Gil Friend

CFOs & Sustainability - Again!

Wed, 23 May 2012 17:27:31 -0800

[This post originally appeared in News From Natural Logic, a more or less monthly newsletter from Natural Logic, Inc. You can subscribe to News From Natural Logic here, and to this blog using the RSS link at the upper right of this page.] I moderated the panel on "CFOs and sustainability" at Silicon Valley Leadership Group's Sustainable Corporation conference May 2. This is a matter of considerable interest. For the last few years, I've been writing about the indispensable role of CFOs in sustainability strategy, and the fact that CFOs are missing from the sustainability conversation at most companies -- either entirely absent, unreasonably skeptical or missing the tools they need to guide their companies to the best possible decisions on managing risk and harvesting value. The buck stops right at the CFO's door. The CFO "owns" risk and value -- and in most companies, the understanding of "sustainability-related risk" is conducted with incorrectly drawn boundaries and flawed analytic models, and overlooks materially significant factors and hidden subsidies. If it is conducted at all. As a result, most companies will sub-optimize at best, leaving money on the table - and potentially violating fiduciary responsibility in the process - in completely avoidable ways. In addition, CFOs also hold -- or potentially hold -- a weakly understood coordination role; according to Pritzker CFO Kevin Lynch, the CFO "touches more of the organization than any other executive, and serves as a balance point between short-term and long-term interests, between the innovators and stabilizers in an organization." We had a panel of rockstars -- Chuck Boynton, EVP & CFO of SunPower Corporation, Mark Hawkins, EVP & CFO of Autodesk, and Lauralee Martin, EVP, COO & CFO, at Jones Lang LaSalle -- to provide a perspective from CFOs who get it, from companies that get it. A few highlights:

Hawkins defined sustainability as preserving value and eliminating waste. "If a person is not thinking that way, they're accepting false choices. There's a lot of opportunity -- top line gains, better customer experience -- to get get stuck in false choices."
Martin also sees great opportunity to create value, but observed that "you have to think the way CFOs think. We think dollars. Talk the way we talk -- and don't get confused by leading w passion and we get a lot done." Her case in point: JLL seeks to deliver its clients energy and carbon savings equivalent to 10 times JLL's own footprint. But wait, there's more, since that $125m saved for client cash flow translates into an additional $2b in capitalized real estate. People can get very excited about that."
Boynton talked of the need for metrics like direct ROI; "sometimes we'll require positive ROI, sometimes we'll accept negative with other substantial benefits. It's not purely financial; we live and breath sustainability as a core value, and there are impacts on employees & costumers that are very material & growing."
All agreed that it's essential to avoid the trap of short-term thinking that so many companies are driven into by them demands of Wall Street. Long term at the expense of the near term is no better of course; companies need both, just as people can see better with two eyes. JLL has handled this as well as any I've seen; they've stopped providing quarterly guidance, challenging Wall Street to judge them on performance, not prediction.
Much to my surprise and delight, each of them spoke about an animating purpose at each company that run far deeper than mere financial goals.

If you are interested in further exploring this intersection, please consider joining the small working group of CFOs we are convening to explore these issues. We'll meet monthly - and privately - over the next six months, and in a public colloquium in early 2012. If you'd like to be considered for participation - or if you would prefer a private, no obligation consultation on how these matters might impact your firm - please contact me immediately on 510-248-4940. CFOs only, please.

A love story for Earth Day

Sun, 22 Apr 2012 09:28:22 -0800

Ecology is a love story. A play scripted between the sunlight’s tender dappling on the forest floor, the elegant drapery of the vines that climb a cliff-face, the tickle of the squirrels and birds holding society in the treetops, and the sultry sway of the purple kelp the otters cannot resist. The touch of life on life, met in the tension between unshaking trust and heartbreaking vulnerability is a kiss of light and love and heat, and earth. It is fierce and sweet, and rages with the same passion it births a wild rose.

