Students Bring Local Food to Columbia University

Local food is all the rage in the sustainability movement, but bringing local food to scale to build upon market demand for sustainably-produced edibles is not always an easy task.

A few students at Columbia University noticed that their campus colleagues were jonesing for healthy and appetizing food alternatives.  To meet that need, the students created a business—which they titled NOM³ (i.e. Nom Nom Nom)—that would bring local and healthy food options (with a close eye on taste) to the Columbia campus, via a student-run truck.

To help their business get off the starting block, NOM³ recently entered and won the SmartView Eco Entrepreneurship Challenge.  CRD Analytics hosted the Challenge to get Eco Entrepreneurs to submit a 30-second YouTube video about their idea, explaining how it could reduce our collective carbon footprint.

Here is the NOM³ video:

NOM³ was one of the three winners selected from the Challenge to pitch their sustainable startup to around 100 leading finance professionals at the Sustainability Round Table at the NASDAQ Market Site on May 14^th.  As winners, they also had the opportunity to participate with the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) in the NASDAQ closing bell ceremony, and to be personally introduced to two conference attendees of their choice.

BrownFlynn was proud to sponsor Nom³ in the SmartView Eco Entrepreneurship Challenge.  Principal Barb Brown and Director of BrownFlynn Learning Beth Meany joined them at the Sustainability Round Table and at the NASDAQ closing bell ceremony (click here to see our photos on Facebook!).

Below is our interview with NOM³:

BrownFlynn participates in closing bell ceremony today at Nasdaq!

Click here to view a video of the NASDAQ closing bell ceremony and see BrownFlynn Principal & Co-owner Barb Brown and Director of Learning Beth Meany!

Surge in Socially Responsible Investing Builds Business Case for Sustainability

Many companies are taking note of the recent surge in socially responsible investing (SRI), which is swiftly making the business case for corporate responsibility and sustainability.  Essentially, socially responsible investors recognize that companies’ impacts on the environment, society and the economy are all valid components of investment decisions.

Demonstrating the power of SRI:

Chevron Corp. recently became the first major U.S. oil company to announce that it would track and report on the carbon content of its products.  As a result of the decision, The Sisters of St. Dominic of Caldwell, N.J., a faith-based institutional investor, withdrew its greenhouse gas emissions shareholder resolution against the company, in addition to praising Chevron’s efforts to reduce its carbon footprint.

The Sisters of St. Dominic consists of a group of 16 investors and is a member of the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility (a coalition of nearly 300 institutional investors representing over $100 billion in invested capital). The Sisters of St. Dominic filed a proposal on the carbon content of Chevron’s products earlier in 2009.

Chevron’s competitor, Exxon Mobil Corp., may now be under more pressure to reduce its own carbon footprint.  The investors group criticized Exxon directors for asking their shareholders to vote against a similar proposal.

A growing market:

The SRI market currently comprises an estimated $2.71 trillion out of $25.1 trillion in the U.S. investment marketplace today.  In order to capture the growing SRI market, Dow Jones, NASDAQ and S&P (among others) have all launched Sustainability Indices to show how companies compare in terms of sustainable practices.

SRI works to the financial benefit of companies that consider and address their environmental, social and economic impacts, while delivering more long-term returns to shareholders that understand the link between sustainable corporate practices and the ‘sustainability’ (read: longevity) of the companies themselves.

Patricia Kelley, an investment consultant of UBS Financial Services, Inc., stated, “We believe a solution to the current credit crunch is a greater focus on sustainability.”  She explained the current credit crunch as a catalyst of the cultural paradigm shift towards sustainability and corporate responsibility.

She continued, “The fact that a burgeoning number of investors care about corporate responsibility builds the business case for companies to deepen their focus on integrating sustainability into the core of their operations.”