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People Get Sustainability, Business (and Marketers) Don’t: 20 Minutes with the CEO of Unilever

11 Friday Jul 2014

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Last month, Unilever CEO Paul Polman was in town – New York – to receive the Lifetime Achievement award from the Rainforest Alliance. As Rainforest Alliance President Tensie Whelan put it, “Paul has made several lifetimes of difference by leading Unilever to become a game changer.”

The company’s work with the Rainforest Alliance is well-known – by setting targets like sourcing 100 percent of its palm oil sustainably, Unilever has made it easier for other companies to follow suit and helped complex supply chains become comfortable with change and collaboration.

And, the company hasn’t stopped at palm oil.

Today, roughly 50 percent of the company’s tea originates on Rainforest Alliance Certified farms as it works toward sourcing 100 percent of its raw agricultural materials from sustainable origins (that figure currently stands at 48 percent).

Having recently interviewed Unilever’s Marketing Chief Keith Weed on the company’s refreshed goals and commitments, the opportunity to discuss sustainable development from the vantage point of the outspoken CEO was tempting. We caught up over a quick phone call:

The Unilever Sustainable Living Plan:

“When we launched it we said we don’t have all the answers. One of the reasons why we are working so wellUnilever CEO Paul Polman with Rainforest Alliance is because we share common goals. Take tea for example: Standards are driving up fast in an industry that’s not easy to standardize. [This is where the] scale of Rainforest Alliance is significant – and essential for the USLP to come alive.

“[Its] only been a year since the Rana Plaza fire happened. Those 1,050 women worked in conditions that were little more than modern-day slavery. We’re determined not to let that happen in our supply chain. So we’ve put some goals to match our resolve. We’re going to help more women gain access to training and land rights. The transformation can be substantial.”

Pushing forward in the absence of political will/action:

“In the absence of politicians, we need to move faster. Climate change is a great opportunity for business. Report from the White House is an encouraging sign. Needle is starting to move in the U.S. The tornadoes and hurricanes are starting to drive the message home for people.

“Besides, this is probably the only opportunity we’ll have. The Millennium Development Goals, for instance, are due to be completed next year – the urgency cannot be watered down.”

The most critical challenge for business:

“The biggest challenge is [that] we cannot scale our ambitious goals alone. It’s a major challenge to create the right partnerships and increasingly difficult to get the political sector to participate. How do you create size and scale in a vacuum?”

The changing role of marketers:

“I always say, don’t blame the consumers. There are many examples where consumers are leading business, especially the young ones. They’re changing our lives and systems.

“Consumers are speaking out everyday but we don’t want to see it. Then we say the consumer doesn’t want to change. If we can tap into the enormous movements, we can create change much faster. That’s the job of the modern-day marketers. Their job has changed. It doesn’t work any more to push consumption. We need a new model and get companies to adjust their marketing strategies as well as their job roles.”

People get it, business doesn’t:

“I spend a lot of time on how to develop leaders who can lead us through partnerships, with purpose, can think long-term and beyond 2020. On my way back from Abu Dhabi last month, I was reading an article that reported university students rebelling against the way economics [is being taught]. If teachers are teaching Milton Freidman’s theories, who is going to change the economy? For my kids, sustainability is the new normal. They don’t want to watch TV or buy the newest gas-guzzling car. Their generation is already thinking differently. Yet, marketers keep saying consumers don’t want it.

“Our understanding of consumers [and consumption] is too narrow. We need to get much closer to consumers. If we go to any of the emerging markets – 81 percent of the world’s population lives outside the U.S. and Europe – most of the growth is occurring in climate stretched areas today. They might not understand Rio+20 or climate change language but they know that weather patterns are changing, water is decreasing, etc.”

From mindless to mindful consumption:

“Marketers should switch from asking whether consumers are willing to pay for something to which consumer doesn’t want less poverty, more education, a healthier world with cleaner air and better nutrition.

“We just need to be astute about solutions. Look at the Edelman survey – consumers expect more and more from business, and if business understands this, it is a wonderful time. Children die from diseases which we can solve with hand washing – new market – marketers should be very excited by this. But that connection is not there.”

Three actions to change the world:

“We must get out of short termism because lots of solutions are long-term [climate change, access to education, water shortage, etc.] – and we can only solve them if we invest over longer periods and evaluate the social and economic capital. Then business people can optimize these. For example, 40 of the top 100 companies are already pricing carbon internally. They’ve committed to stay within these limits. Business is leading because they see the cost of action vs. inaction. We have now 40 countries that are pricing carbon including China. We have 20 other countries that are putting a tax on carbon. The system is starting to move.

“We need to give politicians Unilever Sustainable Livingconfidence that this [focus on sustainable development and long termism] will not kill jobs or stifle growth. The exact opposite is in fact true but we need to provide the proof points.

“We need to get companies to adopt integrated reporting quickly as well as become comfortable with transparency. It’s going to take much more than a nine-to-five job to bring all of this together. We need leaders and we’re short on them.”

If this was his last interview as the CEO of Unilever:

“We can use our scale to transform systems and change. We need to create a better place than the one we were born in. Ninety-nine percent of people are not in a position to make a difference. We can. We need to force change – it’s our duty to leave the place in a better place. I hope this drives Unilever and everyone else.”

Originally written for and published on CSRwire’s Commentary section Talkback on June 2, 2014.

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Priorities Set, JPMorgan Chase Focuses on Stakeholder Engagement with Latest CSR Report

11 Friday Jul 2014

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Despite the upheaval and the effects that continue to dog Wall Street since the 2008 crash, JPMorgan Chase has managed to recover more elegantly than some of its counterparts.

This has been in part due to a robust community development program targeted at local impact, strategic partnerships, a deeper introspection of its practices, as well as a public acknowledgement that it needs to do more to become part of the solution.

I asked EVP and Global Head of Corporate Responsibility Peter Scher to name the biggest challenge from 2013—a year he acknowledged was a mix of difficulties and successes:

“As Jamie Dimon, our Chairman and CEO said in his annual letter to shareholders, last year was certainly a tough year as we worked to resolve legal issues we had with a number of government agencies. But our businesses stayed strong, we continued to serve our clients and communities, and we launched some of our most ambitious corporate responsibility initiatives ever, including New Skills at Work and the Global Health Investment Fund. We’re extremely proud of what we accomplished in 2013.”

Urbanization, the growing discourses around investing in natural gas and helping small businesses scale featured among the company’s goals for 2013.

Highlights from its 2013 CR Report point to progress more close to home:
JPMC New Skills at Work

  • Launched New Skills at Work, a $250 million, five-year workforce development initiative aimed at helping close the skills gap around the world.
  • Created the Global Cities Exchange, a program to help U.S. and international cities develop and implement regional strategies to boost their global trade and investment. The Exchange is part of the Global Cities Initiative, a joint project with the Brookings Institution launched in 2012 aimed at helping metropolitan leaders strengthen their regional economy.
  • Provided $19 billion in new credit to American small businesses and, for the fourth fiscal year in a row, was named the #1 U.S. Small Business Administration lender by units.

