Daniel Aronson
Daniel Aronson is the founder of Valutus (Latin: value, values), which specializes in creating value through sustainability and responsibility.
Daniel Aronson is the founder of Valutus (Latin: value, values), which specializes in creating value through sustainability and responsibility. Daniel has been researching, writing, and consulting on the environment, social responsibility, and innovation for over 20 years. During his consulting career, he has led sustainability strategy consulting for Deloitte and IBM and has worked with global leaders in the field—from Nike to Johnson & Johnson, Autodesk, Interface, and Philips.
Daniel focuses on innovative solutions to the most strategic, most difficult issues surrounding sustainability / responsibility, such as:
- How firms and individuals can go beyond raising their own performance and catalyze improvement in others
- How to truly integrate sustainability into the core of a business
- How to measure and value sustainability’s benefits – to the business and to the world
Over his career, Daniel has:
- Isolated the models for creating catalytic change and 40+ techniques for doing so
- Conducted the first research that examined which sustainable value chain practices actually get results
- Created tools that make key tasks dramatically more efficient (for example, making it possible for cities to set science-based carbon targets in hours instead of months)
- Quantified for the first time the effect of sustainability leadership on innovation
- Created sophisticated, in-depth frameworks for types of sustainability-related customer-product fit (two dozen) and risk (1,000 distinct ones)
- Cataloged dozens of different sustainability techniques (and their pros and cons), from common ones (e.g., substitution) to rare (e.g., transport-to-trade).
Daniel has been a guest lecturer at Harvard Business School's class on strategic corporate citizenship and MIT’s Sustainability Lab, and has also authored and been interviewed for numerous publications (examples include how sustainability drives innovation, what sustainable value chain practices lead to success, and 'hard wiring' sustainability into organizations). He serves as Chair of the Award Committee for the Spencer Hutchens Social Responsibility Medal and served as Chair of the Ratings & Rankings Thought Leadership Council and the Responsible Supply Chain Thought Leadership Council of the Corporate Responsibility Association.
Daniel holds an MBA from the MIT Sloan School of Management, and a BA with High Honors from UC Berkeley. He lives in the New York City area.
Daniel Aronson is tagged in 20 stories.
Marketing and Comms /
The financial and reputational freefall that Eli Lilly experienced in the first few weeks of Musk’s tenure as Twitter chief illustrated an underappreciated factor in an organization’s level of vulnerability: validity. Companies need a risk model that includes the key elements of vulnerability — and that helps them take precautions, set up checkpoints and plan for contingencies. - 3 months ago
The Next Economy /
It is critical, for business and the planet, that humanity reset our approach to climate events. The future ‘new normal’ is already here. It may bring a new ‘new normal,’ and that will truly be epic — the first time. But we can't continue to approach such events like singularities sweeping in once each century. They are here. Now. - 1 year ago
The Next Economy /
Every aspect of coastal infrastructure will be impacted by sea level rise; and the sheer size of the problem is difficult to comprehend. We can’t just turn
Venice, California into Venice, Italy; but there are things we can do to protect our coastal communities and infrastructure. - 2 years ago
Walking the Talk /
I call the tying together of identity, values and purchasing “corporate citizenshop,” and it is growing — even in the midst of a pandemic, global economic issues, political uncertainty and much more. - 2 years ago
New Metrics /
Even a broken clock is right twice a day. But standard formulas for calculating risk leave out critical factors — such as vulnerability and submerged risks — that would more holistically and accurately assess risk. A new model addresses this. - 2 years ago
Finance & Investment /
What is the responsibility of business? Fifty years on, it’s clear there’s more to the answer than you thought. - 2 years ago
Leadership /
"If you’re going to do something great, why not spread it around? Why not be a catalyst and amplify the impact exponentially?" — Daniel Aronson - 2 years ago
Walking the Talk /
We know that we can buy less, use less, work from home, drive less, collaborate more; and have business, society and government move faster — because we just did all of that. How can we respond as powerfully and courageously to other super-critical threats? - 2 years ago
Organizational Change /
COVID-19 has fragmented the future. Your best-laid plans may lie broken. But it is possible to bring order to a world of multiple, uncertain futures; and lay the groundwork for the reset we need. - 2 years ago
The Next Economy /
In the case of the climate crisis, we’re not facing one tipping point, but two. The hard part: These two tipping points would tilt us in opposite directions! But our current situation doesn’t mean it’s game over — it means it’s game on. - 3 years ago
Business Case /
You’re sitting across from the decision-maker for a large potential sustainability project. It’s taken months, possibly years, to get here. If your numbers look good, the decision is much more likely to be a positive one for you, for them and for the world. - 3 years ago
Business Case /
Even at this advanced stage of our climate and resource debacle, sustainability practitioners still do not possess the same status in corporations as their purely business-minded brethren. How do we get sustainability officers both the recognition they deserve and the clout that should go with it? - 3 years ago
Finance & Investment /
Last week at Sustainable Brands’ New Metrics ’18 conference in Philadelphia, PA, over 300 delegates from brands, NGOs, strategists and practitioners across sectors gathered to share the newest credible tools and solutions for assessing the ROI of Sustainable Business. - 4 years ago
New Metrics /
This week at Sustainable Brands’ New Metrics ’18 conference in Philadelphia, PA, over 300 delegates from brands, NGOs, strategists and practitioners across sectors gathered to share their latest tools and findings regarding measuring the risks and impacts of previously unmeasured forms of value, the newest credible tools and solutions for assessing the ROI of Sustainable Business. - 4 years ago
New Metrics /
In formulating strategy, shaping communications and improving their impact in the world, companies, and their sustainability teams, must answer two big questions: "What is important to our business?” and "What is important to our stakeholders?” (Sometimes as a proxy for the larger question: “What is important to the world?") - 4 years ago
Collaboration /
Yesterday at SB'18 Vancouver, Kevin Hagen — VP of Environment, Social and Governance Strategy at Iron Mountain — and Dimitar Vlahov, Director of Content Development at Sustainable Brands (SB), offered a sneak peek at the SB Brand Transformation Roadmap (SM). Built for an executive audience, the first-of-its-kind Roadmap is a framework any organization can use as a compass towards setting goals and measuring progress towards becoming a truly "sustainable brand." - 4 years ago
Press Release /
New tool provides a clear pathway for companies approaching and defining sustainability goals. - 4 years ago
New Metrics /
Part Nine in a 10-Part Series by Reporting 3.0. See previous parts below. - 5 years ago
New Metrics /
While there are myriad perspectives on sustainability and corporate responsibility, each with its own unique value, I often find myself focusing on sustainability’s operational aspects: What can we do to increase the pace at which belief in sustainability translates into concrete actions that benefit the environment, society and business? To me*, a key question is how we get more done, how we “hardwire” sustainability into the way businesses operate. - 9 years ago
