Sustainability Solutions Labs | Seattle Style

August 16, 2010

The folks from EDF Innovation Exchange and DigIn have joined forces and developed a series of Solutions Labs around the country. As a key member of the local Planning Committee, among other duties, I focused on Outreach and Engagement. I joined this effort after hearing the key organizers say that these events would “provide leading thinkers and “doers” from business, academia and organizations with the opportunity to explore the next generation of business sustainability — one in which we can grow profits for our companies and create positive impact on the planet”.

This year, there are ten events in various cities and Seattle was lucky number seven venue on the list. This event, hosted by Seattle University on August 10, 2010, a gorgeous summer day at their deep green campus. We were all welcomed by Dr. Tim Leary, Executive Vice President of the University followed by Charlie Cunniff, Director, Seattle Office of Sustainability and Environment who underscored the importance in aligning business and civic agendas to drive sustainability and innovation. Beth Trask, reminded us all of the long history that EDF has in promoting corporate social responsibility from their early days as a partner to McDonalds in significantly reducing packaging waste.

Our day’s facilitator was Odin Zackman, from DigIn, a San Francisco area consulting firm that focuses on social change at a variety of scales from the individual to large international companies. DigIn helped lead an organic process, structure and goal setting behind each respective city’s Planning Committee.

The Lab’s design charette format included Conversation Catalysts, Steve Lippman, Microsoft; Kevin Hagen, REI; Ben Packard, Starbucks; Jean Brittingham, Brittingham Partners; and Gifford Pinchot, Bainbridge Graduate Institute shared anecdotes from their own personal experiences as pioneers in sustainability underscoring the need for identifying the “right” metrics and for sometimes ignoring underlying assumptions in identifying “challenges” and biases within your organization. An example was the unanticipated value gained from performing a life cycle assessment. Originally this company thought that a product’s transportation environmental costs would be the top priority for the company in its effort to reduce it’s environmental footprint yet they then learned that it accounted for half of GHG generated by the company’s commuting employees.

A variety of discussion themes had been proposed through Planning Sessions and the Event’s wiki including:

• Sustainability as a Strategic Approach to Market Advantage
• Effective Collaboration for Sustainability
• Sustainable and Socially Responsible Investing
• Reducing Your Corporations Climate Footprint
• Logistics, Policy and Finance for a Regional Food System

I participated in several sessions but will share my learnings from the Transforming Organizational and Corporate Culture: Inclusion and Sustainability. The question was posed, how can we get shared accountability for sustainability across silos? Possible solutions discussed were to match sustainability goals to top-level business results across all business units, connect compensation and incentives at every level to sustainability (employees, executives, board, business units, human resources, etc), create a continuous learning environment at all levels of the organization and look for case studies from other sectors to inform processes, metrics and outline potential resources. Don’t look for “buy-in” but for ownership and start with those individuals that show a passion for the mission.

We all did lots of talking, listening, and networking and we did establish some next steps including the organic formation of work groups to tackle some of the various issues. If you would like to be a part of future discussions or engaged on a “Solutions Team” then check out the Solutions Lab 2010 Wiki.

If you participated in a Solutions Lab share with our readers what you gained during the experience or what good works groups you are now involved in as a result. Thanks for sharing in my story. – alex

Filed under: clean tech,Energy efficiency,Green blog,green education,green marketing,green packaging

Tags: #GIBN, corporate social responsibility, green innovation in business network, seattle sustainability, sustainable business, sustainable solutions