- Nora Bateson

Everything That Rises Must ConVERGE

Wed, 04 Apr 2012 23:36:53 -0800

The VERGE conference last month was a heady mix of both inspiration and rapidly accelerating best practice at the intersection of energy, buildings transportation and IT. You can find complete coverage (and videos) at greenbiz.com. Here are some of the things that stood out for me -- not just because they're interesting (though they are), but because they also hold important strategic challenges for business -- perhaps your business. Collaborative consumption is the leading meme taking on the ecological imperative but generally daunting business challenge that I've long talked of as "More value. Less stuff.": - If, all things behind equal, more throughput means more impact; and - if, all things being equal, more throughput means more profit; and - if most businesses think their purpose is to maximize profit (It's not, but that's a story for another time); then - how can a business make more money selling less stuff? How? Some businesses are reinventing their value propositions around value delivered, not stuff delivered, while other businesses lose share in the face of that competition. Consider: the world's major hotel chains built global networks on the order of half a million beds in 50-70 years. The collaborative consumption networks of couchsurfing, AirBnB and their ilk built a network of 1.5 million beds in less than seven years. "Unused value = Waste," according to Lisa Gansky, author of The Mesh and host of meshing.it. LooseCubes & Honest Buildings arbitrage that unused capacity. Since we only use our cars (our second largest asset) eight percent of the time, they're perfect for sharing. Robin Chase of BuzzCar noted that the average ZipCar is used by 30-50 people; 40% go on to sell their own car or not buy another; all drive 80% less. Great news for ZipCar, WhipCar, BuzzCar, CityCarShare, GetAround, et al. Possibly not such good news for Detroit et al. The interesting question of course: what are the potential risks and upsides for your business? Energy was the thread running through everything at VERGE. ("Energy is eternal delight." Wm. Blake) Amory Lovins, ever the phrasemaker, made sure we understood that the future of energy is "Netted Islandable Microgrids." (the EnerNet? the InterGrid?) Drawing from his newest book, Reinventing Fire, he observed that we can triple the energy productivity of US buildings at a 33% internal rate of return, and double industrial productivity at a 21% IRR. His recommendation: "If you can't solve a problem, make it bigger." The secret: "Big savings can be cheaper than small savings, through integrative design." But does your CFO know that? [I still encounter companies that should know better referring to susty investments as costs, and cap costs as investments...] Amory noted four key elements to energy futures: Policy. Design. Strategy. Technology. "Focus on outcomes, not motives," he advised. "And don't wait for Congress." To which I'll add this: while many people are frustrated by the energy policy logjam in Washington, others are investing now in the new energy economy, since it doesn't all depend on policy. Jon Koomey of Stanford University predicted that we'll not only see more & better mobile computing, sensors, controls -- with customized data collection -- but we'll see more cool gear running on ambient energy flows. A lot of this is about changing people, according to Dave Pogue of CBRE. I'm not so sure. My mentor Bucky Fuller, used to advise "Don't try to change people; reform the environment." One of the most effective ways to do that, in my experience, is with well designed feedback, and Pogue seems to concur, noting, for example that separately metered buildings 21% more efficient than single meter buildings. In fact, according to IBM "building whisperer" & VP Industry Solutions Dave Bartlett, there's 40% savings to be gained by listening to buildings "holistically." Many of these opportunities hinge on Real Time access to Open Data linked through Smart Grids. (Remember "Netted Islandable Microgrids?" That's what we're talking about.) "Decentralized or centralized? Steve Case pondered. "Distributed!" he responded. "Build speed and scale from excess capacity and common platforms." (An echo of Gansky's "Unused value = Waste.") Tim O'Reilly, who observed that data science job growth is "going vertical," posed an equally important question, but left it unanswered: "How to ensure that the emerging global brain does good, is moral?" As my physics professors used to say, that exercise is left to you to work out. Jennifer Pahlka's brilliant approach at Code for America is to see government as a platform; CFA recruits development teams that compete to work with participating cities on projects that "can benefit from web-based solutions." Brilliant, I say, because what is government, after all, if not us, all of us, working together to address our common concerns. AMEE's Gavin Stark took the platform approach as well. His question: "How might we footprint everything on earth?" His approach: a common reference platform for energy and carbon data. This, I think, is where the action will increasing be, as companies like AMEE, Open Data Registry [disclosure: I chair the board] and others transcend the limits of massive data warehouses and onerous standards processes for the more powerful and agile worked of open, interoperable, real time data. (About which I'll have more to say at another time.) In sum, Don Reed of PWC had it about right: "What's needed for sustainability success: systems mindsets, innovation processes, business model breakthroughs."