The report also alludes to the firm’s keen participation in the impact-investing and sustainable development sectors.

For instance, it worked “with a group of peer investment banks to develop the Green Bond Principles, a set of voluntary guidelines designed to promote integrity and transparency in the growing market for Green Bonds, which are issued to finance environmentally beneficial projects” and collaborated with “The Nature Conservancy to establish NatureVest, a new initiative of The Conservancy that aims to create a platform to advance investment in conservation.”

As for community investment and employee engagement, the numbers are none too shabby:

  • Donated $210 million to nonprofits in 39 countries and contributed 540,000 hours in employee volunteer hours.
  • Provided nearly $7 million in grants to promote consumers’ financial capabilities across the U.S.
  • Provided $2.7 billion in community development loans and investments to build or preserve 45,000 units of affordable housing, create 1,100 new jobs, enable 784,000 patient visits and serve 4,400 students in low- and moderate-income communities in the U.S.

As for the report itself, JPMorgan is experimenting with a new format. Expanding on its 2012 Report, which featured an interview between CEO Jamie Dimon and Nature Conservancy CEO Mark Tercek as the focal point to introduce the report and address its critics upfront, the 2013 disclosure goes a few steps further and uses interviews with key stakeholders to tell the entire story.

Framed as a series of stakeholder engagements, the report unwraps over 45 pages – half of last year’s hefty 90 pages – neatly packaged with data, infographics and narrated through conversations between key partners, internal experts and external advisers. It’s a good quick flip through and indicates a move occurring across industries to complement material data with visual storytelling.

One excerpt in particular caught my eye:

JPMC Walter Isaacson quote

Chairman & CEO Dimon responds:

JPMC_2013_highlights

“One thing to keep in mind is that where we did make mistakes, we’ve acknowledged them and made significant progress toward fixing them. We’re investing unprecedented resources to ensure that our compliance and control processes and culture meet the highest standards. And the changes we’re putting in place are designed to make certain our controls will be robust and effective, day in and day out, over the long term.

“We also fully appreciate that rebuilding trust requires more than talk. Our regulators and shareholders want to see progress and performance – and so do we. There is a lot of progress we can point to already, and, by the end of the year, I believe we will be able to demonstrate the enormous amount more – which I think will go a long way toward restoring confidence that JPMorgan Chase is the safest and strongest bank on the planet.”

Of course, this is all easier said than done – and all eyes are on the firm to ensure long-term sustainability.

As Scher states in his letter, the company’s ability to pull resources and activate its deep relationships—not to mention its talent base—is noteworthy. It is in a unique position to create positive impact, influence investment dollars and foster a more sustainable economy.

But herein lies the rub: can an American icon rebuild trust in the marketplace while doing business with traditional capitalists, a static economy and a model that rewards short-term profits and trading returns?

Originally written for and published on CSRwire’s Commentary section Talkback on May 20, 2014.

Climate Denial, Chauvinism and Making Integrated Reports Readable: SAP, BSR and CDP Respond

11 Friday Jul 2014

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In a recent conversation with SAP’s Sustainability Chief Peter Graf about the company’s second Integrated Report, the conundrum between sustainability goals and economic growth kept coming up. Were the two diametrically opposed? Was the ‘conundrum’ a red herring as Henk Campher recently put it?

Working with the SAP team, we decided to turn it into a live discussion. And along with Graf, BSR CEO Aron Cramer, CDP’s Executive Director Nigel Topping and our partner Triple Pundit, we took to Twitter. For one hour, we discussed the trials and tribulations of pursuing sustainability featuring 232 participants contributing 1,388 tweets and over nine million impressions.

But as is often the case, our panelists were not able to respond to all the questions in the hour. Here then are their responses to all the questions we were unable to answer – some questions have been modified for grammatical purposes.

How does a company reconcile a clear need in the realm of sustainability when it’s not a $$$ win for the company? What mechanisms can be used to overcome this barrier? [from @bradzarnett, @beltwits,@thesustoolkit]

Nigel Topping: “Ultimately sustainability issues are business issues and thus addressing them must change the value story. If it changes the story short term you get a P+L benefit, if long-term then through enhanced quality of earnings, talent retention, market share or some other metric, which can also be converted sustybiz-snapshotinto an economic measure.

“Sometimes this is easy – reducing energy waste saves money so the GHG reduction may just be sustainability icing on the cake. But this same action may be making the company more resilient in the face of likely regulation. Remember that value creation is part science part art.”

Aron Cramer: “”As things stand today, market structures and incentives don’t make it easy for companies to make the long-term investments that are often needed to work towards sustainability. We all know that for publicly traded companies, markets often push decisions towards the short-term. As such, emerging efforts to redefine financial success with more attention to long term value, such as integrated reporting, are crucial.”

Peter Graf: “If company itself has no economic reason to do so then the only levers I know of are consumer/customer pressure, public pressure or legislative pressure. If those are applied, then what seemed like an ‘externality’ again becomes revenue and cost relevant.”

Most companies see CSR as taxation without representation. What can companies do to circumvent this view and start acting now? [from @Odyamvid]

Topping: “Companies who see CSR in this way are most likely right! And at the same time leaving value on the table precisely because they are stuck in a mindset, which starts with the assumption that CSR is nothing to do with business. We really do need to see the back of woolly CSR initiatives where no one knows why they exist. There must be a value creation story – it could be direct via resource efficiency or risk mitigation or it could be indirect via brand value enhancement, talent retention, building capacity early to respond to expected consumer trends.

“If you can’t find those plausible stories, which you can tell with conviction to your front line staff, then best just to save your money – you are creating a bigger risk by acting in-authentically. Shareholders can rightly criticize you for wasting their money and NGOs can rightly criticize you for not taking issues seriously.”

Cramer: “This reflects an outdated and discredited understanding of CSR. Indeed, sustainability is about aligning strategy with changing operating conditions and not “taxation.” That said, there are issues where companies should be more active in promoting public policy frameworks that create the right kinds of incentives.  One great example has to do with supply chain labor issues, on which governments have de facto outsourced the responsibility to enforce labor laws to the private sector.”

Graf: “CSR needs to be perfectly aligned with the strategy and how the company creates value. At SAP we focus on education and entrepreneurship in our CSR projects, because they help us drive long-term success as a business. If CSR is not focused on this type of shared value (value to the company and value to society), then it is only a brand building exercise with little substance.”

How can a corporation reconcile short-term needs of shareholders and longer-term sustainability objectives? [from @greengageEnv]

Graf: “Short and long-term value creation do not need to be in conflict. In essence, it’s a balancing act, like always in business. For example, companies have always balanced investments into the future and current revenues to manage their margin.”

