in June 2010 from University of California-Irvine's Paul Merage School of Business with a concentration on CSR, general management and strategy. Formerly from Mumbai, India, Singh is currently looking for a corporate responsibility job in Orange County, California and hopes that Silicon Valley will wake up to the business value in CSR. Connect with her on Twitter.

Whit Tice graduated with an MBA from Case Western's Weatherhead School of Management in 2008 and decided to back it up with a Master's in Positive Organizational Development and Change, also from Case Western, which he completed in 2009. Whit is currently with consulting firm Logic 20/20, where he is a Change Management Senior Consultant, and continues to discuss systems thinking and organizational development through his blog, The Organizational Strategist.

Larry Furman is a Sustainability Consultant and currently pursuing an MBA in managing for sustainability from Marlboro College. He is a member of the program's first graduating class and is looking forward to combining his experience in IT with his passion for sustainable energy and green solutions.

Picture Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/simonhua/4365425560/

How much does CSR matter in a job search? What if your job search is built around corporate responsibility, especially in the current economy? Can you afford to choose between employers based on their commitment to sustainability, transparency and ethical accountability? To find out, I turned to four job seekers, all of whom either graduated from MBA programs in the last two years or are scheduled to do so later this year. The common thread besides business school is their interest in corporate responsibility and change management.

This is the second excerpt from a series of interviews I conducted with four MBA candidates who graduated—or expect to soon—with a focus on corporate social responsibility (CSR). Vault's CSR blog: In Good Company> In this portion, the graduates discuss their myriad backgrounds, and how they came to focus on CSR as a career choice.

None of the graduates started business school with CSR in mind: Ashley Jablow's* background is in nonprofit fundraising; Geetanjali Singh worked in technical training and communication; Whit Tice specialized in project management and quality testing; Larry Furman spent almost three decades in IT and database administration.

For each of the four, the motivation for attending business school stemmed from a recognition that they needed to expand their skill sets. But what prioritized their focus toward CSR was the realization that its core principles were the necessary bridge between civic and corporate good. As Jablow put it, "My initial thoughts were in the direction of corporate philanthropy. It was really through all the core classes and business training I realized that CSR is an incredible opportunity for there to be alignment between business, community and environmental goals—that there really are opportunities to create those win-wins, where a business can be about making money and be a good corporate citizen."

2008's spectacular collapse of revered Wall Street institutions like Lehman Brothers helped underscore their interest. Both Singh and Jablow noticed that conversations inside and outside the classroom were increasingly veering toward questions of ethical mismanagement, risky and unsustainable behavior, and short-term decision making, often leading to lengthy debates on responsible business practices. Many times, these extended to self-doubt and asking themselves what this meant for their personal career objectives. As they watched the financial industry get drastically reshaped, students like Tice refocused their career trajectory to align with personal priorities.

For Geet Singh, the transition from mere interest in CSR to core career focus was enhanced by the essay-writing pre-admission process. Much like Jablow, for Singh it made the perfect link between corporate and social. "My work with Cisco had allowed me some insight into their exemplary corporate responsibility initiatives and I decided to talk about social entrepreneurship in my essays. My niche became helping companies do CSR as well as helping the community who needs it the most and becoming that link between corporate and social."

Tice, with a few more years of work experience under his belt than Jablow and Singh, connects corporate responsibility with his penchant for systems thinking. He explained: "While you may understand the three Ps, it's what happens next that is important. This comes about by taking different facets of organizational life and applying a wider range of thinking that goes beyond questioning 'Should I use paper cups instead of Styrofoam cups because that's bad for the environment?' to 'Are we going to create more waste with these paper cups? Will the transportation costs and emissions that the paper cups require to get here actually be more waste or harm to the environment than, say, using the Styrofoam cups?'"

In the end, he said, it's simply about a shift from simple thinking to complex and long-term thinking because of a realization that the tradeoffs are not usually simple and transparent.

Next: Dilemmas of finding first an internship, and then a fulltime job in CSR

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*Ashley Jablow graduated from Boston University's School of Management with an MBA in CSR Marketing, Communications and Strategy in May, 2010. She is actively engaged in discussing CSR through Twitter and her blog, The Changebase. Currently, she is looking for a fulltime job in corporate responsibility in the San Francisco area.

Geetanjali 'Geet' Singh graduated in June 2010 from University of California-Irvine's Paul Merage School of Business with a concentration on CSR, general management and strategy. Formerly from Mumbai, India, Singh is currently looking for a corporate responsibility job in Orange County, California and hopes that Silicon Valley will wake up to the business value in CSR. Connect with her on Twitter.

Whit Tice graduated with an MBA from Case Western's Weatherhead School of Management in 2008 and decided to back it up with a Master's in Positive Organizational Development and Change, also from Case Western, which he completed in 2009. Whit is currently with consulting firm Logic 20/20, where he is a Change Management Senior Consultant, and continues to discuss systems thinking and organizational development through his blog, The Organizational Strategist.

Larry Furman is a Sustainability Consultant and currently pursuing an MBA in managing for sustainability from Marlboro College. He is a member of the program's first graduating class and is looking forward to combining his experience in IT with his passion for sustainable energy and green solutions.

By Aman Singh Das
Editor, Corporate Responsibility,
vault.com

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Note from SustainabilityForum.com:

Please also visit our Job and internship forum here on the website for the latest vacancies: http://www.sustainabilityforum.com/forum/job-offers-internships

Picture Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/booleansplit/3887516326/

Have you ever heard about Felix Finkbeiner? Chances are you have, as this 12 year old boy, together with his friends, is shaking up global climate politics. Stop talking, start planting is the slogan under which children from all around the world learn about climate change and what they can do against it. "We children don't understand why the adults wouldn't make sure that our future is as bright as theirs", Felix said in a recent TV interview with German ZDF. Asked about climate skepticism his answer is just as convincing: "If we follow the scientists and fight against the causes of climate change now then chances are that, if those scientists prove wrong in 40 years time, we won't have done too much wrong. However, if we follow the climate skeptics, then we'll have huge problems should they prove wrong in 40 years time".

Felix's goal to plant one million trees in each country of the world is going on well and has already been beaten in Germany, where a congregation of 45 environmental ministers joined him last month to plant the 1.000.000th tree and to congratulate those extraordinary kids for their achievements. Nevertheless, the young friends know that planting trees won't solve the climate issue. To add authority to their call, their Plant-for-the-Planet Foundation wrote letters to 160 government leaders around the world, delivered by kids to the respective embassies in Berlin. Among the recipients are Chinese prime minister Wen Jiabao and US president Barak Obama, who will have been rubbing their eyes after reading the following:

Do you have plans to save our future?

Dear President Obama,

After the shocking results of Copenhagen we children want to avoid the same to happen in Cancún. Therefore we children made a global consultation, stating how we would solve the problems if we were the Heads of Governments. We identified a three point program:

1. We have to bring carbon into the museum and go down to zero CO2-emission until 2050

2. We have a limited amount of carbon dioxide left that we can exhaust within the next 40 years. This is 600 billion tons of CO2. We have to accept this, if we don't want to wreck our future and go over the 2° C as you promised. 600 divided by 40 is 15 billion tons of CO2 per year. Now we have to decide how we will distribute this among the worlds population. For us children there is only one answer. Everybody gets the same and that would be 1.5 tons CO2 per person per year. We call this Climate Justice. Who wants more, pays. With Climate Justice we can also bring poverty into the museum.

3. Let's plant 500 billion trees! These trees will absorb additional 5 billion tons of CO2 every year. 500 billion trees sounds like a huge amount, but it is possible as the Chinese planted 2.7 billion trees as contribution to the UNEP-Billion Tree Campaign in 2009. If everybody plants as many trees as he or she is old in years, then we will also reach the 500 billion trees.