If feedback loops are the basic unit in Universe...

Sun, 01 Apr 2012 17:24:54 -0800

If feedback loops are the basic unit in Universe, how can the variety of ways those loops can be arranged and juxtaposed give rise to the infinite forms of varied vitality and emergence? [Originally blogged 2/15/11, but w/o a title. Nice to stumble across some other juicy posts from that month...]

How Vulnerable Are You? Then Get Into Action!

Mon, 26 Mar 2012 06:34:47 -0800

No, I don't mean the "sensitive guy" thing. I mean, "How vulnerable is your company to the risks associated with your sustainability strategy?" -- or, more to the point, that strategy's gaps, shallowness or lack of integration with your business. Consider this list -- which is either on your CFO's mind, orshouldbe: How much are you wasting on materials, energy, labor, occupancy, management and opportunity that wind up as non-product -- the stuff you produce that you ship to a smokestack, sewer line, landfill or hazardous waste site, instead of to a customer? InterfaceFlor found nearly half-a-billion dollars in extra profitby asking that question. How does your Product-To-NonProduct Ratio compare with your competitors'? Don't know? You should. What's your financial risk in a possible future in which there's aprice on carbon? (As with all risk analysis, you have to consider the potential scale of the risk as well as its likelihood.) Riskmetric's (now part ofMSCI) Carbon Beta calculates that monetized risk, divides it by EBITDA, and compares that ratio between companies in a sector, and between sectors. The gap can be 10:1 or more. Would you consider that "material"? What's your financial risk in a possible future in which there's a price on water, biodiversity, and other "nature's services"(as well as carbon)? Puma's Ecological P&L was the first to attempt this analysis, and estimated a potential impact equivalent to nearly 50% of net income. How exposed would your company be? What's your most important asset? Most of you are smart enough to say "people" -- but where are people on your financial statements? R. Paul Herman of HIP Investor Inc has discovered a handful of companies in India -- from infosystems to oil & gas -- that account for human capital as an asset, not a liability, and calculate Return on Human Capital. Yet no company in the US or Europe reports this metric. Will you be the first -- and gain the acclaim? How much of your business depends on public subsidies? Yes, I know that one man's subsidy is another's social investment, and I'm not arguing that all subsidies should go away (though I would say that public subsidies to the fossil fuel and nuclear industries have long outlived their societal benefit) -- but what if they did? What impact could that have on your business? How much are you investing in eliminating your dependence on subsidies vs lobbying to preserve or expand them? The list could go on -- license to operate, brand/reputation risk, resilience, just to name a few. (And I'll address those another time) But it's probably sufficient to get your juices flowing -- to recognize that there is significant business value on the table here, that can either make you a lot of money, or cost you a lot of money. Don't you owe it to your management, your shareholders and yourself to consider the bottom line impacts of these all-too-plausible possibilities? Some of the links I've offered above can help you understand these issues, and perhaps help you begin to address them. None can give you the comprehensive, integrated, rigorous, business-based approach you needfor dealing with them. We can. That's what we do. How?

