cool global BIZ

Green Global Partners: Big Biz & the Environmental Defense Fund

 

 

Vote Earth! by Shepard Fairey, under Creative Commons license on flickr.com

 

Long before global warming became a buzz phrase, the Environmental Defense Fund and U.S. global companies had joined forces at the vanguard of global green business practices.  The EDF first won praise in the 1960s by fighting to ban DDT, the birdshell-cracking pesticide uncovered in Rachel Carson's famed book, Silent Spring.  The EDF still is a legal crusader on green issues.  But in recent years, the EDF and its scientists and economists have teamed with Big Business to make the world's climate a little cleaner by slashing carbon emissions and reducing packaging waste, among other environmental practices.

 

Through corporate partnerships and an Innovation Exchange program, the EDF and U.S. and global companies showcase some of the best green practices in the business realm.  Among EDF's partners:  Walmart, DuPont, Wegmans, FedEx, UPS, PHH Arval, Starbucks, McDonald's, Johnson & Johnson, Citigroup, IBM, Sun Microsystems and other corporate giants.  Not your usual tree-hugging do-gooders, eh?  (See "Case Studies" and "Cutting-Edge Environmental Programs.")

 

At the center of the green business movement is Gwen Ruta, EDF's vice president of corporate partnerships.  Ruta has seen steady progress by companies over the past two decades.  She predicts that more businesses will continue to measure their impact on the environment, while adopting cleaner manufacturing and distribution standards and practices.  And where Fortune 500 companies go, much of the world will follow. In a recent interview with CoolGlobalBiz, Ruta talked about:

 

Companies forging ahead on green strategies, despite the global recession:  "I definitely think that over the last three years, the momentum has been upward.  It's been slightly dampened by the recession but not snuffed, which I take as a sign that we've really penetrated at every level.  The recession would have been the perfect opportunity for many, many companies to say, 'Oh well, back to the basics, we can't afford this environmental stuff now.'  But I didn't see that happening at all.  In fact, we may be seeing the opposite.  People see that every penny counts.  Companies are thinking about energy efficiency and waste . . . (and about) the message that the environment and business can be synergistic."

 

Corporations going beyond lip service and window-dressing on green issues:  "Our partners historically have been the Fortune 500, the biggest companies in America.  We can get the best environmental results working with them, and they really are the standard-setters in their industries.  If we work with McDonald's, Burger King will pay attention. If we work with Walmart, Target will pay attention.  They raise the bar, and the level of buy-in is high.  As for the next 50,000 companies, pick a number.  (Green issues) are not necessarily on the radar screen.  It's still a little bit of terra incognita for a lot of companies."

 

Charting the real progress of companies on their environmentally-friendly practices:  "The best place to look is the annual State of Green Business report by Joel Makower at GreenBiz.com.  They track what's happening over time."

 

Private-equity firms going green: "One of our current partners is Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, and one reason we're working with KKR is that it gives us the opportunity to change practices across a whole portfolio of companies.  Working with three of KKR's companies (US Foodservice, PRIMEDIA and Sealy Corporation), the partnership has already saved $16 million and prevented more than 25,000 metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions in 2008.  That translates to over $100 million in added portfolio value -- enough to get the attention of private-equity firms.  The value of companies in private-equity holdings make up 10% of the GDP in America.  That's a pretty good-sized slice of the economy."

The Environmental Defense Fund and corporate partner FedEx.  Photo courtesy of the EDF.

 

The Power of Ideas: TED Goes Global

A New Bill Gates by Steve Jurvetson, under Creative Commons license on flickr.com.

 

Very cool story Tuesday in USA Today on the big, influential, thought-provoking TED conference jetting overseas to seek new and more diverse audiences.  TED is the famed, invite-only confab that has drawn some of the world's gnarliest innovators and risk-takers to Monterey, California -- not far from the Esalen Institute, a famed think tank from the counter-culture 1960s.  (Free spirits and hot tubs in Big Sur beget free thinking, methinks.)  Now TED is growing the global franchise.  The story ("Tech Confab with a Conscience Goes Global") is written by Jon Swartz, a USA Today business writer and co-author with Byron Acohido of the award-winning Zero Day Threat: 

 

"TED, the granddaddy of all tech summits, is on a path to becoming a global brand . . . For most of its 25 years, TED (for 'technology, entertainment and design') was an exclusive, seaside gathering of a few hundred of the globe's top techies and thinkers.  Al Gore trotted out his speech on global warming at TED in 2006, shortly before the issue became a worldwide cause.  This year, Bill Gates illustrated the dangers of malaria by unleashing mosquitoes on the crowd . . . Now its organizers are building an international following by aggressively expanding the show (to Oxford, England, India and throughout the U.S.)."