Topping: “Companies need a portfolio of innovation to address different time cycles of the dynamics which exist in markets.”

What role do business leaders have regarding climate denialism by other businesses like the stand taken by the U.S. Chamber? [from @kayakmediatweet]

Topping: “Very few business leaders are climate deniers. Even if they don’t believe the science, they have to respond to the growing level of regulation (22% of global emissions are now subject to a price). Leaders have a responsibility to see major change coming and to get out ahead of it, but not too far ahead!

“Climate change is rewriting the rules in many industries – just look at Tesla outselling BMW in California and with a market cap half of General Motor’s already! Leaders also have a responsibility to manage risk. As Bob Litterman, former Chief Risk Officer at Goldman Sachs keeps reminding us – there is an inevitability about the coming price signal on carbon and the less a company is prepared the harder it will be hit. This is already starting to play out in the oil and gas sector with investors pushing dividend returns instead of risky exploration expenditure.”

Cramer: “Businesses very often see further out than governments do. Businesses also like to innovate.  Organized business associations, more often than not, take a lowest common denominator approach that is in fact inconsistent with business interests. Leading companies should use their voice to call for smart regulation and then innovate and compete to succeed. There is a huge opportunity for just such efforts in the run-up to COP-21 in Paris in late 2015: the business voice should be heard, and if it is, companies will help lead the way to  low carbon prosperity. Leaders recognize the importance of this step.”

Graf: “I have personally never used climate change as part of the business case for any sustainability project. Not at SAP. Not with customers. Unless you’re in an industry that depends on climate to be stable (e.g., agriculture), the much better way to argue is the cost of energy, and not the implications and risk of climate change. Energy cost is something I have to deal with today, tomorrow and every day thereafter. There’s zero argument around the probability around that.”

Is the biggest challenge for Integrated Reporting adoption around SME supply chains to ensure sustainable business? [from @mbauerc]

Topping: “No, integrated reporting will impact large listed companies primarily – and the way their integrated thinking leads to changed supply chain engagement will impact the SMEs. In many cases this will allow for disruptive innovations from the savvy small guys.”

Graf: “SME’s adopt more sustainable practices because their customers are expecting it from them. The push is coming from the mega-buyers like the retail giants and trickles down the supply chain from there.”

Integrated reporting is great but how do you get people to read it? [from @angryafrican]

Topping: “Make it the story of your business. I hear more and more business leaders explaining how new graduates are interviewing the companies for evidence of integrated thinking, awareness of the systemic challenges faced by society and a coherent company approach that uses the power of the corporation to make good money by adding real value to society. Telling the integrated story starts at recruitment and goes all the way to analyst calls – it will need to become the same story.”

Cramer: “This challenge affects ALL forms of reporting. But a more broad-minded report is likeliest to attract attention: Integrated reporting could ‘save’ reports.”

Graf: “You need a great overarching story (one story, not many), and use video, interactive charts, etc. to make it interesting. Moreover, use social media to promote it.”

When reporting on energy, carbon, GHG, how can we make it relevant and benchmarked? Standalone figures too abstract to mean much? [from @miamiaki,@jackwysocki]

Topping: “At CDP, we help companies benchmark many environmental indicators and practices against their peers – that’s just good practice but of course it requires good data. Benchmarking process as well as output is important to drive learning and change – for example, what percentage of capex is committed to energy efficiency, does this get same or better payback than average? This sustybiz-tweetalso helps overcome any lagging perceptions that these  metrics are not business-relevant.”

Graf: “We always like to talk in visual explanations. Like ‘SAP consumes the same amount of electricity as a 250,000 people city.’ Or ‘Our customers collectively emit at least one sixth of the world’s man made emissions.’

How has the cloud affected our lives besides our ability to reduce environmental impact? [from @orange_harp]

Graf: “In all the ways that we all experience every day, from music, video, smartphones, millions of apps, social media, social platforms, etc.”

Where do we stand on CSR across the tech industry? Is our personal info staying private? [from @mr_rosenwald]

Graf: “Let me put it this way: I am very conservative about which information I am sharing on the web. The industry is running the risk of losing customer trust. We have to work together to ensure that’s not happening.”

Cramer: “While attention has so far focused on tech companies, almost every business has access to personal information. Companies can look to the principles established via the Global Network Initiative to ensure that this information is treated properly.”

Is part of the gender gap problem that the tech sector is too much of a chauvinistic culture? [How can we] attract women through culture change? [From @angryafrican]

Graf: “I am very proud that SAP has set a target to increase the ratio of women in management positions to 25% by 2017. We have gone up about 3.5% over the last years.”

Originally written for and published on CSRwire’s Commentary section Talkback on May 12, 2014.

When Sustainability Ambitions Become a Living Plan: Unilever Expands, Deepens Commitments

11 Friday Jul 2014

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Yesterday, Unilever released the latest refresh to its Sustainable Living Plan with yet another subtle headline [don’t blame them for being European]: Unilever Expands Sustainable Living Ambition.

And once again it is seeking to set a mindset shift.

Besides a metrics update that started at the beginning of the month with the announcement that the company had successfully reduced the rate of diarrhea among children from 36 percent to five percent through its Lifebuoy branded handwashing campaign ‘Help A Child Reach 5,’ the company announced its decision to step away from calling the Plan, well, a Report.

A Plan That Is Meant to Evolve

As Chief Marketing Officer Keith Weed told me:

“The Living Plan is meant to evolve. Today, we’re engaging more, we’re collaborating more. We’re not writing a separate report any longer. And I’m proud to say that we’re moving toward an integrated report in our effort show how this is now integrated in our overall plan…why we closed down our CSR department. Sustainability [for us is] integrated, truly embedded across our value chain.”

The company also hosted a live by-invitation-only event in London with 100 senior sustainability influencers to discuss the next iteration of the Plan: an expansion to include three specific social targets:

  • Fairness in the workplace [“We have been working with Oxfam on the condition of factory workers in our extended supply chain in Vietnam – and the lessons we have learned we’re taking global, including a new sourcing policy, which makes clear basic levels of human rights that suppliers must adhere to.“]
  • Opportunities for women [“By 2020, we want to help empower five million women. They’re a key part of our international supply chain.”]
  • Developing inclusive business [“Like our Shakti model in India“]

unilever sustainable living planAnd a re-emphasis of what it considers its most critical challenges:

And a re-emphasis of what it considers its most critical challenges:

  • Helping combat climate change by working to eliminate deforestation, which accounts for up to 15 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions
  • Improving food security by championing sustainable agriculture, and improving the livelihoods of smallholder farmers who produce 80 percent of the food in Asia and Sub Saharan Africa
  • Improving health and well-being by helping more than a billion people gain access to safe drinking water, proper sanitation and good hygiene habits.