Full Cycle Sustainability engagements that help you design, implement and measure profitable sustainability strategies.
Executive Coaching that helps you elevate and accelerate your personal & corporate sustainability commitments.
On-demand eLearning that gets your entire organization engaged, aligned and effective.

In the words of one of our recent clients,"Natural Logic takes complex problems and makes them simple!"-- so they can actually get implemented, effectively and profitably. (This post originally appeared in Natural Logic's monthly newsletter. For a free subscription, click here and enter your email and preferences in the form. (Our privacy policy: no one gets your data. Period.)

Here's what I don't understand about Gleick-gate

Wed, 22 Feb 2012 18:41:52 -0800

Here's what I don't understand about Gleick-gate. (See Romm on Revkin on Gleick on Crossing the Line as Civilization Implodes, and Revkin response, and DeSmogBlog's dissection the of Heartland Climate Strategy that they say shows it's no fake ) Was his "unethical" act that he pretended to be a specific person with an established relationship with Heartland? (Which I'll concede was both duplicitious to Heartland and exploitative of that person.) Or that he pretended to be "not Peter Gleick"? (Which I'm having a hard time distinguishing from a journalist going undercover, or 60 Minutes sending a hidden camera into a doctor's office or auto repair shop to capture and expose fraud.) Perhaps someone can explain?

Are Tar Sands 'Game Over' For the Planet?

Mon, 20 Feb 2012 19:54:54 -0800

It depends whom you ask, of course. The invaluable Joe Romm, writing on the indispensible ClimateProgress.org, tells us that Confusing Climate Study Actually Makes Strong Case Against Tar Sands -- If We Want To Avoid Catastrophic Global Warming | ThinkProgress

According to Time magazine, “Pipeline Politics: Are the Oil Sands ‘Game Over’ for the Climate? One Study Says No”:

The good news from the Nature Climate Change paper is that, should environmentalists lose their battle, the consequences might not be quite as bad as they’ve made it out to be.

Except that isn’t what the study finds. Indeed, the final paragraph states

If North American and international policymakers wish to limit global warming to less than 2 °C they will clearly need to put in place measures that ensure a rapid transition of global energy systems to non-greenhouse-gas-emitting sources, while avoiding commitments to new infrastructure supporting dependence on fossil fuels.

In short, if you care about the 2C (3.6F) target, building something like the tar sands pipeline is a really bad idea.

By the way, if you care about a 3C (5.4F) target, building something like the tar sands pipeline is also a really bad idea —

I offered this comment on Joe's site:

If we posit that Time is trying to do a good job of serious journalism, what needs to happen to increase the odds of them not getting a story like this so wrong?

Oh, and then there's this:

To have a 66% chance of limiting warming to less than the 2 °C limit put forth in the 2009 Copenhagen Accord, one carbon– climate modelling study estimated that total future global carbon emissions should be limited to less than 5.9×1017 g C (ref. 9). If this amount were to be distributed equally among the current global population, the resulting allowable per capita cumulative carbon footprint would be 85 tonnes of carbon. The eventual construction of the Keystone XL pipeline would signify a North American commitment to using the Alberta oil-sand reserve, which carries with it a corresponding carbon footprint. For comparison, by fully using only the proven reserves of the Alberta oil sands, the current populations of the United States and Canada would achieve a per capita cumulative carbon footprint of 64 tonnes of carbon.

Sustainability leadership: A true leader creates leaders.

Fri, 17 Feb 2012 13:45:49 -0800

There’s something odd about the notion of “sustainability leadership.” Perhaps it’s that “sustainability” underwhelms. As Michael Braungart reminds us, “Sustainability is boring. How would you characterise your relationship with your spouse? As sustainable? If this is the bigger goal – sustainability – then I feel really sorry because it doesn’t celebrate human creativity and human nature.” Leadership toward less bad, slower decline and holding steady is somehow not compelling. Dr King didn’t have a dream that things hopefully won’t get too much worse. But let’s put that aside, assume we all know what we mean when we say sustainability (here’s what I mean), and focus on leadership itself – which may seem more obvious and familiar, but is actually less so. Ask most people about leadership, and they’ll say, “setting a direction, and getting (or inspiring) people to follow.” Yes, but it isn’t that simple. There are several critical components of effective leadership that step beyond the obvious, ordinary, and easy. That depend on the actions leaders take – most fundamentally in how they speak.

