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The Paris office of global law firm Eversheds is partnering with Club XXIe Siècle and the European Professional Women Network (EPWN) to sponsor a mentoring programme aimed at helping young women of diverse origins fulfil their potential.

The initiative is dedicated to women between the ages of 25-39 years old within the immigrant population, who statistically face more difficulties in progressing in their desired career paths. Some of these women are believed to be facing a "double glass ceiling" in the workplace environment, says Eversheds.

Boris Martor, Partner in Eversheds LLP Paris and a member of Eversheds international diversity and inclusion committee, commented: "Diversity is at the heart of Eversheds' ethos. Last year the firm was named as one of the top 10 private sector organisations for racial diversity and inclusion by Race for Opportunity, the race diversity campaign from Business in the Community.

"We were the first law firm in France to sign the Diversity Charter, a written commitment to ban discrimination in the workplace and make a conscious decision to work towards creating diversity. We look forward to supporting this new initiative and taking even greater strides to promote and encourage diversity in the workplace."

 

Picture credit: © Galina Barskaya | Dreamstime Stock Photos
 

Philippa Foster Back, director of the Institute of Business Ethics (IBE), has been appointed a Commander of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2014 New Year’s Honours. The CBE was awarded in recognition of her work as Chair of the UK Antarctic Heritage Trust, for services to Antarctic heritage.

Chris Moorhouse, chairman of the IBE Trustees said: “I am delighted for Philippa; she thoroughly deserves this recognition.” Foster Back was awarded the OBE for services to the Ministry of Defence where she was formerly a NED and Chair of the Defence Audit Committee in 2006.

Ethical Performance talks to Alexandra Palt, CSR and sustainability director of French beauty giant L’Oréal

What does sustainability mean to you?
In order to prepare for a sustainable and successful future, we need to tackle the big environmental and social challenges the world faces. For us, sustainability means transforming our business by integrating environmental, social and community considerations throughout our value chain in our business strategy. We have redesigned the way we do business, throughout our value chain, from research and innovation, production to marketing. Through our new sustainability commitment Sharing beauty with all, announced recently, we are committing big, as big as our business ambition. Of course, as a FMCG company, we have to focus on sustainable consumption. Our contribution in this field can be essential: it is time to make sustainability desirable for consumers in order to make it mainstream. Sustainability as the desirable choice for all, this is the contribution to a sustainable future we would like to make.

How did you get interested in the field?
I started my career in a law firm and worked with different NGOs, like Amnesty International in Germany. In 2003, I became part of the management committee of “IMSEntreprendre pour la Cité”, a business driven membership association that brings together more than 200 companies engaged in Corporate Social Responsibility. I worked also for la HALDE (French Equal Opportunities and Anti-Discrimination Commission) as the Director of Equal Opportunities. Later, I founded and directed a strategic consultancy agency, working with large companies in the setting up of their CSR policies. My whole career is dedicated to try to contribute to a positive evolution of society. I am convinced that in the future, companies will be even more of a driving force for environmental and social progress. This is the reason why I wanted to join a multinational company. National governments are often faced with increasingly complex challenges, companies are more flexible and adapting faster in their responses. Becoming CSR and Sustainability director at L’Oréal, a committed company led by a CEO who endorses personally the issue, is a marvelous opportunity to try to drive change in a place engaged to do so.

What are the most interesting innovations in sustainability that we're seeing now?
There are a lot of interesting innovations and initiatives all around the world. A lot of committed and very smart people think about how we can drive change for a better world. But to be honest, there are so many initiatives and so few scalable models. There are so many projects and so little vision for a desirable change. I think this is the major challenge: how to drive desirable change and scale it? If I had to mention one field that interests me in particular, I would mention inclusive business models. We have set up at L’Oréal, with our brand Matrix, a program in Rio, which allows women from Brazilian favelas to improve their standard of living by becoming micro-distributors of this professional hairdressing brand. We might have found a model that we can scale which is for me the one relevant criteria of analysis because even a lot of great initiatives won’t be able to answer the world’s challenges unless we are able to scale them.

What's the biggest challenge you're faced with?
My biggest challenge, as CSR and Sustainability Director of a FMCG company, is to overcome the barriers of sustainable consumption through our brands and products.

What are some of your short-term goals? And long term?
It depends on the definition of short and long term. We have taken strong commitments for 2020, and it is, in a way, short term. In terms of sustainable innovation, we committed by 2020, to innovate so that 100% of products have an environmental or social benefit. In terms of sustainable production, we committed by 2020, to reduce our environmental footprint by 60% from a 2005 baseline. In the consumption field, we committed by 2020, to empower every L’Oréal consumer to make sustainable consumption choices by giving them the social and environmental information about our products. And we have also strong commitments to share our growth internally with the teams, but also with suppliers and communities, for example by enabling 100 000 people from underprivileged communities to access work. It is very ambitious and challenging, and believe me 2020 is tomorrow ! But these commitments will also allow us to prepare for the future on a long term basis. In 2020, we will be able to go further and all the commitments we have taken will help us as they are preparing a sustainable future for the company, from a business perspective as well as from a “sustainability” perspective.

Does sustainability ever feel unachievable?
The bad days! But we have to stay confident. It would be terribly arrogant to think that future generations will be unable to change and to find solutions to the world’s problems, just because our generation seems to be a little bit slow and unaware in addressing them.

