Are the platinum, gold, and silver in the LEED certifications conflict-free and sustainably mined?
Hmm? ;)
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
Tuesday, November 9, 2010
Triple Bottom Line conference hosted by Drexel and the World Trade Center of Greater Philadelphia
By David Calloway, Green IT Digest © 2010
What do Boeing, Campbell’s Soup and Dow Chemical (formerly Rohm and Haas) have in common? That is, besides being large companies and longstanding, major forces in this regon’s economy?
All three are internationally recognized leaders in sustainability. Yes, really. And no, I'm not kidding. Representatives of these firms and others shared some success stories at a recent conference co-sponsored by Drexel University’s Lebow College of Business and the World Trade Center of Greater Philadelphia (WTCGP). The program also featured speakers from sustainability guarantors B Lab and the City’s Office of Sustainability.
The Triple Bottom Line represents the three beneficiaries of a sustainable enterprise: People, Planet, and Profit. Applying well-known and accepted metrics, it provides a way to measure an organization’s environmental impact along with its financial return. And, as we know in all areas of business, what we can measure, we can improve.
This program, subtitled Implementing Sustainable Business Practices, bridged several purposes for its sponsors. Drexel hosted the program on behalf of the MBA students visiting from the school’s graduate center in Sacramento, CA.
The WTCGP was promoting the region’s strengths in sustainability, while increasing exposure to international opportunities for both students and the region’s businesses. This seminar was part of WTCGP’s new “Job Creation through Export Development” program funded by the U.S. Economic Development Administration. The program is designed to advance the global competitiveness of the many Pennsylvania and New Jersey companies in leading industry sectors, such as renewable energy and environment. Find the WTCGP at http://www.wtcphila.org/.
Drexel’s Sacramento business students, in Philadelphia to complete a course in Sustainable Business, learned about local Green buildings and businesses. They visited two Green buildings, the Comcast Center and Tasty Baking’s new Navy Yard bakery, which is moving toward zero-waste status.
“It was eye-opening for the students”, said Donna Ferrari, Drexel’s Director of Special Projects. “Many came with the impression that companies are just giving lip service to sustainability. But the conference speakers told how addressing sustainability issues head-on will help them survive.” Drexel's LeBow College of Business is at http://www.lebow.drexel.edu/.
The WTCGP used the forum to showcase Campbell’s, Boeing, and Dow. These firms are central to the region’s economy, working to create a triple bottom line, and fully engaged internationally. These three attributes, all visible and measurable, make them models that more companies in the region could emulate, with the help of the WTCGP, of course.
An ongoing partnership in international business allows Drexel students to combine their international residencies with the WTCGP’s trade missions through their “Export for Scholars” program. Students research off-shore markets, international partnerships, and overcoming cultural and other barriers. Observing international trade meetings gives them valuable hands-on experience.
The conference included a Green Expo where vendors presented a range of products and services to help businesses and consumers to be more effective in terms of the environment, and of their bottom lines.
The word of the day was metrics: If you don’t measure it, you won’t do it. Every presentation was dotted with dashboards, flooded with figures, and replete with reports about carbon reduced, good intentions realized, and strategies implemented. It’s clear that, at least in these companies, the drive toward sustainability is for real, and it’s working.
The speakers shared their firms’ strategies and experiences, as they’ve worked to improve the environmental performance of themselves, and their impact, and that of their partners, customers, and industries. The speakers and their talks are summarized in the following paragraphs.
- Katherine Gajewski, Director of the Mayor’s Office of Sustainability. After getting a late start, Philadelphia is working to advance the 5 E’s: Energy, Environment, Equity (as in equality, not capital, although that was mentioned, too), Economy, and Engagement. Despite ongoing financial challenges, Philadelphia and several other progressive cities across the nation are succeeding in areas where the federal and many state governments are being hamstrung by lobbyists and legislative paralysis. For more on the city’s progress, visit http://www.greenworksphila.org/.
- David P. Stangis, Vice President, Corporate Social Responsibility, Campbell Soup Company. If there’s any company in a position to influence the health and landfills of the world, it’s the ubiquitous Campbell Soup. A big company full of everyday products, Campbell’s program focuses on everyday actions that add up to fulfilling the big vision, a full-court commitment to Nourishment, naturally: Nourishing Employees, Consumers, Neighbors, and Planet. The program is described in detail at www.campbellsoupcompany.com/csr/.