Read the whole letter

How it all started

The initiative Plant-for-the-Planet was founded in 2007 and originated from a school report about the climate-crisis held by Felix Finkbeiner, who at this time was nine years old. In the framework of his research he learned about the female Kenyan environmentalist and Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Wangari Maathai who planted 30 million trees over 30 years. Felix created a vision at the end of his presentation: children in each country of the world could plant a million trees within their country.

At the initiative of his
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teacher and school principal Felix also held his presentation at other schools. Only a couple of weeks later children planted the first tree and Klaus Töpfer, the former German secretary of the environment and former UNEP-chairman (Unite Nations Environment Programme), becomes the patron of this initiative.

Half a year later, Felix promised the current UNEP chairman that children in each country of the world are going to plant one million trees in their country. A single tree takes 10 kg of CO2 out of the air each year and during his lifetime a total of about 3 t of CO2 .

Book: „Tree by Tree – Now we Children Save the World”

In this book, published on May 3rd 2010 by oekom in German, Felix and his friends show, how they successfully stand up for a worth living future for their and the following generations on this planet. The English pdf-version is available on the website.

Their credo: "Why don´t we finally do what the climate scientist keep telling us? If we find out in 40 years from now that it turned out to be less terrible, we have done nothing wrong. But if we do not act now and we will find out by the age of 50 that the climate change skeptics were wrong it will be too late”.

More info at http://plant-for-the-planet.org/

By Florian

Journalist and blogger on sustainability, csr and climate change

http://blog.floriankaefer.com

Picture credit: Plant-for-the-Planet

"Finally an internship program that gets corporate sustainability!" That was my reaction back in May, when I heard about the Environmental Defense Fund's (EDF)Climate Corps internship, which focuses on sustainability.

This week, the Climate Corps class of 2010 completed the first three weeks of their internships. This internship program is unique because it allows companies an opportunity to begin their sustainability journey by focusing on easier-to-measure energy efficiency initiatives. Like one of the fellows pointed out, you cannot manage what you don’t measure.

Fifty-one MBA students made the cut this year and were placed with a diverse group of companies, including consumer products giants PepsiCo and P&G , financial services providers Bank of America, media companies Bloomberg and News Corp, internet giant eBay and technology company Cisco, among others. Several shared their progress, challenges and lessons with Vault through our CSR blog, In Good Company. Their perspectives illustrate not only the challenge ahead for companies as they begin redefining work culture and entire operations toward a sustainable reality, but also the progress many continue to make despite a quiet economy and fewer resources.

Jay Stone, an MBA candidate at New York University's Stern School of Business is interning with News Corp this summer. His initial observations speak to the status quo at many global companies.

1) Lighting: “Is this thing on?” – Yes it is. The entire building is...ON. And quite bright! One thing I'm beginning to love, however, is things can happen quickly here if you want them to. By the end of my first week, I had scheduled a building walk through with a lighting retrofit company. We will meet next week to discuss the replacement of all the old light bulbs with HQEE (high quality, energy efficient) bulbs. The initial estimated cost of this project falls around $240,000. Government incentives will take care of 50 percent of the total, bringing the investment down to $120,000. Based on the number of bulbs in the building (over 700), that would make for annual energy savings of $116,000, giving this project a payback period of just one year.

2) HVAC: I think the estranged Dr. Evil put it best when he said, "It's frickin' freezing in here, Mr. Bigglesworth" The building is extremely cold, which is probably costing a pretty penny in a New York City summer. I've spoken with the HVAC foreman about increasing some of the temperatures so that the plant isn't so cold, especially when people are not at work. Turning each A/C unit up just one degree in a building this size could have a monumental effect on the building's energy consumption and result in some dramatic cost savings.

Megan Rast is pursuing her MBA at University of California, Berkeley's Haas School of Business and currently interning with eBay. The first couple of weeks for Rast highlighted the challenge of defining a business case for energy efficiency and carbon reduction initiatives. Her big question: Does the Software Side of Energy Efficiency Signal the Next Wave of Startups? After attending an event hosted by MIT/Stanford Venture Lab, she observes:

"Unlike other investments towards a clean energy economy, energy efficiency is ready for mass commercialization as the least expensive and the most readily scalable solution, according to an expert report released by the United Nations Foundation. After attending the EDF Climate Corps training in San Francisco last month, I was already quite familiar with the opportunities of energy efficiency. I attended last week’s event expecting to gain a broader perspective of the space, but I could not have imagined the sheer energy (pardon my pun) circulating the event – the promise of energy efficiency was downright tangible."

Stuart DeCew is a joint degree MBA/MEM candidate at Yale School of Management and Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies. He is working with Citizens Bank in New York this summer and has had quite an experience already, realizing that--despite the bank's championing of sustainability--there is always more that can be done.

"One of the first conversations I had at RBS/Citizens was with the head building engineer at the facility in Stamford. He had been designing and making the business case for implementing efficiency projects for over a decade. A quick cup of coffee with him made two things very clear: 1) Evena LEED gold certified building has room to improve; and 2) I will have no shortage of work this summer."

DeCew had another tip to offer: Attach numbers to your hard work and it instantly becomes a stronger case. "Simply put, better data on an investment means a stronger case. With these numbers, RBS/Citizens will have the necessary information to determine exactly how future capital expenditures could reduce the operating expenses of a building and give the company a competitive advantage."

And finally we heard from Peter Petropoulos, an MBA candidate with the University of Chicago's Booth School of Business, who is interning with PepsiCo. Like DeCew, Petropoulos' challenge has been building on an already-impressive bucket of sustainability initiatives.

"I've spent the last two weeks at one of PepsiCo's facilities in Dallas where my charge for the summer has been a mouthful to say the least. I've been asked to identify the minimum standards for LEED certification, perform a gap analysis between the facility and certification, and develop a project road map including costs and ROI. There is no doubt that PepsiCo is a sustainability leader in the corporate world. Walking into PepsiCo for the first time and realizing that its LEED Gold certified headquarters is just up the street from my project was a bit intimidating for a student searching for environmental opportunities. Luckily, I realized early on that the company's internal experts would be some of my most important resources."

Read their complete posts on Vault's CSR blog: In Good Company. And don't forget to weigh in by leaving a comment or connecting on Twitter @VaultCSR!

Picture Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ijames/112866961/

Not least due to the economic crisis, tougher regulations and increasing consumer awareness, more and more corporations are undertaking serious efforts to minimize risks (also reputational ones) and to make their operations and supply chain more sustainable. Agreed, many initiatives are close to the very thin line between serious effort and misleading greenwash. Sometimes, however, business thinkers come up with good and smart ideas how to protect ressources, minimize their negative environmental and social impact and at the same time save money.

With its global environmental plan, "Road to Zero", Tokyo based Sony Corporation has put itself at the forefront in the electronics and consumer goods industry. Reason enough to outline some of the strategy's main points below.

According to Sony, its "Road to Zero" plan is all about achieving a zero environmental footprint by 2050. For this, it uses backcasting methods to set specific mid-term environmental targets for the next five years in line with that goal. Having said that, Sony’s definition of zero environmental footprint is not only limited to the neutralization of carbon emissions, but also extends to waste and use of finite materials, such as oil-derived virgin plastics.

Targets are based on four environmental perspectives – climate change, resource conservation, control of chemical substances and biodiversity – across all product lifecycle stages, from research and development to recycling. The mid-term targets will be implemented globally across the Sony Group beginning in fiscal year 2011 (April 2011), and will extend through the end of fiscal year 2015 (March 2016), at which time new targets for the following 5 years will be set.

