Community Updates

Sustainable Brands Community Ignites Discourse around the ‘Good Life’

SAN FRANCISCO, January 25, 2017 – The Sustainable Brands® community will launch its largest global initiative to date at SB’17 Detroit, May 22-25, 2017. This marks the beginning of a 3-year journey among global business and brand leaders who are working together to create a new collective and locally relevant vision of what the ‘Good Life’ means for a healthy individual, family, community, city, country and planet. The initiative is designed to build a productive partnership between brands and consumers to help shift the world toward a healthier economy and a sustainably flourishing future.

Published 7 years ago | About a 4 minute read

SB’17 Detroit will gather nearly 2,500 brand leaders, sustainability professionals and design innovators as well as the ecosystem of NGO’s, entrepreneurs, service providers and others who must collaborate to drive shift in economic norms. Participants will convene at the Cobo Center in downtown Detroit, MI to spark a critical and timely conversation about what the Good Life entails and how to translate this into new business opportunity for brands to respond. The event will highlight the ideas and companies who are redefining new global societal aspirations that point toward a sustainable future.

More than 300 acclaimed leaders across multiple industries are expected to pose thought provoking questions and provide examples as part of the formal conference program of what really defines a Good Life for humans around the globe today. Presentations and formal structured sessions will serve as a precursor to a new format of facilitated co-creative dialogue that will travel around the world. It will have the goal of capturing and reporting out consumer insights and ideas for design principles that brands can tap for delivering better product and services offerings to market in the coming decades.

Experts and thought leaders include:

Daniel Lubetzky, CEO of KIND Snacks will share his perspective about the role of business in building an empathetic society and how his company is helping in this effort.
Virginie Helias, Vice President Global Sustainability at P&G will share brand new insight into how P&G is looking to enable positive consumption in pursuit of the good life.
Pashon Murray, Co-Founder of Detroit Dirt will demonstrate the opportunity for brands to contribute to the rejuvenation of cities in decline.
Nadya Zhexembayeva, CEO of Reinvention Institute will offer perspective on why and how brands need to equip themselves for continuous reinvention in an increasingly dynamic world
Leith Sharp, Director, Executive Education for Sustainability Leadership at Harvard University will offer a powerful model for enabling continuous transformational leadership into today’s organizations hindered by 20th century operating models.
Ryan Williams, Good Cop at Method will share how Method is reinvigorating one community through local, sustainable manufacturing.
Ricardo Caceres, Global Marketing Director for Sustainability at Coca-Cola will speak about embedding sustainability priorities within marketing and brand innovation teams.
Nelson Switzer, Chief Sustainability Officer at Nestlé Waters will offer insight into how brands should orient themselves in the political fray post-US election.

An integral component of SB’17 Detroit, the SB Activation Hub will encourage collaboration and celebrate purposeful innovation. Facilitated programming and anchor-led pavilions will showcase companies and entrepreneurs delivering innovative brands and business solutions fashioned around Good Food, Good Homes, Good Mobility, Good Packaging, Good Technology, Good Energy and more. Numerous companies and organizations have already joined this effort and have committed to supporting the ‘Redefining the Good Life’ global initiative and its launch at SB’17 Detroit. Lead sponsors include The Dow Chemical Company, BASF and Ford Motor Co. with varying sponsorship levels from Citizen Group, Nestlé, Target, Amazon, UPS, P&G, Whirlpool, Kellogg’s, Savers, GM, Braskem, Shaw Industries, WhiteWave Foods, the Vinyl Institute, NSF International, CVS Health and others.

“Designing success in the 21st century begins with ‘Redefining the Good Life’ and imagining how the brand leaders of the future will respond by identifying new product and service offerings that meet evolving societal aspirations,” states KoAnn Vikoren Skrzyniarz, founder of Sustainable Brands. “Sustainable Brands is the preeminent platform for shining a light on the power of purpose to drive brand success. We desperately need the skills and passion of our courageous brand leaders to create a new collective vision of a flourishing future that delivers shared value for all.”

Nature Bank is the official carbon offset partner, South Pole Group is the official renewable energy partner and Terracycle is a zero waste partner. Additional partnership support is provided by The Erb Institute at the University of Michigan, Retail Industry Leaders Association (RILA), Effie Worldwide, TerraCycle and others.

SB’17 Detroit is scheduled for May 22-25, 2017 at the Cobo Center in Detroit, MI. Registration is now open. Sponsor and partner opportunities are available for companies with breakthrough ideas, tools and technologies that support business success in sustainability. Further information can be found at www.SB17Detroit.com, by calling 1.415.626.2212 or by emailing [email protected]