- Katherine T. Hunt, Ph.D., Director, External Science and Technology, The Dow Chemical Company. After Dr. Hunt’s explained Dow’s purchase of Philadelphia’s Rohm and Haas, it makes more sense to me. Dow’s been a feedstock-driven business, and wants to be more market-driven. Research leader Rohm and Haas makes more money producing less stuff, which also makes sense environmentally. Dow wants to be more like that. So buying R&H is helping Dow become both more profitable, and more sustainable. That’s a real win-win outcome. Find the chemistry at www.dow.com/commitments/.
- Hardik Savalia, Associate, B Lab. For a publicly-held corporation to officially pursue the Triple Bottom Line—People, Planet, Profit—is currently illegal, except in Maryland or Vermont.
That’s right. The fiduciary responsibility of a firm to maximize profit is the only leg of this three-legged stool that has any legal standing in the other 48 states. B Lab, based in Berwyn, PA, is working to change that, by creating a new kind of legal entity: the B Corporation. B stands for Benefit, because it benefits not just shareholders, but stakeholders—the whole environment in which the corporation operates. Today, B Lab certifies mostly small, privately-held firms. As the B Corp takes hold in a growing number of states, investor demand will drive ever larger enterprises to seek and earn B Corp status. Learn all about it at www.bcorporation.net/.
- Edward (Ned) Ferguson, Director of Environment and Energy, Boeing. Did you know the GPS you use to reach your destination is not officially available to a commercial pilot? GPS-based air space modernization will reduce fuel consumed in flights up to 30%. It will also make flying faster, safer, and more reliable, as well as save flight controllers a lot of grey hairs. While today’s jets are 70% more fuel-efficient (and 30% quieter) than the original 707, airplane makers still have a long way to go to reduce aviation’s impact on global warming, and to save the airlines from continuing financial losses. To address both, Boeing is committing 75% of their R&D budget to improving the environmental performance of their jets. In addition to making planes that use less fuel, Boeing is working to grow fuels that create less carbon. Grow fuels? Yes, they’re creating bio-fuels using non-food sources to reduce the petroleum in their fuel, and thus the carbon in their exhaust. These fuels will come on-line in two to three years, and be used until more effective, algae-based fuels become available in six to eight years. These will make huge reductions in both carbon, and fuel cost. Reducing the amount of fuel consumed, and largely eliminating petroleum as a fuel, will make the airlines more environmentally and financially sustainable. Find more at www.boeing.com/newairplane/environment.
What do Boeing, Campbell’s Soup and Dow Chemical (formerly Rohm and Haas) have in common? That is, besides being large companies and longstanding, major forces in this regon’s economy?
All three are internationally recognized leaders in sustainability. Yes, really. And no, I'm not kidding. Representatives of these firms and others shared some success stories at a recent conference co-sponsored by Drexel University’s Lebow College of Business and the World Trade Center of Greater Philadelphia (WTCGP). The program also featured speakers from sustainability guarantors B Lab and the City’s Office of Sustainability.
The Triple Bottom Line represents the three beneficiaries of a sustainable enterprise: People, Planet, and Profit. Applying well-known and accepted metrics, it provides a way to measure an organization’s environmental impact along with its financial return. And, as we know in all areas of business, what we can measure, we can improve.
This program, subtitled Implementing Sustainable Business Practices, bridged several purposes for its sponsors. Drexel hosted the program on behalf of the MBA students visiting from the school’s graduate center in Sacramento, CA.
The WTCGP was promoting the region’s strengths in sustainability, while increasing exposure to international opportunities for both students and the region’s businesses. This seminar was part of WTCGP’s new “Job Creation through Export Development” program funded by the U.S. Economic Development Administration. The program is designed to advance the global competitiveness of the many Pennsylvania and New Jersey companies in leading industry sectors, such as renewable energy and environment. Find the WTCGP at http://www.wtcphila.org/.
Drexel’s Sacramento business students, in Philadelphia to complete a course in Sustainable Business, learned about local Green buildings and businesses. They visited two Green buildings, the Comcast Center and Tasty Baking’s new Navy Yard bakery, which is moving toward zero-waste status.
“It was eye-opening for the students”, said Donna Ferrari, Drexel’s Director of Special Projects. “Many came with the impression that companies are just giving lip service to sustainability. But the conference speakers told how addressing sustainability issues head-on will help them survive.” Drexel's LeBow College of Business is at http://www.lebow.drexel.edu/.
The WTCGP used the forum to showcase Campbell’s, Boeing, and Dow. These firms are central to the region’s economy, working to create a triple bottom line, and fully engaged internationally. These three attributes, all visible and measurable, make them models that more companies in the region could emulate, with the help of the WTCGP, of course.