Specific mid-term targets include:

• 30% reduction in annual energy consumption of products (compared to fiscal 2008)
• 10% reduction in product mass (compared to fiscal 2008)
• 50% absolute reduction in waste generation (compared to fiscal 2000)
• 30% absolute reduction in water consumption (compared to fiscal 2000)
• 14% reduction in total CO2 emissions associated with all transportation and logistics (compared to fiscal 2008)
• 16% reduction in incoming parts packaging waste (compared to fiscal 2008)
• Increase of waste recycle ratio to 99% or more
• 5% reduction in utilization ratio of virgin oil-based plastics in products (compared to fiscal 2008)
• Assessment of impact of resource procurement and facility construction on biodiversity, and promotion of biodiversity programs such as groundwater cultivation
• Minimization of the risk of chemical substances through preventive measures

To make sure that those targets are met, Sony has partnered with the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), which reviewed and approved the company's targets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and power consumption per product. Sony has been a member of the WWF Climate Savers Programme since 2006. The Programme was organized by WWF International to mobilize companies to cut greenhouse gas emissions.

And, according to Sony, it has already made significant progress in reducing its environmental impact around the world. Its European sites, for example, have reduced their CO2 emissions from electricity use and facility heating by approximately 93% between fiscal years 2000 and 2009. Sony Europe is also a founding member of the ‘European Recycling Platform’ (ERP). Fully operational in 11 European countries, the ERP effectively manages end-of-life collection and recycling for all consumer electronics products. In 2008, approximately 60,000 tons of electronic waste were collected and recycled on behalf of Sony in 20 European countries.

We'll see how easy or difficult it will be for Sony to reach those targets. I'm surely not the only one who will critically follow its development and hope that other companies, such as Apple, will jump on the waggon, making sustainability the underlying principle of anything they do.

Read more about Sony’s "Road to Zero". (Critical) comments welcome below.

By Florian

Journalist and Blogger on sustainability, CSR and climate change

Picture credit: Ian Muttoo

On my way home from the EDF Climate Corps training in May, I found myself just trying to grasp the sheer capacity of the network I had just joined.

This year, EDF Climate Corps has sent 51 MBA students from top business schools, to leading companies across the country where they are spending their summer finding ways to improve business practices through energy efficiency solutions. In the heat of the moment, I wrote soon after about my experience at the training and my anticipation for the summer as an EDF Climate Corps fellow at PepsiCo.

That moment seems like history now.

I've spent the last two weeks at one of PepsiCo's facilities in Dallas where my charge for the summer has been a mouthful to say the least. I've been asked to identify the minimum standards for LEED certification, perform a gap analysis between the facility and certification, and develop a project roadmap including costs and ROI.

There is no doubt that PepsiCo is a sustainability leader in the corporate world. Walking into PepsiCo for the first time and realizing that its LEED Gold certified headquarters is just up the street from my project was a bit intimidating for a student searching for enviro
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nmental opportunities.

Luckily, I realized early on that the company's internal experts would be some of my most important resources.

I have been attending productive meetings with facilities managers, LEED APs and engineers—where they all presented ideas on how to best investigate our energy-saving opportunities.

I began by studying the five areas of LEED certification:

1) Sustainable design
2) Energy efficiency
3) Water use
4) Air quality
5) Material and resource policies

No one person is likely to be an expert in all these disciplines, as they naturally fall into different areas of responsibility across departments of the company. As a result, there is a real need for a uniting entity to create synergy between these areas. Again, we see the value add of the EDF Climate Corps program. Who better to break through these silos than a tireless MBA student from outside the company hierarchy?

When not in meetings, I go where any Chicago Booth MBA student would—to the numbers. I hunted down all the available utility bills and compiled data for the facility's electricity, natural gas and water usage. I then used the Energy Star website to compare this facility to others in the same class and climate. Many facility staff believed that the building was far from LEED energy standards. Using these numbers, my analysis debunked that myth. We now know exactly where the building ranks today and the level of improvement it needs to reach. After all, you can't manage what you don't measure.

My next steps are to assess the different areas of the LEED certification rating system and evaluate PepsiCo for any potential gaps that may exist. I also plan to obtain cost estimates for needed upgrades from vendors and add up the return on these investments.

I'm now hoping that at the end of the summer I will find a few other EDF Climate Corps fellows that would be willing to form a study group for the LEED AP exam. Any takers?

--By Peter Petropoulos, EDF Climate Corps fellow at PepsiCo, MBA candidate at Booth School of Business, University of Chicago, Member of Net Impact

; padding: 0px; margin: 0px;">This is the fourth post in a series of blogs that In Good Company will host this summer in collaboration with EDF, featuring fellows from their 2010 Climate Corps class, as they journey through their internships. With their posts, these interns will give us a rare lens into the behind-the-scenes operations at companies who are proactively discussing corporate sustainability, one conversation at a time. See below for other posts From The Intern Diaries.

The Intern Diary: Reporting From RBS/Citizens Financial Group on LEED & Energy Efficiency

The Intern Diary: Does the Software Side of Energy Efficiency Signal The Next Wave of Startups?

The Intern Diary: EDF Climate Corps Fellow Begins Search for Energy Savings at News Corp

Picture Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/myuibe/4782003252/

Not often but once in a while there is a "hurray" moment when reading the news. The Guardian made mine today reporting that "an experimental solar-powered plane landed safely after completing its first 24-hour test flight, proving that the aircraft can collect enough energy from the sun during the day to stay aloft all night."

And furhter: "The swiss-led project has now shown that the single-seat plane can theoretically stay in the air indefinitely, recharging its depleted batteries using 12,000 solar cells and nothing but the rays of the sun during the day." Despite this proof that emissions-free air travel is possible, the team "doesn't see solar technology replacing conventional jet propulsion any time soon. Instead, the project is designed to test and promote new energy-efficient technologies..."

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Opinion:

Why so timid about the future success of this huge business opportunity? Why not design a hybrid commercial aircraft or cover airplanes with solar cells by default? Judging from my enthusiams you might guess that I'm not an aircraft engineer. So, if you are one and have scientifically valid arguments, why not reply to this post and share with us your pros and cons regarding this new - and in my opinion very exciting - technology.

Picture credit: wikimedia commons, user flyout

There can be few more pathetic sights than BP CEO Tony Hayward squirming his way through a congressional hearing on the Gulf of Mexico disaster. What was most striking about Hayward’s performance was how far removed he was from the archetypal Captain of Industry we would expect to be leading such a huge corporation. He looked more like a student up in front of his Vice-Chancellor trying to explain a drunken prank gone wrong. And his earlier bleat that he “just wanted his life back” was reminiscent of a teenager moaning about being sent out to clear a blocked drain. BP is the fourth largest company in the world, we asked ourselves, how on earth did he end up in charge?

Six years ago, under ex-CEO Lord Browne, BP rebranded itself “Beyond Petroleum”. This was intended to signify a switch from the fossils fuels of the past to the low carbon technologies of the future. Initially they made some good noises – cutting emissions from their processes and investing in renewable energy. But they made a fundamental mistake - they didn’t give up their reliance on oil as their core business. The backlash from environmentalists and the media was ferocious and the phrase “Beyond Petroleum” is now used contemptuously as the classic example of greenwash.

Under Hayward many of the renewables investments have been quietly binned and BP continued business as usual. In the meantime a whole raft of BP executives, dubbed the “Beyond Petroleum Generation”, have jumped ship to join renewable energy start ups. Former Head of Refining Cynthia Warner said “it was better to create the key to the future than to nurse along the dying past.” Maybe this is what happened to BP’s talent pool – they lost the people with the gumption to realise that business as usual was not an option and who had the entrepreneurial nous and drive to make change happen. Leaders, in other words.

In most businesses “the environment” is an issue to be managed. Managers set up and run environmental management systems, they obediently commission environmental impact assessments for major projects, and they ask their staff to switch off their computers at night. As far as the managers are concerned, as long as the boxes are ticked, all is well.

