Sustainable Brands’ second annual European conference kicked off on Monday at the Lancaster Hotel in central London with a round of thought-provoking morning plenary sessions. What was on the agenda? The latest tools, trends and models driving the shift toward more sustainable consumption.
Let’s recap, shall we?Recent sustainability news has not been uplifting.
Sustainability experts often talk about the need for — and opportunities in — embedding systems thinking and sustainability-driven innovation into every aspect of a business. It sounds quite sexy, but it very often is a long and messy process that takes years, even at companies whose executives ‘get it’ (and that is still a small minority of companies, mind you). Baking significant improvements into product design, manufacturing, supply chain and operations is challenging enough, but not at all the end of the story for companies that want to capture a full set of sustainability benefits.
Twitter was buzzing with our hashtag during SB ’13. With a total of 8,426 tweets and over 32 million impressions during the conference alone, there was lots of great material being shared with the mighty Twittersphere. In line with our new tradition of hot lists, we now present the top 13 #sb13con trends from the week of SB ’13. Check below to see what got re-tweeted the most!
Demonstrating the business case for investment in sustainability — whether in product innovation, supply chain improvements, operational efficiency, employee engagement, communications or an overarching, multi-pronged strategy — remains one of the biggest challenges for the private sector, even for companies that clearly understand the underlying issues. It is proving particularly difficult for change agents trying to get approval from executives within big, slow-moving corporations focused on short-term goals in a highly uncertain global economy. In the absence of commonly-accepted guidelines for relating environmental and social impacts directly to the bottom line, where does one look for the cutting edge in methods that have worked for others?
Since the end of our SB'13 conference last month, we have received many requests from our community, asking for links to the videos we showed on the main stage. So here are, by popular demand, the 20 most buzzed-about videos aired during the plenary sessions in San Diego, in the order in which they appeared:
As we warm up for this year’s New Metrics conference (#NewMetrics) in September, we thought we’d take the opportunity to highlight the data quotes that received the most attention at SB’13 last month. With over 32 million impressions during the week of the conference alone, the #sb13con hashtag was a strong indicator of what is catching immediate fire. Without further ado, here are the 13 data points that created the most noise:Correlation Between Sustainability and Brand Strength
I had occasion this week to be in San Diego for Sustainable Brands '13, where I offered opening remarks on June 4, the first full day of the conference. Conclusions from Changing Tack, the final output of The Regeneration Roadmap, were top of mind as I did so.
The afternoon of day three at SB ’13 continued with more insightful discussions covering an array of timely topics.
Following a morning of engaging plenaries, Tuesday afternoon began the breakout portion of the SB ’13 conference, with twelve sessions exploring topics across six tracks: Communications; Strategy & Metrics; Employee Engagement & Organizational Change; Manufacturing & Supply Chain; Product & Service Innovation; and Consumer Insights & Behavior Change.
Kicking off Tuesday, the first full day of the SB’13 conference, business leaders, social entrepreneurs and several other innovators presented a myriad of ideas to a packed house of attendees gathered in the Paradise Ballroom. With the overarching theme of “Trends & Drivers” dominating the conversations, the morning plenaries focused on what brands are doing to drive the sustainability revolution towards a renaissance.
Roughly 2,000 brand leaders and entrepreneurs engaged in sustainability, corporate social responsibility, green technology and more have gathered at Paradise Point Resort in San Diego, CA, to share ideas, collaborate and drive the movement "From Revolution to Renaissance."
Sustainable Brands has arrived in Rio. For the first time, we’ve managed to convey to sustainability leaders in Brazil the spirit of this network, which reaches around 500,000 people worldwide and brings together professionals dedicated to transforming the way business is done. It’s become clear that this is a community where making excuses and whining is not an option.
Continuing with our series of "hot lists" (check out our lists of hot products and business model innovations) this third installment previews 13 hot books whose authors will speak at Sustainable Brands ’13 next month. As with the previous two lists, we had trouble isolating only 13 highlights from the sea of world-class thought leadership active in the Sustainable Brands community.
Last week we started a series of four "hot lists" outlining key developments worth following in our community this year. Our first installment highlighted 13 hot sustainable products; today we look at 13 hot business model innovations that are creating new markets or transforming existing ones. Here they are:
"Hottest" lists have been making a comeback lately, and here we are with a few of our own! Inspired by our community's intensifying surge of new business value, creativity and the resulting solutions taking us toward a more sustainable economy, we would like to turn your attention to some key developments worth following — and acting on — in the corporate sustainability space this year. We are grouping them in four lists, and will be publishing them one at a time over the course of several days. Today we start with a look at 13 hot products that not only achieve drastic reductions in environmental and social impacts in their categories, but also have the potential to ultimately transform their entire industries. Here we go:
Last week I had the pleasure of participating in a pre-SB'13 program dialogue session organized by some of the leading women in sustainability: Annie Longsworth, CEO of Saatchi & Saatchi S; Kellie McElhaney, Whitehead Faculty Fellow in Corporate Sustainability at UC Berkeley Haas School of Business; Jen Boynton, Editor-in-Chief of Triple Pundit; and Aman Singh, Ed