Leaders see a world that does not yet exist, that most people perhaps can’t even see – or can see but not believe their own senses, or believe in their ability to bring it into being. Leaders commit to bring that world into being – into general being. Leaders declare that the world they see is possible, and they commit to fulfilling that possibility.[1]
Leaders communicate in ways that, yes, shift other people’s perceptions and inspire their actions, but that also evoke other people’s commitment – their shared commitment – and that encourage them in turn to communicate in ways that build coherence and coordination around that shared commitment.

This depends on “competences for listening to the concerns of communities, and for developing…interpretations about the situations in which communities of people find themselves…that can serve as effective platforms for people to propose how to act in new ways.”[2]

Leaders engender the trust that enables people to coordinate their actions in fulfillment of those shared commitments. This can be done through command-and-control, or, more powerfully, by creating, or enabling the emergence of, coherent teams – and what Ernest Lowe called “autonomy in a coherent whole.”

“Creating a coherent team takes time, engagement, and reflection. Producing trust occurs as people participating in a network of commitments, acting in language, come to see each other as reliable performers, and learn to align and connect their interests with each others’ interests and with those of the project.”[3]

Leaders are courageous – not just in the sense of bravely facing risk, but also in the sense of full of heart (from the Old French corage, for “heart, innermost feelings,” from the Latin cor, heart). The best leaders move from love.

Which brings us back to “sustainability.” A true sustainability leader, standing in courage, engendering trust, evoking commitment, calls to us from a new world, a world that is thriving, nurturing for all, a world in which, as Bill McDonough puts it, we “love all the children, of all species, for all time.” A world of prosperity, not just in the sense of economic well-being, but in which we move, together, pro spera – toward our hopes, toward flourishing. Robert Dunham summarizes it well[4]: - Leaders take care of concerns, and build the capabilities of others to take care of their concerns. - Leaders build power for themselves and others. - Leaders make offers. - Leaders speak and move with a presence, a voice, and identity to have their offers heard and accepted. - Leaders build new narratives of and commitments for the future with others. A true leader doesn’t produce followers. A true leader creates more leaders. # # # [1] Charles Spinosa, Fernando Flores, and Hubert L. Dreyfus, Disclosing New Worlds: Entrepreneurship, Democratic Action, and the Cultivation of Solidarity. [2] Chauncey Bell, My Problem with Design [3] Gregory A. Hovvelll, Hal Macomber, Lauri Koskelas and John Draper, Leadership And Project Management: Time For A Shift From Fayol To Flores [4] Robert Dunham, What is a Leader? (This article was previously published at SustainableBrands.com)