An ongoing partnership in international business allows Drexel students to combine their international residencies with the WTCGP’s trade missions through their “Export for Scholars” program. Students research off-shore markets, international partnerships, and overcoming cultural and other barriers. Observing international trade meetings gives them valuable hands-on experience.
The conference included a Green Expo where vendors presented a range of products and services to help businesses and consumers to be more effective in terms of the environment, and of their bottom lines.
The word of the day was metrics: If you don’t measure it, you won’t do it. Every presentation was dotted with dashboards, flooded with figures, and replete with reports about carbon reduced, good intentions realized, and strategies implemented. It’s clear that, at least in these companies, the drive toward sustainability is for real, and it’s working.
The speakers shared their firms’ strategies and experiences, as they’ve worked to improve the environmental performance of themselves, and their impact, and that of their partners, customers, and industries. The speakers and their talks are summarized in the following paragraphs.
- Katherine Gajewski, Director of the Mayor’s Office of Sustainability. After getting a late start, Philadelphia is working to advance the 5 E’s: Energy, Environment, Equity (as in equality, not capital, although that was mentioned, too), Economy, and Engagement. Despite ongoing financial challenges, Philadelphia and several other progressive cities across the nation are succeeding in areas where the federal and many state governments are being hamstrung by lobbyists and legislative paralysis. For more on the city’s progress, visit http://www.greenworksphila.org/.
- David P. Stangis, Vice President, Corporate Social Responsibility, Campbell Soup Company. If there’s any company in a position to influence the health and landfills of the world, it’s the ubiquitous Campbell Soup. A big company full of everyday products, Campbell’s program focuses on everyday actions that add up to fulfilling the big vision, a full-court commitment to Nourishment, naturally: Nourishing Employees, Consumers, Neighbors, and Planet. The program is described in detail at www.campbellsoupcompany.com/csr/.
- Katherine T. Hunt, Ph.D., Director, External Science and Technology, The Dow Chemical Company. After Dr. Hunt’s explained Dow’s purchase of Philadelphia’s Rohm and Haas, it makes more sense to me. Dow’s been a feedstock-driven business, and wants to be more market-driven. Research leader Rohm and Haas makes more money producing less stuff, which also makes sense environmentally. Dow wants to be more like that. So buying R&H is helping Dow become both more profitable, and more sustainable. That’s a real win-win outcome. Find the chemistry at www.dow.com/commitments/.
- Hardik Savalia, Associate, B Lab. For a publicly-held corporation to officially pursue the Triple Bottom Line—People, Planet, Profit—is currently illegal, except in Maryland or Vermont.
That’s right. The fiduciary responsibility of a firm to maximize profit is the only leg of this three-legged stool that has any legal standing in the other 48 states. B Lab, based in Berwyn, PA, is working to change that, by creating a new kind of legal entity: the B Corporation. B stands for Benefit, because it benefits not just shareholders, but stakeholders—the whole environment in which the corporation operates. Today, B Lab certifies mostly small, privately-held firms. As the B Corp takes hold in a growing number of states, investor demand will drive ever larger enterprises to seek and earn B Corp status. Learn all about it at www.bcorporation.net/.
- Edward (Ned) Ferguson, Director of Environment and Energy, Boeing. Did you know the GPS you use to reach your destination is not officially available to a commercial pilot? GPS-based air space modernization will reduce fuel consumed in flights up to 30%. It will also make flying faster, safer, and more reliable, as well as save flight controllers a lot of grey hairs. While today’s jets are 70% more fuel-efficient (and 30% quieter) than the original 707, airplane makers still have a long way to go to reduce aviation’s impact on global warming, and to save the airlines from continuing financial losses. To address both, Boeing is committing 75% of their R&D budget to improving the environmental performance of their jets. In addition to making planes that use less fuel, Boeing is working to grow fuels that create less carbon. Grow fuels? Yes, they’re creating bio-fuels using non-food sources to reduce the petroleum in their fuel, and thus the carbon in their exhaust. These fuels will come on-line in two to three years, and be used until more effective, algae-based fuels become available in six to eight years. These will make huge reductions in both carbon, and fuel cost. Reducing the amount of fuel consumed, and largely eliminating petroleum as a fuel, will make the airlines more environmentally and financially sustainable. Find more at www.boeing.com/newairplane/environment.
Wednesday, September 29, 2010
If you're not from the US, would you recognize an "apple core"?
Do only Americans throw away this much of an apple?
In the rest of the world, I'm told, there's no such thing as an "apple core". What's left after eating an apple is, maybe a handful of seeds and a stem, or maybe not. That's what's left after I eat an apple. For what we pay for organic apples, I figure, why waste any of it?