What sustainability statistics at L’Oréal are you most proud of?
We have a lot of considerable achievements, in the field of sustainable production (for example -39% of CO2 emissions from a 2005 baseline), of sustainable innovation (green chemistry, biodegradability of our rinsed products, etc.), gender equality etc. But I think statistics are not going to be the essential driver of change, but leadership and values are. And at L’Oréal we have the leadership and the spirit that will allow us to go very far on this.

Where can improvements be made?
Making sustainability desirable using the power of brands ! ?I am convinced that this is a strong lever in the future for engaging consumers. We will concentrate our efforts in this direction. We organized recently in Paris a forum gathering big companies to share best practices on the subject, in front of more than 260 journalists, CSR directors from other industries, stakeholders from all over the world. ?It has to become a shared concern in order to move forward.

If you could influence one major thing in sustainable business practice, what would it be?
I would stop the epidemic reporting, questionnaires and surveys in order to spend less time on collecting data and more time on putting things in place!

L’Oréal is a huge company – how do you engage employees in the company’s sustainability goals?
Human values, especially generosity and passion, are core values for L’Oréal. Involving our employees in our sustainability goals is quite easy I must say, as we are in a company where people want to do the right thing. Everyone has a role to play. As this is completely integrated in the business strategy, everybody has to integrate it also in the daily job. And believe me, everyone is committed.

What triggered the company’s recent sustainability commitment, Sharing Beauty With All?
Committing to such an ambitious strategy is never just determined by one factor. I think the strong conviction of our CEO and the Executive Committee was key for this. The awareness that a strong business ambition - we want to reach one billion more consumers in the coming years - induces a strong responsibility. And lastly, L’Oréal is a company that has existed for more than one hundred years with a very long term leadership, probably the most important element that allows a company to prepare for the future. We want to still be here in one hundred years.
 
 

The rise of the developing world was a recurring theme at this year's Abu Dhabi Sustainability Week. The event's opening ceremony featured a panel on development in Africa, where Dr. Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber, Minister of State in the United Arab Emirates, and three African heads of state predicted rapid urbanization and economic growth across the continent in the coming decade.

The need is great as more than 1.3 billion people around the world currently live without access to electricity. Two-thirds of those that have access to electricity get it from fossil fuels. With fossil fuel prices fluctuating and demand on the rise, energy costs are sent soaring in large swaths of the developing world - meaning those who can't foot the bill are often left behind.

As energy demands increase to keep pace with forthcoming economic booms, devising a solution that meets these needs sustainably may prove not only an environmental win, but also a sound business decision for organizations that get in on the ground floor.

Formally announced in a panel discussion at the World Future Energy Summit in Abu Dhabi last week, the commercially-based Wind for Prosperity initiative claims to have devised just such a solution. Launched by wind energy powerhouse Vestas, Masdar and a number of other partners, the initiative seeks to refurbish V-27 and V-47 wind turbines from Europe and re-deploy them in the developing world - providing clean and affordable power where it's needed most.

Perhaps the most interesting aspect of Wind for Prosperity is its decidedly for-profit model. Panelists made it clear that the initiative is not about aid, philanthropy or even corporate social responsibility, but rather its underlying goals center around proving that expanding renewable energy markets in a socially conscious way can also bolster bottom lines.

"Wind for Prosperity is not about charity," asserted Vestas CEO Anders Runevad in front of a small room of media, pundits and energy buffs. "It is about business."

The problem

Seven out of every 10 people living in sub-Saharan Africa do not have access to electricity (that's almost twice the U.S. population living in the dark). Hundred of millions more across South America and Asia also have limited or inconsistent access to energy. Some live in remote rural areas, hundreds of miles away from the established grid, while others are simply priced out of the market.

In the Caribbean and South America, energy costs range from 35 cents to 60 cents per kilowatt-hour. A reporter from Chad, who spoke during the question-and-answer portion of the panel, said he pays $1 per kilowatt-hour for electricity. In comparison, the average cost per kWh in the U.S. is 12 cents, according to the Energy Information Administration.

Jose Maria Figueres Olsen, former president of Costa Rica and current president of The Carbon War Room, rightfully pointed out that, "Energy poverty is where poverty begins." In areas with inconsistent access to electricity, even essential structures like schools and hospitals go without - posing obvious challenges and barriers to prosperity.

"It's a tough equation selling energy to some of the world's poorest people," observed panelist Evan Scandling, head of communications for Sunlabob Renewable Energy - a Laos-based company specializing in renewable energy and clean water solutions in the developing world. "So that in itself is challenging."

The solution

Utilizing its vast processing capabilities, Vestas compiled a data map that identifies countries where large rural populations live without electricity access, have high infant mortality rates and yet have abundant wind resources - defined as regions with wind speeds above 7 meters per second, explained Morten Albaek, group senior vice president of Vestas Wind Systems A/S.

Between 50 to 100 million people without access to electricity are living in such areas, spanning across 80 countries, according to the data.

"Furthermore, if we focus on people who are living so far away from the established grid, they will never be connected to the grids in their own lifetimes," Albaek continued. "So out there we have 50 to 100 million people who are living with strong wind resources and so far away from the grids that they will not get access to electricity if we do not find a solution for them, and that solution is Wind for Prosperity."