We cannot manage our way to sustainability. Whichever sustainability target we choose – an 80% reduction in carbon emissions, a ten times improvement in how efficiently we use resources, or a wholesale switch to mimicking nature’s solar powered cycles of material – the change required is immense. Big change requires leadership, not management. And what most people fail to grasp is that leadership means not only starting doing good stuff, but stopping doing bad stuff.

There are a handful of business leaders showing how to do green properly. Ray Anderson, CEO of carpet tile giant Interface, has declared that the company will have a zero ecological footprint by 2020. The company has not only developed invested heavily in renewable energy, developed a raft of greener products and set up recovery schemes for old carpet to ‘close the loop’, they have also killed off many product lines which aren’t compatible with that totemic goal. Outgoing Chairman of Marks & Spencer, Sir Stuart Rose, put £200 million of commitment into the company’s Plan A sustainability programme. M&S have not just tinkered around the edges but have started building whole new supply chains for recycled yarn for their clothing. Tesco’s retiring CEO Sir Terry Leahy has made and kept a strong commitment to green up its act despite the recession. Along with other major retailers like WalMart and IKEA, Tesco is driving changes down through its supply chain.

It is this type of leadership we require to tackle the big three environmental pressures breathing down our necks – climate change, resource depletion (including peak oil) and plummeting biodiversity. Our political leaders made a show of leadership at Copenhagen in December, but their intentions fell short. Given the sheer economic power and reach of global corporations, there is a strong argument that business can deliver where politics has had lukewarm success.

True business leaders like Ray Anderson, Sir Stuart Rose and Sir Terry Leahy have shown the way. But the energy sector as a whole has dithered – not just BP, but Shell too, while ExxonMobil is barely out of denial. The renewables industry remains at the plucky little guy stage, striving for the elusive tipping point. Big Oil has the resources to accelerate the transformation, if only they had the will. So, will any of their Chief Executives show true leadership and step up to the mark? If they don’t, they could well end up not so much the fossil fuel industry, but the fossilised fuel industry.

Gareth Kane is the director of Terra Infirma Ltd and the author of The Three Secrets of Green Business. E-mail: gareth@terrainfirma.co.uk

Contact: Gareth Kane, 0191 265 7899, gareth@terrainfirma.co.uk

Picture Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/86624586@N00/11207971/

With 22.7 million staying and 96 day visitors per year (2008), South West England has every reason to pride itself the most popular tourist destination in the UK. But not only that, it is also one of the greenest, embracing sustainability and responsible tourism like no other tourist destination. What makes South West England - including the regions of Devon, Cornwall, Somerset and Whiltshire - so unique in terms of sustainability? This post aims to provide a quick introduction into the concept of sustainable tourism and what England's South West is doing to get policy into action.

Meeting the needs of the visitor, industry and community within environmental and social limits is how tourist destinations, such as South West England, interpret the sometimes rather nebulous concepts of sustainability and sustainable development. A challenging undertaking if one considers the multitude of stakeholders involved in tourism and their very specific needs and expectations. However, sustaining tourism within social and environmental limits is crucial for the region. 9 billion GBP visitor spend a year mean that up to 262.000 jobs exist thanks to tourism, with tourism counting for up to 22% of total employment in Cornwall alone. To secure this source of revenue and jobs, a sustainable approach towards tourism development is indispensable.

Towards 2015

Tourism planners in the South West were quick to realize the need for sustainable tourism and responded with a vision paper, Towards 2015, which emphasizes on sustainability and quality as the only way forward. The executive summary of this strategy paper also makes clear that a new strategic approach (as of 2005) of tourism will:

* protect the environment;
* improve the quality of life of local people;
* take advantage of the region’s existing strengths;
* create a long-term and sustainable industry.

Walk the talk

No strategy paper or vision document is worth the paper it is written on if implementation lacks behind or no action follows. So far, initiatives and (online) marketing messages suggest that policy implementation is going well in South West England. There, dozens of initiatives have emerged in the last few years, some of the most prominent being the Green Tourism Business Scheme and - not only inspring, but also very informative - websites, such as www.visitsouthwest.co.uk.

However, a new coalition government is leading Whitehall, which inevitably means new policies and priorities. No mentioning of sustainability or responsible tourism in the keynote speech of designated culture minister Jeremy Hunt, who instead prefers to focus on industry growth, the 2012 Olympics and forthcoming cuts in government spending.

Apart from that, there are some limitations regarding the sustainable development of England's South West. Being a predominantly rural area, poor public transport links can make it difficult to do without a car, especially when travelling with young kids. On the positive side, consumer awareness of sustainability issues and climate change is steadily increasing - not least due to extensive media reporting. In the end, it remains to be seen if Cornwall, Devon and co. will manage to keep their well intended pledges for a sustainable tourism future.

More info on sustainable tourism, or visit booking site www.responsibletravel.com

By Florian,

Journalist and Blogger on sustainability, csr and climate change
http://blog.floriankaefer.com

Picture credit: Neil Kennedy

We’re constantly informed that one of the major barriers to delivering a low carbon economy is the lack of skilled workers. You only have to read the Government’s (past and present) plans to de-carbonise the economy to understand that smart grids, electric vehicles and digital upgrades would suggest that we are going to need many, many more highly skilled people than we currently have. Who is going to design and build these new wind farms, nuclear power stations and carbon capture projects?

Having recently listened to James Smith, Chairman of Shell UK and current President of the Energy Institute speak, it isn't just engineers that are required. We’ll need economists, business development and marketing professionals. In fact all types of technical and professional engineers and managers will be sorely needed.

The obvious way to fill this future skills gap is to nurture recent graduates. So why is it then that these same graduates are treated with such disregard by our leading companies? Two years ago undergraduates working on good degree courses were feted by blue chip companies. Enticed to these events by the promise of a good dinner and generally given the correct impression that they have a bright future.

Oh, how things have changed. These same blue chip companies now have their pick of graduates. You’ll be lucky if you get a Big Mac. A recent graduate told me about his experience. He responded to an advert for graduate positions, carried out an online selection process, attended an interview, which was a pretty robust affair involving 4 to 5 separate discussions over a day. He was then invited back to make a presentation on a topic he’d been given. All pretty reasonable, but the surprising thing is that this graduate found out that the potential employer had not decided how many candidates he was going to employ - if any. So our candidate got from 300 applications down to the last 3 after weeks of effort and he was told they would be in touch.

An anxious wait ended with an e-mail blandly stating that he had been unsuccessful. A brief ‘thank you’ for participating and that's it. A follow-up e-mail asking for feedback why he had been unsuccessful was ignored. This is an oft repeated tale coming from graduates and is, not surprisingly, very demoralising for them.

But I think this kind of behaviour is incredibly short sighted of these companies. Not only will they lose their competitive edge by having a skills gap in the future, but these bright people, who now happen to be unwanted, will certainly become successful in the years to come. In all likelihood, they’ll be in positions of influence, with a long memory and a dim view of their uncaring treatment. With little or no effort the process of finding a the successful candidate out of many bright young things could be carried out more humanely. How difficult is it, for instance, to be courteous and to offer feedback on the process and how well the applicant did? Instead you get a Simon Cowell style contest that is every bit as brutal as the X Factor.

If you are considering employing someone you have a duty of care to all that apply. You need to be honest and upfront about how many you are likely to recruit, keep unsuccessful candidates informed and offer feedback. The Human Resource staff are supposed to be professional and surely they should adopt consistent, open processes that do not demean the participants.

Every country has a need for smart graduates for their low carbon economies. We are currently treating many with disdain.

Britain's got talent. It's time we started to recognise it and treat it with respect.

