Sustainability and Employee Engagement: Anything Goes
Posted by Jennifer Elder November 21st, 2009 
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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.
EDF Climate Corps Makes the Business Case for Energy Efficiency Investments
Posted by Kathryn Siranosian October 29th, 2009 0 Comments
Energy efficiency. It’s the cheapest, fastest, and cleanest energy resource available to your business today.
Sure, rooftop solar panels and on-site wind turbines may seem like the epitome of ultra-green chic right now. But, whatever energy efficiency lacks in “glitz,” it more than makes up for in bottom-line benefits. It’s simple: reducing your company’s energy consumption is a sure-fire way to cut costs and lower your GHG emissions, as well.
Need proof? Take a look at the outcomes recently reported by the Environmental Defense Fund’s 2009 Climate Corps.
Employee Engagement: AngelPoints and Saatchi S Launch New PSP Tool
Posted by Deborah Fleischer October 27th, 2009 0 Comments
As part of a corporate sustainability strategy, there is a growing trend to engage employees on multiple levels, both at work and at home. More and more companies are providing their employees advice and tips on how to green their personal lives. But a key challenge is how to measure and track the benefits of these programs.
AngelPoints, a provider of enterprise software solutions for employee engagement, has recently partnered with Saatchi & Saatchi S, the sustainability strategy firm that helped Wal-Mart create their Personal Sustainability Project (PSP) program, to create a new web-based platform to help make it easier to engage employees in sustainability and to track their progress.
As reported on CSRwire, “The newly launched PSP platform enables employees to chart individual and collective progress on a secure and reliable site easily accessed through a company’s intranet.”
The theory is if you can get employees engaged and excited about being greener in their personal lives, they will bring this excitement and energy to their jobs as well.
BSR 2009: Top Strategies for Getting Employees Behind Sustainability
Posted by Deborah Fleischer October 26th, 2009 3 Comments
At BSR 2009 last week, a missing piece on the agenda was employee engagement. Yet, at the session on Internal Communications: Making the Case for CSR’s Value, all of the speakers acknowledged the challenge of getting both employees and senior management behind sustainability.
The panel included Christopher Corpuel, Vice President, Sustainability at Hilton Hotels, Silvia Garrigo, Manager of Global Issues and Policy at Chevron and Kevin Moss, Head of Corporate Social Responsibility at BT Americas Inc. The session, moderated by Eric Olson, Senior Vice President, at BSR, was formatted to allow for deeper dialogue and discussion–much appreciated by everyone!
eBay, Others, Offer Strategies for Turning Customers into Allies
Posted by Mary Catherine O'Connor October 21st, 2009 0 Comments
Triple-bottom-line businesspeople aren’t just in it for the money; they seek to satisfy social and environmental bottom lines, as well. And generally, the same can be said of their patrons. That shows up in consumers’ willingness to pay premiums for fair trade, responsibly-sourced products. But the relationship between company and customer does not—and, many would argue, should not—end in a financial transaction. So how can socially- and environmentally-responsible firms go about turning their customers into advocates?
That question was posed to three panelists—Danny Kennedy, founder and CEO of Sungevity; Ron Gonen, cofounder and CEO of Recyclebank; and Amy Skoczlas Cole, director of citizenship outreach at eBay—during the JustMeans Social Media for Sustainability conference on Monday, in San Francisco.
How A Sustainability “Change Agent” Workshop Works
Posted by Deborah Fleischer October 14th, 2009 2 Comments
By Deborah Fleischer, Green Impact
Ever since I studied adaptive leadership with Ronald Heifetz at Harvard, I have been interested in the intersection between organizational change, systems theory and sustainability issues. Many sustainability professionals seem to lack an understanding of what it takes to create enduring, lasting change within an organization or system. As illustrated with the recent departure of Van Jones from the White House, a change agent needs a strategic understanding of how to navigate the dangers of leading change without getting scapegoated or sidelined.
I recently learned that Sustainable Silicon Valley (SSV) is offering a two-day Sustainability Change Agent Training with Alan AtKisson, November 16th and 17th. I’m excited that I will have the chance to attend (I will be attending to cover the event for Triple Pundit).
I realize many of us have “workshop-itis” these days after attending a few too many workshops and conferences. But I feel this topic has not been well covered at past green trainings. And Sustainable Silicon Valley is offering Triple Pundit readers a discount of $100 off the registration fee (applies only to SSV partner and non-partner rates). Go to the registration page and use the code “triplepundit” when registering.
Harrah’s Entertainment Bets On Green
Posted by Brian Thurston October 1st, 2009 1 Comment
Environmental stewardship and casinos don’t seem to sit well together in the same sentence. Just step foot into one and you are bombarded with that amusement park feeling of bright lights and the sounds of cascading coins – a hotbed of excess, but not exactly the poster child of sustainability, right?
Maybe, maybe not – but Harrah’s Entertainment, Inc. is putting $60 million over six years toward green projects at their resorts – and since the formation of their Corporate Energy and Environmental Group in 2003, they’ve estimated to have saved more than 100 million kilowatt hours in energy use – enough to power 10,000 homes each year.