 

The free reign of ideas may ebb and flow, but it'll never die, short of a global holocaust.  And it sure don't hurt to award a $100,000 prize to altruistic innovators, including ex-U.S. President Bill Clinton and rock star Bono.  For those who've never seen the TED website, you can view free videos of conference talks, and also follow live running notes (in translation, too) of the event.  Lot of techie and non-techie brainpower on display, and it won't cost you a centavo.

 

Hail, Wal-Mart: To Get Green is Glorious

 

Wal-Mart, the king of global retailers and a huge moving target with U.S. $406 billion in annual revenue, has been bruised and bloodied by many critics over the years.  But today, the legendary Arkansas company and its 2 million global employees deserve praise even from harsh skeptics.  As our planet plunges into a new era of globalization, environmentalism and demographic change, Wal-Mart and other mega-companies are stepping up as leaders in corporate social responsibility.

(Wal-Mart CEO Mike Duke.  Photo courtesy of Wal-Mart.)

 

In a Webcast on Thursday, Wal-Mart launched a worldwide program that will rate products on their "sustainability" -- environmental and corporate-speak for whether goods are made and sold with minimal damage to the environment.  Walmart will:  (1) survey its 100,000 suppliers on their green practices, (2) create a "Sustainability Index" with universities, suppliers, retailers, governments and non-profit groups, and (3) develop a green ratings system for products to help consumers decide what to buy.   Wal-Mart CEO Mike Duke said in a news release:  "Customers want products that are more efficient, that last longer and perform better.  They want to know that the materials in the product are safe, that it was made well and that it was produced in a responsible way.  We do not see this as a trend that will fade."

(A Wal-Mart Supercenter in Nanning, China, near the Vietnam border.  Photo by Edward Iwata.)

 

The movement toward corporate social responsibility, known as CSR, has been growing steadily.  Decades ago, futurists and management and workplace experts urged Big Business to embrace more altruistic forms of capitalism.  In the 1990s, human-rights and labor activists such as the Fair Labor Association pressured shoe and apparel companies and Kathie Lee Gifford to improve their suppliers' sweatshop conditions.  Business groups and non-profits -- including Business for Social Responsibility, CERES (Coalition for Environmentally Responsible Economies), the Environmental Defense Fund and others -- have worked closely with the business world to improve CSR and green strategies.

(Miley Cyrus/Disney's Hannah Montana at Wal-Mart shareholders' meeting, 2009.  Photo courtesy of Wal-Mart.)

 

One obstacle?  How to monitor and measure CSR practices, to make sure they're done well.  It ain't easy, with so many global business partners -- some good and ethical, some bad and horrible -- on all continents.  (See my USA Today stories, "How Barbie is Making Business A Little Better" and "Businesses Grow More Socially Conscious.")  Nor is it easy to chart profitability and investment returns.  Socially-responsible outfits such as Calvert Investments and the Social Investment Forum (and some big Wall Street investment banks more recently), have long analyzed stocks and companies that use CSR practices.  But most companies and shareholders dismissed CSR and green issues as politically-correct hogwash that had nothing to do with business.  Not now.

(A Wal-Mart distribution center.  Photo courtesy of Wal-Mart.)

 

A Big Green Wal-Mart will help a lot.  The retailer is perhaps the largest, best-known and most influential global consumer brand to openly embrace green and other CSR strategies.  And its green index will carry clout with suppliers who want to ride herd with Wal-Mart.  It's no exaggeration to say that Wal-Mart's example can potentially change much of the global retail realm for the greater good, as rivals rush to keep up.  But Wal-Mart's big media show is only the first step.  Expectations will stay high, and Wal-Mart's environmental and community partners -- plus those tough and ornery critics -- will be closely watching the company's performance.  For now, though, this is good news for global commerce and the greening of the planet.  Way to go, Wal-Mart.  Take a bow.

(National Anthem at Wal-Mart shareholders' meeting, 2009.  Photo courtesy of Wal-Mart.)

 

Blog posts and news stories:

• Joel Makower, GreenBiz.com:  "Walmart's Sustainability Index: The Hype and the Reality."

• Gartner analyst Mark Raskino:  "Wal-Mart Fires the Real Green IT Starting Pistol."

• 24/7 WallSt.com:  "Wal-Mart Gets Greener by the Day."

• The Greenwash Brigade:  "Is Wal-Mart Making My Eco-Dream Come True?"

• Rosabeth Moss Kanter, management expert and professor at Harvard Business School:  "Wal-Mart's Environmental Game-Changer"

• Wall Street Journal:  "Wal-Mart to Assign New Green Ratings"

• New York Times:  "At Wal-Mart, Labelling to Reflect Green Intent."

 

Cool books on CSR:

• Setting Global Standards:  Guidelines for Creating Codes of Conduct in Multinational Corporations, by S. Prakash Sethi, CEO of International Center for Corporate Accountability.