By combining decommissioned wind turbines - which are virtually free save for refurbishment costs - with advanced diesel power generation, Vestas can create affordable hybrid systems that are well-suited for operation on mini-grids in remote locations with limited infrastructure.

Wind for Prosperity will pilot its project with 13 communities in Kenya over the next 18 months - reaching more than 200,000 people and reducing the need for diesel by 2,000 tons annually, Albaek said. For obvious reasons, boosting access to electricity also has known positive effects on a nation's economic prosperity. A 1 percent increase in electricity generation is estimated to cause a 1 percent rise in a nation's GDP index, according to 2007 data from the UN Industrial Development Organization.

"There are two wars we need to win," former Costa Rican President Figueres Olsen said. "One is a war on poverty, and the other is the war against climate change. This program gives us the ability to win both with the same instruments."

The business model

Vestas and other backers will establish Wind for Prosperity companies in every country they enter. Ideally, these proposed micro-companies will be public-private partnerships between investors, local governments and utility companies. If all goes as planned, this would manifest in a private company owning the wind turbines and selling the output to a local utility or governmental energy agency that, in turn, distributes to the end user. Shareholders, who are expected include residents of each deployment region, will be the first to reap returns financially in the form of dividends - followed by the company and its investors over the long-term power purchase agreement.

The project is targeting fast and widespread deployment of refurbished turbines - with a goal of reaching 100 communities and more than 1 billion people over the next three years. Other regions being explored for deployment include Ethiopia, Tanzania, Yemen, Pakistan, Vietnam and Nicaragua, but Africa was selected as the first deployment area for the project. The region has the lowest per-capita access to and the highest cost of electricity generation, but, at the same time, the continent has what Wind for Prosperity partners deem "exceptional wind resources" - meaning better results for communities and higher profits for stakeholders.

"Making profits is the most important thing here," Albaek said. "If we can prove through Wind for Prosperity, which we are positive that we can, that you can actually turn pretty good returns-on-investment by reducing CO2 emissions and unlocking people from poverty, there's no excuse not to do it."

The return on investment

While making energy more affordable for residents and lifting them out of poverty is the primary goal of the initiative, forging a presence in developing markets makes sense for established alternative energy companies - especially in the long-term, as current energy demand in these markets is likely a fraction of what it will be in 10 years.

It certainly isn't tough to beat today's energy prices in large parts of the developing world, and consistent, sustainable forms of energy more than compete. In Kenya, the wind hybrid system will supply electricity at least 30 percent below the current cost, based on diesel generation, according Wind for Prosperity estimates.

Investors are also poised to receive high rates of return on the project. Citing financial data he received as president of The Carbon War Room, a Wind for Prosperity investor, Figueres Olsen said projections quote an internal rate of return of more than 15 percent over the 30-year power purchase agreement. "You don't get that rate of return in the world of today," he asserted with a smile.

Specific investor information is not readily available due to the relative newness of the project. But the former president's excitement was palpable and drew applause from an audience of skeptics and optimists alike - which bodes well for the financial soundness of the project, or at least one investor's perspective on it.

For a company like Vestas, which currently holds a substantial share in the wind energy market (roughly one out of every four wind turbines in the world is a Vestas turbine), expanding its reach to the developing world makes sense in light of forecasted economic growth. If the company chooses not to lead the charge, an unavoidable risk is that, in all odds, someone else will. When asked how Vestas will profit from the initiative, Albaek said:

We have installed close to 60 gigawatts of wind turbines across the planet … So, as part of our revenue and our bottom line, this is going to be insignificant. But what will not be insignificant is how Wind for Prosperity can help open up new boundaries for wind energy - rather than just sit passively and wait for, say, gravity to bring wind energy to the frontier markets of the word.

So in that regard, it is a business development strategy that is self-funding because it also has a return."

The program was just devised in November and is still in its infancy. So, success from both the community and investment perspectives will likely remain unclear until the first pilot begins in the coming months, but investor interest appears to be building.

Beginning with three investors late last year (Vestas, Masdar and Danish equity-fund manager Frontier Investment Management), the project has since attracted other significant players like Sundog Pictures, DI Frontier Carbon & Energy Fund and Econet Wireless. With the rise of developing nations set to have a big impact on global climate change mitigation moving forward, Wind for Prosperity is surely a project to watch.

Images courtesy of Wind for Prosperity

Based in Philadelphia, Mary Mazzoni is an editor at TriplePundit. She is also a freelance journalist who frequently writes about sustainability, corporate social responsibility and clean tech. Her work has appeared on the Huffington Post, Sustainable Brands, Earth911 and The Daily Meal. You can follow her on Twitter @mary_mazzoni.

Ed note: Travel expenses to Abu Dhabi were provided by Masdar, the main organizer of the World Future Energy Summit and Abu Dhabi Sustainability Week.

Welcome to our series of interviews with leading female CSR practitioners where we are learning about what inspires these women and how they found their way to careers in sustainability. Read the rest of the series here.

TriplePundit: Briefly describe your role and responsibilities, and how many years you have been in the business.

Tonie Hansen:  I’m the Director of Global Citizenship at NVIDIA, where I’ve spent the past eight years, all focused on sustainability. Previously, I spent 15 years in marketing roles, largely at IT startups.

