Tag Archives: B Corporations

Seek Out and Learn from Sustainability Leaders

In a recent article, How to Become a Sustainable Company, in the Summer 2012 issue of the MIT/Sloan Management Review they ask the question, “What differentiates sustainable companies from traditional ones?” To the answer in a minute.

Although the article references commitment to sustainability, noting that few companies are born with it, an issue arises for me that goes beyond terminology and suggests a fundamental misunderstanding  – to be a sustainable company is not equal to being a company committed to sustainability. The adjective, sustainable and the noun sustainability are not one in the same. Unfortunately, the former is what is popular in business, both public and private and the answer to the question above demonstrates what I mean. According to the article the differences are:

  • Sustainable organizations are effective at engaging with external stakeholders and employees
  • They have cultures based on innovation and trust
  • They have a track record of implementing large-scale change

These are not unique to sustainability nor to sustainable companies. Petroleum and  toxin-based companies, for example, may be successful at all three and yet have no commitment to sustainability, to the seven generations, mired as their leadership may be in the short term, and, ultimately, in denial about global warming and the inability of an economic system that externalizes risk and costs to ever bounce back.

Sustainability is a goal, a desire, a hope and it signifies the ABILITY to drive change, first, at the personal level. We need sustainability leaders to drive a sustainability culture in their organizations. This point is raised in the MIT/Sloan report:

“When leadership commitment drives the process, it usually comes from the personal resolution of a CEO to create a more sustainable company. In general, top-level executives have the ability to create an enterprise-wide vision and the clout to see that it is realized. Without this commitment, becoming a sustainable company is a “nonstarter.”

While leadership commitment is talked about as critical,  the report continues with the language of ” leaders of traditional and sustainable companies” rather than sustainability leaders of companies directing our attention to how things are not working rather than who is working. Our sustainability leaders need to influence their “traditional” peers, first,  to raise their consciousness as quickly as possible.  There are two very effective ways to advance the personal and model the behavior that is desperately needed.

Online Video

Screen shot 2012-06-19 at 11.30.53 AMHere’s an interview with Dominique Conseil , Global President of Aveda and Karl-Henrik Robert founder of the Natural Step, both sustainability leaders. Or listen to The Regeneration Project’s Ray Anderson Memorial video series, here is one video, Why Meaningful Progress Depends on Activists – Spotlight on Civil Society, featuring sustainability leaders Jonathon Porritt, Vandana Shiva, Nitin Desai, Lester Brown, Bill Ford, Kris Gopaladrishman, Yolanda Kakabadse and Gro Harlem Brundtland.

Online Video and Research

Dr. David Hall of Portland State University stepped out of the box and advanced the personal by producing a series of sustainability leadership videos as part of his research called Native Perspectives. Here you can listen to the indigenous voices, sustainability leaders, of the Salmon Nation.

Face-to-Face

The Regeneration Project, between July and October, will host a number of Salons – curated, facilitated conversations sustainability leaderswith influential stakeholders from across industry and sector. These Salons will take place in major international cities across the world. Attendance is to be limited  to approximately 50 people, on an invitation-only basis.  Great work and hopefully the start of something fresh in sustainability awareness, education, and innovation.  The project is an inititiave of GlobeScan, a public opinion research company and Sustainability, a think tank and strategy consultancy.

All of this is to say go ahead and read the research digging into sustainable companies,  but give more time to listening to your peers who are sustainability leaders, pioneers, heroes, and innovators.  Look for research and events that emphasize the personal over organizational. Rely less on processed information when you can now hear directly from the sustainability leadership as found in the hundreds of companies that are for-benefit and in the hundreds of voices of sustainability from across the Web, the reason we invested in bringing together these voices for you in one place, EarthSayers.tv, voices of sustainability.

Ruth Ann Barrett, Sustainability Advocate, June 19, 2012, Portland, Oregon.

Qualities of Sustainability Leaders: The Short List

A short list of five qualities I have found in sustainability leaders and now “findable” in abundance at EarthSayers.tv, the voices of sustainability.

Now that I live and work in a community where there is much more support for sustainability I don’t have to spend as much time doing missionary work on the relevancy of it, but I do talk more about leaders and why sustainability leaders need to ban together and become much more visible, not just on EarthSayers.tv, but, locally in their communities.

At the same time I have been listening to leadership experts who generally don’t reference sustainability (more missionary work needed here), but who have been talking about the qualities of leadership that are lacking and, as Bill George of Harvard and a member of the Board of Exxon Mobile and Goldman Sachs observes;  it is a”failure of leadership” that has put our country at risk. Of course it’s not just our country is it? Back to Professor George in a minute.

Based on what two leadership experts are talking about and my own experience reviewing hundreds of speeches and interviews,  here is a short list of the qualities I have found in  sustainability leaders:

(1) Givers not takers.

Sustainability leaders don’t fit the old model of leadership as detailed in a speech to the Google folks by leadership expert Bill George of Harvard University. On what basis have we been choosing our leaders? “More for charisma, than character, more for style than substance, more for their image than their integrity.  Not very authentic people, smart, but not committed, takers rather than givers.”  Just give a listen to B Corporation members, there are over 200 of them, as the “B” is “for benefit.” Here are three on EarthSayers, including the cofounder of B Corps, Jay Gilbert.

Jay Coen Gilbert, B Corporation; Jeffrey Hollender, Seventh Generation; Miranda Magagnini, IceStone.EarthSayer.tv Sustainability Leaders

(2) Motivators

Again from Bill George: “Economists told us for many years that people only interested in money. Not motivating people. Today we want to find meaning and significance in our work.

Over 90% of the voices on EarthSayers.tv have motivated me to continue with my work and many in different ways emphasize the significance of taking the first step.  I don’ think anyone says this better and more simply than Kip Ward, owner of a completely recycled motel in the beach community of Lincoln City, Oregon. Give a listen to what Kip has to say and my thanks to both Kip and filmmaker, producer Barry Heidt of Lincoln City, Oregon who understand the significance of Earthsayers.tv and produced this for EarthSayers.

(3) Different and Humble

According to Blair Sheppard, dean of Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business, company recruiters are saying they need a “different kind of person. (They) need a person who is more of a leader, but humble.”  I think the collection of leaders on EarthSayers demonstrates how different the sustainability leadership is, you can hear and see it for yourself.  Experts and leaders such as the head of Common Cause, Bob Edgar, all say the same thing: “We are all called to be leaders.”

(4) Multi-cultured

Here’s Dean Sheppard. “If you think about the structure of the problems businesses are grappling with today, more and more of it requires that people work effectively with other people, often times from different civilizations from their own. “ It’s not just businesses is it?

Organizations such as the Ecotrust recognize the most innovative indigenous leaders for their efforts to improve conditions in their communities through award programs and public events. There is Kavita Ramdas, President and CEO of the Global Fund For Women and then there is the The Goldman Environmental Prize, world’s largest award for grassroots environmentalists.

That’s my short list for now. It will grow as we add more and more sustainability leaders to EarthSayers.tv.  Oh wait, I forgot the last one.

(5) Visible.

With the help of Chelsea Peil, community developer, and Barry Heitd we are establishing local offshoots of EarthSayers starting with the Portland Sustainability Leadership Channel and the SeaStar Sustainability Leadership Channel, an ecotourism-focused channel for Lincoln City, Oregon.  This is a simple, easy- to- put- into- action model for bringing a focus on the leaders in local communities using YouTube channels and, internationally, through connection to the EarthSayers network.  Robert Seireeni in his book, The Gort Cloud, references “The Invisible Force powering today’s most visible Green Brands.” Well, it’s time to get visible.