Natural Logic will present a four-part webinar series titled, "Coming to Grips with Carbon: How to Measure and Reduce Your Footprint." -- the next in our online Carbon Neutral Learning&trade series. The online events will be held at 1:00pm eastern time on October 18 and 25th, and November 1st and 8th. (Register for the series and get four sessions for the price of three!) The series will provide business leaders with practical, up-to-date guidance from leading practitioners on the key issues related to carbon management, including: measuring your carbon footprint, reducing emissions, and making sense of emerging opportunities for carbon trading and offsets. (Advance registration required.)

There's a simple reason why we haven't sent one of these updates for a while: We've been too busy making news to write the news!

I suggested in late 2005 that we were seeing the tipping point for sustainability -- and the signs were there at the time -- but since the beginning of this year, it's been like someone lit a rocket. Our phones have been ringing off the hook. Clients are less likely to ask us to "Explain the business case for sustainability" and more likely to say "Please tell us what to do. Right now." It's a very exciting time in the sustainability business (and we hear much the same thing from our colleagues across the country and around the world).

So we've been busy, working with great clients on interesting projects, adding new staff, and bolstering our infrastructure and capacity for even more growth in the months and years to come -- including our ability to get these updates to you on a more timely a consistent basis. (Please let us know how often you'd like to receive them with the two question survey link below. And remember, you can always use the links at the bottom of this email to unsubscribe, change your preferences, or forward this to colleagues you think would be interested.)

As busy as we've been, we have managed to redesign and flip our Web site. Please come check it out, and let us know what you think! (Note: some of the content -- like the New Bottom Line archives and other publications, aren't there yet, but will be soon.)

Strategy: Charting your course

Arizona Public Service engaged Natural Logic to guide improvement of their already well-regarded sustainability initiatives. (APS has been ranked #2 in the utility industry by Innovest for the last six years.) We interviewed both management and line to understand aspirations and assess awareness; benchmarked their programs and metrics against both utility industry peers and exemplary sustainability leaders in other industries; selected strategic performance metrics to guide their programs; and worked with leadership teams to refine those metrics, and develop strategies to "move the needle."

Veolia Transportation brought in Real Change and Natural Logic to provide a strategic sustainability briefing for their executive team, and to help them develop a strategic sustainability plan -- in one day! We're never reluctant to tell a client "no" when we think they're headed down the wrong path, but not just for making extraordinary requests; in fact we love a challenge. With the support of Jon Kennedy's Group Mind Express software, we got the job done -- to the delight of the VT executive team.

Conair asked Natural Logic for a sustainable design training, but with a twist -- not just designers, but sales and product managers, legal and company executives. CEO Gil Friend and new associate Jer Faludi led the day long workshop -- compete with hands-on product tear-down exercises to ground the LCAs we conducted, as well as the more intellectual aspects. To Conair's suprise, turnout was double what they expected, and to their greater surprise, everyone stayed for the entire day; "We've asked consultants to leave two hours into a day-long workshop," one Conair exec told us, "but not this time!" Sign of the times.

Feedback: Reading the signs

Sun Microsystems partnered with Natural Logic to develop OpenEco.org, an on-line community providing free, easy-to-use tools to track the energy and carbon performance of buildings. After extensive research, Sun chose our Business Metabolics system -- which provides comprehensive tracking and comparison of an organization's entire environmental footprint, including water, materials and "wastes" -- as the basis for OpenEco.org. (And speaking of performance tracking, stay tuned for news of our Regional Sustainability Dashboard initiative.)

The S-BAR Sustainable Business Rating System -- one of the most complex projects we've ever done -- is near completion of its initial design phase. The basic schema has been settled, and we're now creating a web-based prototype that will enable stakeholders to "kick the tires," evaluating both the model, criteria and scoring system. The S-BAR team includes StopWaste.Org, GreenBiz.com,What's Working and Natural Logic. The S-BAR experience is also contributing to the development of the LEAF rating system (see below) and several companies' internal rating requirements.

