GreenBiz.com® |
ClimateBiz |
GreenerBuildings |
GreenerComputing |
GreenerDesign |
Greener World Media
Recent Posts by Andy Savitz
-
This week, I hosted a panel at the Ceres Conference at which Jeff Swartz, the CEO of Timberland, the boot company, and Gary Hirshberg, the CEO of Stonyfield Farms, the organic yogurt company, answered questions about the role of business in society. Prior to the panel, I spoke with them about sustainable consumption. I was very pleasantly surprised. Rather than the usual canned answers one often gets from CEOs at these events, both these Red Sox fans proved to be deeply committed, not to selling less shoes or yogurt, but to sustainable consumption and enlightened consumerism as a potential way out of the ecological and societal quicksand in which we find ourselves. Gary explained that only about half of what we eat is real food, in terms of its nutritional value. For him, sustainable
-
I had the opportunity to speak last week about the relationship of sustainability to public policy in Washington's chandeliered, blue-carpeted Senate Caucus Room where, I was informed, John Fitzgerald Kennedy announced his candidacy for President of the United States 48 years ago.That was only one of the day’s many humbling moments. Another was that I was addressing an awesome group of CEOs from Massachusetts who have formed the Progressive Business Leaders Network, dedicated to creating sustainable companies and pushing for public policy that will advance sustainable business development.(Sometimes, despite the weather, the traffic, and the persistent but badly outdated attitude that Boston is the "Hub of the Universe," I love living here. This is one of those times.)I'm blogging
-
This is starting to get annoying. Two years ago, when the book came out and I set up my mini-consulting firm, my genius computer guy Dan suggested I use the e-mail address andy@getsustainable.net. I thought that was kind of cute, so I said okay.For about a year and a half, no one except people in my circle remarked on this address.But about three months ago, something weird started happening. I was on the phone with Expedia trying to reserve a flight for the next day when the Expedia representative on the phone asked me for my email address. I said “andy@getsustainable.net” and expected to move on. Instead, a long pause ensued, then the guy said,”That’s cool, I’m into that” and proceeded to tell me about the solar panels he had
-
I do a lot of public speaking on sustainability, but my very first speech after The Triple Bottom Line appeared in print over a year ago is still the most memorable--not for the speech itself, but because of what happened afterwards. I was running late for the airport and my cab was waiting in front of the hotel. Before I could sit back, the cabdriver asked: "How was your speech?" I looked up and saw, looking at me in his rear view mirror, an older cabbie with a scraggly goatee and a cloth cap. I asked him how he knew I had been giving a speech, and he told me that the hotel concierge had told him. "What was it about?" he asked. Hmmm, I thought, how to explain this? "Well, I am an expert on something called sustainability. It's about how companies are expected
-
In this post, I want to deviate from my usual discussion about sustainability, corporations, and profits. I want to discuss something that rarely gets discussed in the sustainability world but which I think is going to be a subject of increasing attention. It's the fact that sustainability is really a two-sided coin. On the one side is sustainable production, which is what all of us in business like to talk about--how companies can get leaner and greener. But on the other side is sustainable consumption, which is something that we don't talk about much. I want to frame this issues by talking about globalization--not in economic terms, but in environmental and social terms. One of the most interesting and important aspects of climate change is that it is a global issue with global
Sponsored Links
Sustainable Packaging: When the Wal-Mart Battleship Changes Course, the Waves Spread for Miles
Digg
Del.icio.us
Reddit
Stumble Upon
While Wal-Mart stil obviously lurks as a key driver of many sustainability goals, I'm wondering whether companies have progressed beyond Wal-Mart's directives. In other words, if Wal-Mart were to abandon its Scorecard tomorrow, would brand owners and packaging suppliers continue to move forward with their sustainability goals or would they jump off that bandwagon?One of my fellow observers commented:
If Wal-Mart were to abandon its Scorecard tomorrow (which it won't), it would have little impact on the sustainability movement overall because manufacturers--large and small--are coming to realize that the principal driver of sustainability is economic.I agree--with the following proviso. While there's a powerful economic logic behind less-wasteful, sustainable packaging, it is obviously the case that Wal-Mart's packaging edict has dramatically increased the interest in it and accelerated the progress being made on this front.
If Wal-Mart abandoned its initiative, or went in a different direction, it would have a huge impact on packaging simply due to its direct economic clout with its suppliers. When Wal-Mart sneezes, 60,000 suppliers catch cold.
Wal-Mart's packaging guidelines are like a private regulation, the issuance of which has something like the effect of law. It's one thing to acknowledge that pollution equals financial waste, but very few companies would move forward (at least to the degree they have) without the pressure exerted by regulation.
What's interesting to me about Wal-Mart's guidelines, and about the sustainable packaging movement in general, is that they require the active cooperation of the entire value chain, more so than most sustainability issues I have encountered. Wal-Mart is very far down the chain which, in addition to its size and clout, is why its action has the potential to be game-changing, not just for its direct suppliers, but for theirs and theirs and theirs.
Now if the Sustainable Packaging Coalition could figure out how to get Wal-Mart one step further down the chain--to consumers--that would truly change the game. The retailer has just announced that it reached its goal of selling 100 million low impact fluorescent bulbs, and ahead of schedule at that. Imagine if they could figure out how to get customers into the stores around recycling!
Charter Sponsor
Integrated Facilities Management Sponsor
Design Sponsor
Document Management Sponsor
Work Environment Sponsor
Innovation Sponsor
Environmental Services Sponsor
Technology Sponsor
Energy Management Sponsor
Climate Sponsor
See ClimateBiz.com
Public Relations Sponsor
Legal Sponsor
Greener World Media offsets its carbon footprint provided by Green Mountain Energy Company.
