Executive Nomad — Richer Earth

Value-Based Sustainability

The recent Executive Council Value-based Sustainability summit in San Jose was a great experience. I enjoyed moderating the conversation with Libby Reder of eBay and Bob Stoffel of UPS. They had very different yet complementary sustainability stories: eBay’s driven from the bottom up while UPS’s came from their intense engineering focus. Both are leaders in greening their businesses.

I also enjoyed the interview I led with Bryan Jacob of Coca-Cola. Coke will be carbon net-neutral at the Vancouver Olympics and has forged a productive relationship with former antagonist Greenpeace.

“The 2% is a big idea, first because its really 4%… you only need 25 of those solutions to solve the whole thing.”
~ Sumir Karayi, CEO, 1E

The key take-aways: there are steps that companies can take that deliver immediate ROI (greening IT and automating energy management are two); the companies that are seeing the greatest success are involved in conversations beyond their own four walls (such as Coke’s with Greenpeace) — they are engaged in the broader dialogue; and measurement is still a struggle as organizations strive to understand which metrics matter most. Analytics are growing in importance. Read my full trip recap on Executive Nomad and see the video highlights on Exec TV.

I enjoyed making new acquaintances: Amanda Crater of CraterCom, Emilie Cowan of Opportunity Green, and Michael Cabot of Autodesk to mention just three.

The Green New Year Begins January 26, 2010

My continuing work with the Executive Council will bring me to San Jose on January 26, 2010 for the Value-based Sustainability: The Business Case for Green, Clean, & Lean summit. I serve as editorial director for the Executive Council’s sustainability events and am excited by the lineup we’ve assembled: speakers from IBM, Microsoft, Autodesk, Stirling Energy as well as thought leaders Adam Werbach and Rupert Davis.

The program will focus on the hard core bottom line reasons to embrace sustainability and we’ll hear a number of front line stories about what leading companies are doing to create competitive advantage through their sustainability efforts.

You can’t pack much more into a one day event (and there will be great networking, too). If you are going to be in northern California on January 26, check it out.

I’ll also be making a side trip to Gilroy with my Executive Nomad hat on to check out some local wineries. Watch for that flavorful report to come.