Tag Archives: sustainability

How to Align Your Organization’s Strategies, Products, and Services to Address Climate Change by Marianna Grossman

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Marianna-G20132016 promises to be a breakthrough year for global action to address the challenge of climate change. In December 2015, representatives of many of the world’s countries gathered in Paris and agreed to significant action for both developed and developing countries. Now the challenge is to make the changes to our energy systems and how we design, make and distribute products and services. This is the year to push for dramatic advances in the way we manage and use water and how effectively we protect natural resources and ecosystems, including forests and oceans.

We applaud the leadership of California’s Governor Jerry Brown in establishing the Under2MOU for states, provinces, counties, cities and others to dramatically reduce green house gas emissions (GHG) and to catalyze action for energy efficiency and clean energy sources.

Pope Francis authored an important call to action in his encyclical, Laudato Si. This inspiring document was issued on June 18, 2015 and urges all humankind to undergo an ecological conversion, to care for our common home. There is no business case for destroying the planet. And moral values require that we protect the precious Creation on which all life depends.

The UN Sustainable Development Goals issued in Sept. 2015 lay out a vision for a world that works for all people: to end poverty, protect the planet, and ensure prosperity for all as part of a new sustainable development agenda. Each goal has specific targets to be achieved over the next 15 years.

The Climate Mobilization is new group working to raise the bar for climate action, recognizing that we are facing a global emergency and must act accordingly to transform our entire economy to be regenerative and to end use of fossil fuels, to protect forests and to ensure a habitable planet for all.

As the United States elects a new President in 2016, Minerva Ventures is working to bring climate action to the forefront of the discussion of our shared goals and priorities. Every business leader should be pushing Congress and our political candidates to put forth bold policies and plans for a rapid transition to a clean energy economy and a sustainable future.

Let us know how we can help you address the risk of climate disruption and how you can take more leadership to create a more prosperous and resilient future for all. Join us on 2/24/2016 for an event to discuss the Resilient Path.

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/resilient-path-meetup-tickets-21282511565

Contact: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mariannagrossman

Twitter: @MGrossmanSV

Website: www.minervaventures.com

Email: mgrossman@minervaventures.com

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Marianna Grossman works with companies, cities and other agencies to align strategies, products and services to address climate change at the scale. For nearly 7 years, she led Sustainable Silicon Valley, a multi-sector network applying ingenuity to create a sustainable region and world. Formerly, she was Partner for Innovation and Sustainability at Minerva Consulting and had corporate roles in the automotive, computer and semiconductor industries. Board Service: Transportation Choices for Sustainable Communities, Sustainability Committee of the SF Bay Area Super Bowl 50, ILFI California Congress, Climate Music Project and climate advisory council for City of Palo Alto. Education: MBA, Yale University. BA, cum laude, with distinction in Policy Studies, Dartmouth College.

The Age of SMART Posted by Sue Lebeck

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SueLebeck(Originally posted at Sue Lebecks’s blog on www.innovatingsmart.org, March 15, 2011)

Yeah, this use of the acronym “SMART” is our own invention.  You won’t yet find it in the mainstream (though we’d love to change that over time.) We came up with it to try to articulate specifically what we were learning about sustainable systems, and what it really meant to be “sustainable”.

The word “sustainable” itself is not terribly inspiring.   Intuitively, it means something on the order of “continuing to exist”.  In recent years this has become a central and often elusive goal for many living systems, social contracts, and businesses (but that is a blog post for another day).   Still — “sustainable” is hardly a juicy word to the average innovator (is there such a thing as an average innovator?  also a blog post for another day).

So why “SMART”?   We began with the word “SMART” because increasingly the ways we manage infrastructures, treat social systems and conduct business have begun to appear to the forward-thinking observer to be (now don’t hate me) — STUPID.  Yes — stupid.  In fact, the long-term effects of the status quo were dramatized in the popularly and critically acclaimed and innovatively distributed 2009 British film The Age of Stupid.  Set in 2055, it tells the story of what happens when the world refuses to change its systems and infrastructures, revealing the “reasons” for this lack of action as, well, lame and stupid.

