Community Updates

Experts Gather to Discuss Financial Benefits of Sustainability at New Metrics ‘16

SAN FRANCISCO, November 14, 2016 – Members of the Sustainable Brands® community gather in Boston, MA to kick off the 6th annual New Metrics conference. Nearly 300 global senior executives across diverse sectors are convening today through Nov 16th to unveil cutting-edge corporate practices that measure and quantify environmental and social impacts and tie them to financial and business value. Conversations are focusing on Corporate Strategy & Operations, Customer Insights & Engagement, Investor Trends & Relations, as well as Supply Chain Impact & Management.

Published 8 years ago | About a 4 minute read

New Metrics ’16 hosts more than 100 influential speakers sharing case studies and achievements of organizations succeeding in utilizing novel, diverse performance methodologies and metrics to assess the business risk, benefit and ROI of sustainability. This year, many of the sessions and workshops led by these speakers are eligible for Continuing Professional Education (CPE) credit for licensed CPAs. Through a new partnership with the Rhode Island Society of CPAs (RISCPA), Certified Public Accountants can earn total of 22 CPEs over the 3 day period.

Compelling corporate initiatives and leading-edge business performance metrics presented at New Metrics ‘16 include:

Adam Elman, Global Head of Delivery - Plan A & Sustainable Business at Marks and Spencer, shares how one of the world’s leading retailers was able to quantify the social and environmental impacts of increasing the sustainability attributes of their products.
Jocelyn Cascio, Supply Chain Sustainability Sr. Manager at Intel, reveals how the tech giant improves sustainability in its supply chain and how it assesses the ROI of such efforts.
Bob Willard, renowned author of Sustainability Advantage, reveals and explains key insights from his new e-book about evaluating, justifying and building business cases around corporate sustainability initiatives.
Rasmus Skov, Head of Sustainability Performance at DONG Energy, discusses what kinds of non-financial data the energy company leveraged to demonstrate to shareholders and other stakeholders the value gained by transitioning from a coal-intensive utility to a market leader in offshore wind energy.
Rob Michalak, Global Director of Social Mission at Ben & Jerry’s, and Mark McElroy, co-author of The Multicapital Scorecard™, update the community on lessons learned from a Ben and Jerry’s attempt to test a pilot version of the Scorecard, a reporting mechanism that examines organizational performance in all its dimensions, including social, economic and environmental.
Michelle Lapinski, on the Steering Group for the Natural Capital Coalition, introduces the Natural Capital Protocol, a new, comprehensive framework launched in July 2016 to help businesses in any sector better understand and manage natural capital.

Martin Rich, Chair & Co-founder of the Future-Fit Foundation, and Michael Jantzi, CEO of Sustainalytics, unveil a new vision for equipping mainstream investors with the tools they need to assess the sustainability of current and prospective investment targets.

“Sustainable Brands recognized and first convened a group of innovative business leaders 5 years ago at our first New Metrics event to spur aggressive action toward translating previously ignored environmental and social impacts into corporate financial performance indicators,” states KoAnn Vikoren Skrzyniarz, Founder and CEO of Sustainable Brands. “We have since opened critical insight into key business metrics that are informing next generation goals and just beginning to tap the business opportunity for sustainability-driven innovation in the 21st century.”

Nearly 300 senior sustainability and financial executives from leading companies such as Coca-Cola, Amazon.com, BASF, adidas group, Burt’s Bees, CVS Health, Dell, Etsy, Johnson & Johnson, Procter & Gamble, Pepsico, Target and UPS are attending this week at the Royal Sonesta Boston in Cambridge, MA. In addition, senior leaders from the SB Corporate Member Network will hold a separate meeting focused on key insights in New Metrics. Proud supporters of this event include BASF as Platinum sponsor and Apex Clean Energy, EnerNOC and Altenex, an Edison Energy as Silver level sponsors. Bronze sponsors include UL EHS Sustainability, RAPPORT, as well as NatureBank as the Official Carbon Offset Partner, South Pole Group as the Official Renewable Energy Partner. The Rhode Island Society of CPAs is the Continuing Education Partner. Additional partners include Bonneville Environmental Foundation as a Water Restoration Partner, Terracycle as a Waste Partner, and Wharton/IGEL, Blue Practice, Ceres, Savii Group, Hemmings House Pictures and others.