The Rarity of Receiving Honest Feedback

I was catching up with Weed – who was among the initial creators of the USLP and continues to lead it across the organization today – right after the live event. And he was in a good mood. “In its early days, everyone was genuinely impressed [with the USLP] and were always polite in giving us feedback. They were probably also scared of scaring us off. But now, three years in, they’re more open with their feedback,” he told me.

The company is making good progress.

Besides good results from its #Iwashmyhands and #toilets4all campaigns, for example, some of the reported highlights include:

  • Over 75 percent of its factories have achieved zero non-hazardous waste to landfill
  • A new technology would reduce plastic in its Dove body wash packaging by 15 percent
  • Forty eight percent of agricultural raw materials are now from sustainable sources, up from 14 percent in 2010,
  • It completed training over 570,000 smallholder farmers and increased the number of Shakti women micro-entrepreneurs in India from 48,000 in 2012 to 65,000 in 2013
  • Avoided costs of €350million since 2008 in reducing raw materials and implementing eco-efficiency measures in factories on energy, water and waste
  • Launched compressed versions of its Sure, Dove, Vaseline deodorants across the U.K., which equal to 25 percent of CO2 savings per can.

As Weed counted off, “We’ve integrated USLP into our core business, brands like Lifebuoy are experiencing double-digit growth signifying that integrating sustainability in the core of your brand works, we’re creating less waste, saving money, creating eco efficiencies across our value chain, and if positioned right, can have everyone involved engaged.”

Unilever on TwitterDemonstrating the [Sustainability] Case Internally

“But perhaps the most important highlight is that we are starting to show progress against our commitments and core belief [about integrated sustainability into our business] internally,” he added.

But other challenges emerged.

“Although water usage across our manufacturing facilities was down, when you take into account our entire value chain, it actually went up as did our greenhouse gas emissions. Also scale is tough.”

And the need for good partners.

“We’re stepping up working with others on transformational change. We’ve learned a lot in the last three years. We need to work with others. For example, deforestation contributes 15 percent of GHG – we’ve been doing a lot of work on palm oil by ourselves. Now [we want to] expand the efforts to government and civil society so that we can get to zero net deforestation by 2020,” he added.

Challenges: Finding Partners, Changing Habits

For a brand as diversified and exposed as Unilever, finding partners that share ideologies are critical as is changing consumer behavior.

Last year, we collaborated with the Unilever team on a communication strategy that told the USLP story as well as helped the company engage in critical dialogue with its diverse audience. Besides a detailed blog series penned by Sustainability Chief Gail Klintworth that took us behind the scenes and on the ground with the USLP goals – and a live Twitter chat that generated hundreds of questions – one of the toughest challenges that emerged was influencing consumer behavior.

And some things are finally starting to shift.

Like the 180 million people who now know how to wash their hands properly. Or the 55 million who now have access to safe drinking water.  Or the 70 million people who have already watched/engaged with Unilever’s innovative Project Sunlight.

“The point is to make sustainable living commonplace. We’re an optimistic company – if you get engaged, let’s work together,” said Weed. “Stakeholders are telling us they felt this was very much a part of our business. People are sitting up and talking.”

Numbers aside, changing habits is hard – and it remains the company’s toughest challenge. “We’re using everything we can from celebrities to local partners and rewards. They say it takes 30 days to change a habit. Initiatives like Project Sunlight are important because of this,” he said.

Or the decision to replace current deodorants with compressed versions. “People see smaller cans and think it’s not value for money,” Weed offered. “But if there is any company that has the resolve to take on these challenges, it’s us. We know markets, scale, know how.”

So what’s next?

Engagement, engagement and more engagement. As the marketing chief put it, “We need to engage more people to think beyond their own communities and families. It will happen.”

More about the USLP Refresh here.

Originally written for and published on CSRwire’s Commentary section Talkback on April 29, 2014.

Campbell Becomes America’s First Public Company to Acquire a Public Benefit Corporation: In Conversation with Plum Organics’ Cofounder

09 Wednesday Jul 2014

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Redefining corporate law. Targeting the node of enterprise to shift capitalism.

Those were some of the thoughts running through Neil Grimmer’s mind as he joined eight other businesses to welcome Benefit Corporations in Delaware in July, 2013.

As cofounder and President of Plum Organics – along with a small group of parents – Grimmer’s philosophy has been pretty straightforward: Every kid deserves the best nutrition and no child deserves to go hungry.

The result: an organic food line that prioritizes nutrition, environmental conservation, reduced packaging [a supply chain assessment of the traditional glass jar vs. the Plum pouch was undertaken that showed energy consumption for the latter was much less, fossil fuel consumption for their transportation was a ninth, and they’re 14 times less likely to end up in landfills even with aggressive recycling of the glass jars] and an accompanied mission to target child hunger.

Sound like a lot to take on?

Grimmer’s conviction came from experience. As the former VP of strategy and innovation with Clif Bar, he knew a thing or two about product development that infuses innovation with sustainable practices. “At Clif, I looked at sustainability as a journey, not a method. We’ve adopted that here at Plum,” he says.

Plum Organics went from recording $800,000 in sales in its first year [2008] to $93 million in 2012.

Consider these statistics:

  • 60 percent of retailers in the U.S. carried Plum in the latest quarter
  • The No. 3 baby food brand in the U.S. after Gerber and Beechnut
  • The top growing brand in the baby food category by actual dollars and percent growth this year, with 135% growth vs. a year ago

While the numbers tell their own story, here’s the kicker.

A Public Benefit Corporation: The Implications

Plum Organics is a certified Benefit Corporation. And now with Delaware’s recognition of the legal status, parent company Campbell Soup Company – who announced plans to acquire Plum in May Plum_Organics2013 – becomes the only company in the U.S. with a fully owned subsidiary that is also a Public  Benefit Corporation.

“Our business success at Plum has been based on creating a great product in a way that respects the highest levels of corporate citizenship. It is actually good business to be a good corporate citizen – and our success speaks to that belief,” says Grimmer.

Grimmer is excited – about the notoriety as well as joining hands with an iconic American brand, well-known for its altruistic actions and social causes.

“We have a mission centric core: nutrition and solving hunger with our benefit corporation status our secret sauce and innovation driving the entire process. Campbell has a dual mandate: strengthen the core Campbell business while driving new consumers and innovation. It’s a perfect marriage,” he explains.

With global aspirations [“Hunger and health are global issues.”] and a lofty ambition [“Make sure our products get into every high chair and lunch box globally.”], Grimmer “wanted a partner who would drive both [our goals] with us and help us pave the way to address a more global need that kids have. We have innovation driving our core – we launched over 150 products in the last six years specifically addressing nutritional needs of young families.”

Aligning Ambition With Impact

After spending some time with Campbell Soup Company CEO Denise Morrison, Grimmer’s search Plum Organics Super Smoothiecame to an end.