Picture Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/bensutherland/3066167162/

If businesses and other organizations are to meet the many and complex challenges of sustainable development, then they all, both public and private, need to embed sustainability considerations into their decision-making and reporting. However, the translation of this aspiration into effective action is often inhibited by the lack of systems and procedures that take sustainability into account.

Accounting for Sustainability, a recently published book (Earthscan, 2010, more info), offers practical insights that will help organizations to address these issues. The book sets out a number of tools and approaches that have been developed and applied by leading organizations to:

* Embed sustainability into decision-making, taking into account suppliers, customers and other stakeholders;
* Measure and link sustainability and financial performance;
* Integrate sustainability into 'mainstream' reporting, both to management and external stakeholders.

In-depth cases studies from Aviva, BT, the Environment Agency, EDF Energy, HSBC, Novo Nordisk, Sainsbury's and West Sussex County Council show in detail how accounting for sustainability works in practice in a wide range of organizational contexts.

'Most companies still don't have a clue about the full extent of their impacts on the environment - let alone the full monetized cost of those impacts. The eight case studies provide an invaluable starting point in terms of accounting more intelligently for those impacts.'

Jonathon Porritt, Founder Director, Forum for the Future

'A comprehensive and wide-ranging series of case studies that collectively make the business case for connected reporting, while providing a rich source of practical advice on how to make sustainability part of an organization's DNA.'

Lord Sharman of Redlynch OBE, Chairman, Aviva plc

If integrated accounting - or sustainability accounting in general - are new to you but fall into your area of responsibility, this book should be a useful start. Alternatively, for more information on accounting and sustainability, have a look at the following websites for starters:

- Accountability: http://www.accountability.org

- Centre for sustainability accounting: http://www.censa.org.uk

-The Accounting for Sustainability project http://www.accountingforsustainability.org

- Global Reporting Initiative: http://www.globalreporting.org/Home

Your experience wanted!

Are you responsible for accounting in your organization? If so, what's your experience related to sustainability and integrated accounting? Which are the pro's and con's? Share your thoughts, write a comment!

By Florian,

Journalist and blogger on sustainability, csr and climate change

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Picture credit: lrargerich

The United Nations Global Compact (UNGC) is currently hosting their Leadership Summit 2010 in New York City, aimed at highlighting a growing consensus on the criticality of sustainability for businesses. The two-day conference also formed the platform for showcasing the Global Compact CEO study, co-conducted with consulting firm Accenture, titled "A New Era of Sustainability: CEO reflections on progress to date, challenges ahead and the impact of the journey toward a sustainable economy."

Taking its cue from the survey results—which reported that 93% of surveyed CEOs emphasize and understand the critical importance of sustainability today—a key event yesterday on day one of the conference, was a panel discussing a global sustainability agenda for companies. Moderated by Bank of America Chairman Charles O. Holliday, Jr., the panel discussed sustainability from many aspects—corporate, civic as well as academic.

A key highlight of the panel was University of Notre Dame's Mendoza College of Business Dean Carolyn Woo, who brought up the need for the corporate world to embrace the Principles for Responsible Management Education (PRME). Developed in 2007 by an international group of 60 deans, university presidents and business school administrators, these six principles seek to lay the foundation for a global platform for responsible management education.

Acknowledging the increasing corporate consciousness toward sustainability, Dr. Woo chose to highlight the academic paradigm for business schools by putting forward three requests for companies. Besides resonating with students and informed professionals, these questions should serve as necessary pointers for companies as they expand their CSR initiatives and begin realizing that recruitment is an inescapable part of the equation:

1) Advocate for us: Stating that PRME had the potential to set forth a curriculum change at business schools toward building generations of conscious leaders and entrepreneurs, she asked companies for their support. "Send endorsement letters, reach out personally and endorse the principles for responsible management," she said.

2) Be explicit in your inquiry about CSR and sustainability issues in the curriculum: Hitting the core of the dilemma that continues to disconnect students and companies on corporate responsibility, Dr. Woo emphasized that clear messaging from companies and recruiters was essential to bridge this gap. "Be explicit in what you would like to see change in our curricula to ensure we continue to meet your recruitment needs and corporate responsibility, just like you ask your supply chain to adhere to set sustainability principles," she explained.

3) Show us by example: Best said in her words: "Lead us by your consistency, commitment and courage so that we can together diffuse skepticism toward sustainability. So that when you go into interviews, you can be very explicit in asking them questions and posing alternatives to see whether they live up to the ideals and values of your companies."

Finally, she concluded, companies must become learning partners. "We cannot learn on our own. Educational institutions need you to join us for internal training sessions, as research sites for developing new knowledge and skills sets," she said. Her final note, however, should resonate with all of us, regardless of our position in the corporate/educational hierarchy. "Most importantly, we need you to mentor and advise us. Reach out to business school leaders and university administrators and let's make this a dialogue," she asked.

Dr. Woo's challenging remarks were well-timed. It will soon be recruitment season with many graduating MBA candidates from 2009 and 2010 still in the job market for sustainable jobs. In the current paradox of a struggling economy and an ever-conscious generation of graduating classes, companies will be doing a major disservice to their own long-term success by not shifting their focus to corporate sustainability.

In Good Company debuted a little over a year ago with a broad focus in mind: To track how corporate responsibility and sustainability evolves at companies and explore how they along with academic institutions react to increasing demand for accountability and transparency in the marketplace. Along the way, we also hoped to analyze and throw some perspective on how all this plays out for graduating students, for mid-career professionals and the maturity of companies as corporate citizens. As a result, in the past months, we've asked many questions, hosted several polls, and reported on a multitude of surveys and analyses—each managing to address distinct aspects and stakeholders in the CSR discussion.

Yesterday, the United Nations Global Compact (UNGC) and consulting firm Accenture released findings of a survey, finally comprehensive enough in its scope that addresses every stakeholder in the market, i.e., employees, consumers, recruiters, executives, students, entrepreneurs, nonprofits as well as government regulators and advocates. The survey population: 766 CEOs from leading global companies (156 from North America) with the largest representation from the "Professional Service s" industry (18%) followed by consumer products at 14%.

Titled "A New Era of Sustainability: CEO reflections on progress to date, challenges ahead and the impact of the journey toward a sustainable economy," the survey focused on three key questions:

1) Sustainability is changing—how is your company addressing it?
2) Next step: Taking it from strategy to execution; and
3) What's ahead: Competing in an era of sustainability

The survey begins with a magnifying glass: How important are sustainability issues to the future success of your business? While a majority of the respondents stressed the importance of sustainability, an overwhelming 93% highlighted the criticality of sustainability issues going forward. Representing companies like Alcatel-Lucent, Diageo, GlaxoSmithKline, HSBC Holdings, National Grid, Unilever, Novartis, Goldman Sachs, PepsiCo and Timberland, the surveyed CEOs emphasize that the downturn counter-intuitively gave them the opportunity to really assess how their sustainability initiatives "deliver core business value like cost reduction and revenue growth." To break it down (see graph on left for a breakdown by industry),

--Economic downturn raised importance of sustainability as an issue for top management: 80%
--Company reduced investment in sustainability as a result of the downturn: 12%
--The downturn led company to align sustainability more closely with core business: 74%

So far, so good. With the importance of sustainability seemingly established, the survey next asks what really drives this new priortization at companies, i.e., What factors, have driven you, as a CEO, to take action on sustainability issues? I'll admit at the sake of naivety, that I had hoped for different answers—with that many CEOs emphasizing corporate sustainability as a priority for them, why wouldn’t one? While a resounding majority cite brand, trust and reputation as the No. 1 reason (72%), potential for revenue growth (44%) and personal motivation (42%) come in the second and third spots. And perhaps some reason for cheer: 31% cite employee engagement and recruitment as their main motivation.

