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FEBRUARY 2012                                                                     VOLUME 5 NO. 2      

In This Issue
Become A Social Entrepreneur
February Webinar: Hunter Lovins | Climate Capitalism
Workshop: GHG Inventory and Carbon Footprint Assessment
Webinar: Creating A Sustainable Organization
ISSP and Vermillion Collaborate on Webinars
Access Archived Webinars
Sustainability 101 Workshop
Board of Directors Corner
Read A Good Book
Sustainability Conferences and Events
 
 
Job Posting
 
Assistant Professor of Sustainable Community Development.
Check this and other job postings on the ISSP job posting page
 

 
   
ISSP Fosters  Local Chapters   

 

The September ISSP conference seems to have whetted members' appetites for face-to-face meetings! In response to this energy, the management team has been exploring the creation of "local ISSP chapters" around the world. Last month I virtually convened an invited group of people from around the world who had expressed an interest in forming local groups in their regions.  The interest and energy was electrifying.  We simply can't hold the effort back!

 

While we haven't determined exactly how this will work,

Marsha_Willard
ISSP Executive Director,
Marsha Willard

we are dedicated to experimenting with the idea of local groups connected to our international organization. For our part, we are drafting a set of guidelines to define the relationships between local groups and ISSP, creating a logo for use by local groups and designing programming aids that will support local events and meetings.

 

If you have interest in getting something going in your area, please contact me. We'll add you to the list to receive notices and participate in future design and planning meetings.  Your interest does NOT obligate you to anything. But if you've got the interest, we'd love to have you join the conversation

 

Executive Director

Marsha Willard

 

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How To Become A Social Entrepreneur

 

ISSP Editor's Note: This article was first published by GreenBiz and is reproduced here with the author's and GreenBiz's permission. The article is the first of seven that chronicles in-depth the lessons from a course at the University of Michigan's Ross School of Business on how to become a social intrapreneur -- someone who makes change for good from within the enterprise. The first four articles are posted on the ISSP website. The remaining three will be posted as they become available in the next several weeks.

 

Nate Springer
Nate Springer 

 

Author Nathan Springer currently consults to financial services companies on generating returns from sustainability with  Malk Sustainability Partners. He advised Dow Chemical on market and green potential of bio-based materials, identified growth and conservation opportunities for water-based industries in Oregon, and designed strategy that helped Owens Corning develop new energy efficiency products. Nathan holds an MBA and MS in Natural Resources from the  Erb Institute for Global Sustainable Enterprise at the University of Michigan.

 

The fabled triple-bottom-line business is the epic quest of our profession. In the hallways of conferences, sustainability professionals gather around the coffee tables to tell legends of companies like Interface, Nike, and Walmart and the many others that have set out on this journey.

 

Many have heard the tale of Ray Anderson, who discovered Paul Hawkins' manuscript The Ecology of Commerce and carried his entire company toward the summit of Mt. Sustainability guided by sages Hunter Lovins, Amory Lovins, and Hawkins himself.

 

When the euphoria fades, most people return to the reality of Monday morning full of doubts and questions about whether they could take their company to the heroic heights of sustainable business. Now, the Stephen M. Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan has invited me to follow a class on Social Intrapreneurship that aims to arm MBA students with the tools to do just that.

 

To read the complete article, click here.  

 

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MarketingWkshop

... OR how to find the way out by kick-starting capitalism to save our economic ass!

Join us as we host Hunter Lovins in an one hour webinar.    

 

Wednesday February 22, 2012 @10am PST (GMT -8) / 11am MST / 12pm CST / 1pm EST / 8pm CET (GMT +1) 

Please register for this 60-minute event and if you are unable to attend live, you will receive the recording link to view/listen to later.   

   

 

Hunter Lovins
Hunter Lovins

"Believe in climate change. Or don't.   

...It doesn't matter.  

 

But you'd better understand this: the best route to rebuilding our economy, our cities, and our job markets, as well as assuring national security, is doing precisely what you would do if you were scared to death about climate change. Whether you're the head of a household or the CEO of a multinational corporation, embracing efficiency, innovation, renewables, carbon markets, and new technologies is the smartest decision you can make. It's the most profitable, too. And, oh yes-you'll help save the planet."
 