The Top Sustainability Stories of 2012

Thu, 02 Feb 2012 10:30:35 -0800

Last month I offered my picks for the Top Sustainability Stories of 2011. Here are my predictions for the Top Sustainability Stories of 2012. (It's a rugged mix of bad news and good.) Climate heats up and hides out The sheer pressure of the hard-to-escape evidence -- more record-breaking temperatures, more disastrous weather events, big supply chain disruptions, ever-rising insurance payments -- will drive more businesses to take global warming seriously as a business risk, even as The Economist and others blast the journalistic malpractice that leaves "climate" out of the weather disaster stories, and President Obama takes cover in an "all of the above" energy strategy. US falls behind in solar China, Germany, Brazil -- and California -- continue to invest policy and capital in the new economy, while Washington remains lost in ideological shock and awe (as House republicans tell the Pentagon "you have to waste taxpayers money and make the troops less safe so we can continue to ignore both the science and the economics of climate change"). But there are surprises too: "red state" Iowa has decided that exporting $6b/year to buy fossil fuel from unfriendly nations might not be the most "conservative" plan, and is investing government money to reduce that balance of payments deficit! EPA battle royal The right's war on the EPA (and on regulation in general) will continue, and in fact heat up as campaign fodder. Little noticed: 191 house votes attacking the EPA in 2011. Expect this battle to continue into 2013 (depending on how the elections turn out). But there's good news too. Green Chemistry & Biomimicry These big ideas are taking deeper root, bring sustainability where it most matters -- into the design process, which determines environmental impacts for years or decades to come. Just a few examples: University of California Berkeley has established a major, interdisciplinary green chemistry program, the Biomimcry Institute, re-branded as Biomimicry 3.8, is building its business leverage, and companies from Steelcase to Method are bringing this next generation of design science to market. Radical Transparency and "Open Data" This may be below the radar for many of you, but it's big. Markets want -- need -- transparency; the simply don't work well without open flows of information. Customers want transparency -- whether a parent wanting to know what's in the baby food to a global corporation wanting to be able to stand behind its products. Geeks love transparency -- just look at the growth of the open source software industry. And sustainability requires transparency -- and open, accessible, interoperable data -- with initiatives as diverse as Nike's GreenXchange patent sharing platform to GoodGuide's product rating tool and startup Open Data Registry's innovation in supply chain information infrastructure. (Disclosure: I'm on the ODR board) Widening green gap Watch for big, bold moves from major brands, as more companies move sustainability from peripheral "nice to have" and corporation social "responsibility" to mission-critical business driver and corporate social imperative. And big, subtle moves too; as Adam Lowry, co-CEO of Method, put it recently: "People don't want to buy green. They want to buy better. But green is a part of better." Watch for big failures, too, from companies that won't or can't adapt; "Businesses that don't take sustainability seriously," as Ray Anderson often observed, "won't be a problem, because they won't be around." Getting the prices right For as long as I've been in the sustainability game (40 years this summer, long before anyone coined the term), the challenge of "getting the prices right" -- of eliminating the market-distorting impacts of "externalities" and subsidized environmental damage -- has seemed a pivotal element of sustainability strategy. Succeed and we have a chance; fail, and we're consigned to the fate of Sisyphus, endlessly pushing the boulder uphill, only to have it roll back down, again and again. The good news: while this was once an esoteric subject, I now hear it on the "top three issues" list at many, perhaps most, of the discussions, meetings and conferences I attend. There's still a long road and hard slog ahead, but the issue is on the table, the data is getting clearing, the innovations are starting to surface, and we will see much more on this critical topic in the years to come. (Join me at VERGE, where I'll be leading a session on getting the prices right, and watch for my forthcoming book of the same name.) I'll stop there, with these two questions: - What do you think will be the top sustainability stories of 2012? - What will you make the top sustainability stories of 2012? Because, as Scoop Nisker is fond of reminding us, "If you don't like the news, go out and make some of your own!"

To Understand is to Perceive Patterns

Tue, 03 Jan 2012 18:24:25 -0800

I've long felt than one of the big differences (chasms) is between people who look at the world and see things, and people who look at the world and see pattern. Here's a beautiful exploration of that idea. "To Understand is to Perceive Patterns" on Vimeo

"In Defense of the Plastic Bag" -- Useful provocation, but asks the wrong questions

