I can emphatically recommend this book. And as a student of Carol’s, I can personally attest to the capabilities and power within her work. 

The Responsible Business provides a clear road map for making ALL business practices authentically healthy, regenerative and simply GOOD. It is an enlightening, instructive and inspiring book and it is also incredibly accessible – Carol illustrates new paradigms with the use of clear, concise and compelling case studies from her 35 years of consulting experience.

Here are just a few examples of some of the the results she shares:

• As apartheid was coming to an end in South Africa, Stelios Tzesos, who had partnered with Carol in Europe, led Colgate-Palmolive.  Tzesos courageously initiated a community-building process both inside and outside the company and actively engaged with workers in their communities, and encouraged service in Nelson Mandela’s newly established township councils.  Workforce strikes, which were universal in South African factories at the time, never occurred at Colgate’s plants. And in the span of six months, the company leadership changed its racial consistency from majority white to 98 percent black. Within the three-year effort, the profitability of the business doubled.   Twice.

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• Early in his tenure as a maintenance manager, Chad Holliday was attracted to working with the technology outlined in The Responsible Business, as it offered more authenticity in communication on all levels. So, after 25 years, when he eventually worked his way up to CEO of DuPont, he became a champion of transparency and stakeholder education for the business as a whole.  He set up advisory boards for a number of DuPont businesses and actively recruited a diverse group of scientists, ethicists, environmentalists and medical experts to join them at the table simply because “it makes the company better.”  On a global scale, Holliday even helped to design the UN Global Compact – a voluntary initiative for multinational corporations that required all participants were to communicate annually on their progress with regard to human rights and environmental responsibility.  As a result, Chad Holliday’s efforts drastically transformed the field of corporate governance.

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• Even though Seventh Generation had begun as a producer of environmentally responsible consumer products, the business ironically still had a significant ecological footprint as a result of their operations. Drawing from the leadership of Jeffrey Hollender and others in the business, they turned their focus away from reducing the harm of their products and instead began asking how they could “do something that is genuinely healthy and healing.” As a result, they eliminated the use of synthetic fragrances and replaced them with organic essential oils – a change that was safer for their workers and supported small specialty farmers and businesses and advanced their position in the markets they served.  The company had achieved fundamental changes in their work simply by changing their focus and the questions they asked themselves.

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This last story from Seventh Generation illustrates maybe the most important and compelling part of Carol’s work and writing.  Within the book she demonstrates that businesses can be GOOD, not just LESS BAD.

Most “green” and “sustainability” efforts are focused on the first half of the work by looking at how to make a business, municipality or organization LESS BAD by:

• Curbing carbon emissions.
• Removing toxins.
• Generating less waste.
• Disturbing fewer forests and wetlands.
• Subjecting employees and communities to less harm and hazard.

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This is LESS BAD work.  And while it’s vital and important, it’s not enough. This LESS BAD work is only the first half of the sustainability equation.  When we are simply “solving problems” in the way we are used to, we are really only working on one piece of the puzzle at a time.  Working with just one piece at a time will never get us to workable solutions.

This is why this book is so important.  Carol has shown us how we can work with the whole of a business or community to be GOOD:

• We can enable healthy experiences for our customers.
• We can advance the wellbeing of those we work with.
• We can positively contribute to the health of the Earth.
• We can support the health of the communities we’re a part of; and
• We can generate financial wealth for investors while doing so.

All of this is possible.  And it can be done at once. (Really.) This is the work of being GOOD.  When we are working on being GOOD in the way that Carol illustrates, we gain the ability to see the entire puzzle.  We also gain the ability to work together in a way that draws on the core essence and unique characteristics of each business in order to change the whole damn puzzle (and not just the pieces).

Please.  Pick up this book and give it a read.

And when you do, be sure to be ready for a change in the way you see business in the world.

BTH now offers two groundbreaking Master’s programmes. These programmes come with the great opportunity of being free for all EU/EEA and Swiss citizens, and compared to tuition in the US, the international fees are very reasonable (around $10,000 per year).
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The network of graduates from this program is out in the field, all over the world, doing incredible things to move society towards sustainability.  We’re a tight-knit group, actively supporting each other in our work, and there are few places in the world that I can’t find a place to stay through the alumni network.