I was hired at NVIDIA to lead philanthropy and needed to build up expertise quickly. So, I immersed myself in conferences, learning about the larger concept of sustainability. Instantly, I got hooked. It seemed like a great way to merge my background in business with my desire to have an impact.  Within a year or so, I helped assemble our first green team and we worked together to develop goals around reducing NVIDIA’s greenhouse gas levels. And in the intervening years, I’ve added sustainability responsibilities to my role, as I saw it becoming more relevant to our business. I’m about to begin work on our fifth sustainability report, and have been getting deeply engaged in our supplier responsibility efforts since joining the Electronic Industry Citizenship Coalition’s board of directors.

3p: How has the sustainability program evolved at your company?

TH: Our efforts began about eight years ago when we found ourselves responding to a growing number of government and customer requests to comply with sustainability initiatives. Frankly, this helped raise our own institutional consciousness of the issue, and we decided to start reporting as a best practice in 2010. By 2012, we made it to #6 on the Newsweek Greenest Companies list.

One of the things that I’m most proud of regarding NVIDIA is the innovative way we design our products. Our technology provides the best computing experience and performance for the least amount of power necessary. This energy efficiency is a big competitive advantage, and it’s great to have authentically sustainable products to promote.

I’m also excited about the direct connection our products have with facilitating sustainability. They’ve driven a huge range of advances across fields related to social issues – disease research, automotive safety and storm prediction, to name just a few. Experts in these fields increasingly rely upon computational power, and we’ve given them the tools they need to break through barriers in their research.

2014 will be exciting for us, as we’ll be presenting to our execs a plan to integrate sustainability thinking into our business. This will help cement sustainability into the culture and lead to even more leadership opportunities for us to differentiate ourselves and have a deeper impact.

3p: Tell us about someone (mentor, sponsor, friend, hero) who affected your sustainability journey, and how.

TH: While attending a sustainability conference in 2007, I sat in on a session by Dr. Kellie McElhaney at UC Berkeley Center for Responsible Business. She was the first person who really crystallized for me the value that sustainability could bring to a business beyond it being just the right thing to do. It was also great that this message of business innovation was being delivered by a woman, as the IT world is still very much the man’s realm. Kellie has made it a point to be supportive of women in sustainability and recognizes the unique value we can bring to this aspect of doing business.

3p: What is the best advice you have ever received?

TH: Early on in my career, I was incredibly serious at work and didn’t spend a lot of time building relationships with the people I work with. While at an IT company, I ended up running a team of seven due to an unanticipated reorg. A few months later, during a review at which I was sure I was going to get a promotion, I learned that it was not to be.

I was told that while I had the technical expertise and drive to be promoted, my manager didn’t feel good about promoting me because I wasn’t connecting well with my staff and colleagues. I had become more focused on getting things done in a fast-moving environment and not connecting with the people around me. It was very painful feedback, but I took it to heart, and have ever since worked extra hard to get to know my colleagues as people, not just performers. With the overwhelming amount of work there is to do in sustainability, I still struggle with this. But, given the cross-functional nature of the role, it’s a critical skillset to master.

3p: Can you share a recent accomplishment you are especially proud of?

TH: I’m going out on a limb to share something I’m planning to be proud of next year at this time. NVIDIA is at an inflection point in its sustainability journey, and I believe we’re ready to make a big leap towards integrating sustainability into our business. The sustainability team has done great work to position us beyond compliance and to be a great partner to our customers in helping them achieve their sustainability goals. That will make it easier for us to make the move toward integration. I have some other points of pride -- the Newsweek ranking, getting our report recognized by the GRI, and achieving our greenhouse gas reduction goals early -- but the best is yet to come.

3p: If you had the power to make one major change at your company or in your industry, what would it be?

TH: I am seriously concerned about the issue of water scarcity globally. We’re not paying for the true cost of water anywhere in the developed world and I think it’s easy for companies and consumers to get lazy about using too much of it. It’s especially on my mind as I live in California and our governor has recently declared that we’re in a state of drought. As I’m learning more about natural capital accounting, it seems like an effective way for companies to understand the real environmental impact of their operations and manufacturing. I wish we had a similar tool for consumers.

3p: Describe your perfect day.

TH: Adventure and some element of the unknown! I’m a huge nature and animal lover and enjoy traveling, so combining all of these equals a perfect day, and I’ve been lucky enough to manage that a few times.

I was in Kenya a few years ago and the perfect day involved following four male lions around the Masai Mara game preserve, and watching a pride with 14 cubs hard at play. Then, my guide took me to visit a cheetah mom and her three babies. We spent hours watching her track and kill a gazelle, and later relax with her cubs. To be that close to animals that are so powerful and deadly but feel no fear or animosity towards you is a pretty amazing experience.

I also recently went to Alaska, which was a bittersweet trip. The enormity of the space and roughness of the land was overwhelming and beautiful. But I couldn’t help but wonder how much longer this special place would be preserved, given our changing climate. My perfect day there involved canoeing in a glacial lake, dog-sledding with an Iditarod team, and watching a large pod of gray whales suddenly break the surface of the ocean after feeding on a school of fish.

When it comes to job creation, it appears that the U.S. economy has undergone radical change over the past couple of decades as the full extent of neoconservative economic, trade and tax policies, along with rapid technological change, have been more fully realized.