If you eat only 3/4 of a daily apple, do you keep away only 3 out of 4 doctors?
What do you think? Maybe you can enlighten me on this?
Image courtesy http://apps.co.marion.or.us. I take it Marion County, Oregon, grows a lot of apples. I'm sure they'd want them put to good use.
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
Hunch confirmed-- CIOs tossing Green IT aside
A few weeks ago I started sharing my impression that Green IT has fallen off the rader of most IT leaders. The Green-savvy CIO of a suburban Philadelphia pharma research firm then told me his offer to present to a regional IT conference was turned down, because "The whole Green IT track was canceled due to lack of interest."
Today, I read in Information Week's 2010 survey that Green IT is "dead in terms of priorities--or at least on life support."
"How else to explain the paltry 5% who cite a 'more eco-friendly environment' as a top 2010 innovation effort," IW continues. "...Companies talk a great 'sustainability' game. It's just that IT teams tend to come at green IT through the cost-cutting door."
Cost-cutting is great, of course. It's a key part of keeping a company in business and thriving. But doing only that, while losing sight of the sustainability advantages of virtualization, consolidation, moving to the Cloud, and the like, means throwing away important benefits.
Top leaders at many firms know sustainability is of growing importance to their firms' survival, as well as to the planet.Many individual employees know it, too. When IT leaders lose sight of sustainability, they risk cutting themselves out of the loop. It's like the 1980s all over again, when IT, then called MIS, let itself become just another service silo inside the out-of-touch enterprise.
By contrast, CIO magazine Executive Editor Elana Varon points out that "CIOs can contribute to developing eco-friendly products." This is green for a business purpose, and it can happen only in an environment that has fully embraced sustainability as a core business purpose.
Here are a few excerpts from that article. You can find the details for yourself at CIO Magazine.
Today, I read in Information Week's 2010 survey that Green IT is "dead in terms of priorities--or at least on life support."
"How else to explain the paltry 5% who cite a 'more eco-friendly environment' as a top 2010 innovation effort," IW continues. "...Companies talk a great 'sustainability' game. It's just that IT teams tend to come at green IT through the cost-cutting door."
Cost-cutting is great, of course. It's a key part of keeping a company in business and thriving. But doing only that, while losing sight of the sustainability advantages of virtualization, consolidation, moving to the Cloud, and the like, means throwing away important benefits.
Top leaders at many firms know sustainability is of growing importance to their firms' survival, as well as to the planet.Many individual employees know it, too. When IT leaders lose sight of sustainability, they risk cutting themselves out of the loop. It's like the 1980s all over again, when IT, then called MIS, let itself become just another service silo inside the out-of-touch enterprise.
By contrast, CIO magazine Executive Editor Elana Varon points out that "CIOs can contribute to developing eco-friendly products." This is green for a business purpose, and it can happen only in an environment that has fully embraced sustainability as a core business purpose.
Here are a few excerpts from that article. You can find the details for yourself at CIO Magazine.
- At Whirlpool (WHR), CIO Kevin Summers is helping with an initiative to build smarter appliances...All of those appliances on a smart grid are like PCs on a network.”
- David Kepler, CIO and chief sustainability officer with Dow Chemical (DOW), says customers want more sustainable—and sustainably produced—materials. So IT provides tools for managing energy and greenhouse gas emissions in manufacturing plants, as well as for thinking through how buildings that use the company’s solar roofing shingles connect to the local electric utility.
Wednesday, September 15, 2010
Micro-contracts: a boon to environmental protection, or the end of civilization as we know it?
It often happens that when I see something new, the ideas and possible applications start popping. While it can be very distracting at times, at other times it can be useful.
I discovered a company named EchoSign that, via the Web, captures, tracks, validates and assures signatures on contracts. What could you do with a micro-contract environment that's as easy to manage as an e-commerce storefront?
First, I would demand quick, real-time monitoring, validation and assurance of sustainability measures that entities have undertaken, particularly natural resource extraction firms. Then I would extend it from there, into other kinds of complicated projects.
Here are a few reasons, off the top of my head, that this capability could become ubiquitous:
1. business functions are virtualizing, flattening, and accelerating, driving an explosion in partner relationships.
2. That, plus increasing regulatory and transparency pressures, is driving an explosion in contractual relationships.
3. I foresee (if it isn't happening already) the ongoing data explosion driving the evolution of a new legal entity, a sort of digital sub-contract, in which line items and other more granular components of contracts require sign-offs, validation, tracking, and the like. Note that the only reason we don't have these already, is that nobody has wanted to be responsible for managing them. It's a classic case of advancing technology creating a new job for itself, and thus its justification: we do it because we can.