In Climate Capitalism: Capitalism in the Age of Climate Change (The Way Out: Kickstarting Capitalism to Save Our Economic Ass), L. Hunter Lovins, coauthor of the bestselling Natural Capitalism, and the sustainability expert Boyd Cohen prove that the future of capitalism in a recession-riddled, carbon-constrained world will be built on innovations that cutting-edge leaders are bringing to the market today. These companies are creating jobs and driving innovation. 
   

 

Free to ISSP Members and $10 to non-members.

 

Register Now >>   

   

 

Sust101MARCH VIRTUAL WORKSHOP:   Measuring Impact |
Enterprise GHG Inventory and Product Carbon Footprint Assessment

Instructor:  Tom Gloria, Ph.D.

  

Tom Gloria
Tom Gloria, Ph.D.
Workshop's Live Webinars meet on-line on Tuesdays (March 6, 13, 20, 27) 2012 at 12:00PM Pacific Time for 60 to 90 minutes. 12PM PT | 1PM MT | 2PM CT | 3PM ET

++>Participants meet online 24/7 over 4 weeks at the ISSP's Learning Center.

 

Carbon footprinting, both at an organizational and a product level, is an essential skill in bringing sustainability to organizations of all types. Tom Gloria, of Industrial Ecology Consultants, will provide you with an excellent background, rigorous process and concrete tools for conducting a Greenhouse Gas (GHG) inventory of a company and carbon footprint of a product.  The material presented will provide key context, policy trends, and emerging protocols overview, and then present the entire process, including:
  •   Selecting relevant protocols and data tools
  •   Setting boundaries for your inventory
  •   Data gathering
  •   Calculating emissions
  •   Estimating emissions sources with incomplete data
  •   Interpretation of results, and framing of major issues
  •   Final reporting writing and other dissemination
Thomas P. Gloria, Ph.D. is Managing Director of Industrial Ecology Consultants. He has more than 19 years of professional experience in sustainability management consulting and information technology engineering design. His work encompasses product innovation; LCA; LCM; methods and policy implications GHG inventories; and energy efficiency feasibility analysis.

 

Register Now>>

  

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MarketingWkshop
MARCH WEBINAR:   CREATING A SUSTAINABLE ORGANIZATION: Approaches For Enhancing Corporate Value Through Sustainability

Join us as we host author, Peter A. Soyka, in an one hour webinar.    

 

CREATING A SUSTAINABLE ORGANIZATION: Approaches For Enhancing Corporate Value Through SustainabilityThursday March, 2012 @11am PST (GMT -8) / 12pm MST / 1pm CST / 2pm EST / 8pm CET (GMT +1) 

Please register for this event and if you are unable to attend live, you will receive the recording link to view/listen to later.   

   

Organizations that prioritize environmental, health, and safety (EHS) issues are well placed to attract better customers, better talent, and today's growing number of socially responsible investors. But, to gain these benefits, companies must choose the right sustainability strategies, and then manage and measure them well.

 

Leading business sustainability consultant Peter Soyka offers a complete and actionable guide to driving greater value through sustainability. In Creating a Sustainable Organization, Soyka bridges the disparate worlds of the EHS/sustainability professional and the investor/analyst.

 

During this webinar participants will learn what the evidence says about linkages between sustainability and value... how to manage key stakeholder relationships influencing corporate response to EHS and social equity issues... how to effectively manage sustainability throughout the business... how to evaluate sustainability posture and performance from the standpoint of external investors and internal management... how to maximize the influence of organizational actors focused on sustainability, and much more.

 

Who should attend?
>Environmental, health, and safety decision-makers and professionals concerned with improving sustainability and value
>Executives and strategists seeking long-term competitive advantage
>Stock analysts evaluating potential investments
>Researchers and MBA candidates currently studying the techniques and potential of corporate sustainability

Free to ISSP Members and $10 to non-members.

