Addressing Global Climate Change: From Copenhagen to Sustainability Reporting

As heads around the world are turned towards the Copenhagen Climate Conference, waiting for legislative promises and actions, there is undoubtedly an acute awareness at this point in time of the dangers and opportunities that Climate Change poses to all humans alike.

At BrownFlynn, we think about these challenges and chances on a daily basis.  It’s what we do.  We help organizations of all kinds find ways to fine-tune their environmental, social and economic practices so that what they do aligns with what they believe.

This past year, however, BrownFlynn took a long look inside to find what we can do to become more sustainable environmentally, socially and economically.  And we found room for improvement.

This week, in synch with the international Climate Conference, BrownFlynn is launching our first sustainability report for 2008-2009.  Although it is unique for a sustainability consulting firm of our size (currently 9 women) to publish a sustainability/CSR report, we believe that no matter the size of our impact on this planet and its atmosphere, we have a responsibility to practice what we teach and to help abate the threats of Climate Change.

In our report, we go over the process we went through to engage our stakeholders; to create teams around Environmental Stewardship, Employee Health & Wellness, Community Engagement, Employee Orientation and Business Innovation; and to set goals for future improvement.  In the coming years, we have committed to measuring our progress towards our goals and to transparently reporting that progress in annual sustainability reports.

How can you help take action on Climate Change?

The Next Frontier in Sustainability: Behavior Changing

This post was contributed by Cathy DuBois, Associate Professor at the Graduate School of Management at Kent State University.

The third annual Behavior, Energy and Climate Change Conference was held in Washington, D. C. from November 15-18, 2009. The focus of this conference was the critical role of behavior and decision making in accelerating our transition to an energy-efficient and low-carbon future.

In both formal and informal sessions participants discussed the application of principles from behavioral economics, individual differences and attitude theory, and community-based social marketing to influence sustainability-related actions in a range of settings.  Participants shared successes and current challenges regarding organizational initiatives, and proposed agendas for future research and practice.

This conference was a terrific way to meet and learn from people who are involved in a wide array of research and programs aimed at the next frontier in sustainability: getting people to change their behavior.

Technology has and will continue to make a significant impact on energy savings, and improved technology is becoming more affordable and accessible every month. However, there will always be a choice component to human behavior that technology cannot address: whether or not to put an object into a recycling or compost bin; walk or drive; turn off / unplug equipment that is not in use; eat local foods; suggest to one’s employer ways to get work done while using less energy… the list is endless. The cumulative impact of behavioral choices can create a 20-30% additional savings in energy usage, given current technology.

Plugging into the Smart Grid

(This article is the second in a series about the Smart Grid and Green Technology) 

Fortune Small Business recently cited, “From 2002 to 2008, according to Ernst & Young, private investment in clean technology grew by 65% a year, reaching $4.7 billion last year.” 

The demand for renewable energy is here, and innovative companies and entrepreneurs across the nation are responding. 

As states throughout the U.S. increasingly adopt renewable energy standards (30 states have already committed to acquiring up to 20% of their state’s energy portfolio from renewable sources), the pressure is on for utilities and renewable energy companies to deliver.

Through the new Smart Grid’s capability of storing and transporting energy from renewable sources—such as wind, sunlight, waves, and geothermal—it will foster a new culture of innovation in the energy and technology sectors.  According to the Department of Energy’s report, “The Smart Grid: An Introduction”, the Smart Grid will create “new opportunities and markets by means of its ability to capitalize on plug-and-play innovation wherever and whenever appropriate.” 

More than a few companies are currently experimenting with what is possible and practical, bringing the future of ‘green’ technology to the present.  Here are some innovative ideas and technologies featured in the recent Harvard Business Review article titled, “On the Horizon: Six Sources of Limitless Energy?” that could potentially usher us into a more sustainable world:

Sustainability Workshops

BrownFlynn Learning, BrownFlynn’s new training and education division, is now pleased to be offering workshops to enhance sustainability initiatives at any level of an organization.  The workshops are customized to address issues specific to a participant’s company and/or industry.

Below is a listing of the workshops currently offered:

Sustainability – Getting Started

• Triple Your Bottom Line—The Business Case for Sustainability
• Organizing for Success in Sustainability
• Gaining Employee Buy-In for Sustainability—An “Appreciative” Approach

Sustainability and Finance (Ideal for investor relations managers)

• The Sustainability Indices: With More than 100 Rankings, Which Ones are Important?
• Harnessing the Benefits of Corporate Accountability and the Triple Bottom Line

Sustainability Reporting

• From Bloomberg to Goldman Sachs—Sustainability on Wall Street (Trends in Reporting and ESG)

Legal Issues Affecting Sustainability

• Minimizing Risks and Maximizing Opportunities through Sustainability
• Sustainability and Understanding the Regulatory Landscape
• How to Avoid Greenwashing and Prepare for Regulatory Compliance Related to Sustainability

Your Supply Chain and Sustainability

• Engaging Your Vendors While Furthering Your Goals
• Supply Chain Pressures—The Wal-Mart Effect and New Expectations Related to Product Life Cycles

In addition, BrownFlynn Learning offers its signature course, The GRI Process: a GRI-certified training course about the sustainability reporting process. 