Historically wide and growing disparities in wealth and income in developed and developing countries alike was a focal point of discussion for the world's super-wealthy at this year's World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, while the need to create more and better jobs and economic opportunities for all Americans was the theme of President Obama's State of the Union (SOTU) address Tuesday evening.

The potential to spur sustainable, well-paying job growth – as well as lasting environmental and social benefits – has been one of the principal reasons the president has espoused policies and legislation that promote and foster development of renewable energy and clean technology. Though policies, legislation and regulations aimed at fostering “green” job growth have been criticized, refuted, opposed and undermined, the latest report from the Solar Foundation reveals that the U.S. solar energy sector continues to create jobs at a much higher rate than the economy overall.

56 new U.S. solar jobs a day -- for over a year

Nearly 24,000 Americans got jobs in the U.S. solar industry in 2013, bringing the total number of U.S. solar industry jobs to 142,698 as of November 2013, according to the Solar Foundation's, “National Solar Jobs Census 2013.”

Employment in the U.S. solar industry has been rising at a nearly 20 percent rate since 2012, 10 times faster than that for average national employment, according to the Solar Foundation's report. The U.S. solar energy sector added an average 56 new employees a day between September 2012 and November 2013, surpassing forecasts.

Among other key takeaways from this year's report:

• Seventy-seven percent of the nearly 24,000 new solar workers since September 2012 are new jobs, rather than existing positions that have added solar responsibilities, representing 18,211 new jobs created.


• This comparison indicates that since data were collected for Census 2012, one in every 142 new jobs in the U.S. was created by the solar industry, and many more were saved by creating additional work opportunities for existing employees.


• Installers added the most solar workers over the past year, growing by 22 percent -- an increase of 12,500 workers.


• Solar employment is expected to grow by 15.6 percent over the next 12 months, representing the addition of approximately 22,240 new solar workers. Forty-five percent of all solar establishments expect to add solar employees during this period.


• Employers from each of the solar industry sectors examined in this study expect significant employment growth over the next 12 months, with nearly all of them projecting percentage job growth in the double-digits.


• Approximately 91 percent of those who meet our definition of a “solar worker” (those workers who spend at least 50 percent of their time supporting solar-related activities) spent 100 percent of their time working on solar.


• Wages paid by solar firms are competitive, with the average solar installer earning between $20.00 (median) and $23.63 (mean) per hour, which is comparable to wages paid to skilled electricians and plumbers and higher than average rates for roofers and construction workers. Production and assembly workers earn slightly less, averaging $15.00 (median) to $18.23 (mean) per hour, slightly more than the national average for electronic equipment assemblers.


• The solar industry is a strong employer of veterans of the U.S. Armed Services, who constitute 9.24 percent of all solar workers – compared with 7.57 percent in the national economy. Solar employs a slightly larger proportion of Latino/Hispanic and Asian/Pacific Islander workers than the overall economy.

The message embedded in the Solar Foundation's report should bolster the president's push to address climate change, as well as promote further growth in U.S. renewable energy and clean technology, and help address the growing gaps in income, wealth and economic opportunity in U.S. society. As Oakland NGO Green For All stated on its blog,

“One of the best ways President Obama can open doors of opportunity for those who most need it is by connecting his economic vision to his climate agenda. The president’s proposed expansion of truly clean sources of energy like solar and wind power, energy efficiency, and clean vehicles not only fight climate change—they can create good, high-wage employment. Jobs in the green economy, like manufacturing and installing solar panels, tend to pay more while requiring less formal education. That’s a recipe for helping Americans on the edge escape poverty.”

Images courtesy of The Solar Foundation

By Meghan Ennes

Economic inequality was a major theme at this year’s World Economic Forum, and for that reason a core topic of conversation was shared value – the idea that businesses can profit by creating social good, and therefore create better, longer-term solutions for societal problems.

In case you missed the webcasts and coverage from last week's grand meeting of political, business and thought leaders in the tiny Swiss village of Davos, we at the Shared Value Initiative created a list of the hottest shared value discussions:

The Guardian’s Sustainable Business blog had some comprehensive running coverage of days two and three, when much of the shared value conversation took place. The Guardian reports that Thursday’s opening session was very focused on creating shared value, specifically considering purpose over profit in corporate decision-making. As PWC International Chairman Dennis Nally put it, "There will always be conflicts, and without a clear idea of purpose, it will be profit that makes the decisions."

While on Friday, Harvard Business School’s Michael Porter (coauthor of the 2011 Harvard Business Review article on “Creating Shared Value”) responded to the Guardian’s questions about shared value "not being radical enough," per recent comments made by Unilever CEO Paul Polman:

"Paul uses the label of sustainability for much of [Unilever’s] work. We believe that sustainability… is a broad catch-all phrase." He goes on to say, "Actually societal problems are the greatest business opportunity to restructure how you operate, to become more productive. Selling products to Africa is not doing good but a giant new market.” Read the rest of Prof. Porter’s comments.

Nestlé also had a strong voice on shared value throughout the event. (Full disclosure: Nestlé is a funder of our Initiative.) Company chairman Peter Brabeck Letmathe spoke on two panels, including Breaking Silos in Development -- where he stressed the importance of goal-setting and measurement when it comes to public-private partnerships.