While the survey goes deeper into the question of trust, asking CEOs how they perceive trust for their company as well as industry, it targets action plans next. And this is the section of the survey that exemplifies best how sustainability is moving from a discretionary choice to becoming a corporate priority. The report states:

The widespread perception of the increased importance of sustainability may reflect a new appreciation of the scale and complexity of global challenges facing business today. As issues of climate change and the natural environment, social development and global corporate governance become ever more pressing, CEOs are acutely conscious of the challenges ahead. These challenges have a direct impact on companies’ operations, but also demonstrate the role business must play in addressing the demands of the new century. As one emerging market CEO told us, “Sustainable development will be a basic guarantee for our company’s survival and growth.” It appears that action on sustainability issues has shifted from being a discretionary choice to a corporate priority.

The survey also highlights a wide disconnect that remains even today between the perceived importance of environmental, social and corporate governance for companies and how these play out in their own business strategies. Or as the report puts it, "while the belief in the strategic importance of sustainability issues is widespread among CEOs, executives continue to struggle to approach them as part and parcel of core business strategy." For example, take a look at the two graphs below. In response to whether these issues should be fully embedded into the strategy and operations of a company, 96% of them "agree" or "strongly agree." However, when asked whether this was true for their company, the percentage drops to 81%. Although, a comparison with 2007 results shows an increase of 31% in the number of CEOs who agree that sustainability is embedded in their companies.

Again, while the importance of sustainability seems widespread among the executive suites, marketplace complexities continue to present challenges. Asked how long it would take for sustainability to be fully embedded within the core business strategies for majority of companies globally, there was no clear consensus with 44% predicting 5-10 years, 26% opting for 10-15 years and only 10% picking the next five years.

Of course, regardless of the timeline, the resulting business environment of a fully embedded company-wide culture of sustainability has the immensity of being profoundly different. That the survey went beyond the statistical findings to illustrate what this marketplace might look like is worth noting.

Some of the highlighted points included:

--A broader sense of what value creation means to society;
--More effective use of technology toward driving transparency and resource efficiency;

--More effective business practices to tackle different consumer needs as well as alternative supply chains; and
--(Perhaps most importantly)Sustainability leadership and culture that embeds CSR into how employees and executives think about strategy and execution. For regular readers of this blog, this will sound familiar. Through guest blogs by graduating students like Ashley Jablow <Will an MBA in Sustainable Business Get Me a Job?>, as well as commentary <How Will Wall Street Shortcomings Redefine the MBA Curriculum?> and interviews <Kathrin Winkler, Chief Sustainability Officer at EMC>, I have often tackled the question of changing curriculum at business schools and the corresponding lack of interest from companies in the recruitment environment.

The report concludes that that while CEOs see a final destination

, per se, for connecting sustainability and their businesses, the methods and timeline to get there remain uncertain. And some of the proposed action points include:

1) Generating new knowledge, skills and mindsets to drive sustainable development
2) Corporate training in sustainability
3) Attracting and engaging employee
4) Leading to an investment environment more favorable to sustainable businesses.
5) Embedding new concepts of value and performance at the organizational and individual levels.

Not surprisingly, this puts the onus on companies to develop talented human capital that is vigilant, aware and cognizant of pursuing a successful career at a company that aligns with their values and commitments. And this has already begun to emerge as the greatest challenge for corporate America. Or an advantage, if you choose to recognize it as one.

By Aman Singh Das
Editor, Corporate Responsibility,
vault.com

...solar housing! If the awful lot of fun you had at a certain Costa Brava beach town some years ago is the only thing that comes into your mind when you hear people talk about Spain - think again. Sun powered, renewable energy is the latest buzzword on the Iberian Peninsula, and providing more sustainable housing is on the top of the list of many local councils. In a way, this doesn't really come by surprise, as anybody having spent some time in Spain knows about its powerful sun - and the recent housing crisis making a more sustainable approach inevitable. Still, Spain is experiencing a very slow and difficult transition towards renewable energy - a business sector from which it could emerge as a natural leader. One step into that direction is the ongoing SOLAR DECATHLON competition in Madrid. There, university teams from around the world compete in designing and building an energetically self-sufficient house that operates solely on solar power, is connected to a power grid, and incorporates technologies that maximize its energy efficiency.

The event's objectives are:
1. To raise awareness of the students participating in the competition of the various benefits and opportunities offered by the use of renewable energies and energy efficient construction, challenging them to think creatively about energy and how it affects our everyday lives.

2. To educate the general public about renewable energy, energy efficiency, and the technologies available to help them reduce their consumption. The event aims to raise society’s awareness of the need for responsible energy use in home construction.

3. To encourage the use of solar technologies and to distribute them more quickly to the market, taking advantage of the interest generated by students, and to contribute to the development of energy efficient technologies and energy production, all of which is incorporated into architecturally attractive houses.

4. To clearly demonstrate that high performance solar homes can be built without sacrificing energy efficiency or comfort, and that they can be both liveable and affordable.

And the winner is...
During the final stage of the competition, the solar houses will be required to undergo ten tests including measurable parameters such as the actual energy consumption of the houses, the capacity for solar energy capture, etc., as well as tasks performed by decathletes which reproduce domestic activities. In addition, a number of evaluations will be made by a panel of jurors with proven experience who will judge qualities such as: architecture, innovation, sustainability, solar systems, communication and industrialization level. The final score given to each team will be made up of a balanced combination of both objective and subjective assessments.

The Villa Solar includes solar houses designed by university teams from Spain (Instituto de Arquitectura Avanzada de Cataluña, Universidad CEU Cardenal Herrera, Universidad de Sevilla, Universidad de Valladolid, Universidad Politécnica de Cataluña), France (Arts et Métiers Paris Tech, Ecole National Supérieure d’architecture de Grenoble), Germany (Bergische Universität Wuppertal, Fachhochschule fur Technik und Wirtschaft Berlin, Stuttgart University of Applied Sciences, University of Applied Sciences Rosenheim), England (University of Nottingham), Finland (Helsinki University of Technology), the US (University of Florida, Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University), Mexico (Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey), Brasil (Universidade de Sao Paolo, Universidade Estadual de Campinas Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janerio, Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul) and China (Tianjin University, Tongji University).

For more information, pictures and voting check out www.sdeurope.org. Alternatively, watch the short movie (by local TV) about the event below (in Spanish).

Conclusion:

Slowly but steadily Spain is moving away from its outdated and unsustainable construction business models, taking a more exciting, sustainable path towards urban development. Much is still to be done, though. For instance, current regulations make it very difficult and unprofitable for individuals to install their own solar panels onto their roofs. Last but not least, Spanish politicians have to refocus their discourse on pressing issues, such as climate change adaptation, and stop wasting precious time and energy with internal and inter-regional power battles. 

By Florian, journalist and blogger on sustainability, csr and climate change

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Picture credit: Jeff Kubina , Darmstadt University of Technology (solar decathlon winner 2007)

Last week I discussed the major takeaways from ThinkSocial and PepsiCo's #promise event. To repeat, while the event may not have lived up to its potential, it did excel at providing companies with a platform to talk about their sustainability initiatives and answer questions from a live as well as virtual audience. Corporate speak or not, here are highlights from two of the presentations that better resonated than others that tended to be technical and heavy on jargon. The missing link in all of them however: The career aspect of corporate responsibility. That is, how does their new found keenness on becoming responsible citizens connect with the growing interest in CSR at business schools and among jobseekers? With recruitment levels at an all time low and a lack of job descriptions that emphasize a responsible outlook, how were they planning on attracting skilled and passionate talent?

Their take: Host PepsiCo, which ranked No. 8 on Vault's Top 50 Consumer Products Employers last year, had an army of representatives in attendance. Jeremy Cage, head of their Dream Machine recycling initiative, led the string of presentations by discussing their promise toward sustainability. Calling their commitment as "delivering sustainable growth while investing in a healthy planet," Cage laid out their long term initiatives including the already-successful Refresh project ("human sustainability"), the Dream Machine ("environmental sustainability"), and the upcoming Universal Purpose Code ("corporate sustainability").