Anyone interested in sustainability, who is ready to take a leap and bring their leadership to the next level should absolutely apply to one of these programs.  Applications close 17th January 2011. The process is straight-forward and online: www.bth.se/sustainability

BTH is a top ranked sustainability research and education institution currently recruiting bright, early – mid career professionals for their cutting-edge Master’s programmes.  The Master’s in Strategic Leadership towards Sustainability (MSLS) and the Master’s in Sustainable Product Service System Innovation (MSPI) are underpinned by the science-based Framework for Strategic Sustainable Development (widely known as The Natural Step Framework), spearheaded by Dr. Karl-Henrik Robèrt, a global sustainability leader and programme co-founder.
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MSLS explores the baseline science of strategic sustainable development coupled with the skills required for organizational change. The programme produces graduates who can deliver organizational leadership for strategic change towards sustainability.  MSPI enables students to design and innovate for positive socio-ecological impacts of products, services, and product-service systems throughout their life-cycles. This programme produces graduates who can deliver outcomes that meet user needs while generating competitive advantages in the expanding sustainability-driven market.

The Swedish state kindly pays for tuition fees for these Master’s programmes for European students and courses are taught in English. BTH is located in the beautiful coastal city of Karlskrona, a UNESCO world heritage site on the southeast coast of Sweden.
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Again, applications close 17th January 2011.
Please see www.bth.se/sustainability for more information and APPLY TODAY!!

Abraham Lincoln
Annual message to Congress, December 1, 1862

This “B” step represents a huge leap forward and a major opportunity in the green business movement.  Nationwide, there are already 315 businesses, (representing 54 industries and $1.5B in revenue) which are already certified as B Corporations.  There are already two Certified Benefit Corporations in Maryland – Lateral Line of Easton and Norwood Marble & Granite of Brentwood – and there are 45 B Corps in Pennsylvania, eight in DC, five in Virginia, three in New Jersey and one in Delaware.  Until now, all of these businesses could only achieve “certification” as a B Corp.  Now, in Maryland, companies can also choose to be legally recognized by the State as a part of this new sector of the economy.

To become a B Corporation, you have to do two things:

1. Complete a transparent third-party assessment and certification process. Typically, this means taking about 60-90 minutes to start with the (free) B Impact Assessment, which surveys the impacts of your company has on the communities it operates within.  If the resulting report contains a composite score that is above 80 (out of 200 available), then your company is eligible to continue on in the Certification process offered by B Lab.  (Note: The new Maryland law does not specify that you must use only the B Lab certification, and says that the business may choose ANY “third party” verification to show off your “benefit” credentials.)
2. Make it official with the State. Once you have completed a certification, it’s time to for you insert certain language into your governing corporate documents (membership or partnership agreement) that outlines what responsibilities the owners of the company or its board of directors are obligated to maintain themselves and demonstrate to others.  The suggested language states, in part, that the managers will give “due consideration… to the short-term, as well as long-term, interests of its members and the effect of the Company’s operations (and its subsidiaries’ operations) on the environment and the economy of the state, the region and the nation.”

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There are a number of benefits to becoming a B Corporation:

1. Being a leader. If you are already conducting business in a way that is socially and environmentally aware, this will give you the recognition you deserve and an independent and solid and verifiable way to differentiate yourself in the marketplace.  If these are values that you strive to put into action, this is a great way to begin your sustainability journey.
2. Staying true to your course. Because your ethics and values are written into your company’s “DNA,” you can maintain a focus on your mission as you grow, raise capital, sell or plan succession.
3. There’s money on the table. First, there is no annual fee for maintaining “B-Corporation” status, only a one-time State application fee.  Second, there are the member-to-member discounts (e.g. a 75% discount on Salesforce) that are available.  Third, there are a number of lenders and groups of investors now interested in giving preferential treatment to B-Corps because they believe that B Corporations demonstrate reduced risk and the potential for greater reward.  And fourth, there are always the “regular” savings in efficiency and productivity gains that are achieved by all companies who engage in green business practices in a meaningful way.