In another panel, Brabeck and others like Muhammad Yunus and Martin Sorrell discussed whether ethical capitalism was "worth a try" or even possible. In an audio interview with the Guardian’s Jo Confino, Brabeck argued in favor: "If you embrace the task of the company to create shared value – value for the shareholders, but also value for the society – you will find a good and sound ethical base for capitalism." Here’s a video of the discussion that ensued.

Staying abreast of the conversation they helped to start, Harvard Business Review held an invitation-only event of academic and corporate leaders to discuss how business can more effectively contribute to society. Being a private event we can’t link to a webcast, but the ideas followed on the January HBR article “Focusing Capital on the Long Term,” by McKinsey’s Dominic Barton and Mark Wiseman, which is free to read for non-subscribers.

FSG’s Kate Tallant was in attendance and snapped this photo of HBR editor-in-chief Adi Ignatius interviewing Michael Porter, Dominic Barton, and HBS Dean Nitin Nohria (right). Ignatius also gave an excellent interview for CNBC Africa (video), in which he summed up the importance of shared value for not only the business world, but also the wider inequality issue that fixated so many business leaders at this year’s forum.

The last event which we’re proud to feature is Friday’s roundtable discussion on business’s role in education, hosted by FSG, the nonprofit consulting firm which guides our initiative. The roundtable featured leaders from across sectors and industries to discuss how business can help shape the workforce of the future through education, based on a recently published report by FSG’s Mark Kramer, Greg Hills, Kate Tallant, Matthew Wilka, and Anjali Bhatt. To read the report and get more background, read Kate Tallant’s recap blog post to get up to speed.

We don't have a webcast of this discussion, but our colleagues did a great job of summing it up in real time on Twitter. We’ve recapped the conversation below. For the full version, just search #SVinEd. And stay tuned this spring for an upcoming article on the proceedings of the discussion in the Stanford Social Innovation Review.

http://storify.com/meghanennes/shared-value-in-education-roundtable

Meghan Ennes is the community coordinator of the Shared Value Initiative. You can learn more about the initiative and join the shared value community of practitioners at sharedvalue.org. 

Almost three weeks after the notorious West Virginia chemical spill at the Freedom Industries storage facility contaminated the entire water supply over a nine-county area, you'd expect the crisis to be winding down, especially since authorities declared the water safe to drink days ago. However, it just keeps getting worse. In the latest developments, the amount spilled was revised upwards, water quality issues are still ongoing, and West Virginia Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin has written to the Federal Emergency Management Agency pleading for long-term help.

We noted before that the West Virginia chemical spill provides an unfortunate textbook case for what not to do in private sector hazard mitigation and disaster planning. The spill originated from private property, and it affected a privately-owned water supply system, the owner of which, West Virginia American Water, was also woefully unprepared for potential hazards to its Elk River intakes.

Combined with gaping holes in government oversight, the result was a perfect storm of corporate irresponsibility.

New developments in the West Virginia chemical spill

To recap briefly, on Jan. 9, crude MCHM - a foaming agent used to wash coal - was discovered to be leaking into the Elk River from a Freedom Industries storage tank, just 1.5 miles above the water intakes for West Virginia American.

By the time the alert went out, the chemical had entered the nine-county system, including the state capital of Charleston -- affecting hospitals, schools, government agencies and businesses as well as 300,000 residents. The alert advised using water only for flushing toilets, forcing those affected onto bottled water.

Last week, officials began declaring the water safe to drink, but hospital visits with chemical-related symptoms consequently skyrocketed, indicating that the all-clear was premature.

Also last week, a company official privately admitted to investigators that another chemical, "PPH, stripped," was involved in the spill.

This week, the bad news continued on Jan. 27, when the West Virginia Gazette reported that Freedom Industries revised its estimate of the spill amount upwards, from 7,500 gallons to a new estimate of 10,000 gallons (for many more updates, follow West Virginia Gazette reporter Ken Ward, Jr. on Twitter, @Kenwardjr).

The result, predictably enough, is that nerves are still on fire throughout the area as reflected in a Town Hall meeting on Monday night over continuing water quality issues, leading to an impassioned letter from Gov. Tomblin.

Letter from Gov. Tomblin to FEMA

Gov. Tomblin's letter to FEMA is well worth a read in its entirety. It outlines in devastating detail the severe, long-term impact that a relatively minor incident -- and a highly preventable one, at that -- can have over a widespread area.

Here is a key excerpt:

One source has estimated that hotels and restaurants have lost $1,000,000 in revenue a day while other businesses have had to close part of their operation...A detailed analysis of this event is not possible at this time, but I am certain it will show a total economic loss for the citizens, businesses, and governments of this area that will exceed the direct emergency protective measures we are providing many times over.

Tomblin also addresses the consequences of early communications failures and the apparently premature all-clear declaration, stating that:

...many people no longer view their tap water as safe and are continuing to demand bottled water to meet their potable water needs. It is impossible to predict when this will change, if ever.

With Freedom Industries now filing for bankruptcy, once again taxpayers will be left holding the bag for a company's disengagement in its host community -- reflecting the out-of-date mindset that job creation and environmental protection are opposing forces.

Somewhat ironically, as this disaster has been unwinding in West Virginia, a swing in the opposite direction has been occurring in Philadelphia, as that city enters a new stage in a long term partnership with EPA to embrace environmental protection as a a vital matter of economic development and quality of life.

