100% Sustainable Sourcing by 2020

I recently wrote an article for IBS America that shows how Unilever plans to execute 100% sustainable sourcing by 2020. Why are they doing it? To save money and reduce risk.

How will they do it? By requiring suppliers to meet recognized sustainability and environmental standards. Implementing management systems to track, improve and report are the only way for today's suppliers to stay alive. Those that cannot rise to the challenge will perish.

See the full article on the IBS America website at http://info.ibs-us.com/blog/bid/35543/Unilever-Goes-to-100-Sustainable-Sourcing-by-2020

Podcast, Rick Heede, Climate Mitigation Services

Rick Heede is the founder and principal of Climate Mitigation Services. He has studied climate change since the early-1970s and has worked on energy and climate solutions since 1984. He worked with Armory Lovins at the Rocky Mountain Institute from 1984 through 2002 on issues ranging from energy policy, energy-saving office equipment, home energy measures and “Climate Neutral by 2020” for Oberlin College.

Along with his work at Climate Mitigation Services Rick is working on a book on the global risks of Antarctica’s climate-sensitive ice sheets.

Today's podcast is a little more technical than most, but if you enjoy a detailed talk on getting climate change done, this is a good one to hear.

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Podcast; Sustainability Roundtable, Inc. founder Jim Boyle

Jim Boyle shares an inspirational story of how he put his vision of a sustainable society into action by creating the Progressive Business Leadership Network, and then went on to create the Sustainability Roundtable, Inc. (www.sustainround.com). The Sustainability Roundtable, Inc. provides a new model of sharing that allows companies and governments to reach sustainability goals faster and at less cost through collaboration.

 

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Green is a fad, sustainability is a trend

I remember in the late 80's through early 2000's the complaints I would hear about "fads" in quality. TQM, ISO, Lean, Re-engineering... the list of buzzwords goes on and on. A funny thing happened on the way though. American quality has gotten significantly better over the last 25 years. The truth is, any given label might have been a fad, but the trend was (and still is) quality improvement in US manufacturing.

A fad has a relatively short term lifespan and may be vague. A trend last a long time. I remember when people thought jogging was a fad. Health consciousness is the trend.

The term "Green" is the current hot word for anything that may be or pretends to be environmentally friendly. But sustainability (defined as meeting today's needs without sacrificing the resources of future generations) is a trend. We are not acting sustainable now, but momentum is in place to drive forward putting the systems in place to become sustainable.

How do I know... some of the biggest companies in the world like Walmart and Proctor & Gamble are forcing their suppliers to create continuous improvement systems to become more sustainable. If you cant put a good sustainability management system in place, you lose Walmart or P&G as a customer. These players are just too big to ignore.

At the World Economic Forum the most discussed topic is sustainability. The top leaders know their businesses will die if they don't have clean water and breathable air. When the big boys lead the rest will follow because their pocket books depend on it.

One big hurdle for the laggards and haters will be putting sustainability management systems in place in their companies. I'll talk about what a sustainability management system is in a future post if you don't already know (hey, maybe it will be the next buzzword that people call a fad!).

Will there be resistance? You bet. Will people say it is a fad? Of course. Will new terminology replace the current language? Absolutely. But the trend is there. Get on board or get out of the way.

Chris Fowler, Founder and Executive Director at SyracuseFirst

My first podcast of the new series "Sustainability and Social Entrepreneurship" is up on iTunes. The series will consist of interviews with social entrepreneurs and sustainability leaders that are doing real work in the real world. Today we interview social entrepreneur Chris Fowler, Founder and Executive Director of SyracuseFirst. Chris was on the fast track to a challenging and wonderful career that was taking him all across the country. He had such a love for his hometown and its great local traditions though that it kept calling him back. He took the lessons learned from his travels and combined them with his passion for social justice and sustainability to create a great organization that is doing amazing things in this community.

 

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Sustainability is just an accounting problem

In the end we as individuals and businesses pollute because it is free or nearly free to do so. The actual costs of our actions are recognized elsewhere in taxes, healthcare or put off for future generations to pay. They are called externalities.

All of the products (like water, coal, oil and other extracted things) and services (like air that does not make us sick and allows food to grow) that we get from the earth and atmosphere are ecosystem services. And those services have a price.

The solution is to value these ecosystem services. “This is nothing to do with corporate social responsibility and the green agenda, it is hard-nosed economics,” says Chris Knight, assistant director of the forestry and ecosystems team within PwC’s sustainability practice in the Financial Times.