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Consulting with a sustainability professional and your lawyer before investing deeply in this work is certainly a good idea.  There are certain provisions, such as a requirement that there be a two-thirds majority to ratify the legal changes to the company’s governance documents, that must be adhered to.  And, of course, the sorts of actions and decisions your company will have to take to achieve B Corp status will be unique and may even get to the heart of what makes your business unique and valuable to the communities it serves.  This kind of work can greatly benefit from guidance and facilitation.

Now is your opportunity to be one of the first in the nation to legally earn the “B” of benefit for your business!

There are also plenty lessons within this situation for individual organizations that are working towards sustainability.  For now, this is the overly-simple and not-quite-brilliant lesson that I’ve taken from the whole BP fiasco:

We’re due for some big changes.  And things will never be perfect as we go through them.

These may sound like bland platitudes or something that doesn’t match up to the seriousness of the situation, and I’ll concede that both are probably true.  And at the same time, I’ll maintain that we may not have many other choices at this juncture.  In order to meet the requirements posed by our massive and interconnected social, energy, waste and water challenges, we need to simultaneously (1) maintain a big-picture view and (2) embrace the idea that we’re making up our next story as we go along.  We need big-picture, imperfect action.

First, we’re going to have to maintain a big-picture view. Other systems thinkers share this view.  Alex Steffen of worldchanging.com was first that I noted when he wrote: “If we want to change our impacts, we need to change our systems, on a scope we almost never talk about, stretching through essentially every aspect of our society.” And my colleagues and good friends, Maura Dilley and Derm Hickish did a great job of putting words to the general sentiments from The Natural Step community: “This spill can be another entry on the long list environmental and social tragedies…or it can be used as a rallying point for a bigger movement in the direction of sustainability.”

Both of these sentiments are right on.  Rather than getting stuck in making little changes in engineering “solutions” and government permitting processes, we must confront our principled challenge of depending on fossil fuels and make really big changes to our collective trajectory.

Second, we’re going to just have to go ahead and do all that we can to clean up our messes. It doesn’t matter what our next steps are, as long as they’re in the right direction and not doing any additional harm (for instance, indiscriminately and purposefully spraying toxic chemicals into a large body of open water).  For the oil spill, employing out-of-work folks to skim the water and scoop up tar balls is a good idea.  Getting the biggest “whales” we can find to filter water is a good idea.  Even the Costner centrifuge is a welcome treat right now.

And, at the same time, it should be clear that these imperfect and reactionary steps are not going to be enough to get us to where we need to go. There are no quick fixes available for the problems with the larger systems here.  Our work will require lots and lots of patience. Scooping up miles and miles of tar-ball-infested sand takes a while.  Changing our consumption habits will take a while.  And certainly switching to a clean energy economy will take a long while.  (Much to the Sierra Club’s chagrin, oil drilling won’t stop overnight – we’ll need fossil fuel energy to make our patient, and imperfect transition to an un-burning economy.)

This is the place where the really difficult work lies. The act of looking at the big picture and really acting to avert our core issues takes a deep level of patience on the part of many players.  And the act of “just getting something done” requires a deep faith in a larger, collective direction.  The chasm that exists between these dichotomies is the place where our challenge resides.

Your organization most likely doesn’t have any direct involvement with the BP Spill.  But we are all facing sustainability challenges. So, what can your organization do to advance these efforts?

Plenty.

There are three basic things:

1. Make sure you’ve taken advantage of the easy, first-win actions that are available to you. (We have partners who can conduct thorough energy and waste audits).
2. Develop an understanding of your organization’s sustainability from a big-picture perspective. (We offer a one-day, 56-question, to-to-bottom Sustainable Business review that is the most thorough available anywhere today).
3. Begin the process of developing the organizational capacity it will take to (1) stay patiently focused on the big picture, while (2) doing everything that you can to get there. (We offer strategic planning workshops that can help your team develop a common understanding of your organization’s direction and capacity for change).

For now, the most effective “solutions” are the ones that invite big-picture and imperfect action.

