3p Contributor: Jennifer Elder, The Sustainable CFO
Recent Articles
How Green is Your Green Conference?
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Not all green conferences walk the walk. I have attended many conferences where the speakers lecture about sustainability, recycling, and minimizing environmental impacts, while the organizers and expo vendors are handing out marketing materials and swag like it’s candy. All the while the trash bins are overflowing with unnecessary waste and the irony of a green conference not being green is lost in the shuffle.
Occasionally you will find a conference that understands that the greatest impact can be made not just by talking, but by demonstrating how to actually “be” green. The 2010 Green Business Forum held in Baltimore was one such conference that led by example.
Panera Bread Experiments with “Pay What You Want” Model
Instead of kneading the bread, Panera is pushing the envelope – replacing a for-profit operation with a non-profit operation. On Sunday, May 16, quietly, without any press releases or ribbon cutting, Panera Bread reopened the operation of a Clayton, Missouri store as a non-profit. The model is “take what you need, leave your fair share.”
The St. Louis Bread Company Cares Café looks like a traditional Panera Bread restaurant. It has the same menu. Cashiers still take your order. But they won’t hand you a bill, instead you receive a “suggested” bill representing the price of your order at any other Panera Bread location. You can then make the payment, any amount you choose, above or below the suggested amount, in one of five donation boxes located within the store. If you cannot pay in dollars, you can pay by volunteering your time.
Hay: A Common-Sense Solution to BP Oil Clean-Up?
Oil spill cleanup idea
American ingenuity at its finest! Clean up the Gulf oil spill, employ the displaced shrimp and charter boats, create additional revenue for farmers, and generate energy – what’s not to like? While BP and the U.S. Coast Guard are focusing on stopping the continued leak, two men from Florida have figured out how to protect the coastline they love. Darryl Carpenter, the Vice President and 25 year employee of Florida-based CW Roberts Contracting and Otis Goodson, a sub-contractor, are stirring up the internet with a YouTube video that now has over 700,000 hits (see below to watch the video). While C. W. Roberts is a 35 year-old asphalt contractor in Tallahasse, Florida with no experience in oil spill clean-up they are proof positive of the old adage, “where there is a will there is a way!”
Carpenter’s common-sense and old-fashioned solution hands-down trumps the hi-tech, ecologically unfriendly ideas used to date. In the six and-a-half minute video he and Goodson demonstrate the effectiveness of using ordinary hay. They start with two metal bowls filled with water. They simulate the spill by adding motor oil to each bowl. One bowl is filled with Bermuda hay and the other with Bahia hay. A ladle size strainer is used the push the hay around, simulating the action of waves in the ocean. In just a few seconds they lift the oil soaked hay out of the pans. The results are astonishing; the water is back to being clear and drinkable. They go on discussing the possible methods for collecting the oil-soaked hay – skim booms, shrimp nets, dump truck on the beach. The waste hay even has benefit – it can be burned in refuse-to-energy plants. Oil and water don’t mix but hay and water make for a really effective combination.
The Global Water Challenge: Four Novel Solutions
Access to water is not always easy or safe
“There are 84 million people without water. More children die from bad water than from HIV and malaria combined. But solutions abound.” Those were the words of hope spoken by Cheryl Choge from Global Water Challenge at the Net Impact 2009 Conference. Cheryl and Tito Llantada of Ashoka Changemakers discussed the winning ideas from the Changemakers/Global Water Challenge Contest and what they learned from the first competition.
The contest, which ended in March 2009, sought solutions for clean water and safe sanitation. All entries were judged on their ability to be sustainable, replicable, and scalable. The contest drew an amazing 265 entries from 54 countries. The number and variety of entries demonstrated the breadth of global ingenuity and proved that there are viable low cost solutions to global water issues. The winner and three finalists shared one million in prize money donated by the CocaCola Foundation.
Sustainability and Employee Engagement: Anything Goes
Engaging employees through sustainability is not a one size fits all approach. From Walmart’s Personal Sustainability Project to Sodexo’s Corporate Citizenship Program to Intel’s intranet to FMYI’s online collaboration, the variety is endless. Each of the four members of the Net Impact Conference 2009 panel on Sustainable Innovation Through Employee Engagement, had differing approaches on everything from launching a sustainability program to reward programs to changing employee behavior. The panel was moderated by Justin Yuen of FMYI and was comprised of Holly Fowler of Sodexo, Carrie Freeman of Intel, and Richard Coyle of Walmart. While variety was their norm, there was also a consistent theme – when it comes to sustainability it doesn’t matter what you do or how you do it, it matters that you do something. Here are some of their ideas for starting a sustainability program and getting the employees actively involved.
John Perkins: Learning from the Economic Meltdown
John Perkins, author of “Hoodwinked” and “Confessions of an Economic Hitman” says he had a hand in creating the current economic crisis. As an “Economic Hitman” his job was to promote corporate interests at the expense of anyone, anywhere; an unjust, untenable, and unsustainable practice he referred to as “Predatory Capitalism”. Speaking at the 2009 Net Impact Conference, he discussed this side of multi-national corporate behavior with a surprisingly positive outlook. According to Perkins we still have an opportunity to learn from the mistakes of predatory capitalism and turn the economy around.
Predatory Capitalism, according to Perkins, is a mutation of capitalism that comes about when the single focus of a corporation is to make profits – ie, an extreme adoption of Milton Friedman. In the predatory world, when profit making conflicts with the public interest, profit making wins no matter the cost or consequences to others. As an Economic Hitman, Perkin’s job was to find Third World countries with desirable resources. He would arrange large and seemingly attractive loans loans for infrastructure development contracted out to US corporations. These loans were much larger than needed and ultimately the country would be unable to pay back the debt. When the country could not make the required payments, the financing group would extort payment in the form of economic resources.
Change – Using a Carrot Not a Stick
Can fun make people exercise more? Can fun make people recycle more? Can fun improve safety? Won’t it be fun to find out? Now through December 15 TheFunTheory.com is sponsoring a contest to prove the concept that fun is the best way to change peoples’ behavior for the better. The site is looking for submissions of ideas and inventions that support the theory that people will change behavior for themselves or the environment–if making the change is fun.
The concept of positive reinforcement has been proven many times over. Pavlov proved it with his dogs, and every parent knows that children respond better to rewards than punishment. So why not apply the concept to environmental and social initiatives?
To inspire more people to take the stairs rather than the escalator at the Odenplan Subway Station in Stockholm, Volkswagon converted a set of stairs into piano keys. The novel concept increased stair use by 66%.
Net Impact Conference 2009 – Getting the Most Out Attending a Conference
The 2009 Net Impact conference at Cornell is just around the corner. So many choices – 120+ sessions, keynotes, expo center, cocktail receptions, and networking opportunities. The choices can overwhelming. Two days can seem like a lot of time, but it will fly by and you don’t want to be left wondering what happened. So what can you do to maximize your enjoyment, learning, and career impact? Follow the 3P’s – Plan, Prepare, and Polish!
For those of you planning to addend NI09, please get in touch with us! We’d love to meet you. If not, the 3P’s of conference planning still apply to other events you might have in the works:
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