Tue, 27 Dec 2011 15:13:05 -0800

Marc Gunther seems to be relishing his role as green curmudgeon (or at least provocateur) over at GreenBiz.com. To judge by the comment stream, he hit a nerve with his recent "In Defense of the Plastic Bag." Here's my response: It may seem complicated, Marc, but perhaps it doesn't have to be -- if we ask the right questions. "Paper or plastic?" (or "this plastic or that plastic?") aren't the right questions. Nor is "Should we tax or ban all plastics because some end up as litter?" No, I don't want to "impose my beliefs on others," but I do want everyone to bear the full costs of their decisions and actions. This challenge of getting the prices right is, I think, at the heart of most of our environmental problems.* Probably the best way to address the plastic bag problem is extended producer responsibility (EPR) -- have the entities that produce what becomes "waste" be responsible for the costs of dealing with that waste -- rather than imposing those costs on ecosystems and other people. It's worked in many EU countries, as well as Canada and Japan. Natural Logic's white paper, Product Stewardship & Extended Producer Responsibility: Towards a Comprehensive Packaging Recycling Strategy for the US, lays out analysis and strategy for establishing EPR in the US. (The work was commissioned by Coca-Cola, and contributed to by a diverse group of stakeholder; the opinions is presents are Natural Logic's alone.) * This is a topic which I've been thinking and writing about for a while. See, for example: Memewatch: Getting the prices right Get This: Overcoming the Key Barriers to Building a Sustainable Economy CFOs, Sustainable finance, & Getting the Prices Right The True Cost Economy: Ecologizing Capitalism (and my book-in-progress, "Getting the Prices Right," in 2012)

In love with WalMart?

Mon, 05 Dec 2011 19:39:36 -0800

In his latest blog post, veteran journalist Marc Gunther asks Have I fallen in love with Walmart? It's a long, thougthtful piece, responding to an even longer piece in Grist. "I’ve written dozens of stories about the retail giant, Gunther writes. "...I’ve been critical at times...but most of my coverage of the company’s sustainability effort has been laundatory [sic]."

Now here comes Stacy Mitchell, a smart reporter, with a six-part series in Grist called Walmart’s Greenwash: Why the retail giant is still unsustainable. She assails Walmart for promoting suburban sprawl, making only token efforts to buy renewable energy and selling cheap throwaway stuff. She also faults mainstream environmental groups for focusing “on the small bits of good that Walmart could do—reduce PVC in packaging, for example—while ignoring the much larger consequences of its ever-expanding business model.” She also says that she has been “shocked by just how much of a public relations boost the media have given the company and how little public accountability they have demanded in return.”

Here's the comment I posted at Marc's site:

Thanks for this piece, Marc, and the thoughtful perspective. WalMart’s a mixed bag, to be sure (ain’t we all!), but it’s just way too easy to criticize, and damn hard to transform a large organization, and to get everything right. (Once again, who of any of us has?) I completely agree with you re “The Sustainability Index” — WalMart’s “100% renewable energy/zero waste/only sustainable products” declaration has probably generated more sustainability awareness in businesses around the country than any single from regulators or NGOs. We’ve seen an immediate and profound impact on the flow of companies that come to us at Natural Logic, and the kind of assistance they’re looking for. WalMart deserves ample credit for moving the agenda at tens of thousands of companies. But I strongly disagree with you about “Cheap Stuff.” As Dave Gustershaw of Interface is fond of pointing out, each additional kilogram of stuff moved an additional kilometer means (all things being equal) more environmental impact, so the challenge of “sustainable consumption” — and the related challenge of “how can companies make more money selling less stuff?” — are on a very short list of questions at the heart of the matter. (The others: getting the prices right, and escaping the trap of short-term-ism — but more on those another time.) I just don’t buy it when companies say “we’re just responding to consumer demand” and then spend billions to _shape_ that consumer demand. By the way, why would buying solar “put the company at a competitive disadvantage” when it doesn’t do that for “Kohl’s, Whole Foods Markets, Starbucks and Staples”? PS: WalMart isn’t us. The “us” who shop there (or don’t) do have substantial impact on what they do, and yes, markets do move business decisions, but it feels just a wee bit too simplistic, in these days of TARP x 11, to suggest that “we’re all one.”