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Walmart has shown impressive action toward sustainability by recommitting themselves to their sustainability strategy in spite the recent economic slowdown.  Actions already include energy retrofits to refrigerated display cases in over 500 stores, a 57% waste diversion rate from their U.S. operations, building partnerships to work towards the creation of a Sustainability Index and helped form the Sustainability Consortium to develop metrics for measuring the environmental impacts of consumer products across their life cycle: asking their 100,000 global suppliers to voluntarily divulge key data about their environmental and social practices.  The Natural Step attended Walmart’s Green Business Summit in Vancouver days before the Olympics and were impressed by the commitment of Walmart Canada CEO David Cheesewright: “If you’re not willing to do something different and do it first, then you’re not leading.”

Walmart’s efforts are already providing huge dividends and seem to be well aligned with their current business model.

But will their trajectory actually lead to sustainability?  Sustainability is both a road and a destination so while we applaud Walmart’s commitment and early actions, we are asking three basic questions that we ask of all of our partners.  In our experience, the answers to them define a lot about the capacity of an organization’s overall sustainability efforts.  We see Walmart’s situation in this way:

What is Walmart’s definition of sustainability?

(1) Use only renewable energy.  (2) Create zero waste.  (3) Sell “sustainable products.”

With this definition, Walmart sees sustainability as a key driver for helping them fulfill their core business mission: “Saving people money so they can live better.”  These two visions are, indeed, closely aligned.

Converting to renewable energy sources will help Walmart better weather the coming storms of peak oil and climate change in the coming decades.  Pursuing this goal reduces their exposure to energy price fluctuations, allows them to get a head start on reducing their CO2 footprint ahead of government cap-and-trade schemes and generates high-profile projects for the company to showcase.  This transition will save Walmart, and their customers, money.

Eliminating waste is a no-brainer.  This goal closely aligns with the cost-cutting and efficient operations that all companies strive for.  On their “Sustainability 2.0” DVD, Chairman of the Executive Committee Lee Scott sums it up perfectly – “Everything we throw away, we’ve paid for. We’ve paid for the cardboard, we paid for the pallets, and we paid for the inner packaging. Walmart paid for all that.  The customers paid for all of that.  I think it makes all the sense in the world to create zero waste.”  Eliminating waste saves Walmart, and their customers, money.

Selling better products helps Walmart reduce their environmental and social impacts while improving quality. By simply asking their 100,000 suppliers to simply answer 15 questions about their own operations, Walmart has made huge waves of interest in sustainability around the world.  It also provides them a platform from which to address much of the criticism they have received on Wall Street and in the general public. The bottom line?  Improving their image and buying better products will save Walmart, and their customers, money.

Walmart’s core business mission is indeed aligned with their understanding of sustainability.

But do these three goals represent the whole story?

What is Walmart’s gap to reaching their sustainability goals?

The better question may be: is Walmart able to see just how wide their gap is?  By any measure, it is huge.  They have admitted that they have lots of work to do to close the gaps they have identified.

But taken from the whole-systems perspective of the Natural Step Framework, Walmart’s definition of sustainability falls short. Their approach does not cover all areas of risk that threaten them, and it could even possibly obscure other sources of innovation, efficiency, and above all, savings, available to the company.  Their truncated definition of sustainability could actually be one of the things that will keep them from achieving their future goals.

Walmart’s sustainability approach has particular shortcomings when seen through the whole systems lens of The Natural Step Framework.

First, it does not address some of the major sustainability challenges that we face.  For instance, there are no questions in Walmart’s 15 Questions for Suppliers of the large increase of toxic chemicals and heavy metals within our communities that emanate from many the products they sell and production methods used to create them.  These toxics threaten human and ecological health, and are a major source of risk to all of us.  By not assessing the whole picture, Walmart is leaving itself open to the possibility of future regulation and market risk.  Early steps are being taken, but are far from being integrated into Walmart’s supply chain.

