Essential Viewing: 5 Films for Earth Day

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Sustainability training for mid-career execs

Some companies are taking seriously the challenge of bringing their employees up-to-date with tools for operating in a sustainability-focused economy.

 

This article from BusinessGreen mentions the Sustainability University launched by Jones Lang LaSalle and the Sustainability Leadership Certification Program at the University of California at Irvine.

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Accountants stealing a sustainability march

The International Federation of Accounting (IFAC) - the global professional association for accountants - has produced a sustainability framework.

 

According to Greenbiz, the framework "is a web-based tool that targets professional accountants working in all kinds of different organizations who the IFAC believes can "influence the way organizations integrate sustainability into their objectives, strategies, management and definitions of success."

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IFAC borrows heavily from the decade-old SIGMA Project. This project developed guidelines to help provide clear, practical advice to organizations to help them make move down the path towards sustainability. It was the first effort to link management systems, risk management, business excellence frameworks, the three responsibilities, and continual improvement into a single framework."

 

GreenBiz observes that the tool helps accountants by cutting through the internet "noise" on sustainability and giving them a coherent framework for action, one which, they note, CSR and sustainability officers often lack.

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MBA students feel underserved on sustainability

A new survey by global MBA network Net Impact and the Aspen Institute finds a majority of students think business school paradigms too limited.

The survey, "New Leaders, New Perspectives: A Survey of MBA Student Opinions on the Relationship Between Business and Social/Environmental Issues", echoes what I have been thinking since completing my own MBA at London Business School in 1998:

"Nine out of ten respondents say that a focus in business on short-term rather than long-term results has been one of the contributing factors to the global financial crisis. Just 24% of respondents strongly agree that they are learning how to make business decisions that will help avert similar crises. In addition, a majority of the students surveyed strongly agree that there is a need for business schools to introduce other financial models into the curriculum, specifically models that take long-term social impacts into account."

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The Second Life of Cardboard: Repurposing Top 3

Refreshing ways of breathing new life into cardboard beyond the obvious call for recycling – because recycling may be smart, but repurposing into something of greater cultural value is, well, far smarter.

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SA: Draft King 3 corporate governance code released

Another groundbreaking revision of the South African corporate governance code has been produced by the committee run by Mervyn King.

The second King report attracted international attention for its requirement that companies produce sustainability reports in line with recognised benchmarks such as the Global Reporting Initiative.

The new report takes the corporate responsibility agenda even further. It is no longer good enough simply to report on sustainability performance. Now sustainability is pushed as a principle so central to business operation that the report refers throughout to "integrated sustainability performance and reporting" i.e. the integration of sustainability into decision making and the annual report to shareholders.

The draft King 3 places South Africa back in the forefront of 21st century business thinking.

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Alliance for Global Sustainability meets in Zurich

One more example that society might be transforming, ever so slowly.

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British Government rewarding greenest universities

The government is planning to link the funding available to universities and colleges with their performance in reducing carbon emissions.

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Sustainable, Local, Organic = White House?

Eco-friendly eating habits entering the White House thanks to an eco-conscious assistant chef.

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Sustainable Isn't a Bandwagon: It's (Ancient) Tradition

Yesterday there was a CNN/Fortune headline on money.cnn.com:

"Cisco goes - what else? - green"

The article began:

"Silicon Valley powerhouse Cisco became the latest tech company to jump on the green bandwagon this week, with the announcement Tuesday of its new EnergyWise technology."

So CNN/Fortune is over this whole "green" thing and moving on to the next trend. I say well done. Way to be ahead of the curve. It'll be just like the '70's: back then we had our Earth Days and learned about recycling and watched Public Service Announcements about energy conservation and bought compact cars and marveled at the White House's solar panels. And then we elected Ronald Reagan and went back to our old ways of conspicuous consumption. By the time Bill Clinton was in office, McMansions, Canyoneros, and overflowing landfills were de rigeur.

Personally I think CNN is wrong. I don't think sustainability is a mere trend, or a bandwagon, or a bubble. Fortunately I’m not alone: neither does (for example) Peter Senge, author of The Necessary Revolution: How Individuals and Organisations are Working Together to Create a Sustainable World. Senge says we’re in a bubble, but it’s not one of green tech or sustainability; it’s a bubble of unsustainability.

Before the Industrial Revolution, sustainable building and business practices weren't just the norm, they were the only possible way. Disposable, profit-at-all-costs practices would put one out of business tout de suite, sure as a dead goose lays no golden eggs. Likewise housing had to be adapted to its environment and energy-efficient or it would be unlivable. Sustainable practice wasn't an option; it was the only game in town. Stewardship and prudence were tradition. One ignored tradition at one’s peril.

Frank Dillon reviewed Peter Senge's book for the Irish Times this past Monday:

"Senge believes the Industrial Age is…a bubble and…is about to run its course. For some two billion years, life flourished on earth based on one source of energy: solar radiation. By contrast, 90 per cent of the energy in the Industrial Age bubble comes from burning fossil fuels. In nature, there is no waste as every byproduct of one natural system is a nutrient for another.

The contradictions between how nature and modern society work cannot continue indefinitely, he argues, and the bubble may burst faster than those of us living inside it realise.”

There’s a movement afoot in the sustainable building community, led by people such as Steve Mouzon of The Original Green, to whose website this piece is linked. Mouzon argues that “Sustainability is More Than Gizmo Green:”

“Originally, before the Thermostat Age, the places we built had no choice but to be green, otherwise people would freeze to death in the winter, die of heat strokes by summer, or other really bad things would happen to them. Today, as we are working to re-learn how to live sustainably, much of the focus is on the gadgetry of green: Gizmo Green. This notion that we can simply invent more efficient mechanisms, and throw in some bamboo to boot, is only a small part of real sustainability.”

It seems like the building community might be grasping this concept more quickly than the business community at large (and the journalists who cover it). A company like Cisco won’t claim to be returning to its roots by going green, unless it takes the really long rear-view, and sees itself as an heir of a centuries-old commercial tradition. For while Cisco is in the business of making “gizmos,” there’s nothing gizmoesque about adopting sustainable business practices.

Finally, a news conglomerate like CNN or Fortune would do well to take the long view as well, rather than merely chasing the next trend.

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