The future of sustainability: beyond doing less bad

I saw Joel Makower speak at San Francisco’s Commonwealth Club last week on the eve of the launch of his new book – Strategies for a Green Economy.    I did buy the book and look forward to reading it, but this will not be a review of the book.  During his conversation at the Club with BSR’s Aron Cramer, Makower touched on something that has been bothering me for a while now.

Take this random smattering of corporate environmental news I found just now in my inbox:

• Sprint sets goal of 15% green house gas emissions reduction by 2017
• New MacBooks eliminate certain harmful chemicals, waste less in their packaging
• GE cuts energy use in warehouse by 29%

These are all good first steps.  But they are lacking something.  I don’t feel good hearing this.  Instead of rejoicing, I begin to wonder how bad it still is if a 15% reduction over the course of 9 years is worth a proud press release?  What are Sprint’s absolute emissions?  What could they do that would be good rather than less bad?  All three of these environmental claims and most that I see imply that companies are doing less bad.  Which begs the question – how much bad are they still doing?  I’ve had a nagging feeling that we are missing something in our environmental reporting and approach to CSR.

Makower articulated these same concerns last Wednesday.  He said that the future of sustainability may not be sustainability.  Today’s greening efforts center on doing less bad.   And that’s just the first step.  The next step involves actually restoring environments to their original state, and even perhaps giving back and adding value to surroundings.  For example, Coca-Cola has pledged to return as much water as it extracts.

I want to keep this short and sweet.  But what I would like to see as the future of corporate (and all) sustainability efforts involves carbon negative growth, planting 2 trees for every tree cut down, treating the environment like the home of a valued host – leaving things as good or better than when you first arrived.  Is that too much to ask?

[Originally published on Just Means' All Things Reconsidered Blog]

 

The silver lining in the market collapse: social capital

Just as things are falling apart, I feel them starting to come together. Amidst a free-falling roller coaster global economy, social capital is an encouraging bright spot. While traditional profit-driven capitalism is failing us, the social capital movement is budding, striving to do good and make money at once, shattering the traditional for-profit, non-profit dichotomy. I was a relative newbie amongst the brilliant, entrepreneurial and proactive attendees of the first Social Capital Markets Conference (SoCap08) which took place this week in San Francisco.  I wanted to share my post-event summary and thoughts.

SoCap08’s tagline refers to the “intersection of money and meaning” where “doing well and doing good is the mantra of a new generation of entrepreneurs and the organizations that invest in them.” For so long, for-profits have been efficient and scaled but potentially evil (i.e. focused on profit at all costs) and non-profits have been benevolent but inefficient and underfunded (a great Stanford Social Innovation Review article by FSG speaks to this). At last we are seeing more and more successful social enterprises that can turn a profit and maximize social impact at once. Companies are adopting social missions alongside their profit-maximizing goals. The Journal of Private Equity ran a fabulous article entitled “What Should Investors Know About Social Ventures?” which describes the space, listing Whole Foods, IKEA, Starbucks, Stonyfield Farm, Tom’s of Maine, Patagonia, and Newman’s Own as just a few of the “pioneering” socially responsible companies leading the space.

Kevin Jones, partner at Good Capital and SoCap08 producer, pointed out in his opening remarks the fortuitous timing as well as the gathering momentum that the conference represented. Conference organizers expected 300 attendees. But 600 registered; 50% did so in the last 3 weeks, which you may recall as some of the worst weeks in Wall Street history. The conference fee was around $1000 and people flew in from all over the world to attend, which is the most basic indicator of the excitement, energy and dedication gathering around the movement. Perhaps the meltdown really catalyzed this convergence. As the Skoll Foundation blog notes “Many see the financial meltdown as a unique opportunity to promote the idea of social capital markets and double or triple bottom line accounting. The meltdown has revealed the risk associated with profit maximization at all costs.”

Katherine Fulton of Monitor Institute gave a fantastic keynote speech. My consultant core may be shining through here, but she adeptly and logically dissected and described the industry and what needs to happen for it to prosper. According to her framework, we will need to: create industry defining funds as a beacon for how to address specific social issues, place substantial catalytic risk taking capital in mezzanine finance structures, develop an impact investing network, set industry standards for social measurement, and lobby for specific policy and regulatory change. All of this converging under the guidance of outstanding leadership, and social capital becomes viable.