Second, Walmart draws a clear line between “environmental sustainability” and “social sustainability.”  As the example of toxics demonstrates, there is really no difference between these two elements.  They are inexorably intertwined.  While both aspects of sustainability are addressed within their reporting, Walmart’s three main goals do not encompass social sustainability issues, relegating them to a secondary status.  Until they delve further into this aspect of their work, Walmart will not provide themselves with the ability to reap the bottom line benefits that could be created through the ongoing reduction of personnel costs and an increase in employee productivity and customer loyalty.

Finally, Walmart’s current analysis does not let them even imagine the larger picture: what are the flaws in Walmart’s core business model (selling more and more goods over time to meet growth projections)?  While Walmart has created ambitious sustainability goals, they have not embraced a concrete, holistic definition of sustainability that allows them the real strategic benefit of becoming a very different organization.

How will Walmart close their sustainability gap?

Walmart has taken first steps and critically important ones at that.  They have made a commitment, and have already begun to reap the benefits of much of the ‘low hanging fruit’ that is available to them.  Furthermore, they have engaged stakeholders through the Sustainability Consortium and by working with their 100,000 suppliers.  >See their 2009 Global Sustainability Report

But what will happen when they run out of the ‘easy’ wins?  Will they be willing to look at the big picture revisit their gap assessment and redefine goals?  Will Walmart be leading?

And to achieve their core mission of helping “people live better,” will Walmart be willing to save more than just money?

That question, helping people lead more fulfilling lives with less stuff, and how we move to more sustainable consumption patterns, faces everyone. Some leaders in business are starting to take it seriously (see World Economic Forum debate www.weforum.org/globalagenda2010 – Sustainable Consumption) But can change on that scale happen thoroughly and quickly enough?

Time, and the narrowing funnel of resources and ecosystem services felt through the worldwide retail market, will soon tell.

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STACK Coordination is responsible for coordinating the content and delivery of Stepping Stones, the quarterly newsletter of The Natural Step.  Click on the banner below to see the latest issue and to sign up to receive future editions…

Sustainability is at a tipping point.

The “lone nuts” of sustainability - Paul Hawkin, Donella Meadows, Karl-Henrik Robért, Armory and Hunter Lovins, Ray Anderson, David Suzuki, Tim O’Riordan, Peter Senge, Manfred Max-Neef, Sim van der Ryn, Bill Reed, Bill McDonough, Bob Willard (and so many others) – boldly braved the spectacle and discomfort of dancing to the beats that they heard blaring from the world’s speakers.  We may actually be past a crucial threshold based on David Suzuki’s welcomed presence in front a couple thousand CEOs at a Walmart Sustainability Conference (did we think THAT would happen 10 years ago?) as well as ‘mainstream’ chatter like the Green Police ad during the Super Bowl.

At the same time, I do think that there are two lessons from Derek that we need to heed.

The first is about simplicity – we must constantly work to make sustainability, which is inherently a study of everything, simple enough to follow. The “green world” is incredibly scattered and wide-ranging, and can be difficult to make heads or tails of it – simplicity, without reduction, is essential. To make matters worse, we have recently seen the damage that the poor (and unethical) communication has done to the climate change dialogue.  We must make things easy to follow.

The second lesson is about making it fun.   Sustainability, especially in business, is a massive exercise in risk management, and it can be all too easy to get wrapped around the fears that come with such a sobering topic.  But we also know that sustainability offers a brighter and more liberating existence, and if we can exude confidence in that vision, we’ll attract far more people willing to dance their butts off.

The “lone nuts” have done a fantastic job starting the dance.  Now it’s up to us to keep the party going.

As promised, the slides from the evening’s presenters are below:

Sustainability overview from Geoff Stack

The video of the Mannahatta Muir Web that Geoff presented:

Slides from the other presenters:

Diversity of LEAFhouse team (part 1 of 2) from Julie Gabrielli of GOforChange

Diversity of LEAFhouse team (part 2 of 2)

Self-organization in Commonwealth project from Pavlina Ilieva of PI.KL

Interdependence of community development (part 1 of 2) from Dana Bourland of Enterprise Community Partners

Interdependence of community development (part 2 of 2)

Stay tuned for a special announcement about the March Design Conversation soon…!