 

Register Now >>   

   

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MarketingWkshop
FIRST ON-LINE SESSION IN COLLABORATION BETWEEN ISSP AND VERMILLION INSTITUTE SCHEDULED FOR FEBRUARY 28

Sign Up Now for Free Webinar Focused on Electric Utilities


FREE ISSP WEBINAR Tuesday February 28, 2012 at 11am PT
 

ISSP and Vermillion Institute are teaming up to advance the  Innovators in Sustainability research project, designed to gather key industry insights in advance of the UN's Rio+20 event in June.  The first edition of the Innovators in Sustainability (IIS) webinar series will focus on electric utilities.

 

Anyone who has seen the movie Erin Brockovich knows that power generation creates a range of externalities. When it's near communities, better stewardship improves human health and community prosperity. Please join us as we host Dr. Blair Feltmate, who will present the Canadian Electricity Association's significant progress in creating a useful index and toolkit for the sector.


Dr. Feltmate is Senior Advisor (and Past Chair), Sustainable Electricity Program, CEA, Technical Facilitator, Bruce Power-Saugeen Ojibway Nation Whitefish Studies; former Director of Sustainable Development, Ontario Power Generation. He is currently Associate Professor, and Director of Sustainability Practice, in the School of Environment, Enterprise and Development (SEED), Faculty of Environment, University of Waterloo.


This interactive webinar will offer ISSP members, and others, a chance to contribute to a unique series of reports that will discuss sector-specific questions and best practices. Our own Ira Feldman was asked to serve as co-Chair of the Innovators in Sustainability organizing committee, where part of his role will be to vet those practitioners who are candidates to be featured by the project. The related ISSP webinars will be open and free to all, but in particular, we hope to attract both corporate leaders and practitioners in various sectors. Come and lend your voice to the project!


About Vermillion Institute: Vermillion is a non-partisan policy institute dedicated to advancing three-pillar sustainability through research, multi-stakeholder engagement, and modern communication design.  

 

Although the webinar is a free please register here. 

 

Spaces are limited so reserve yours now!

 

Register Now >> 

 

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MarketingWkshop
ISSP MEMBERS CAN ACCESS ARCHIVED WEBINARSISSP Webinar wordle

 

Register with Christy Nordstrom, Education Program Manager [email protected]

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Sust101VIRTUAL WORKSHOP: SUSTAINABILITY 101

Instructor: Darcy Hitchcock, co-founder of ISSP and co-founder of Axis Performance Advisors. on-line learning

   

After taking ISSP's foundation course, you'll know the concepts, frameworks and tools used by sustainability professionals.

 

This is your chance to go beyond an understanding of the problems. Darcy's course will help you begin to see how the solutions can weave together to create a better life for us all. You'll end the course with an exploration about where you fit in the picture, what your role might be in creating a sustainable world.  

 

Dates: Open Enrollment. Register at any time.  Take up to 8 weeks to complete.  

Register Now>>

   

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THE  BOARD OF DIRECTORS CORNER  

ISSP Management Team Transition

Darcy Hitchcock, ISSP founder and publications editor, is stepping away from her duties on the ISSP management team. Darcy is one of the original four founders of
Darcy Hitchcock
Darcy Hitchcock
ISSP and has devoted thousands of hours to its creation and
development. Her vast knowledge of the field of sustainability and gift with words landed her the responsibility  of editing  - and most of the time authoring - the articles published by ISSP. While Darcy remains an officer of the board (we wouldn't let her get too far away), she will be spending most of her energies in the next year on research and exploration. We're going to make sure ISSP benefits from what she learns!

Thank you Darcy! and best wishes for a productive year. 

 
Dr. Bob Pojasek Joins The Shaw Group  
  
ISSP board member, Dr. Bob Pojasek, recently joined The Shaw Group, a Fortune 300 company (NYSE: SHAW).  Bob is working internally to help Shaw implement a sustainability program within its own operations.  He is also re-establishing his consulting practice to help Fortune 500 clients implement sustainability solutions throug
Bob Pajasek
hout their company and across their supply chains.  With 40 years of management consulting, Dr. Pojasek is considered to be a thought leader in the area of sustainability/corporate social responsibility. In addition to serving as a member of theboard of directors of ISSP, Dr. Pojasek provides leadership to the Corporate Responsibility Officers Association, the premier association of corporate responsibility and sustainability professionals, having served as the Chair of the Board of Governors since the initiation of the association.  Dr. Pojasek also teaches two very popular distance-learning sustainability courses at the Harvard Extension School. He also serves as thesis director for masters' degree candidates conducting research on sustainability. He has more than 100 papers on topics related to his sustainability and process improvement work. Dr. Pojasek is frequently asked to present papers and keynote talks on this subject.  He was a founding member of ISSP.