“As our company grew, so did our ability to impact the world,” says Grimmer. And being a benefit corporation meant the added leverage of a model that places impact and profits in the same sentence. Like The Full Effect program, which was launched this year to target 16 million kids who go without daily meals every day.

“We now had the scale and capability built into the business to make an impact. So we designed a Super Smoothie jam-packed with nutrients,” he says.

So far, Plum has committed to producing and distributing half a million Super Smoothies in 2013. Sound familiar? In 2012, Campbell led a similar one-of-a-kind campaign to produce more than 40,000 jars of “Just Peachy” salsa exclusively for the Food Bank of South Jersey, using fresh, local New Jersey peaches that were not able to be sold because of blemishes but were fine to eat. The initial run from last year’s harvest generated $100,000 for the Food Bank of South Jersey through retail sales.

“Collaborating with Plum made sense for us on several levels. They’re a mission-based organization and their focus on eradicating childhood hunger is strongly aligned with our work nationally and in Camden, N.J. – where Campbell is headquartered. That helps build the collective impact we can have.”

“Plum and Campbell are both consumer-centric companies, and we share a focus on innovation, a critical component of success as we continue to marry our citizenship commitments with the Campbell business model,” responded Dave Stangis, Campbell’s Vice President, Public Affairs and Corporate Responsibility.

Side Effects of An Acquisition

Clearly, the stars align for the two companies but at the end of the day, Campbell is a public company with shareholders and the pressures of satisfying quarterly balance sheets. Will the acquisition bring along with it the familiar headaches of layoffs, change in management and perhaps even a shift in models?

“Plum is a standalone business and will remain so. I will continue to lead Plum Organics and our team is staying intact,” says Grimmer, who plans on remaining an active member of the recently established Plum board of directors. The company will also continue to headquarter in California.

Stangis who has been leading the iconic company’s CSR efforts since 2008 was also quick to cut to the chase about the two organizations’ merged path going forward. “We’re in the process of structuring the Board for Plum. We’re proud to say one of our subsidiaries is a founding member of  the Public Benefit Corporation league.”

“We have already begun working with Neil and the Plum team. We are connecting on joint priorities and sharing Campbell’s CSR and sustainability resources,” he added.

“We’re looking forward to leveraging Campbell’s capabilities and skills to grow the Plum brand. As we dig into these opportunities, we will also be looking to focus on aligning our public benefit corporation with Campbell’s mission, model and culture. They have such a strong CSR program that the opportunities to target hunger are endless,” Grimmer explained.

And this is where Grimmer believes the conversation needs to shift.

“There is a new economy emerging of consumers who are looking to purchase from companies with a mission. They’re building a virtuous circle. When consumers support a business, you end up growing quickly with more exposure and higher impact,” he says.

Of course, being a public benefit corporation is but one element of Plum Organics’ success. It’s an exciting business story.

But the bigger story here is about being able to make an impact by combining a good product with sustainable attributes and an associated social and environmental cause. And that is where Grimmer wants to push his colleagues across corporate America further.

“The business community needs to look at how they are creating values alignment with their core consumers in a marketplace where loyalty is getting scarce. Let’s create many more of those virtuous circles.”

Originally written for and published on CSRwire’s Commentary section Talkback on May 1, 2013.

IKEA’s Sustainability Strategy: Save the World, One Product At a Time

09 Wednesday Jul 2014

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  • 154,000 workers.
  • 47 percent of all managers are women [compared to 17 percent of the American Fortune 500’s board seats or the female representation at the recently concluded World Economic Forum].
  • 338 stores worldwide.
  • 8 percent comparable store sales growth in FY2012.
  • A third of total energy consumption met through renewable energy.

Is IKEA‘s newly minted sustainability strategy working? Titled People & Planet Positive, the strategy was borne out of the retailer’s business mission: to create a better everyday life for the many people. The 2012 report marks the first update for the superstore whose goals start from the obvious – a fourfold increase in sales by 2020 – and go on to include the other two pillars of sustainability – engagement of customers, employees and suppliers, energy dependence, as well as community development.

In typical European fashion – understated with an emphasis on data – the release headline read: The IKEA Group is Growing and Financially Strong. Mind you, the release announces the retailer’s 2012 Sustainability report, not the latest quarterly report on financials. What better way to position sustainability?

I spoke to Chief Sustainability Officer Steve Howard briefly on the cusp of the report’s release. Excerpts:

Aman Singh: What are some of the key highlights of the 2012 Sustainability Report that you would want every CSRwire reader to know?

Steve Howard: We’ve divided the report into two parts. First is the forward-looking piece, which talks about our new sustainability strategy and lays out our 2020 goals. Implementing these goals has  meant a huge amount of work and unleashed an incredible amount of enthusiasm across the workforce. IKEA_2012_Sustainability_Report_Updates

The second piece deals with our impact. In terms of our operations, extending our work on energy has been significant. We completed installing 50,000 solar panels across our business locations by the end of FY 12. Last year, we committed to invest $2 billion in renewable energy by 2015. We’re already committed $500 million of that.

IKEA now owns wind farms in six countries. Thirty-four percent of our energy came from renewable sources last year. We’ve committed to reach 100 percent by 2020. Not bad for a furnishing company.

In our supply chain, we committed to reaching 100 percent compliance with our suppliers. We have 80 auditors working on this goal as well as independent team validating the work of our auditors. [Once we rolled this out] some suppliers agreed to collaborate while others decided not to. So we parted ways with as many as 60 suppliers. That has real business consequences – for us as well as the suppliers.

This goal has been a real test for us on how serious we are with our promises and commitments. Because our strategy is embedded and understood across divisions, our decision to part ways with 60 suppliers was not received with any criticism. We’ve also worked with our supply chain partners on funding projects and have reached more than 100,000 farmers on improving farm conditions, water conservation, etc.

Again, our goal is to reach every single one of our farmers by the end of 2015.

One of IKEA’s goals is to have at least 95 percent of coworkers, 95 percent of suppliers and 70 percent of consumers view IKEA as a company that takes social and environmental responsibility seriously. How’s that going?

Most of our suppliers, customers and coworkers are in the “I don’t know” category. They judge us and have opinions about IKEA but don’t know what we do on sustainability. What we also know is that people care. Once we communicate the urgency, they do care about things like climate change, the  future of their children, etc.

VIDJA_lamp_IKEAMoving forward, we will strengthen our customer communications. For example, last year we replaced the doors of one of our frame cupboards with honeycomb fiber, which is as strong as solid chipboard but uses 40 percent less material. Cupboards need strong doors, not heavy doors. And this reduces the cost to produce the cupboard, therefore, reducing the price for our customers, which makes it a better customer proposition.

Similarly, the VIDJA lamp was redesigned last year to take out unnecessary components [as many as 24 of the 33 original components were removed] and replaced with LED lights, resulting in half the weight and the same performance.  Additionally, we can now load 128 VIDJA lamps on a pallet vs. 80 previously, which means we can ship more at once, reducing our fuel usage and shipping costs.

