GreenBiz Executive Network

This past week, for the second year in a row I got a chance to volunteer at the GreenBiz Executive Network, a semi-annual meeting of sustainability managers working at Fortune 500 companies across the company. At the two day meeting each manager presents about some initiative or program they have successfully implemented in the past year, followed by Q&A and discussion. I was impressed by the wide range of industries present, and the honesty and openness with which the participants were able to talk about the challenges they face, including quite a good deal of 'dirty laundry'. 

In order to create this environment of openness, all attendees sign a waiver promising not to attribute specific ideas or policies to the companies implementing them. So, for confidentiality's sake, in this post I will not be naming the companies.

Some examples of ideas presented:

• An industrial electronic controls company presented  their use of 'personal control'. Each employee is able to adjust heating/cooling to their own comfort in their cubicle or office, which it turns out saves a significant amount of energy over a centralized system. One might think that allowing employees to crank it to their liking would increase energy usage, but a study the company did shows that employees are at their cubicle a surprisingly little amount of time, and the control system shuts off automatically when the cubicle is vacated. 
• An aerospace manufacturer described its work with waste reduction. In the aerospace industry, orders are highly customized, expensive, relatively few in number. Because of this, there is less focus on waste reduction during the production process than with more commoditized products- normal ,mass quality control systems like Six Sigma  don't work as effectively. However, this customer found a large opportunity for waste and cost reduction in packaging. Instead of the normal pallet/box, the sustainability team developed a large dolly that takes the product of the assembly line, loads onto the truck, is delivered to the customer, then is returned in a loop that is totally waste-free from a packaging perspective. The manager talked about how for such a conservative company and industry, small successes like this are important for convincing the company to adopt a culture of sustainability and take on larger initatives.
• A paper manufacturer discussed its transformation to a 'fiber innovation' company, acknowledging trends toward less paper consumption because of digitization of information and environmental awareness. The company is investing significant amounts into biomass energy research, and currently 75% of energy needs for its manufacturing and office facilities are powered by biomass. They are also going into the business of 'personal care' (e.g. adult needs diapers).
• An apparel retailer described an opposite problem from most manufacturers: their relatively young employee base is excited and engaged about sustainability, but their customer base for the most part does not show interest. So instead of championing sustainable products, efforts towards sustainable operations and vendor management have been the focus, and mostly out of the public eye. The manager talked about successes they have had with ongoing dialogues with key suppliers, many of whom are in developing countries where just starting to monitor energy consumption can be seen as a success. 

It was a truly eye-opening experience to hear this room of around 20 sustainability managers talk about how these programs work at their company. Some were clearly passionate about sustainability, some realized the importance for marketing their company, and some were obviously doing it because their boss told them to. But I sense there is a wide array of attitudes within corporate sustainability, and a first step to making an impact in my own career is to understand those attitudes so I can help influence change wherever I do end up after school.