Building an Organizational Culture of Sustainability: Employee Engagement
Posted by FairRidge Group September 24th, 2009 4 Comments
These days, we hear more and more that a company’s stance on social and environmental issues plays a significant role in choice of employer. A recent survey found that over 50% of American workers report being inclined to work for “green” companies. Women and Generation Y in particular want their company’s mission to go beyond profitability, encompassing benefits to the wider community, on social, environmental and economic dimensions (with men and Boomers not that far behind). They are eager to work with companies in which they feel they can make a difference.
The Courts Might Be Blue But the US Open Is Thinking Green
Posted by Pritha RaySircar September 9th, 2009 2 Comments
Underlying the general excitement of 700,000 fans that populate the two-week 2009 US Open – Elite Athlete Eye Candy! Unseeded Player Dreams! Open Seating Options! – is the USTA’s ongoing, long-term commitment to greening its enterprise.
What’s the sweet spot? According to Rita Garza, Senior Director of Corporate Relations, USTA, “Outdoor tennis and a concern for the environment is a natural fit. We’re just making the connection.” 2009 marks year two of the center-wide greening initiative and the USTA’s operational strategy takes a strong external and internal approach in an number of obvious and behind the scenes ways.
Walking through grounds of the USTA’s Billie Jean King National Tennis Center – the world’s largest outdoor tennis facility – it’s hard to miss the 500 blue recycling bins, one to partner with each conventional garbage can around the 42-acre campus.
Building Sustainability Into Your Operations: The Importance of Governance
Posted by FairRidge Group September 4th, 2009 0 Comments
Driving sustainability into the operations of a company is an oft-stated goal for sustainability departments. How many times have you heard (or said!): “My vision is that one day our department will go away…and sustainability will be just part of everyday business, and the sustainability department will be out of a job.” But how do we actually make that happen? How do we ramp up a sustainability program from a departmental focus to an organization-wide set of capabilities? And how do we move from many disparate efforts to a cohesive set of coordinated initiatives? The answer is an effective sustainability governance solution.
So what to do?
To solve these challenges, a “governance” solution is required that addresses both the diffusion of sustainability into the organization (from the sustainability department into general operations) and sustainability collaboration across the organization (to establish synergies such as the sharing of best practices, resources, tools, etc.).
Choose the Best Sustainability Consultant for Your Company
Posted by Jen Boynton September 1st, 2009 1 Comment
We all know what we need to do to make our companies more environmentally friendly: use less energy, water, and paper, travel less and make less garbage. But yeah, it’s easier said than done especially if you’re in a carbon intensive business like manufacturing or energy production. What’s the company without a lot of time or expertise to do? Well, hire someone, of course! Who do you hire, and how do you know what to look for? Here’s the lowdown on the biggest and smallest players in the newest consulting game and how to separate the wheat from the formerly-unemployed-newly-rebranded “Sustainability Consultant.”
First, you need to know what you are looking for. Different consultants have different kinds of expertise:
AT&T: Aligning Business and Sustainability Strategy
Posted by Matthew Holtry August 28th, 2009 2 Comments
I ask a simple gut-check question when reading a sustainability report: “What does [insert “green” initiative here] have to do with this company’s operations?” The connection should be obvious.
While “One Million Acts of Green” are admirable, it makes more sense to inventory impacts and make reductions where they matter most. (Can I leave my AC running while I go to the store as long as I take a reusable bag?)
Consumers are less likely to respond if corporate sustainability efforts don’t tell a coherent story. AT&T’s latest Citizenship & Sustainability Report reads like a “how to” manual for creating business value through an effective sustainability strategy.
AT&T has clearly taken a look at their core business operations, identified high-impact areas, and committed to making reductions where they mattered most.
When I interviewed Beth Shiroishi, AT&T’s Assistant VP for Citizenship & Corporate Responsibility, I was amazed by both the length of her title and her breadth of knowledge about the company.
The Latest Open Source Innovators: Nike and Best Buy?
Posted by Paul S July 31st, 2009 3 Comments
Nike and Creative Commons are not two organizations you’d typically hear in the same sentence. And especially not working together. Try, “…a project of Nike, Creative Commons, and Best Buy.” That’s what GreenXchange is. Here’s a video laying the groundwork:
GreenXchange is a part of CC’s Science Commons project. As in other Creative Commons efforts, this is about sharing knowledge so that others can create new works based on this knowledge, building upon it in ways that weren’t anticipated by the originator. The GreenXChange website goes into some depth as to the how and why the acceleration of sustainable innovation is important and possible, but these three sentences from their pdf on the project sum it up quite well, in a way that the most tight fisted businesses can understand:
Esurance: Creating Innovation with a Paper-Less Model and a Cartoon Character
Posted by Ashwin Seshagiri July 16th, 2009 0 Comments
Esurance was founded in 1999 during the peak of the dot com boom. It was the first auto insurer to offer its services exclusively online, from quotes to purchasing to communications to policy documents. As the company capitalized on a technological revolution, it helped create an innovative new business model, one that is inherently greener than its rivals, in an industry that has been seemingly anchored in institutionality and tradition.
“Beginning with the online model, the environmental message was baked into the product,” said Joann Lee, Community Relations Manager for the insurer.
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