• Strategies for the Green Economy:  Opportunities and Challenges in the New World of Business, by Joel Makower of GreenBiz.com.

• The High-Purpose Company: The Truly Responsible Firms That Are Changing Business Now, by corporate strategist Christine Arena.

• What Matters Most: How a Small Group of Pioneers is Teaching Social Responsibility to Big Business, by Seventh Generation CEO Jeffrey Hollender and Stephen Fenichell.

• The Market for Virtue:  The Potential and Limits of Corporate Social Responsibility, by David Vogel, professor at UC Berkeley's Haas School of Business.

A New Age of Cross-Cultural Business, Innovation & Globalization

CoolGlobalBiz.com is a business blog by former USA Today reporter Edward Iwata and featured on GlobalPost.com (About and Commerce) and Alltop.com (Economics).  CoolGlobalBiz.com explores the nexus of business and culture, the cross-border fusion of the U.S. and world economies.  Kingdoms rise and fall, cycles come and go, but the global economy still reigns.  Companies evolve as borders dissolve.  Markets merge, cultures and currencies converge.  You say euro, I say peso / You say dinar, I say dollar.  Cross-cultural executives and entrepreneurs are the mad innovators, the new arbiters of cool, and they're at the vanguard of the new business diversity, global-style.  This transcends the Shakira-zation of the world, the ethnic flava of the month.

  

Every few generations, we're rocked by economic and cultural upheaval, from the Industrial Age to the Information Age.  Now we're at the cusp of another eye-popping epoch, an era of global innovation, integration and institutional change -- a cultural and money mashup unlike anything we've seen.  The seasons are turning, turning.  This ain't your Daddy's economy.  The world: curved or flat?  No matter, the convergence of business and culture won't wane.  For better and worse, the new global order has arrived.

(Photo, above:  Cambodia Temple Near Rolous Group by Taiger808, under Creative Commons license on flickr.com)

Sonia Sotomayor: The Power of Global Role Models in Business & Politics

COMMENTARY:

As lawmakers clashed recently over whether U.S. Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor is suited for the most powerful court in the land, bear in mind that it's all about image.  Beyond the bipartisan brawling, beyond the tortuous legal issues, it's about the power that Sotomayor's visage projects to the U.S. and the world, and how people perceive that image through our many biases.

Illustration, right: "Sonia Sotomayor Poster" by Favianna Rodriguez, under Creative Commons license on flickr.com.  

 

Canon nailed it years ago in its famed ad campaign.  Image still is everything, especially in the global village.  We see only what we want to see, whether in the workplace or politics.  Our brains are hardwired toward bias, and it's tough to change the coding.  We're chained to our preconceptions, from labelling coworkers, to prejudging issues, to voting for Presidents.  In Sotomayor, liberals see a progressive savior for a "rightwing" court, a skilled Latina jurist in the white-ruled legal realm.  Conservatives see a judicial activist who'll force her bleeding-heart politics and "socialist" business views on America.  The few reasonable takes on Sotomayor conclude she's more qualified than some Supreme Court justices at the time of their confirmations, and not as qualified as others.  Most likely the truth is in the middle.

 

"MLK Rolls Over in His Grave" by Michael Ramirez, under Creative Commons license on flickr.com.

 

Past the political typecasting, here's another image: Sotomayor's power as a role model for women and Latinos, the 21st-century twist on Horatio Alger.  A Puerto Rican kid from a housing project in the Bronx, New York, whose first language was Spanish, she quelled her fears and excelled at Princeton and Yale Law. (Read "The Education of Sonia Sotomayor" by former Princeton University history professor Peter Winn in the Washington Post.)   Like a woman succeeding on Wall Street, like a farmboy ascending to Congress, Sotomayor fits the underdog storyline, the rags-to-riches narrative, that never fails to yank at the heart.

 

In some ways, the American Dream is a cruel and sappy myth.  But the tale never dies, and it's given fresh blood by each new wave of natives and immigrants and entrepreneurs.  And a handful, such as Sotomayor -- or Barack Obama and Oprah Winfrey, Ronald Reagan and Sam Walton -- rise above hardships to become political and business icons.  Whether Congress confirms or denies Sotomayor, she's an uplifting figure to millions who never imagined a Latina donning the robes of a Supreme Court justice.  A generation of young women and Latinos around the world will be watching her on the news, eyeing a brown-skinned image, rarely seen in those halls, that looks just like them.

 

• Richard Prince's Journal-isms: "Sotomayor Hearings 'Tepid' or 'Arrogant'?"

•  CNN:  "Sotomayor Pledges Fidelity to the Law."

•  USA Today:  "With Sotomayor Comes New Era in Judicial Politics." 

•  Associated Press:  "Sotomayor Confirmation Hearing Excerpts."

•  New York Times:  Sotomayor's prepared statement, released by White House