Image: Freedom Industries tank farm (cropped) by iwasthere

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Readers please note: In an earlier post on this topic (here), we stated that Freedom Industries was the distributor for a chemical manufactured by Georgia Pacific Chemicals, a company under the Koch Industries umbrella. We did not state or imply that the GP chemical was involved in the spill, but readers may have inferred that the chemical was stored on the property. GP has provided clarifying detail (here).

By Emily Oliver

Since entering the mainstream, Airbnb has faced a host of challenges that could derail it from realizing the $1 billion annual revenue Forbes predicted. As well as legislators very publicly calling for enforcement of tax avoidance, commentators also accuse Airbnb of accelerating gentrification. But there’s a hidden challenge which could already account for significant hidden revenue loss. The Airbnb community itself erodes the company's revenue by avoiding fees through "off-site" deals. But the motivation behind these deals could be transformed by altering Airbnb’s business model.

Ironically, doing so could also indirectly address those other challenges too.

Hidden revenue loss

Around 80 percent of people I've either hosted or stayed with on Airbnb have offered off-site deals, i.e. tried to avoid fees by organizing outside the platform. Almost all mentioned they’d done other off-site deals. As many were for longer trips than the original booking, they would have generated higher fees for Airbnb, so this represents significant, ongoing potential revenue loss. It also marks a breach of trust, purely spawned by differing profit interests between Airbnb, the company, and Airbnb's community.

Airbnb’s response

Airbnb polices these off-site deals rigorously. I've received messages informing me that booking enquiries have been blocked because a user tried to contact me regarding an off-site deal. They clearly reminded me to abide by the site rules - and fees. Airbnb also automatically blocks any websites and email addresses from its postings.

I don’t entertain off-site offers for practical and idealogical reasons. Having helped to set up peoplefund.it (the first crowd-funding site for ethical projects in the U.K. and another peer-to-peer platform), I believe Airbnb has been very skilfully set up to facilitate trustworthy behavior -- offering insurance, a help line and numerous verifications. I’m also a big fan of the the service model’s potential to shift value away from corporates towards communities. But I’m sure plenty of other hosts don’t share this perspective. So, off-site deals are likely to continue while the business model continues to focus on generating profit for its private and venture capital owners.

An alternative

Instead of the widely predicted IPO route, Airbnb could actually increase its revenue by becoming a Subchapter T, or co-op, a suggestion outlined by California lawyer Janelle Orsi. This would transform the motivation for off-site deals through surplus profit-sharing and a shared sense of owned responsibility. Like Orsi, I’d be thrilled to make an investment or contribute a percentage of every transaction towards community ownership.

These community-owned models aren’t new, marginal or incompatible with the type of revenues Forbes predicted for Airbnb. Both REI (a co-op based in the U.S.) and John Lewis in the U.K. (a High Street shop owned by its employees) have multi-billion dollar annual revenues.

Wider impact

Off-site deals are hardly the biggest challenge for Airbnb - but becoming a Subchapter T could indirectly address those seemingly bigger challenges, too. The shared sense of formal responsibility could encourage hosts to pay taxes on their rental income and discourage illegal sub-letting. This could check Airbnb rental incomes - which critics say are increasing property prices and gentrification in some neighborhoods.

While the wider impact is speculation, Airbnb shifting towards a triple bottom line model might not be as far off as it sounds. Wired recently featured Fast Co. editor Ariel Schwartz’s prediction that a public company would become a B-corp in 2014. Before January 2014 was up, Schwartz wrote an article on the first purchase of a B-corp by a public company. Campbell’s purchased a healthy baby food company that is bound by its corporate charter to maximize social and environmental responsibility.

Supporting infrastructure

Infrastructure is emerging to support these triple bottom line business models. The long-awaited Obama American Jobs Act aims to support crowd-sourced equity. This could support businesses transforming their ownership model, as well as provide a funding path for early- and mid-stage organizations to avoid the venture capitalist model Airbnb is built on. Education is catching up too; alternative economic models are now widely included in the syllabi of top universities.

But I have an inkling the most effective solutions for the challenges these business models are likely to face will come from outside the traditional education models. Massive Online Open Courses (MOOC’s) such as Udemy offer flexible and affordable online courses anyone can access. For more depth, the Institute for Leadership and Sustainability offers a rather maverick, experiential-learning approach in its PGC and MBA courses -- summed up by its director who asks, "Why do academics make it so boring?" Its modules (like sustainable exchange - which includes peer-to-peer models like Airbnb) are taught both remotely and outdoors in nature. It can even be paid for in Bitcoins.

Sell out, loose out

Right now I’m still head over heels in love with Airbnb - despite the shortcomings I see in its model. I’m writing from San Francisco (Airbnb's headquarters) on a trip made possible because I host and guest with Airbnb.

As well as helping me achieve a lifestyle I’ve dreamed of, I believe Airbnb could be part of a shift towards a flatter, fairer economic landscape. But, if Airbnb continues to pursue profit, or if was aquired, I’d think twice about accepting off-site offers. I wouldn’t wax lyrical about the platform – converting a dozen friends into regular Airbnbers. And it wouldn’t be hard for one of Airbnb’s competitors – or a new one -- to take advantage of this by establishing a more trustworthy model. The extraordinary passion I’ve met amongst other Airbnbers has persuaded me that a significant, and highly active, section of the community, would very simply dump Airbnb on the spot too.

