August 20th, 2009
by Will Sarni
I was recently in Lunenburg, Nova Scotia, for a client retreat to discuss corporate sustainability strategy and enjoy a few days of vacation. It was a great visit to a wonderful place.
The reason I wanted to say a few words about Lunenburg is that the town is an example of how the environment and business are intimately connected.
The tie between Lunenburg and sustainability is that it’s a UNESCO World Heritage Site and for more than 200 years was the reigning center of the cod industry. Hundreds of schooners set sail every year to deliver salt cod around the world.
The …
Tagged: agriculture, environment, natural resource, supply chain, sustainabiliy, UNESCO World Heritage Site
Posted in Business, Sustainability
August 10th, 2009
by Will Sarni
I just received and have “scanned through” the latest issue of the Harvard Business Review (July-August 2009) and wanted to share some of the articles, which focus on some key sustainability drivers.
The issue includes “10 Trends You Have to Watch” and “Managing in the New World.” These articles highlight the new importance of “sustainability business drivers” and how there is a new business paradigm.
The old business paradigm relied on abundant resources and few stakeholders, and companies were not very transparent. In the new paradigm, resource efficiency is essential, “everyone” is a stakeholder and companies are increasingly transparent.
Even …
Tagged: Climate Change, environment, innovation, sustainable business
Posted in Business, Sustainability
June 30th, 2009
by Will Sarni
Last week, Cisco released the results of a telecommuting study performed by DOMANI and internal Cisco teams.
The study is not only an excellent illustration of the tangible benefits of promoting telecommuting, but also how IT can promote productivity and collaboration.
The results of the study make a compelling case for deploying “collaboration technology” and promoting telecommuting. The bottom line is that telecommuting creates value through benefits such as increased productivity, employee satisfaction and reduced carbon emissions.
A quick overview of the study:
• The objective of the study was to “evaluate the social, economic and environmental impacts associated with telecommuting …
Tagged: business value, Cisco, innovation, telecommuting
Posted in Business
May 26th, 2009
by Will Sarni
Progress around Congressional action on climate change is moving so quickly that my comments provided below will quickly out of date. However, I believe it is worth providing an update on the ever-evolving bill and how it could impact your business.
As of May 22, 2009, the bill (The American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 — HR 2454) was approved in a House committee after considerable “policymaking” efforts. The bill was passed in a 33-to-25 vote and lays the groundwork for a greenhouse gas cap-and-trade system.
Despite the rhetoric against a cap-and-trade system, this is not the first …
Tagged: carbon allowance, markey, renewable, The American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009, waxman
Posted in Business, Climate Change, Renewable Energy, Uncategorized
May 6th, 2009
by Will Sarni
I have known about Serious Materials for a while as they are one of my business examples of “sustainability driving innovation.”
In my opinion, sustainability is fueling innovation through the creation of new businesses and new products. This innovation is also driving the “creative destruction” of some industries (some of the Detroit automakers?) and creating new ones (Tesla and Better Place?).
This is obvious.
What is not so obvious is that the job creation from these new and in some cases disruptive industries is creating brand value.
In my opinion, Serious Materials is now known, not only as an …
Tagged: Green Jobs, Serious Materials, Sustainability, Vestas
Posted in Business, Green Jobs, Sustainability
April 13th, 2009
by Will Sarni
I participated in a panel discussion titled “Communicating the Business Value of Sustainability” at the Food Processing Environmental Conference in San Antonio a couple of weeks ago.
Tim Carey from PepsiCo (Director, Sustainability) participated on the panel and presented “Sustainability in a Recession: Keys to Performance in a Capital-Constrained Environment.”
Tim presented a very clear and concise case for aggressively pursuing a sustainability strategy in the “middle” of this economic downturn.
His key theme was that during the recession it is essential (yes, essential) to leverage sustainability to drive innovation and increase resource efficiency. Why, you ask, would this be critical during a …
Tagged: business value, PepsiCo, resource efficiency, supply chain, Sustainability
Posted in Business, Sustainability
April 1st, 2009
by Will Sarni
Today we were inundated with e-mail alerts and blogs that provide details of the Waxman- Markey plan drafted by the House.
The plan outlines a cap and trade program to regulate greenhouse gases. The draft proposal will use 2005 as a base year and require that U.S. greenhouse gas emissions be reduced by 20 percent by 2020, 42 percent by 2030 and 83 percent by 2050. This draft legislation is a bit more aggressive than the timetable proposed by the administration.
In addition the legislation would require utilities to generate 25 percent of their electricity from renewable energy by 2025.
Key provisions, yet …
Tagged: Climate Change, greenhouse gas, markey, Renewable Energy, U.S. Climate Action Partnership, USCAP, waxman
Posted in Business, Renewable Energy, Sustainability
March 12th, 2009
by Will Sarni
I am compelled to raise a voice and declare that we do not need a new color to describe sustainability. Doing so is an absurd exercise designed to fabricate a new marketing tag line and does nothing to communicate the value of sustainability to consumers and businesses.
Recent taglines regarding the “new colors of green” include:
“Blue is the New Green”, The New York Times. November 20, 2008
“Yellow is the New Green”, The New York Times. February 27, 2009
“Black is the New Green”, Financial Times. February 28, 2009
I will go further and recommend we jettison the words “green” and “eco” as more …
Tagged: ecomagination, green, greenwashing, new green, Sustainability, sustainability and value
Posted in Business, Sustainability
March 4th, 2009
by Will Sarni
We are once again in the midst of the creative destruction of industries. By way of background, the term “creative destruction” is from Joseph Schumpeter’s 1939 book, Business Cycles. He believed that business cycles were caused by innovation. Stu L. Hart and Mark B. Millstein in their 1999 article titled, “Global Sustainability and the Creative Destruction of Industries” (Sloan Management Review, ISSN 0019-848X, Vol. 41, Nº. 1, 1999) linked Schumpeter’s business concept of creative destruction to the business drivers of sustainability.
I agree with Hart and Millstein. A lot of people think that the current destruction we’re seeing is exclusively the …
Tagged: business drivers, carbon, global sustainability, Sustainability, water
Posted in Business, Sustainability
