News from Natural Logic
Strategic advisors to the sustainable economy&trade
September 2009
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We filled the house at the Commonwealth Club of California August 18, where I officially introduced The Truth About Green Business to our Bay Area community, and talked about "the three barriers to building a sustainable economy" (see below). If you weren't there, we're sorry to have missed you (and sorry you missed the great salmon from our friends at CleanFish at our after party at the Temple night club), but you can watch or listen to the speech here.

The Truth About Green Business is selling well, with a growing number of companies buying dozens or hundreds of copies to give to employees, customers and suppliers, and business schools adopting it for courses. You can get individual copies from your local bookstores or various online sellers -- or contact us for bulk, customer or autographed copies.

There are lots of interesting developments with projects with current clients; we can't talk about them yet, so watch for updates in forthcoming newsletters.

One other update to watch for: our Carbon Neutral Learning™ distance learning programs resume this fall, with webinars based on The Truth About Green Business -- and more.

In other news, I've been appointed to the faculty at Presidio Graduate School (formerly Presidio School of Management), where I'll be teaching two courses this fall -- Marketing Management and (jointly with long time pal Hunter Lovins) Principles of Sustainability Management. It's not like I've been drowning in spare time, but it's great to be able to share some of what we've been learning, and get put through my paces by the next generation of business leaders.

The Three Key Barriers to Building a Sustainable Economy
 
How purpose drives both profit and environmental performance
Mount Shasta, by Patrick Dirden (Creative Commons)

Sustainable business strategies often hit a surprising roadblock -- the limiting (and false) assumption "green" will cost money, require sacrifice, and delay profits. The problem isn't that companies can't afford to operate sustainably. The problem is that too many businesses just can't count -- operating with accounting systems that miss real value and consistently leave money on the table.

To address this assumption, businesses -- and the economic systems within which we operate -- need to overcome three key barriers: Business must get the prices right, break the addiction to "stuff," and tell the truth about purpose.

Get the Prices Right
Adam Smith observed that perfect markets depend on perfect information. In the absence of perfect information -- that is to say, "In the world we do business in," companies and customers operate from a distorted sense of the real cost of things. The myth of environmental impacts as "externalities" suggests that ecological degradation is something external from our lives, when in reality it's fundamental -- to the economy as well as to life itself.

Consider: if you had to pay the full the external costs of gasoline, an estimated $10-20 per gallon, would you drive the car you drive today? Would anyone try to make or sell the car you drive? Consumers can make decisions and changes when they make purchases. Until external costs are built into prices at the point of purchase, the best we can do is to regulate and make policies to rein in the negative environmental impacts made by others. So like Sisyphus, we push the sustainability boulder up the regulatory hill, only to watch it roll back down again.

Get Off the Stuff
Most macroeconomic policy (including the free trade agreements of recent decades) has been aimed at removing all impediments to the flow of stuff across the planet. The challenge is that the maximization of the extraction, refining, manufacture, shipping use and even recycling of stuff also means (all other things being equal) the maximization of environmental impacts. But as demonstrated by Ray Anderson and the people at Interface (and by Hertz and Xerox before them), there are ways to decouple money and stuff, to increase profit, maximize value to customers, and minimize the flow of stuff. The challenge for business is to build economic value on less stuff, not more consumption. It's a profound challenge, one very few companies have taken this on, but it's a real key to getting sustainability done.

Get Real With Your Purpose
Most people assume that the purpose of business is that its function is to maximize profits and returns to shareholders. It's not. AP Giannini, the founder of The Bank of America, understood this. The purpose of his bank was to make credit available to under-served immigrant communities of San Francisco. If we do that well, he predicted, Bank of America would make plenty of money. Giannini knew that profit was the consequence of business, not its purpose, and the purpose was what the bank was really there to do.

Actually, everybody understands this. No one goes to work thinking, "My purpose is to pay the the electric bill." You have to pay it, of course, and you have to pay shareholders for the use of their capital, but why think the purpose of the company is to pay shareholders any more than it would be to pay the utility company?

So what is the purpose of your business? What are you really here to do?

(This commentary is adapted from Gil Friend's presentation at The Commonwealth Club, The Truth About Green Business: The Potential for Jobs and Prosperity. You can watch or listen to the speech here. And read more about these ideas in Gil's next book, Profit on Purpose.)


Putting Natural Logic to Work for You
 
Curvometer on map

Natural Logic helps businesses and governments prosper -- designing and delivering exceptional environmental, social and economic performance -- by embedding the laws of nature at the heart of enterprise.

We bring an integrative approach to our work with clients, since piecemeal approaches just don't do the job. The ideal engagement takes clients through the complete cycle of charting your course (Strategy), reading the signs (Feedback) and making it go (Implementation).

But "integrative" doesn't mean "all at once." You can begin with any of our three options, each at a different scale of intensity. In each case we tailor our approach to your organization's needs, circumstances, and readiness -- and we design each engagement to produce clear, reliable results:

Strategic briefings: Our CEO and senior associates conduct a customized, confidential briefing for your executive team on the key trends and emerging issues facing your company.

Rapid diagnostics: Our team provides a fast, focused, rigorous diagnosis of your current baseline performance -- from carbon to operations, from measurement systems to risk -- and recommends prioritized opportunities for profitable improvement.

Comprehensive engagements: Our team helps you design and implement systemic change at your company and supply chain to ensure that you effectively and consistently harvest the value you identify.

For details on Natural Logic's offerings, see our Harvesting Value, or call CEO Gil Friend directly at 510-248-4940.


Events
 
Please join us! (And invite us to keynote your next conference.)
Gil at microphone

Recent:
Interview on Free Forum with Terrence McNally on KPFK.org September 1, 2009. You can listen to the podcast here.
Interview September 16 with GritTV -- watch for it next week!

Telling The Truth About Green Business - and the Three Key Barriers to Building a Sustainable Economy in Charleston SC September 14, the Commonwealth Club of California (VIDEO NOW AVAILABLE) San Francisco, CA, August 18, and at Friendly Favors Walnut Creek, CA, July 28

Upcoming keynotes include:
September 17 (tonight!): US Green Building Council Northern California Chapter, Livermore, CA
October 25-28: SRI in The Rockies conference (with Hunter Lovins), Tucson, AZ
October 29: Western Sustainability & Pollution Prevention Network, San Diego CA
November 11: Green America conference, San Francisco, CA

Other upcoming events:
September 22, Sustainable Business Book Fair, Berkeley, CA
September 29, A Sustainability Compass- Navigating the Business Frontier -- Workshop, reception and book-signing with NBIS, Seattle, October 1-3, West Coast Green, San Francisco, CA
November 24, The Truth About Green Business at EcoTuesday San Francisco, CA


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That's the latest.

Please feel free to forward this newsletter to others who might be interested. Keep us posted about your organization's sustainability initiatives (but please conserve electrons and don't include this entire newsletter in your reply). Read -- and subscribe to -- my blog. (And follow me on Twitter!)

And give us a shout if there is any way we can help you:
chart your course,
read the signs and
make it go.

With best regards, on behalf of the entire Natural Logic team,


Gil Friend
Natural Logic

Phone: 510-248-4940
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