 Now, not everyone is moved by alarmist movies.  But even the CEOs and EVPs of the largest corporations in the world, upon coming together to contemplate the future circa 2050, came away saying this about everything from energy and materials to people and values:

“Business-as-usual cannot get us to sustainability or secure economic and social prosperity. These can be achieved only through radical change, starting now.”  

Translation:  the way we have been doing business, though once thought to be smart, is no longer so.   If we continue in the same way going forward — we are stupid.  This, however para-phrased, comes directly from the horse’s mouth. A very SMART beginning.

 OK, so remind me — what is “SMART” again?  SMART is:

Systems-savvy –
designed with sensitivity to the context of the specific systems and environs involved; also, optimizing the interplay between systems.
Managed intelligently –
managed thoughtfully for best result; also, using sensors/data/analysis/control to manage systems operationally in dynamic circumstances.
Adaptive –
designed to work well in a changing world, in a manner that works with the environment and not against it.
Regenerative – applying creative system interplays, where the waste of one system becomes food to another; closed-loop cooperative systems.
Trusted – reliable, exercising good judgment; honest, authentic, transparent; without this quality, the other qualities can be applied in a misguided or misleading fashion.

These are our design principles for a sustainable world.  If you ever forget, just check our SMART Design webpage.   One day (and it best be soon), the ideas behind “SMART” will become mainstream, and we will have advanced to “The Age of SMART”.

Going the Distance by Sue Lebeck

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SueLebeck(Originally posted at Sue Lebeck’s blog on www.innovatingsmart.org, August 1, 2011)

This past weekend, my husband and I had the pleasure of hosting guests from London who came to town to participate in the annual San Francisco Marathon.  As a former three-miler (make that two) and a current hill-climber (the urban kind), I fell naturally into a state of awe and admiration. Twenty-six-plus mile-markers to be overtaken by foot in the terrain of the cable-car seems extreme, if not unachievable.  How does one even begin?

Sometimes the quest for sustainability feels like that.   According to leaders of the world’s largest businesses, the roadmap to a sustainable future includes forty-plus non-skippable mile-markers. Reaching the mileage requirements for the current decade alone will require us to collectively pass a wide variety of milestones:

  • new measures of success
  • long-term financing models
  • business models that integrate all actors
  • costs of renewable lowered
  • value chain innovation
  • closed loop design
  • integrated urban management, water efficiencies, more agricultural R&D
  • and more

Tired yet?

Whatever your field of play, seasoned players know that success begins by choosing a direction and taking a step at a time.  Capacity and endurance is built consistently and increasingly, always working to a conscious plan.  This year’s seminars-for-marathoners (pp 11-13) offered this further inspired advice that sounds right-on to me:

  • Set high expectations:  “If you put your mind to it, you will surprise yourself by what you can accomplish” (It’s All in Your Head)
  • For best results, attend to what goes into and out of the whole system (Nutrition for the Endurance Athlete and TrainingWell™)
  • A centered frame of mind is key (Running with the Mind of Meditation)
  • What begins as a stretch goal can quickly become a way of life (63 Marathons in 63 Days)
  • Having succeeded over time, you will want to playfully step up your game (Charity Chasers)

Yes, like a marathon, sustainability is a long-term achievement — one which can at once protect and transform our lives.  So let’s get our support systems in place and get ready to go the distance.

Which sustainability mile-markers will you be helping us cruise past in victory?

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Sue Lebeck, is the Founder and Director of InnovatingSMART.  You can contact her via sue@innovatingsmart.org

Sue Lebeck is an innovation management specialist working to advance smart, sustainability-driven systems. A researcher, product management and development specialist and innovation manager, Sue brings her diverse background in software, psychology, media and collaboration to the work of sustainability innovation.

Sue is also one of our authors of the Scrappy Women in Business book.