Sustainability Vision

If you think sustainability is important in our human systems, then you have some vision of what your company should be doing about it. Whether you are a line worker, middle manager or senior executive, your vision has some relationship to current reality. Here is a graphic I absconded from the excellent book "The Sustainability Champions Guidebook" by Bob Willard. It will help you see not only where your company is now, but what hurdles are in the way and what helpers might be available to you.

More Evidence: Conscious Capitalism Pays

OK. So nobody is colder and more bottom line oriented than Wall Street. And Goldman Sachs is getting the brunt of it now. So that's why if they say green is most profitable, it probably is. After all, The Street values profit over all else. According to a Goldman finding, "from 2005-2007, organizations that are leaders in leveraging environmental, social and corporate governance considerations for sustained competitive advantage outperformed  global stock funds by 25%."

Why would anyone start a business today and not make it green? It is clearly where the money is. And the good karma!

Speaking of Banks

Just for fun, lets say you inherited 4 million dollars from someone you didn't know. You could live off the interest right? After taxes, say 200K per year. So long as you don't screw with the principal, you have created a scenario of sustainable development. As a human you are still going to develop. Some of that interest paid to you will be invested for development (like buying a house or personal development training), but you haven't spent the principal so even if you lose the entire investment your still in a sustainable situation.

Isn't humanity in the same situation? The resources of the earth are our principal. We can use some of them and they grow back. But if we take more than the earth can regenerate, as a global society we are not in a sustainable life. Eventually the principal will run out and we will quickly starve to death.

Normally I focus on issues for entreprenuers and business owners... I know none of us alone can create a sustainable society. But the sum of our choices will create the tipping point that brings it about.

Vote with your dollars and your choices.

Taking Green Business to the Bank

Want to make your company more profitable with each transaction AND worth more during your exit? Then make it truly green and the money will follow. As of January 2008, a 0.15 oz tube of Burt's Bee's lip balm cost $3.00. The same size tube of Chapstick cost 1.69. Sure, Burt's production costs were about 25% higher, but the cost at the cash register more than made up the difference.

At the time that Burt's had revenues of $164 million, the company sold to Clorox for $913 million. At a time when many businesses will sell for 2-3 times net profit, Burt's sold for nearly six times revenue.

The Body Shop was sold to L'Oreal for nearly $1.1 Billion in 2006. Far ahead of the market cap of similar companies.

The evidence is clear. Profits are higher while doing business and the exit strategy pays better to the founders if your company is truly green and responsible. And you are doing better for the world at the same time.

Starting a business? Make it truly green and socially responsible. You'll sleep better at night and make more money in the process.

The Real Debacle of the Oil Spill

There are about a million reasons why the oil spill is such a problem. But the issue I see comes in the form of missed opportunity. The senate was ready to take up a rare bipartisan energy bill soon co-sponsored by a Democrat, an Independent and a Republican. Sure, the bill has its problems but it genuinely is a shot at real reform that will seriously kick-in growth of R & D and implementation of renewable's.

But instead we got bogged down in a debate about what to take up first, energy or immigration.

The lost opportunity comes in the fact that there is no better time for a debate about energy policy (from my perspective anyhow) than right on the heels of a great "un-natural" disaster that comes from our old ways of generating power.

Nobody predicted the spill to happen now... but it is not too late to put energy policy on the agenda. Just when our televisions are blaring why the old way is so bad is right in our face.

Hard Proof: Social Responsibility Adds to Bottom Line

Are you still stuck in the old paradigm that acting ethically might hurt your bottom line? Think again. "Between 1995 and 2007, socially responsible investmanet assets expanded by 324 percent, sharply outpacing growth in the broader universe of investments, which increase by less than 260 percent over the same period. Social Investing is thriving as never before"*

"Even during the bust of the great recession, investing in socially responsible funds grew at a higher rate than ever"**

If you are a business owner or executive decision maker at a larger organization, keep this in mind. Doing the right thing not only allows you to sleep better at night, it adds more to the bottom line!

Sources

* Report on Socially Responsible Investing Trends in the United States, Published by Social Investment Forum, March 2008

** Time, September 21, 2009; "The Responsibility Revolution"

Green Business or Not, Wise Advice

I found this a great guide for starting any venture; green, high-tech or low-tech. Brand new or spin-off. Rock band, green business or non-profit venture.

Key Points:

• Get a great team
• Get committed partners
• Offer something unique that meets a need
• Build slowly with low risk tests/installations/engagements
• Continue to improve
• Scale when ready

Thanks to the blog TelevisionSky for this great guide. For the entire article, go here:

http://www.televisionsky.org/2010/04/tech-startups-vs-rock-bands

There’s a movement afoot!

No matter what you call it, there is momentum for a new kind of capitalism… a sustainable economy that is not dependent on depleting non-renewable resources and exploiting our fellow man. It goes by many names: Social entrepreneurship

Sustainable economics

Conscious capitalism

Green economics

Green business

Sustainable business

Corporate Social Responsibility

Socially Conscious business

B Companies

Capitalism 3.0

Sustainable Consumption

There are more buzzwords and acronyms, and they do have slightly different meanings. If I am an executive at a large multinational company, social entreprenuership represents different things than corporate social responsibility. From a big picture perspective though, they are similar.

There is a critical mass of people in the world building now that can see that our planet and population simply cannot maintain unsustainable systems for much longer. And there are enough people in that camp now that things are starting to move.

Some evidence of this movement could be the abundance of conferences on the subject, the recognition at the world economic forum to make Sustainable Economics a key pillar, the many different blogs on the subject and the appointment of people in the executive suite at large multinationals that are focused on sustainability. One thing is for sure, there is now pressure from the top (the C-Suite and global economic initiatives) and the bottom (entrepreneurs and small businesses; individual choices making a difference in large economies).

That tells me it’s a movement and not a fad. And I am happy the movement is here. What will you do to move it forward faster?

What is your greenest choice

It is happening slowly but surely... It is getting easier to find out which vendor is greenest. May people don't know the phrase "Greenwashing." It is the practice of simply using green in marketing materials but not following through with any real commitment to the green movement.

Welcome ClimateCounts.org. On this site they are begining to rank all kinds of businesses, from airlines to housecleaners, based on how well they really do in being green.

And for companies that want a roadmap in going from where they are now to becoming green, they have guidlelines to follow. Check it out.

www.climatecounts.org

Getting the Triple Bottom Line

The triple bottom line measures more than just profit and loss. It captures a different way to measure organizational success. In practical terms, it is a way to measure not just financial performance, but the performance of social and ecological performance.It has been described this way. The Three P’s: Profit, People, Planet

Financial profitability, social equity and environmental sustainability.

The three Pillars

Here is a company really getting it done in a super competitive industry