Below is a direct quote:

“The oughts were in many ways a decade of fear, having begun with the Y2K hysteria, buoyed along by the duct tape defense mentality, and winding to a close amid the H1N1 vaccine frenzy.  Fear can certainly be a great motivator; political leaders and marketing executives have taken full advantage of that fact.  But there’s a fundamental problem with making the focal point of the dialogue an undesirable outcome, rather than that which we wish to see transpire.  It’s awfully hard to imagine, much less build, a better world when you’re overcome by fear.”

“Then what of the teens?  Perhaps it’s time to try a new motivator.”

“It’ll have to be something powerfully compelling, something intensely alluring – dynamic enough to hold humanity in its spell, to hold each and every one of us to a higher standard of moral conduct.  It’s tempting to think that it will be some new idea or trend or even technology.  But more likely it will be something that’s been here all along, something enduring, if not eternal – something we call fall in love with all over again, unleashing in us a level of devotion we never thought possible.  The world as we know it, the one we appear to be hellbent on destroying, seems full of possibility in this regard.  Consider sunsets; great blue herons; spurts of laughter so overwhelming they end in tears of joy; a child’s sense of wonder; the Crab nebula; skinny-dipping by moonlight…”

“Is the beauty of the Earth enough to save humanity from itself?  Or are human beings so inherently dualistic that we can go on loving the world while concurrently ensuring its, or at least our, destruction?  One way or another, the answers to these questions will become clearer in the coming decade.”

Thank you to Orion for taking the big picture view and putting things back in the basic context that we must face:

“It’s time to let truth, thoughtfulness, justice, and beauty capture our hearts and minds; time to stop living in fear that things will go wrong and start making sure that things go right.  It’s time to change the way we live.”

• A tree is not “sustainable.”
• A shoe cannot be “sustainable.”
• A building should never be labeled as a “sustainable building.”

Why?

• Trees rot.
• Shoes wear out.
• Buildings fall down.

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Every thing eventually dies and disperses.  We can’t sustain individual object forever.  It’s just not possible. No one thing can ever be “sustainable.”

These things, however, CAN be part of “sustainable systems.”

• Sustainable forestry is possible as long as we are able to sustain a system of harvesting of wood without degrading the health of the forest as a whole.
• Sustainable manufacturing is possible as long as we are able to sustain a system of making of new sneakers while not degrading the source of new materials.
• Sustainable development is possible, as long as the creation of a new a building can provide ways for us to continuously and positively contribute to the health of the economic, social and ecological systems within our communities. 

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This isn’t just a matter of semantics.  This is a subtle, but important change in mindset to achieve the jump from focusing on things to focusing on systems.

In the midst of our research studying the applicability of systems thinking within the urban design and development process, Tim O’Riordan of the UK Sustainable Development Commission managed to really drive it home for us.  He said: “By looking at just the building project, and not the larger whole, you are inherently promoting non-sustainability.”

Our focus on systems, rather than just things comes from the study of systems thinking. System thinking is a body of knowledge and tools that has been developed over the past sixty years to make full patterns and structures of a system clearer so we can see how to change them effectively. It challenges us to view things in relation to the larger whole, rather than seeing static snapshots of a situation.

Systems thinking acknowledges that reality never unfolds in straight lines – rather, actions we take within systems are constantly reinforcing or balancing each other. The relationships between people and things within a system can be expressed as feedback loops – reinforcing loops promote consistent and accelerating growth, while balancing loops seek stability through actions that counteract one another. In this way, we can study the health of a whole forest, the viability of an on-going manufacturing process or an entire community.

This way of working together holds far more potential because it helps us see not only the parts that are already right in front of us, but also possibilities and pitfalls that were not visible to us before.  We can find vast potential by working with the ‘whole’ and focusing on measures that have multiple benefits.

Simply put, the use of systems thinking can help you avoid risk and make better use of resources all while helping while contributing to the health of your community as a whole.

We can make it to sustainability.  As long as we’re able to sustain the systems.

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This post was adaped from a summary of research entitled “An Introduction to Needs Based Design” by Nat Haltrich, Ella Lawton and Geoff Stack completed in the spring of 2008 for the Masters in Strategic Leadership towards Sustainability program at BTH in Sweden.