White Wave Foods engaged Natural Logic - together with our Clear Carbon Consulting - to develop a baseline carbon audit to support their commitments to EPA's Climate Leaders program, and to guide profitable reduction strategies. White Wave was pleased enough to bring us back to build the product-specific life-cycle carbon profiles that Wal-Mart requires.

A national food industry company asked Natural Logic to determine farm-to-cafe energy impacts for key commodities, to help their customers answer questions like "What's the energy and climate impact of choosing the 4-oz ribeye vs. the pasta primavera?" This will support internal intelligence as well as customer awareness, supporting public choice with transparent and meaningful information. Kumar Venkat led the analysis. (Our next step in this vein: a comprehensive, multi-client "food miles" analysis for the US food system. Please contact us if your company or foundation might be interested in subscribing to this research.)

Implementation: Making it go

The Green Spa Network is a new national association advancing environmental practices within the spa industry nationwide. Natural Logic conducted on-site ecoaudits/assessments for GSN's "seed spas" (including Calistoga Ranch, Glen Ivy Hot Springs Spa, Natural Body Spa & Shoppe, Naturopathica Spa, Osmosis Day Spa Sanctuary and Strong House Spa) to identify efficiency and effectiveness opportunities in energy, water, and supplies usage for the individual spas, and to help GSN develop a best practices guidebook. David Jaber and Shana Gillis led this work for Natural Logic.

News Corporation made news this year by declaring its intention to become carbon neutral. As part of that initiative, their Fox Broadcasting division asked Natural Logic to help "green" its Upfronts event -- the annual spring announcement of the fall television season. Shana Gillis coordinated the initiative -- mapping major impacts, developing greening strategies, identifying vendors, and giving Fox a roadmap for doing future events better. (You may have seen some of the results in the Emmy Awards show in early September, where our buddies at Clear Carbon did the honors.)

Clear Channel Radio San Francisco/San Jose announced a pilot program to reduce company-wide environmental impact. As a first step, they asked Natural Logic to brief their management team, and conduct an Integrated EcoAudit of their building, fleet and operations. "Our goal is to lower greenhouse gas emissions, energy consumption and waste generated by its ten radio stations in our ten Bay Area stations," said Kim Bryant, President and Market Manager, "to educate our entire staff so that they become fully committed to having a positive impact on the environment, and to utilize the platforms we have to educate the community we serve as well."

Natural Logic CEO Gil Friend and Paul Kephart, CEO of Rana Creek Environmental Planning and Habitat Restoration, will speak about their work in creating the LEAF rating system - Leadership in Ecological Applications and Functions - at the US GBC's GreenBuild conference in Chicago in early November. (LEAF aims to do for ecological management and restoration what LEED has done for buildings.) Gil will also speak at the energyEASE07 "UnConference" in San Francisco in mid-November.

Dave Jaber will be speaking about about Measuring What Matters at the Western Regional Pollution Prevention Network's annual conference in San Diego in November, and "The Value of Sustainability" at the Net Impact conference in Nashville.

Because of the pace of business, we haven't done as much long form writing this year, but there's been an irregular flow of provocative thinking on CEO Gil Friend's blog -- including a recent proposal to shut down and write off the global coal industry. (Yes, the whole thing.) Check it out -- and subscribe to the RSS feed.

Even when we can't find time to write, we love to talk about this stuff, and we had plenty of great opportunities to do so this year. Gil's presentations this year have included (partial list):