Just like that, every IKEA product has a story. That’s the direction for our business. Soon everything will be traceable back to source but it’s a lot of hard work and we are starting to talk about these stories. But it will take us some time to get the communication across to our customers globally.

That’s emblematic of a true lifecycle approach. With thousands of products and a growing footprint internationally [IKEA is in China and will soon debut its first store in India] there must be some challenges in balancing sustainability goals and growing scale?

While having a mission and being a values-led business helps, it all comes down to a significant execution and implementation effort. Our people are motivated to lower prices and find sustainable solutions. I use three numbers to talk about sustainability within IKEA:

  • 1.5 planets: needed to provide resources for today’s population
  • 3 billion: extra consumers expected to overcome poverty across emerging markets by 2030
  • 6degrees centigrade warming: A catastrophe.

Integrating_sustainability_into_product_development_IKEAThese numbers are real. And hit hard. We’re over-consuming against the urgency of climate change.  This hits the heart of business: we are either sustainable or bust. We have to do whatever is needed. And we know that.

We can help our customers save energy by switching over to LED lights. We’re essentially banning non-LEDs by committing to sell and use only LED lights in our products. We can help people save water in a meaningful way by using energy-saving equipment. Simple things like LEDs, for example, can reduce our customers’ expenses by 30 percent. That’s equal to a 10 percent pay raise!

This is our opportunity…and it’s highly motivating.

How does reporting on these metrics help? Whose reading the report?

We just want to be transparent. We’re not expecting IKEA customers or coworkers to rush to read our sustainability report. It is meant for a specialist audience that believes in the phrase, you can only manage what you can measure.

Businesses – and management teams – like to have clear targets so that they can report against them [and benchmark, analyze and improve performance]. So why not use the same logic for sustainability?

Originally written for and published on CSRwire’s Commentary section Talkback on January  21, 2013.

Bagels With the Tall Guy: In Conversation with Green Mountain Energy

07 Monday Jul 2014

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Green Mountain Energy, founded in 1997, is the longest selling retailer of carbon offsets in the country with a lofty mission: To change our dependence on power generation from coal and nuclear energy to renewable sources.

With a clear environmental mission and a dedicated consumer base, why would a company like Green Mountain Energy [GME] bother publishing an annual sustainability report?

“The [sustainability] report gives us an opportunity to write about everything we are doing. When you build a company of people who are passionate about the environment, the report becomes a forum to talk about everything we are doing,” says former President Paul Thomas.

The day of our interview, Thomas was still President of the company he has led since 2000. Two days later, news of his stepping down was delivered to my inbox along with a quote:

“I am extraordinarily proud of what we have collectively accomplished at Green Mountain and know that the potential for driving meaningful change is nearly limitless if businesses, like ours, can put market forces to work to solve societal problems.”

Thomas is referring to the recent acquisition of GME by New Jersey-based NRG Energy.

Merging Two Cultures & Winning Over the Skeptics

Paul_Thoms_GMEHow did the company overcome hesitance from employees, customers and investors alike about the acquisition?

“Our society is transforming as a whole from being oil-driven to something very different driven by renewable sources and technology. The question is how do we get from here to there as a society? NRG is a good example [of a company addressing] this dilemma. They are the largest investors in solar production in the country. Now, Green Mountain is a part of their initiative to make NRG a cleaner company – their activities are genuine and we fit well,” he explains.

What about shifting work cultures?

Thomas says the company has undergone several shifts since the 1990s. “We started with a lot of environmental enthusiasts with a low level of business skills. It would have been a lot of hot air if we didn’t drive value to customers. Today we are also a good sales organization, a customer-service driven company,” he says, transitioning from being an environmental company to a good business.

Sustainability Performance

But back to the 2011 sustainability report, which follows several other companies’ lead in shutting off downloadable PDFs in favor of an interactive all-you-can-consume website. The company has come a long way from its formation in the 1990s. According to the report, GME contributed to avoiding 4.5 billion pounds of CO2 emissions, which is “equivalent to not driving a car for six billion miles or planting 6.5 million trees.”

“Remember that in 1997, this was just an idea,” reminds Thomas. “We’ve also increased recycling and all our material now is made from 100% post-consumer recycled content,” he added.

Green_Mountain_Energy_CO2

GME also expanded its innovative Sun Club, which asks customers to pay an additional $5 a month to help the company invest in solar projects. The money donated is then distributed to fund solar projects nationwide in coordination with nonprofits. 2011 marked the biggest year yet in contributions.

But what is sustainability without employee engagement?

Transparency in Action: “Bagels with the Tall Guy”

GME encourages its employees to bike, bus or take the subway in its New York office and participants in 2011 doubled past years’ numbers, according to the report. The report also makes public GME’s paper and publishing standards as well as its contributions and partnerships with organizations like EarthShare.

Green Mountain Energy’s answer to town halls is what the staff quirkily call “Bagels with the Tall Guy.” Thomas explains:

“I’m 6’6” tall. My predecessor was bald so it used to be called “Bagels with the Bald Guy.” It is just an informal communication forum for employees to ask me anything that is on their mind. Nothing is off the table and the conversation is purposely unstructured.”

While all is fair game, Thomas admitted that not everyone attends every month. But what it does is allow “us to be transparent. I believe that employees are effective when they have more context of their job and how they are contributing. Their role makes more sense and there is less doubt about how they fit in and how they can make a difference,” he added.

Public Policy & Sustainability

GME_ProductsWith the Rio+20 Summit coming up, I asked Thomas what the government and public policy makers can do to help support the growth of businesses like GME.

Pointing to a fundamental disconnect, he said, “The public is ahead of policy makers because there is a fundamental misunderstanding between individuals who are concerned about the environmental and their willingness to make purchasing decisions.”

“In the last 10 years, we have seen a sea change in the public’s attitude. But policy makers have not caught up with that,” he continues, adding:

“Green Mountain can focus on market changes by aligning ourselves with the social and environmental benefits of our product. That’s a powerful combination. We’ve proven that green business works, that there is a market for us, and that we can drive a lot of societal benefit while providing good jobs and careers for individuals, and meaningful returns for investors.”

Thomas also cautioned activists and skeptics to keep in mind the regulatory barriers in the market for green energy. “Every state has its own approach ranging from Texas that is competitive and has an open market for electricity to states where the old monopolistic system is still there. We are not allowed to compete in those states!” he emphasized before adding, “We cannot sell green electricity without having permission to enter the states and compete first and foremost.”

A significant barrier but one that hasn’t stopped Green Mountain Energy from scaling the heights and pursuing its mission. His advice for aspiring social and environmental entrepreneurs? “Keep at it, we’ve done it and shown that green businesses can thrive. It’s possible.”

Originally written for and published on CSRwire’s Commentary section Talkback on June 1, 2011.

