Different Motivations, Same Goal: Business-NGO Partnerships
How can businesses build successful partnerships with environmental organizations? Focus on a common goal. By Eban Goodstein
Many environmental nonprofits are interested in working with businesses but are often concerned about "greenwashing." So how can businesses build successful partnerships with environmental organizations? Focus on a common goal. By Eban Goodstein
Partnerships between businesses and nongovernmental organizations are increasingly common, as companies committed to environmental practices recognize a greater need to "get the word out" to their suppliers, retail affiliates, and consumers. Environmental nonprofits, for their part, can bring expertise in outreach. Many are interested in working with businesses but are often concerned about "greenwashing." Any hint of that and nonprofits lose their primary asset -- credibility.
So how can businesses build successful partnerships with environmental organizations? Focus on a common goal.
Last April, along with six other small nonprofits from across the U.S. and Canada, my organization, The Green House Network, partnered with natural health and beauty retailer Aveda on the company's Earth Month campaign.
Aveda CEO Dominique Conseil and his staff have recognized that rising temperatures in even the mid-range of forecasts will have devastating impacts on the natural ecosystems around which Aveda's core business identity revolves. So while our motivations differ, our common goal was to raise awareness about global warming.
To launch the partnership, the company invited representatives from our organizations to corporate headquarters in Minneapolis to learn about the business. During a two-hour meeting, Conseil himself illustrated how the Aveda philosophy of pollution prevention, source reduction, and reliance on plant-based products was imbedded in all stages of production, from input harvesting to trash disposal.
Conseil also made it clear that Aveda's involvement in the Earth Month campaign was not a throwaway effort to achieve some short-term publicity advantage. In fact, the campaign was central to a strategy of building communities of salon owners, employees, and customers who are knowledgeable about the value of biodiversity and empowered to help mitigate threats against it.
During Earth Month, our organizations helped Aveda to engage salon employees, consumers, and the broader public in an educational effort linking the preservation of natural health and beauty resources to the clean-energy revolution we need to stop global warming. Our volunteers made presentations at Aveda salons, and Aveda employees were active in building participation in our "Race to Stop Global Warming," an awareness-raising event held this year in Boston, Denver, Minneapolis, Portland, and Seattle.
Across North America, from Atlanta to San Francisco, and from Tempe to Toronto, 1,300 salons, spas, and stores collectively raised more than $700,000 to support educational efforts aimed at protecting biodiversity and halting global warming. Thousands of individuals pledged to reduce their emissions of global-warming pollutants.
Aveda laid the foundation for a successful partnership by demonstrating that a commitment to preserving the beauty and diversity of life on this planet -- a goal shared by our nonprofits -- is in fact a core element of its corporate identity.
CEO's need to articulate a healthy, productive vision for their corporations. In working with Dominique Conseil, we learned how that vision can move beyond a near-term bottom line to the view of a business as a sustainable, and ultimately, restorative enterprise. And that is a model we need to keep the world from becoming a hotter place.
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Eban Goodstein is the volunteer executive director of the Green House Network, based in Portland, Ore. Other organizations involved in Aveda's Earth Month included: 1000 Friends Land Use Institute, Madison, Wis.; NW Environment Watch, Seattle, Wash.; Clean Air-Cool Planet, Portsmouth, N.H.; Environmental Defense Canada, Toronto, Ontario; Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, Knoxville, Tenn.; and Minnesotans for an Energy-Efficient Economy, Minneapolis, Minn.
Partnerships between businesses and nongovernmental organizations are increasingly common, as companies committed to environmental practices recognize a greater need to "get the word out" to their suppliers, retail affiliates, and consumers. Environmental nonprofits, for their part, can bring expertise in outreach. Many are interested in working with businesses but are often concerned about "greenwashing." Any hint of that and nonprofits lose their primary asset -- credibility.
So how can businesses build successful partnerships with environmental organizations? Focus on a common goal.
Last April, along with six other small nonprofits from across the U.S. and Canada, my organization, The Green House Network, partnered with natural health and beauty retailer Aveda on the company's Earth Month campaign.
Aveda CEO Dominique Conseil and his staff have recognized that rising temperatures in even the mid-range of forecasts will have devastating impacts on the natural ecosystems around which Aveda's core business identity revolves. So while our motivations differ, our common goal was to raise awareness about global warming.
To launch the partnership, the company invited representatives from our organizations to corporate headquarters in Minneapolis to learn about the business. During a two-hour meeting, Conseil himself illustrated how the Aveda philosophy of pollution prevention, source reduction, and reliance on plant-based products was imbedded in all stages of production, from input harvesting to trash disposal.
Conseil also made it clear that Aveda's involvement in the Earth Month campaign was not a throwaway effort to achieve some short-term publicity advantage. In fact, the campaign was central to a strategy of building communities of salon owners, employees, and customers who are knowledgeable about the value of biodiversity and empowered to help mitigate threats against it.
During Earth Month, our organizations helped Aveda to engage salon employees, consumers, and the broader public in an educational effort linking the preservation of natural health and beauty resources to the clean-energy revolution we need to stop global warming. Our volunteers made presentations at Aveda salons, and Aveda employees were active in building participation in our "Race to Stop Global Warming," an awareness-raising event held this year in Boston, Denver, Minneapolis, Portland, and Seattle.
Across North America, from Atlanta to San Francisco, and from Tempe to Toronto, 1,300 salons, spas, and stores collectively raised more than $700,000 to support educational efforts aimed at protecting biodiversity and halting global warming. Thousands of individuals pledged to reduce their emissions of global-warming pollutants.
Aveda laid the foundation for a successful partnership by demonstrating that a commitment to preserving the beauty and diversity of life on this planet -- a goal shared by our nonprofits -- is in fact a core element of its corporate identity.
CEO's need to articulate a healthy, productive vision for their corporations. In working with Dominique Conseil, we learned how that vision can move beyond a near-term bottom line to the view of a business as a sustainable, and ultimately, restorative enterprise. And that is a model we need to keep the world from becoming a hotter place.
-----------------
Eban Goodstein is the volunteer executive director of the Green House Network, based in Portland, Ore. Other organizations involved in Aveda's Earth Month included: 1000 Friends Land Use Institute, Madison, Wis.; NW Environment Watch, Seattle, Wash.; Clean Air-Cool Planet, Portsmouth, N.H.; Environmental Defense Canada, Toronto, Ontario; Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, Knoxville, Tenn.; and Minnesotans for an Energy-Efficient Economy, Minneapolis, Minn.