But I trust Airbnb. For now.

Image credit: Emily Oliver

Emily Oliver works on triple bottom line projects from renewable energy to the arts, with people who are genuinely focused on positive change from corporates to startups.

 

By Shannon Houde

"I know it when I see it" - so said Mr. Justice Potter Stewart way back in 1964. He was, in fact, talking about the challenges of defining hardcore pornography in a landmark Supreme Court case, but his comment applies equally well to the "hard to define but easy to recognize" paradox of sustainability careers.

After all, they're notoriously evasive when it comes to pinning down a technical definition: the lexicon itself is riddled with unhelpful buzzwords that mean different things to different people, the talent pool is as heterogeneous as a Greek salad, and after that, well, nobody's quite sure what sustainability practitioners actually do.

It's a salient point for jobseekers. In a new, rapidly changing and complex industry, how can you figure out what a potential employer is looking for? And just as importantly, how can you communicate your own competitive advantage as a potential employee?

This past autumn, Net Impact London and I hosted a cafe style workshop with a diverse group of sustainability professionals to delve into these questions and seek consensus on the answers. Today, I'm sharing the four key outcomes of our discussion to help you drill down on the common skills, attitudes and values practitioners share to help you land your own dream sustainability job.

1. Embrace the ambiguity

The uncertainty around who sustainability practitioners are and what they do can actually be a major advantage for those entering the field. There isn't just one role or one route to a sustainability job, there are many. While this can make it harder to position yourself, it also serves as a useful reminder that to be successful in this field, you'll need to be flexible and responsive.

What's more, building on your strengths can help you carve out your own pathway. Sustainability jobs can exist anywhere within an organization; they can be broad and overarching or specific and niche and, increasingly, companies are getting on board with the idea that leaders should be supported, whichever department they sit in. There's no clear delineation on where the limits of corporate responsibility lie, either - the disentangling of responsibility from accountability is yet another multifaceted debate.

So embrace the ambiguity and figure out how to make it work for you.

2. Be an agent of change

Sustainability does not need to be in your job title for you to be a sustainability practitioner. Rather, "doing" sustainability involves creating change from within the system to move society towards your values. It can be the guiding star in almost any role, and following it takes a lot of passion and belief. But there are other important traits that will help you quantify the benefits of change and translate the story to help organizations realize that the financial bottom line is affected by social and environmental bottom lines too.

Soft skills including the ability to communicate, motivate and facilitate are crucial, while harder skills such as strategic planning, systems thinking, project management and financial analysis to demonstrate viability are also important to provide the evidential basis for change, as shown in this recent ISSP report.

3. Engage with conflict

As a sustainability practitioner, there will often be conflict between your personal values and the values of the organization you're working for. So what do you do? Well, you could run, but that won't change anything. Working from the inside requires you to engage with that conflict and try to influence the situation.

This means that you need resilience by the bucket load. How else will you stay true to yourself and maintain your passion in the face of resistance or failure? Perhaps you'll be constrained by a lack of resources, perhaps your organization's systems of measurement won't always support sustainability goals. While many companies have made progress by addressing sustainability issues at the level of policies and values, most are still exploring the ways and means of integrating such factors into management, and only a small minority have begun to integrate corporate responsibility competencies into leadership frameworks. Fewer still have actually begun to address the challenge of developing new performance metrics to explicitly account for social and environmental impacts.

The path to sustainability is uncharted for many companies, and, for sustainability practitioners, dealing with the shortfall between ideal and realistic outcomes is a key challenge. Make sure you're prepared for it.

4. Seek balance

Change requires both destruction and creation, and finding a meaningful balance between the two is an important task for sustainability professionals. To take an ecological perspective, it's all about evolution - building on what works and discarding what doesn't - to offer an improvement on what existed before.

But to ensure that both you and your company come out of the change process better and stronger rather than wrecked and gasping for air, it's important to manage the process - and that starts with empathy. Take time to listen to stakeholders' needs and fears and understand the global and local perspectives so that when you have a radical idea, you know how to translate the business case and subtly package it into a simple step that leads the company in a natural direction.

Echoing this is a recent report from Ashridge on the attributes necessary for responsible leadership. It found that openness, honesty and trustworthiness; respect for employees at all levels and commitment to employees' development, combined with a desire not to let unethical behaviour go unchallenged; a lack of complacency; and a mindset that questions "business as usual" were all "very important" to practicing managers.

Let me know what you think the key traits of a sustainability professional are in the comments section below.

With thanks to my fellow participants in the discussion: Gwyn Jones, Director at Association of Sustainability Practitioners (ASP), founder of Global Association of Corporate Sustainability Officers (GACSO) Ben Richards, Head of Sustainability at Radley Yelder Victoria Moorhouse, Senior Manager (Programmes and Operations) at the Sustainable Restaurant Association

Next month, I'll be looking at how to identify and access opportunities in sustainability, and how to define success in the short and long term. In the meantime, contact me today for a free 15-minute career coaching session to find out how I can help you target a creative career.

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Shannon Houde is founder of Walk of Life Consulting, the first international career coaching business focused solely on the environmental, sustainability and corporate responsibility fields.