Among the many things he said, Cage most heavily emphasized on consumer and employee engagement, noting that the power of social media was already undeniably a major motivator and catalyst in their initiatives.

My take: PepsiCo has managed to take the lead in understanding the value of aligning its brand with its social and environmental stakeholders for a host of reasons. Corporate sustainability has been a practice and integrated effort at the beverage company for many years now, but received its biggest boost when current CEO and Chairman Indra Nooyi took the helm. Her priority on developing women leadership, integrating nutrition with people management and emphasizing a coordinated approach across the company toward social and corporate citizenship has played a significant part in redefining Pepsi's image. The ongoing Refresh project is one such example, where a responsible business strategy was implicit in the decision to use the budget originally allocated for Super Bowl advertising to funding winning projects through the Pepsi Refresh site.

And company executives bring her up often as the main catalyst behind change within the organization, whether that was Director of Digital and Social Media Bonin Bough (who spoke about Pepsi's CSR efforts and social media during Social Media Week), VP of Compliance, Stephen Noughton (who spoke at a recent Conference Board event on Business Ethics & Compliance) or marketing head Cage at the #promise event.

Many advocates as well as practitioners emphasize that for CSR to have real teeth and integration in a company, it must come from the top. CEO of consulting firm Korngold Consulting, Alice Korngold reiterated this in a recent interview with Vault: "CSR needs leadership from the top, since the CSR plan needs to be designed to advance the company's reputation, branding, relationship-building, and hiring and retention, leadership development, and community improvement. A high-impact CSR program supports and engages employees who are enthusiastic about improving their communities, while achieving a variety of benefits for the company and the community." At Pepsi, enough emphasis from leadership has ensured that this resonate internally as well as externally despite core issues with their product lineup.

Their take: Timberland's promise to plant 5 million trees in the next five years in Haiti and China is the extension of their commitment to environmental restoration. In her address, the company's Senior Manager for Values Marketing, Margaret Morey-Reuner took pains to emphasize that their current push was toward achieving critical mass through social media. Through their relatively new presence across platforms like Facebook and Twitter, Morey-Reuner said that the biggest lesson for them had been "the importance of stakeholder engagement at every level." Looking ahead, she said, "In the next five years, we aim to do a lot more cross collaboration in the CSR space. Realizing that social media is going to be a primary strand of fabric in the cultural fabric of companies is just the start."

Expanding on the increasing presence of social media in the work sphere, she went on to note that for a primarily consumer-facing company like Timberland ("we sell boots!") it was going to become inevitable to add a SM quotient to job performance. "I I imagine a future where the job description of every consumer-facing employee will have a social media accountability quotient attached," she added, ending with a hypothetical question that many will seek to answer in the coming years: "As social media and cause marketing expand, how are companies going to continually differentiate themselves in an already crowded space?"

My take: Timberland, who's CEO Jeff Swartz, has been known for his focus on corporate responsibility, is considered a pioneer in aligning business strategy with social accountability. From his recent smoking ban on Timberland property to promoting the company around environmental sustainability at a time when it was neither fashionable nor appreciated, Swartz has continued to defy intuitive business marketing. What they haven’t done as well is promoting and communicating their initiatives to the public.

In the absence of a social media strategy, Timberland—much like Seventh Generation—has continued to tread the responsible path, but remained out of sight. This declaration of marrying their initiatives with the power of social media then is simply sound business sense. As Morey-Reuner explained, "We realized that choosing to stay quiet about our work and failing to engage stakeholders at all levels has become more detrimental today. With so many outlets available for engagement, conversations have become necessary than a few years ago if you stay quiet, it'll go away."

As always, please feel free to comment, email In Good Company or connect with me on Twitter @VaultCSR.

By Aman Singh Das
Editor, Corporate Responsibility,
vault.com

Behemoth printing presses scaling two whole floors tower above me in this multi-floor room. High-tech machines insert today’s advertisements in between completed newspapers. Massive paper-rolls arrive via train and are stacked five-high, each one of them weighing a ton. I can’t help but think, “I’m glad New York City does not lie on a fault line!”

And so went my first day as an EDF Climate Corps fellow at News Corp’s Bronx printing facility where nearly 1 million copies of The Wall Street Journal and New York Post are printed daily. I’ll be spending ten weeks with News Corp and Dow Jones analyzing ways this 400,000-square-foot building can cut down its energy consumption.

I'll also spend a portion of my summer working with News Corp's Global Energy Initiative at their headquarters near Rockefeller Center. During this time, I'll be benchmarking other companies that are creating sustainable development funds as well as researching how to most effectively engage employees around the globe on sustainability initiatives.

My Initial Observations:

1) Lighting: “Is this thing on?” – Yes it is. The entire building is...ON. And quite bright! One thing I'm beginning to love, however, is things can happen quickly here if you want them to. By the end of my first week, I had scheduled a building walk through with a lighting retrofit company. We will meet next week to discuss the replacement of all the old light bulbs with HQEE (high quality, energy efficient) bulbs. The initial estimated cost of this project falls around $240,000. Government incentives will take care of 50 percent of the total, bringing the investment down to $120,000. Based on the number of bulbs in the building (over 700), that would make for annual energy savings of $116,000, giving this project a payback period of just one year. Talk about low-hanging fruits!

2) HVAC: I think the estranged Dr. Evil put it best when he said, "It's frickin' freezing in here, Mr. Bigglesworth" The building is extremely cold, which is probably costing a pretty penny in a New York City summer. I've spoken with the HVAC foreman about increasing some of the temperatures so that the plant isn't so cold, especially when people are not at work. Turning each A/C unit up just one degree in a building this size could have a monumental effect on the building's energy consumption and result in some dramatic cost savings.

One thing is for sure - there is no shortage of work to be done, both at the Bronx printing facility as well as company-wide. I'm thrilled to be working for a company that promotes corporate sustainability with such zeal, as most notably demonstrated by the launch of the Cool Change program in 2007. Next Monday I will be visiting the Dow Jones Headquarters in Princeton, NJ. The company will be holding the public groundbreaking ceremony of its , the largest single-site solar panel project undertaken by a company to date.

Stay tuned - should be an exciting ten weeks!

-- Jay Stone, MBA, Stern School of Business, New York University, 2010 EDF Climate Corps Fellow at News Corp. – Dow Jones, Member of Net Impact

This is the first post in a series of blogs that Vault.com's CSR Blog: In Good Company will host this summer in collaboration with EDF, featuring fellows from their 2010 Climate Corps class, as they journey through their internships. With their posts, these interns will give us a rare lens into the behind-the-scenes operations at companies who are proactively discussing corporate sustainability, one conversation at a time.

Picture Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/froderik/884508865/

As a frequent reader of this blog, chances are you are well-informed about anything to do with CSR, sustainability or climate change and will have also already come across the recent UNEP brochure on business and biodiversity titled "Are you a green leader?" If not, then the following short summary will (hopefully) help you understand why biodiversity is such a buzzword these days and why it is important for businesses (feedback and comments welcome).

At the core of the UNEP (United Nations Environment Programme) report is the assertion that managing biodiversity not only protects businesses, but also creates opportunities. In terms of the latter, apart from booming new and emerging markets (anything to do with organic, sustainable and ethically sourced products, for starters), brand advantage is an obvious one, leaving environmentally leading companies in a stronger position than their competitors. This pays off, as - according to the report - investors tend to reward companies with a track record in responsible practices with long-term investments. Another big opportunity lies in carbon emission offsetting, which offers room for many bright business ideas - from water desalination to waste management.