The True Value of CSR Reporting: In Conversation with Campbell Soup’s VP for CSR

07 Monday Jul 2014

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The soon-to-be-released report will mark Campbell Soup’s fourth CSR Report. This report comes amidst a CEO change – Denise Morrison took on the chief job at Campbell Soup last year joining a small group of women CEOs in the Fortune 500 – and a period of what Director of Diversity & Inclusion Kevin Carter calls a time of “deep introspection” for the company.

Carter’s note is well taken. With the economy sputtering and flailing, reports continue to suggest that consumer confidence and trust remain low. For a food manufacturer then, this means not only staying ahead of the curve of quickly changing taste preferences but also understanding its unique role in encouraging nutrition across an increasingly complex and fragmented consumer base.

And amid a tepid economy, where does the true value of CSR and sustainability reporting lie? Can these reports and the effort required to produce them extend beyond an exercise in sharing key metrics, the year’s highlights – and a few, incredibly sparse media mentions – to true learning experiences for companies to better their processes and make gains that help them and their communities become more sustainable?

The True Value of CSR Reporting

Dave_Stangis_CSFor VP of Public Affairs and Corporate Responsibility, Dave Stangis – his third report since taking the job at Campbell Soup – the true value of Campbell Soup’s reporting goes far beyond setting the right goals and reporting on the progress.

“The true potential of CSR reporting* is that while companies go through this chronological reporting effort once a year, the organization and business units are executing their strategies and working on metrics year-round. The process of reporting creates an opportunity to build a Campbell Soup Britannica or World Book to work off of and use as a record of the company’s progress,” he said in a recent interview.

“All year-long, we are collecting examples, building the narrative, monitoring our progress and continually evolving materiality assessments,” he continued. Often, great examples of progress emerge that would otherwise never rise to the spotlight in a multinational company.

“As you dig in, you find cross-functional teams working together on strategy, benchmarking, indicators, etc. There are, of course, always things to improve on but the stories and ideas that emerge from this heels dug in reporting exercise are incredibly useful in moving our company forward,” he said.

Connecting the Dots: Recognizing the True CSR Heroes

In recent weeks, CSRwire readers read from a number of top executives at Campbell Soup on their stories and contribution to the 2012 CSR report. Trish Zecca discussed the fine balance between nutrition and taste while Amanda Bauman discussed how the company is tackling hunger and obesity in its communities and Dr. Daniel Sonke gave us an in-depth account of the relationship between agriculture practices and corporate sustainability. Finally, D&I Director Kevin Carter offered his insights on how the company is prioritizing intercultural teams, moving diversity beyond compliance, and tentatively dipping its toes in social media.

For Stangis, these are the true heroes.

“These are the people who are behind the images and stories in the report. They are invested in the business Campbell_Soup_Volunteersand their work and there is a discernible amount of pride and work ethic that goes along with that,” he said.

“For our CSR Communications Manager Niki Kelley – creating this report is her life for six months and I’ve told her, she’s the one who knows more about the entire company than anyone else in the company.”

5 Questions for Campbell Soup’s VP for CSR

What is Stangis most proud of in the latest CSR report?  “It’s the nuances that a lay reader won’t realize but that are critical to the progress we are making,” he said. To explain further, we decided to play five questions:

1. Whose Interested:

“We continue to evolve our understanding of our various audiences [for the CSR report]. We want to connect with our employees on the frontline as well as in the C-suite. We need to impact our neighbors and make the content relevant to our customers and consumers. Most readers are looking for quick snapshots and I want to validate, reinforce and build trust and credibility in that short timeframe.”

2. What’s New:

“We’ve really worked hard on strengthening the wellness and nutrition metrics from a product perspective…we’re not driving a health ultimatum, but we are offering more healthy choices for consumers. Readers that pay closer attention will notice a growing sophistication in our strategies and metrics across the board. This report also includes the first full description of our Healthy Communities Initiative that we’ve launched in Camden, NJ.”

3. What’s Often Hidden:

“We work hard to make sure nothing gets lost in the details, but there is a ton of content that most readers will miss on a casual glance. The CEO Letter can give the readers a sense of how Denise Morrison thinks and interacts with the CSR and sustainability strategy.”

“We’re bridging from an employee engagement (only) mindset to a performance culture that leverages engagement to drive better business results. This isn’t something that is immediately obvious to external readers but it’s a priority for us.”

4. What’s Measured Gets Managed:

“Last year we discussed our community programs but this year the report really talks about these in a strategic and measurable manner. We continue to advance our metric set from product conception to societal impact. We’ve mapped our production sites with the WBCSD Global Water Tool and as we’ve brought our Community and Foundation functions into tighter alignment with our CSR and Sustainability strategies, we are shifting from measuring activity to measuring outcomes.”

5. Uncharted Territory: 

“The big news this year from a sustainability perspective is our traction on renewables. We’ve had smaller efforts in the past but in 2011 we went from dipping our toes in the water to flipping the switch on one of the largest solar installations in the country. This represents a cultural shift for the company. Large scale renewable projects just weren’t in our solution set and now we are evaluating new renewable opportunities across our plant network that reduce our greenhouse gas emissions and save money.”

Solar_Panels_at_Campbell_SoupFor Campbell Soup, a global footprint means a holistic vision of sustainability that encompasses its products, employees, communities and supply chain.

And for Stangis, publishing an annual report is not only a testament to his team’s efforts but also a way to measure what’s not working. Having led CSR at Intel before joining Campbell Soup, Stangis is a veteran in the world of CSR reporting, and has seen firsthand the evolution of the sector.

“What comprehensive reporting does today is set up a process that continues to position the company in the long-term. This wasn’t the case when we started reporting. Now we’re anticipating issues and breaking down communication silos that are inherent in the company,” he explained.

Challenges Ahead: More Data, Clarity of Purpose

Any regrets? “We need to keep pushing ourselves for better data every year, especially for our international footprint. It’s only when you dig in that you realize how much better a fully integrated measurement and reporting system would be,” Stangis confessed.

The journey – as for most companies taking on the responsibility and challenge of reporting on their corporate social responsibility and sustainability efforts – is far from over.

And as a seasoned sustainability executive, Stangis understands the daunting task that lies ahead for Campbell Soup in a crowded market, evolving taste preferences and the continuous challenge of consumer education.

“We still have to plug people into what we are doing, the reason why we are doing it [and make it make sense],” he said, noting that it isn’t just the external stakeholders that need the dots to be continually connected for them.

“We have to do a better job at communicating the strategic intent and shareowner value delivered by a comprehensive CSR program.  Our internal teams, our C-suite – it’s our job to help them understand  the story across the board.”