One of the big questions of SoCap08 centered on how to make money while having an impact, an area where we’ve already seen some exciting things. Microfinance and clean technology are two of the stars of social capital, having shown returns and impact, but I think that with adequate energy and investment, many aspects of social and environmental impact can become booming and even (modestly) profitable industries. How can this be? On the social impact side of things, one illustrative component involves treating employees fairly – providing healthcare and comprehensive benefits as well as humane working conditions and adequate vacation time. It doesn’t take a genius to realize that such an employer will very likely have lower than average absenteeism, turnover and costs from health care claims. And each of these metrics results in cost savings, which help maximize returns. Now, let’s turn to environmental impact. The green rush we are seeing is fueled by the promise of cost savings achieved through environmental adjustments, which may include energy savings, resource conservation, and transportation reduction and rethinking. I don’t want to go into any more detail, as details abound elsewhere, but you get the point – organizations that take sustainability as integral to their operations will relish savings and enhance profits. So both social and environmental leanings can result in a fatter bottom line. Lastly, Jay Godsall reminded me of the self-worth enhancing implications of doing good. When people feel good about the impact of their work, their quality of life will be improved.

Certainly there will be cases where a for-profit model misses the boat, however I see successful enterprises scaling most effectively using a for profit model. As Elizabeth Funk of Unitus pointed out in Tuesday evening’s SoCap debate on this topic, people are greedy, and in order to raise adequate amounts of capital for development and particularly growth, entrepreneurs must be able to promise returns.

Coming out of the conference, a few questions remain:

• How do we measure social impact? This was a recurring question throughout SoCap08. SVT on Impact, a blog by my colleagues at SVT, Sara Olsen and Brett Galimidi, explores these topics from an experienced viewpoint.
• What is the best model for maximizing social return on a spectrum of non-profit to profit-maximizing? My guess is that the answer is somewhere in the middle, it will vary for each industry and sector and perhaps it doesn’t really matter. What does matter is that we continue to work together and experiment with creating hybrid social enterprise organizations.

In any case, the conference was filled with bloggers and video cameras, so please check out all that is being written about the many fabulous sessions.

[Originally posted to Just Means' "All Things Reconsidered" blog]

 

Ecuador’s new Constitution gives NATURE rights!

Amidst the economic turmoil, I encountered this heartening, groundbreaking and somewhat quizzical piece of news.  On Sunday, Oct 28th, Ecuador voted in a new Constitution, which among other things, grants inalienable rights to nature. According to New  York Times Dot Earth blogger, Andrew Revkin, the new Constitution is “mainly focused on on how its terms could help the country’s leftist leader, Rafael Correa, an American-educated economist, gain and hold more power.”  However, a series of articles protecting nature are included as well.  Ecuador is host to brilliant and diverse ecosystems as well as pillaging multi-national corporations who have gone stripping the land of natural resources.  Chevron (formerly Texaco), for example, is currently under fire for dumping absurd amounts of crude oil and toxic waste into the Amazon over the past 20 years.  No wonder Ecuador is seeking to protect its lands.  Claire Kendall writes a great piece about this in the Guardian, in which she highlights this phrase from the bill: “Natural communities and ecosystems possess the unalienable right to exist, flourish and evolve within Ecuador. Those rights shall be self-executing, and it shall be the duty and right of all Ecuadorian governments, communities, and individuals to enforce those rights.”  My reaction is “well of course!” but we are clearly not protecting nature to this extent, or to any extent in many situations.  I’ll be anxious to see how this bill is enforced and if the concept spreads!

Thanks to Shane for tipping me off on this story!

 

Sausalito’s floating homes: musings on environmental impact

Sausalito, CA Floating Homes

I was lucky enough to enjoy a visit to Sausalito’s floating homes this weekend.  I was delighted by the aesthetic and concept of living on the water, which got me thinking about whether the environmental impact of living on the water in a floating home or houseboat as compared to living on the land as most of us do.  While I don’t have a definitive answer, I think there are definite benefits and sustainability upsides to a floating lifestyle, including the following:

1. Floating homes are on average much smaller than landed homes, so must use fewer resources like electricity and home furnishings.  I love the idea of living in as few rooms as possible, so this is a selling point for me.
2. Today’s generation of floating homes are made specifically taking climate change into mind.  Dutch firm DuraVermeer is leading the movement building both floating and amphibious homes that can weather Holland’s flooding problems.  In the Netherlands where nearly half the country is below sea level, flooding is a great concern.  That said, most coastal regions should be concerned by the potential for rising sea levels.  And floating homes should stand flooding better than others given the contruction allows for a rise and fall. While I admire this innovation, I can’t stop thinking of Wall-E…
3. The last point I wanted to make about floating homes is largely anecdotal.  A friend who lives in one of these gorgeous floating wonders suggested the homes are often build of recycled and reclaimed materials.  Google searching on this topic brought up one story from Brazil where a floating home made almost entirely of trash was preserved as a model of recycling.  I think there is something to designing a different kind of house that floats, that may capture the imagination and encourage green innovations, such as this home, which boast:

Urbansun Floating Home

1,200 square foot “near net zero energy” home. The small size of the home, combined with a well-insulated and designed envelope, and a combined ventilation/energy recovery system will significantly reduce energy use. Innovative features include a micro-hydro system that capitalizes on the steady flow of the Columbia River and passive and active solar elements. High post-consumer recycled content engineering wood and salvaged and certified sustainably harvested lumber will make up a significant proportion of the home and rooftop greenhouse. The greenhouse will be irrigated with harvested rainwater.

To see more, go to:

http://blog.buildllc.com/2008/07/04/floating-houses/

 

Lose the sponsors, bad food and wasteful packaging: reimagining baseball

I am among the rare few who doesn’t love watching baseball.  Nor do I follow any sport.  It just doesn’t interest me and why would I watch when I can check the score at the end?  In any case, I found myself at the Giants – Pirates game last night in AT&T Park.  Since I wasn’t paying too much attention to the game, I was noticing other things.  Three observations in particular really stuck out:

1. America’s favorite pastime has sold out to America’s dominant corporations: I had a hard time concentrating on the game due to the hundreds of flashing and colorful ads in my face.  I saw distinct sponsorship messages from AT&T (of course), BoA, Yahoo!, Schwab, Genentech, PG&E, Budweiser, AutoTrader.com, esurance, Diamond Foods and so many more.  Even the cup holders were sponsored. And all the  historical snippets shown on the score board between innings were sponsored by someone or other to the extent that I wasn’t sure if I was watching legit content or advertisements.  38,000+ fans in the audience and we still need millions in corporate dollars?  If baseball players weren’t getting paid so much, maybe this wouldn’t be necessary.  And maybe I could have paid attention to the game without being bombarded by irrelevant messaging.
2. Americans are forced to consume empty calories at the game: During a nearly four hour game one is bound to get hungry and outside food and beverage are not allowed in the park as far as I can tell.  So spectators are corraled into purchasing nutritiously barren, calorie-laden, super-sized and monopoly-priced food.  Had I been a raw foodist or even remotely concerned about my health, I would have gone hungry.  As it is I enjoy eating more than watching baseball so I consumed  a hotdog, a massive bag of cotton candy and a beer.  Yum.
3. Each game produces tons of trash that could be avoided or recycled/composted: This was one of the biggest things on my mind throughout the game.  I myself produced a whole beercup-full of waste and I had limited my consumption due to cash flow restrictions.  Now think of 38,000 folks all eating similarly and producing a good amount of waste including plastic bottles and cups, foil hot dog wrappings, plastic bags, cardboard trays, paper packaging, and volumes of food waste.  A lot of this can be diverted from the landfill.  Now consider that I saw only 1 recycle bin (I hope and assume there were at least a few more), not a single compost bin, and a trash can every 20 feet.  This is San Francisco!  I can only hope the contents of the trash cans are recycled offsite, though I bet I would have seen messaging bragging about this if this were the case.  To top it all off, the park gave away bobble head dolls to the first 20,000 fans, each of which is made of plastic and who knows what else, and packaged in plastic, Styrofoam, and cardboard!  What’s wrong with this picture?  Why are we so motivated by free junk and so lazy that we can’t be expected to do anything more than leave our disposable detritus at our feet after a rousing game?

I know I’m crazy, but I’m envisioning a baseball game closer to the game’s roots.  This all might sound like bogus wishful thinking, but imagine this – a baseball game with not an ad nor a sponsor to be seen; where only organic (maybe even local) food is available, such as free range chicken and burgers, salad, organic beer, fresh squeezed fruit juice and so on; all food is served on bring your own flatware and cutlery or people are trusted with reusable plates, cups and silverware that fans are asked to return to vendors or drop boxes in the park; and games are played during daylight hours whenever possible to take advantage of the sun which energy intensive lighting will never rival.  These changes are way far out I know and would undoubtedly drive up the price of a ticket (unless players were paid less, in which case the team would suffer recruitment challenges and lose fans and so on).  But under no other circumstances would I be compelled to hold season’s tickets.