4. Similar to 3: Iterative methodologies such as Agile and Scrum are permeating the development of all kinds of business processes, not just IT/ICT projects. It might be nice to have a micro-tracking tool that also, incidentally, represents a legal commitment.
5. As in 4, environmental initiatives, especially among partner entities and governments, could really benefit from a ready-made, easy to use tracking and validation platform that can manage myriad deliverables, dates, and other such project performance details. While such tools do exist, they're usually buried deep within expensive, complicated and proprietary enterprise systems. Putting this into a Web-based, as-needed, just-in-time service radically changes what we can manage.
On the other hand, these may all be terrible ideas, and we'll just enable a level of paralyzing micro-management and mega-litigation like we've never seen. I hope that's not the case.
(c) 2010 David Calloway
I discovered a company named EchoSign that, via the Web, captures, tracks, validates and assures signatures on contracts. What could you do with a micro-contract environment that's as easy to manage as an e-commerce storefront?
First, I would demand quick, real-time monitoring, validation and assurance of sustainability measures that entities have undertaken, particularly natural resource extraction firms. Then I would extend it from there, into other kinds of complicated projects.
Here are a few reasons, off the top of my head, that this capability could become ubiquitous:
1. business functions are virtualizing, flattening, and accelerating, driving an explosion in partner relationships.
2. That, plus increasing regulatory and transparency pressures, is driving an explosion in contractual relationships.
3. I foresee (if it isn't happening already) the ongoing data explosion driving the evolution of a new legal entity, a sort of digital sub-contract, in which line items and other more granular components of contracts require sign-offs, validation, tracking, and the like. Note that the only reason we don't have these already, is that nobody has wanted to be responsible for managing them. It's a classic case of advancing technology creating a new job for itself, and thus its justification: we do it because we can.
4. Similar to 3: Iterative methodologies such as Agile and Scrum are permeating the development of all kinds of business processes, not just IT/ICT projects. It might be nice to have a micro-tracking tool that also, incidentally, represents a legal commitment.
5. As in 4, environmental initiatives, especially among partner entities and governments, could really benefit from a ready-made, easy to use tracking and validation platform that can manage myriad deliverables, dates, and other such project performance details. While such tools do exist, they're usually buried deep within expensive, complicated and proprietary enterprise systems. Putting this into a Web-based, as-needed, just-in-time service radically changes what we can manage.
On the other hand, these may all be terrible ideas, and we'll just enable a level of paralyzing micro-management and mega-litigation like we've never seen. I hope that's not the case.
(c) 2010 David Calloway
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
Lose Up To 4500 lb FAST!
Now, I have to admit-- I'd be a hypochrite to wear this on a T-Shirt myself.
While volunteering for BikePhilly 2010, I envisioned this image for the many people I've met who have given up their cars, upgraded their bikes, rent a PhillyCarShare or ZipCar when they need to, and get younger looking every year.
Join the Bicycle Coalition of Greater Philadelphia at http://www.bicyclecoalition.org/.
Friday, September 10, 2010
Free Report and Assessment Tool: Evaluating, Assessing, and Reducing the Carbon Impact of ICT
Evaluating, Assessing, and Reducing the Carbon Impact of ICT is a free report offered by the Global e-Sustainability Initiative (GeSI).
GeSI’s ICT (or IT, as it’s called only in the US) Enablement Methodology “provides immediate guidance on the process of identifying and quantifying the CO2 effects of implementing an ICT solution.” It comes with an Assessment Worksheet.
Three things I want to gain from this: 1. Determine the value this report can bring IT, or ICT, units in this region; 2. Find clues to why people promoting "Green IT" solutions still seem to be separate from the overall corporate sustainability community; and 3. Identify what I can do to change that.
ICT, by the way, is what the rest of the planet calls IT. It stands for Information and Communication Technology. This term far better describes what most of us do as ITers. As IT moves increasingly to the Cloud and the Internet, which are themselves becoming indistinguishable, Communication becomes even more central to all we do.
The Global e-Sustainability Initiative, based in Brussels, “brings together leading ICT companies – including telecommunications service providers and manufacturers as well as industry associations – and non-governmental organisations committed to achieving sustainability objectives through innovative technology.”
Many familiar names are members of this organization: Microsoft, Verizon, HP, Deutche Telecom (parent of T-Mobile), Cisco, and more.
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