Originally written for and published on CSRwire’s Commentary section Talkback on May 24, 2012

Missing Voices: Green Business Leaders Discuss Representation at Rio+20

07 Monday Jul 2014

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Co-written with Martha Shaw 

Nearly 100 sustainable business leaders crowded onto the 10th floor of the UN Church Center in New York City on
May 1st to join a conversation with Chantal Line Carpentier, Sustainable Development Officer and Major Groups Program Coordinator of the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, and other UN representatives.

The topic: To hear from the “missing voices” of over 200,000 entrepreneurs from organizations including the American Sustainable Business Council (ASBC), Social Venture Network, Business Alliance for Local Living Economies (BALLE), B Lab, CSRwire, Green America and ‘buy local’ green business networks.

The meeting was hosted by The Temple of Understanding, and organized by Martha Shaw, to explore ways that founders of socially and environmentally responsible ‘triple bottom line” businesses might bring their voices to Rio+20, and beyond.

“We Must Raise Our Voice Now”

David_Lavine_Missing_VoicesASBC’s David Levine started the conversation by stressing that the gathered entrepreneurs are conscious of their global counterparts who are also running businesses that presuppose green practices and help serve social needs while making money.

“Whether they are social enterprises, micro enterprises, women’s groups or development groups, they all carry the same sensibilities of a triple bottom line. They are finding a balance between profits, social and environmental goals,” he said. “This voice is missing in our country today because a monolithic voice led by multinationals dominates all dialogues.”

Levine ended by emphasizing that this is the opportunity for the entrepreneurs to market their leadership and present their pioneering work on a global stage as a way of creating shared value. “This voice is new and we must raise it,” he ended.

“Define Sustainable and Green Business”

Green Maps SystemGreen Map System‘s Wendy Brawer picked up where Levine left by adding that until we define what “sustainable business” means, creating this coherent voice will be hard.

Jumping into the dialogue, CSRwire CEO Joe Sibilia made it clear that “any business that integrates the human condition into its operations, whether you call it humanity or spirituality, is sustainable. These entrepreneurs are using business to create a values-driven and sustainable world,” he said. “Financial gains cannot be the only objective. It’s that simple.”

Eco-preneurs at Rio+20

Temple of Understanding’s Grove Harris interjected by adding that it is “practices like the ones Joe is highlighting that need to be voiced at Rio+20. It is important to bring these issues to the table by showing business practices that manifest in social value.” She also added that traditionally, non-governmental organizations have not proven sophisticated enough to support our future and voices. “We need business to be there.”

Joe_Sibilia_Missing_VoicesMore examples of mission-driven business enterprises solving many social and environmental problems, including the eradication of poverty, were offered, as was a comparison to the restraints of multinational corporations who are bound by law to act in the best interest of stockholder profits.

Though Sibilia, Harris, Brawer and B Lab’s Peter Strugatz offered several examples of supply chain relationships among green businesses and corporations going green, they also pointed out that many other models exist for ways the world can do business outside the restrictions of a corporation.

United Nations: Collaborate & Lead The Conversation

After hearing everyone out, Chantal Line Carpentier, the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Officer and Major Groups Program Coordinator, took the floor to urge the attendees to work with the UN in representing their issues at Rio+20.

She also emphasized clarifying ambiguous language about sustainability and suggested that the sector come to an agreement on what “private public partnerships mean” and “how you can help influence policy and regulatory frameworks.”

“Consider this as a strong call for leadership. There is a lot of talk about business doing more but how? Show us, offer best practices, define CSR, and align practices with the United Nations Global Compact guidelines,” she said.

Carpentier also recommended that the entrepreneurs make an effort to demystify the language around lifecycles, supply chain analysis and sustainability.

Finally, Tess Mateo, an advisor to the UN’s Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA), pointed out that the Women, and Indigenous People Major Groups would be good allies and recommended that we remain cognizant of working together with the other enterprises in promoting our voice on the global stage.

Originally written for and published on CSRwire’s Commentary sectionTalkback on May 2, 2012.

Bob Willard’s Business Case for Sustainability: A Better Way to Make a Bigger Profit

03 Thursday Jul 2014

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The constant struggle between business’ social and environmental responsibility and investor demands is already an old tale. “The field has stretched and magnified so quickly that even though I have only been doing this work for three years, it feels like 10,” confessed a fellow attendee at a recent conference.

It’s true. Increasingly, more of us – those of us who eat, drink, sleep and dream CSR and sustainability – succumb to the comfort of believing that the sector is steadily progressing toward safer, clearer, more transparent practices.

But are we?

With Wall Street continuing to demand quarterly results, stringent returns on investments and short payback periods, are we really supporting sustainability in its truest sense? The examples, after all, are endless: Apple’s factory standards, Goldman Sachs’ unethical business practices, Chevron’s continued governance malpractices as reported by the Amazon Defense Coalition, and a new report that calls Wal-Mart’s sustainability championship as mere greenwashing.

As the CECP’s Margaret Coady remarked recently on CSRwire Talkback, how can sustainability executives tie consumer expectations and investor pressure into cohesive strings of action? Are the two sides completely incompatible?

Bob_Willard_The_Sustainability_AdvantageBob Willard, author of The Sustainability Advantage – and the updated The New Sustainability Advantage – recently held a well-attended webinar organized by the Toronto Speaker Sustainability Series [TSSS] on objections handling for sustainability executives. Some of his lessons – which you will soon be able to download as a useful reference guide, courtesy TSSS – focus on identifying mind shifts, behavioral change, graciousness and emphasizing education.

Now, Willard is traveling to New York to present at the Ethical Sourcing Forum on March 29 – 30, 2012 on connecting these lamentations with the business case for sustainability. A former IBMer, Willard’s work is renowned for its articulate arguments and concrete examples. His book is a firestorm of information and data. Here’s what the founder of Interface, the late Ray Anderson, said:

Bob Willard has performed a service of inestimable value: quantifying the business case for sustainability. By focusing at the level of the firm, Willard has bypassed the overriding but somewhat esoteric question, “How long can the rape of Earth by the modern industrial system go on before ecological collapse?”

The answer to this big question lies in the cumulative effect of millions of firms, large and small, waking up to the untapped profit potential that’s all around them. Bob Willard has shown how to capture that potential in real profits. Consequently, the answer to the big question is: Let the rape stop now; there’s a better way to make a bigger profit. Read this book to learn how.

Willard believes that until recently, there has been little evidence expressed in business language to show executives actual benefits from sustainability strategies. But that sustainability strategies can drive new bottom-line opportunities, avoid impending risks, and be a catalyst for business innovation, even in an economic recession.

While there are speakers aplenty who can talk about sustainability today in logically constructed sentences, there are few who have decades of experience to back up their arguments and can not only envision sustainable capitalism but show us how to get there. Willard falls in the latter category. So, if you are in the New York City area, join the CSRwire team at the Ethical Sourcing Forum to learn and engage with the leader himself.

Originally written for and published on CSRwire’s Commentary sectionTalkback on March 16, 2012.