• "Greening Urban Communities," "California Mayors Speak About Green," and "Regional Sustainability Dashboards" (yes, thrice) at West Coast Green;
• "GeoScope, Sustainability Dashboards and Real Time Regulation" at the International Symposium for Digital Earth;
• Green Business Roundtable with Shaklee CEO Roger Barnett, Whole Foods Regional President Anthony Gilmore and Gensler Director of Sustainable Design Kirsten Ritchie, for East Bay Business Times;
• "How Local and State Governments Can Help Spark Sustainable Business Innovation" at BALLE's national conference;
• "When A Company's Highest Values Lead, Profits Follow" at the Presidio Dialogs (together with author and Natural Logic associate Christine Arena and Interra founder Greg Steltenpohl;
• "What's Wrong With Cause-Related Marketing" for the American Marketing Association;
• "A World at Risk: Strategies for a Sustainable Future" at Institute for the Future's Ten-Year Forecast Program Annual Conference;
• "The five business questions you need to be able to ask your CXO" -- a keynote address for the Semiconductor Environmental Health and Safety Association;
• a day long workshop on "Evaluating the impact of sustainability initiatives" for the Society for Organizational Learning (SOL) Sustainability Conference;
• and the most unusual "Now What?: Brilliant Talk, Enlightening Theater", which featured Gil speaking and the brilliant Nina Wise providing "improvisational theater translation" of his works) at Studio Raza

• "Sustainable supply chains in the personal care industry" to Prism (Professionals for Responsible Supply Chain Management)

• "Getting the 'Eco' in Economic Planning" at the National Environmental Performance Summit in New Orleans, LA; and
• "Greening From the Inside Out" at the Net Impact Forum in Monterey, CA

We're pleased to introduce you to two new staff members, and two new associates.

Staff

Shana M. Gillis is a Project Manager and Business Development Associate at Natural Logic. She has more than six years of experience as a project manager, business analyst, database developer and technical consultant, experienced in ETL, data warehousing, and business intelligence with an emphasis in Marketing CRM applications and customer metrics. Shana's strengths include business process re-design and an ability to work and communicate effectively with people of all levels in an organization. She is skilled in all phases of systems development lifecycle - from project scoping, planning, and requirements definition, to solution design, issues resolution, testing, implementation and end user training. Shana is earning her MBA, focusing on sustainability consulting, at the Presidio School of Management, where she's coaching other students on effective communication and leadership, and how to build high performing teams.

Benjamin Privitt joined the team in July as assistant to the CEO -- but actually much more. He is streamlining internal processes and shepherding operations development for Natural Logic as we grow. He is an MBA candidate at Bainbridge Graduate Institute, where he was part of a consulting team that advised Seattle-based content provider Worldchanging. His studies are concentrated on the sustainable food and agriculture industries. Benjamin worked as a project management and media producer for Grace Cathedral, San Francisco, writing for their Webby Award-winning online magazine. (You can see his first handiwork in the new video collection on our web site.)

Associates

Jeremy Faludi is a freelance product designer, researcher, and engineer, specializing in eco-design. He has consulted for Rocky Mountain Institute, the Biomimicry Guild, Lawrence Berkeley National Labs, and others. He is one of the many authors of Worldchanging: A User's Guide for the 21st Century, and a bicycle he helped design has appeared in the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum's exhibit, "Design for the other 90%." He has lectured on biomimicry and green design around the world.

Kumar Venkat has more than 20 years of experience developing complex hardware and software products, including the last 10 years as an independent software developer providing analysis and optimization software to the semiconductor industry. He is currently working on applying a similarly rigorous approach to solving problems in business processes and public policy, particularly from a sustainability perspective. Kumar holds an MS degree in electrical and computer engineering, and a graduate certificate in computer modeling and simulation. He has published widely and holds two engineering patents.

Natural Logic is continuing to grow. We're currently hiring Practice Leaders, Consultants, Analysts to meet the needs of our expanding client base. We're also looking for a Lead Application Developer to build the web applications and other technologies that will keep Natural Logic on the leading edge of sustainability consulting. Please spread the word to worthy candidates

Networks

Natural Logic recently joined the Business Council on Climate Change (BC3), teaming up with other Bay Area organizations committed to reducing greenhouse gas while continuing to support the bottom line. We're also working tieh the EPA's ByProduct Synergy network, and the new Oakland Alliance for sustainable development.