This is the second of three posts on the Executive Council’s “Value-Based Sustainability” event last week (read the first post here). As official sponsor of the event, CleanTechies raffled off five free tickets to our Facebook fans, Twitter followers (@CleanTechies) and Newsletter subscribers. The author of this article was one of the lucky winners. Fan us and follow us to learn about upcoming raffles like this!
The Executive Council’s Value-Based Sustainability Forum in San Jose, CA on January 26th was one of a few “road shows” taken around the country. Focusing on strategy in making the business case of sustainability, resonating themes of the forum included transparency; measurement; and communication or engagement internally with employees, and externally to customers and clients.
An exuberating opening keynote by Adam Werbach, CEO of Saatchi & Saatchi S, started the day. Werbach defined sustainability as social, economic, ecological and cultural streams which flow into an integrated one. Transparency, engagement and networking are enablers of sustainability that are to be exercised internally and externally for maximum value. To connect the core of a business with a social issue is to create a “North Star goal” which, according to Werbach, will ignite passion within the organization, engaging employees. For example, P&G’s North Star goal: “Sell $50 billion worth of sustainability innovation products by 2012.”