The challenge is to link the scientific data with business and personal choice. And the way businesses and individuals make choices is based (mostly) on cost and benefit. Also known as accounting in business speak.

The World Business Council for Sustainable Development, a global coalition of some 200 companies, is about to release a guide to corporate ecosystem valuation.

A new report, The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity, aims to put a price on those products and services that we get from nature, so we can recognize the costs. I believe there is nothing more critical to sustainability than paying the price of all we consume at the time of use.

The Financial Times article referenced here is "Biodiversity: Valuing nature can cut business costs" published on March 21, 2011.

To see the report The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity you can go to www.teebweb.org.

Want to Turn Your Business Around... Go Green

Whatever business you are in, the best way to put yourself on a track to long term success is to master the green trends of your industry. Are you a builder? Green building is the only growing trend in the space. A pest control company? People want green solutions over the conventional. Parts supplier to a major manufacturer? Manufacturers are requiring carbon footprint and input reports more than ever before and will continue to do so.

Not only will it reduce your costs, it will put you ahead of your competition.

Bloomberg's BusinessWeek.com has a great article today showing how Siemens went from nearly being toppled from a bribery scandal to completely turning the company around. All of it was done by following megatrends, with green leading the way. See the article here: http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/11_06/b4214018593359.htm

If a company with over 400,000 employees can make a turnaround in a short period, surely you can.

Want Affordable Clean Energy? Remove ALL Subsidies

Subsidies for Fossil Fuels Far Outweigh Renewables

A report of energy subsidies from 2002-2008 by the Environmental Law Institute shows that subsidies for traditional fossil fuels and corn ethanol totaled 87 Billion dollars. During the same period, subsidies for traditional renewable energy and carbon capture and storage were a paltry 14.5 billion. Although some would argue corn ethanol is renewable, it is not sustainable and uses nearly as much fossil fuel to produce as the energy that it creates. So it is essentially unsustainable.

Green energy would benefit significantly by simply removing all subsidies. It would make the price of dirty energy more expensive than clean energy. Even a tea partier can like that. 

100% Wind Power Cheaper Than Coal

The Empire State Building has gone to 100% wind power for one reason. It is cheaper than using coal and prices are more stable. Not only are operating costs lower, but the building owners are able to attract the best tenants and higher rent because of the switch. "Clean energy and our nearly 40% reduced consumption of watts and BTUs gives us a competitive advantage in attracting the best credit tenants at the best rents" said Anthony E. Malkin, president of Malkin Holdings, which runs the building, in an announcement.

"Everything that we're doing at the Empire State Building is about business and bottom line, that's the first and most important thing," Malkin said. "We're not about paying more to do something qualitatively different, we're about market-ready solutions. We didn't know we were doing green power until the bid was won by Green Mountain."

I speak to building owners all the time. Two of the biggest objections I hear is "my building is too big for this" and "my building is too small for this." Those are excuses to stop people from doing better because change is scary. Embrace the change. You will feel better and you'll prove your a better business-person than the others.

Read more: http://www.greenbiz.com/blog/2011/01/06/empire-state-building-turns-100-green-power#ixzz1AvO0hNvE

Green pays big for GE

If you want to look at a great company by most traditional business school measures, GE gets top billing. Hence, business people should follow their lead. GE's Ecomagination line now has annual sales of $20 Billion. More importantly it is one of the fastest growing business lines in the company so its influence will continue to grow.

Ecomagination is more that just light bulbs. GE is the largest manufacturer of commercial scale wind turbines. GE bought the wind turbine business from Enron in 2002 for $200 million. This year that business will generate $7 billion in sales. Who wouldn't love to grow their business by that much. It generates more cash per month than they paid for the entire business.

Despite being a behemoth, GE can make its green programs work because it is truly committed.

When Ecomagination was launched in 2005 CEO Jeff Immelt knew that it could easily look like greenwashing and appeart to employees and teh public that senior management was not truly committed. To give focus and credibility to the program Immelt pushed for clear metrics. They included:

1. Double R&D in the area;
2. Quadruple revenue from the products to $20 billion in sales
3. Be transparent about the effort to the public
4. Run GE under the rules of the Kyoto protocol.

GE is a world leader. Those that are holding back are clinging to a past that is gone. Get on board. Companies like GE will put you out of business otherwise.

* Data for this post was taken from the article at http://www.greenbiz.com/blog/2010/09/13/jeff-immelt-crowdsourcing-30-rock-and-why-green-no-longer-gold?page=full