What I'm reading

Sun, 04 Dec 2011 15:00:19 -0800

It sometimes seems that books flow into my bedside reading stack faster than they leave it. It's a good problem too have; there are so many good books on the subjects that concern us all. Here are a few of my current favorites - some that I've read, some that I'm reading, all of which are worth your attention. Infinite Vision: How Aravind Became the World's Greatest Business Case for Compassion. Pavithra K. Mehta & Suchitra Shenoy. Aravind sprang from a surgeon's vision of ending curable blindness - without regard to people's ability to pay and without compromising their dignity. It's become the largest provider of eye care on the planet, with ten times the productivity of US eye surgeons, and patient results superior to British National Health Service. But this is not just a book full of heart; it's also an inspiring management case study of how to deliver the goods. The Great Disruption: Why the Climate Crisis Will Bring On the End of Shopping and the Birth of a New World. Paul Gilding. If Infinite Vision is a great inspiration, The Great Disruption is quite a downer. Gilding, businessman and former head of GreenPeace International, is no optimist. He sees global crisis, both ecologic and economic, as unavoidable - but is ultimately hopeful for the human capacity for innovation and cooperation... once we've exhausted all other options. Walk Out Walk On: A Learning Journey into Communities Daring to the Future Now. Margaret Wheatley & Deborah Frieze. Wheatley and Frieze find that capacity for innovation and cooperation at work today in local communities around the planet, and take the reader on a "learning journey" (evoking those that their Berkana Institute conducts) that brings these communities and their work together alive. Reinventing Fire: Bold Business Solutions for the New Energy Era. Amory Lovins and Rocky Mountain Institute. Lovins and his colleagues at RMI present both a vision and a roadmap for getting the US off oil, coal and nuclear by 2050, at a profit, without a dime of government money, and with a Net Present Value of $5 trillion. I haven't checked the math, but I have seen the logic of RMI's time tested guiding principles - systems thinking; market oriented Solutions; end-use/least-cost approach; corporate transformation - deliver the goods again and again. The Responsible Business: Reimagining Sustainability and Success. Carol Sanford. While Lovins and his team have been masters of integrative design in technological systems, Sanford has long been one of the leaders in integrative approaches to corporate strategy and transformation. As she observes, "The biggest challenge for a company that aspires to be a responsibility business is to stop working on parts and start recognizing and working on whole systems." Sustainability by Design: A Subversive Strategy fot Transforming Our Consumer Culture. John C. Ehrenfeld Ehrenfeld, ex of MIT and currently head of the International Society for Industrial Ecology, argues that we're doing "sustainability" all wrong - using band-aids like ecoefficiency to reduce "unsustainability" - but not really building true sustainability - or, as Ehrenfeld prefers to put it, "the possibility that humans and other life will flourish on Earth forever."

Pixel & Print Logic (To print or not to print? That isn't the question!)

Wed, 09 Nov 2011 08:05:28 -0800

Deciding when and whether to print just got a lot easier, thanks to the release today of a new infographic -- Pixel and Print Logic -- from Natural Logic, Domtar Paper and the Institute of Sustainable Communication. We've all seen that little message at the bottom of emails -- saying, in effect, "you're a bad, thoughtless person if you even think about printing this email." It's not that simple of course. Paper can bring real environmental concerns -- deforestation, soil loss, water impacts, growing waste streams -- but so can use of digital technologies -- carbon emissions (from the energy to run servers, printers, PCs, smartphones, etc), conflict minerals, e-waste, etc. Each resource can be produced and managed in better and worse ways. And each has its place in an environmentally smart information strategy. So what's a thoughtful, responsible information hound to do? You can't conduct a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) every time you need to decide. But you can use this simple, light-hearted flow chart – inspired by the legendary What Beer Should I Drink flowchart (and based on Natural Logic's analysis of more than 70 LCAs for Hewlett-Packard) – to help you print responsibly.