Why bother about biodiversity in the first place?
A justified question, which the report answers highlighting that "all of the world's businesses, whether directly or indirectly, need biodiversity and ecosystem services to function..." And: "Whatever your industry, you will be making an impact on biodiversity. Where this impact is negative, this is likely to cause risk to your business".

UNEP concludes its publication with a helpful section on some industry examples (featuring J.P. Morgan Chase, Rio Tinto, SABMiller and Unilever) and a range of ideas about steps companies can follow help maintain biodiversity and reduce risk:

1) Assess your own impacts and dependencies on biodiversity and ecosystem services using available guidance materials
2) Survey available best practice within your industry
3) Establish a vision and strategy to address biodiversity
4) Consider how your company's specific skills, expertise and influence can be mobilized to create change
5) Form alliances with experts and industry peers
6) Support wider efforts to value and conserve biodiversity and ecosystem services.

So what? Lead the way, adopt strong biodiversity commitments and mainstream actions that directly reduce negative impacts and enhance biodiversity and ecosystem services.  

More info at www.cbd.int/business and www.unep.fr/scp/business

By Florian

Journalist and blogger on sustainability, csr and climate change

Picture credit: dano

Lately it feels like Goldman Sachs just cannot get enough of the front page. The bank that CEO Lloyd Blankfein describes as doing "God's work" added yet another subpoena to their burgeoning file yesterday. This time, the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission (FCIC) subpoenaed the bank alleging that they failed to provide key documentation and witnesses in several cases, despite repeated requests since January. Add the SEC's recent—and ongoing—case accusing them of fraud related to the subprime mortgage market and you have a bank that is flailing in a marketplace and a profession that operates on trust.

BP has occupied even more new space in recent weeks with the blogosphere going berserk with all the sudden disclosure of internal practices: should we concentrate on BP or Goldman Sachs? There's too much going wrong with two of the most revered institutions in the country. Forbes' CSR blog ran a series on the oil spill and BP's culpability as well, penned by various staffers of Corporate Responsibility Magazine, questioning in turn, reputation, brand management, risk analysis and accountability.

A recent article by the Wall Street Journal's finance job site FINS puts it in perspective. Discussing Wall Street's sudden change of heart, it reports: "Wall Street firms have intensified their corporate social responsibility efforts dramatically over the last two years, pushing their employees to volunteer more of their time to charity in an effort to combat fiercely negative publicity," adding a quote from a former staffer at Goldman Sachs: "…though nobody is forced, there is some not-so-gentle nudging to go out and volunteer..."

Historically, both companies have had an emphasized history of being known for their goodwill and social work: BP for their advertising campaign Beyond Petroleum, which has been responsible for numerous accolades and high rankings; and Goldman Sachs for their leadership development programs, high employee happiness quotients, and enormous prestige among financiers. What they haven’t exactly been known for is their corporate responsibility, or the wider principle that stretches to diversity, workplace safety, ethical business practices, transparent operations as well as sound people governance and long term strategy.

WSJ's Deal Journal took up the comparison between BP and Goldman Sachs. Deltek's EVP, Treasurer and Chief Financial Officer Michael Corkery gave Goldman Sachs the thumbs up noting that BP will require more damage control because of the immensity of the environmental disaster. WSJ Editor Stephen Grocer took the opposing view opining that because the banking industry operates on trust, it will be a steeper climb for Goldman. He writes: "The damage to Goldman’s reputation extends beyond its share price. Its business depends on its reputation. For the oil industry, image problems tend to have little impact on sales. If BP lowers oil prices, U.S. consumers will likely buy it."

Now let's turn to public perception. Back in March when the unemployment rate was stagnant at 9.9%, Fortune came out of their 2010 ranking of the World's Most Admired Companies. Goldman Sachs placed at No. 8, up seven spots from last year. Even more baffling, in the 'People Management' category, the bank retained its No. 1 spot from last year, making one question not only the ranking but also the role of perception in brand building. Here's what I questioned then:

"Goldman Sachs, that has been the subject of much abuse from the media and consumers for its bonuses and risky investments, surprisingly, took the top spot here. Take a look at this excerpt from our 2009 Top Banking Employers survey: "Teamwork, consensus building, corporate citizenship and meritocracy" are Goldman’s buzzwords, and insiders boast that "it's a culture of integrity and character, where people genuinely value the perception of the firm." With employees clearly enamored with the bank's management style, maybe it shouldn't be such a surprise that outsiders feel the same golden glow from the mega bank as well? In the worst possible year for investment banks, Goldman retained its No. 1 spot from 2009, while the other top four all changed hands. Perception problems or genuine regard?"

Like Grocer says, however much we might dislike BP, if their gas station advertises low prices, there's no debate about consumer choice. While public distrust can damage a company's brand forever, the American public isn't discerning enough to give corporate responsibility priority over cost, especially given the current economy. As the disaster continues to unfold carrying along with it blame games and an abject rejection of accountability, it is easier to let the environmentalists and sustainability advocates do the protesting and eulogizing. After all, the economy is barely recovering, jobs remain scarce, and budgets are tight. If BP sells cheaper gas, customers will continue to return. As will jobseekers.

By Aman Singh Das
Editor, Corporate Responsibility,
vault.com

Picture Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/dandeluca/3141757430/

I was at a unique event a few days ago: The first day of training for the Environmental Defense Fund's (EDF) Climate Corps Class of 2010, which this year boasts 51 MBA students (double from 2009) and 47 companies (a sevenfold increase). Once again, these companies will allow EDF-trained "fellows" to combine their business school teachings and energy efficiency training to identify energy saving opportunities that hit to the heart of EDF's mission as well as contributing to the sponsoring employers' own bottom line.

Although, a fairly new internship program, Climate Corps has evolved from seven interns in its first year (2008) to 26 last year. Together, they managed to identify $89 million in savings in net operational costs over the project lifetimes, for the host companies. Even more satisfying? Companies report that 84% of the upgrades they are implementing were recommended by these fellows.

This growth isn't typical for top internship programs, especially in a year that will be remembered more for layoffs and diminished bottom lines, than growth and hiring sprees. However, last year's Copenhagen Climate Summit also ensured that everyone from journalists and senators to academicians and consultants were pondering on what climate change would imply for their careers, their jobs, their industries and their role in the marketplace. Contextually, the success EDF has experienced with their Climate Corps program is encouraging because it shows a reciprocal interest from businesses that energy efficiency and conservation must be addressed with or without government regulation.

Connecting these dots between businesses ROI and growing interest from graduate students and schools in corporate sustainability is also why the program has built momentum. The wide diversity of industries represented by host companies, encompassing retail, manufacturing, banking, internet, media, technology, consulting, and food service providers, as well as the public sector, is yet another reason to be hopeful. Also worth noting is the meticulous matching that the EDF conducts along with Net Impact, an organization that connects students and professionals interested in sustainability to ensure that the company's get full benefit of the students' background, interest and specialization. The 10-12 weeks program this year includes students from business schools like Yale, Thunderbird, Duke's Fuqua School, Georgetown, Penn State, Carnegie Mellon, Virginia's Darden School, NYU's Stern School, and Chicago's Booth School, among others across the country.

As these students get ready to work with leading companies like eBay, Xerox, PepsiCo, FedEx, Akamai, Autodesk, Bank of America, Cisco and Wells Fargo, stay tuned for glimpses into their days at the companies and their achievements as they work with these multinationals to encourage approaching sustainability as a holistic cultural and operational change. I've said this many times before: Sustainability, corporate responsibility or CSR, whatever you want to call it, doesn’t always have to begin from the top. With the right knowledge base and a culture that encourages creativity, responsible business and ethical judgment, it can begin at any level within the company. Even from that intern's desk. .

By Aman Singh Das
Editor, Corporate Responsibility,
vault.com