See BrownFlynn Learning’s website for more information about our training and education opportunities, which include open-enrollment courses, on-site courses, conferences and webinars.

Brown & Flynn Featured for CSR Leadership

Photo by Jeff Piorkowski of Sun Messenger

After being named as one of the most powerful and influential women in Ohio for 2009 at the Second Annual Ohio Diversity and Leadership Conference, Barb Brown was featured in the Sun Messenger yesterday along with co-owner Margie Flynn.

The article doesn’t just talk about Barb and her numerous achievements, however.  It goes into depth about the history of Barb and Margie’s lasting friendship and their co-creation of BrownFlynn, a female-run CSR and sustainability consulting firm.

Here are a few quotes from the article:

“When it comes down to it, Brown and Flynn are quite happy with what the award truly represents to them — the fact they’ve made a success out of a business formed by women, and they feel they are making a positive impact on society.”

“’This is not about me,’ Brown said of the award, ‘it’s about what BrownFlynn stands for, and it recognizes the importance of sustainability and accountability.’”

“’I want to receive it as a woman who is influencing the state or country, and our community, in a positive way. I shared this award with my partner and the entire team here (at BrownFlynn).’”

To read the complete article, click here.

Giving Thanks

As we approach another Thanksgiving celebration this week, it’s an ideal time to take pause and reflect on the many blessings in our lives.  And, instead of thinking about what we want “more” of, why not think about those things we already have to cherish and preserve?  Just  think about the 3 Ps of sustainability–People, Planet and Prosperity–all of which we can easily take for granted.  Yet, if we pause and reflect on each of these elements in our personal and business lives, I’m confident everyone can find things for which to be thankful and reconsider why we may want “more”.  Instead, perhaps we should spend more time reflecting on everyday life experiences to unveil the obvious (yet often unobvious) blessings we’ve already been given.

A good friend of mine sent me a Thanksgiving message this morning in which he described the many experiences we shared during this past year and for which we should be thankful.  He described our “times of joy, instruction, change, development, mission, sorrow, faith, loss, hope, formation, comfort, gain, rest, challenge, strength and love. ”  And, while some of these descriptives may not be ones for which you would typically give thanks, it made me realize that all of life’s experiences are blessings (or blessings in disguise). 

I certainly don’t need more.  But, I do need to do more with less.  And, if we all consider doing the same, our world will be enriched as a result.

- Margie Flynn

Sustainable Laughs

Our good friend Deb Gondek, Sustainability Director at Rich Products Corp., sent the links for these videos to us, and we had to share them…

Do any of these characters remind you of someone at your office?

Adventures at Wal-Mart!

Yesterday our team took a trip to the local Wal-Mart, and we were on a mission: to hunt down products that we feel have opportunities for improvement in various areas of sustainability. Hallie, our fearless mission leader, provided us with a helpful list of questions to answer in our search for said products. One of our tasks was to find a product that had extraneous packaging (makeup is a great example). Upon finding this product, we were to brainstorm how this product might creatively reduce their packaging.

The Smart Grid

(This article is the first in a series about the Smart Grid and Green Technology)

A cleaner energy economy is coming. 

On October 27^th, President Obama announced that over $3.4 billion would be allocated through the Smart Grid Investment Grant to 100 projects that will help build a ‘smarter’ electric grid.  This stimulus money from the Recovery Act will be matched by industry contributions for a total investment of more than $8 billion – seed money for the colossal project of modernizing our nation’s entire electric grid while it is still running.

So why are we doing this?

The electric grid on which the U.S. currently operates is antiquated, ill-equipped to meet rising demands for energy and unable to carry energy from renewable sources. 

As our national population continues to rise, and as each individual in that population uses an exponential number of commodities requiring energy (think computers, cell phones, iPods, televisions, ATMs, cars, houses, planes), additional infrastructure must be built for the electric grid to accommodate all this, whether it is Smart or not.

Living Buildings

Watch this lecture by Jason McLennon, CEO of Cascadia Region Green Building Council, about how his organization is constructing more efficient environment- and human-friendly buildings. 

His use of biomimicry (mimicking nature’s engineering genius) can be applied to any sector or industry – not just buildings.

Watch Part 2 and Part 3 of this lecture.