 
Ira Feldman Teaches Climate Adaptation Course
at University of Pennsylvania


Ira Feldman, ISSP Management Team and Board member, returned to the University of Pennsylvania, his alma mater, this semester to teach in the interdisciplinary Masters in Environmental Studies (MES) program.

As in his previous teaching stints at Penn, Ira was asked to develop a new course to add an emerging topic to the MES curriculum. His course offering, "The Challenge of Climate Adaptation" is likely the first semester-long, university-level course to cover the many aspects of climate adaptation.

Ira Feldman
"There is a growing appreciation of "adaptation" as a significant topic separate from the greenhouse gas reduction or "mitigation" side of the climate change discussion," Ira explained, "and, while there have been numerous seminar and short workshop offerings on specific aspects of adaptation -- such as coastal zone impacts or water issues --  the adaptation topic has generally been limited to a lecture or two in broader climate change courses."

Ira has constructed a course that relies on cutting-edge research and practitioner experience -- almost all the on-line readings and resource materials are too recent to be included in any textbook. With that background, each student will then complete an in-depth analysis of a specific case study.

In an innovative twist,  Ira has also concurrently established a LinkedIn group called "Climate Adaptation Scholars" with discussions that track the course syllabus. Because the group is "open", anyone interested in exploring the full range of adaptation issues can join the conversation. "So far, the discussions have been enriched by the participation of students from other universities, as well as comments from leading researchers and practitioners." As a bonus for his grad students, many of the leading figures in the climate adaptation arena have offered to SKYPE in during the semester to talk about their areas of expertise.

Sustainability practitioners will likely find the climate adaptation space familiar.  As Ira explains, "The sustainability framework fits hand-in-glove with adaptation. The interdisciplinary nature of the adaptation inquiry, as well as its future orientation, suggests that sustainability concepts, tools and approaches will be readily applicable." 

 

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Members, Send Us Your News !!! 

Have you or your company done something interesting lately? Did you recently publish an article, win an award or make a presentation to a large group?  Let us know what you've been up to so we may share it with your fellow members here in our newsletter.NewsLogo  Send your news items to
with the phrase Newsletter Item in the subject line.  See you on-line! 
   


The Sustainability Advantage: Seven Business Case Benefits of a Triple Bottom Line  

 

 Willard, Bob (2002) The Sustainability Advantage: Seven Business Case Benefits of a Triple Bottom Line. Gabriola Island, BC: New Society 

 

Reviewer: Stephanie Sharma

Stephanie is an ISSP member, currently completing her MBA at Thunderbird School of Global Management. Her practices of interest include implementation, management systems and reporting.

 

"What would happen if companies unleashed the untapped creative energies of all their people and encouraged them to help fulfill the vision of sustainable development?" Bob Willard sets out to challenge the reader with what could be, a vision of running a profitable organization because of a focus on sustainability vs. a more tr aditional and singular focus on the economic indicators.

 

Read full review ... 

 



 

Corporate Impact: Measuring and Managing Your Social Footprint

 
Henriquez, Adrian (2011) Corporate Impact: Measuring and Managing Your Social Footprint. London: Routledge 

 

Reviewer: Jack Appleton

Jack is an ISSP member and currently lives in Malaysia. He has a background in sociology, finance, and Asian Studies.

 
In Corporate Impact, Henriques asks this question: Given the place of corporations in modern society, do they also have a place, or perhaps even a special place, in terms of providing solutions to social issues: a place beyond simply not being an impediment?

 

Read full review ... 

 

 

 

  

 
SeptEventsSUSTAINABILITY CONFERENCES AND EVENTS

 

See details about these events on the Partner Events page of the ISSP Website.    

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