Press Release

New Business Performance Metrics Revealed at Sustainable Brands New Metrics ‘15

SAN FRANCISCO, October 6, 2015 – The Sustainable Brands® community announces several initiatives focused on identifying, measuring and quantifying entirely new forms of business risk and value at New Metrics ’15 this week in Boston, MA. Over 300 global senior executives across diverse industry sectors are convening today through Oct 8th to collaborate on leading edge corporate practices and performance indicators that quantify environmental and social impacts and tie them to financial value.

Published 9 years ago | About a 4 minute read

The event features over 60 influential speakers sparking conversation and debate that provide critical insight into the key business metrics that are informing next generation goals. Innovative measurement tools, breakthrough research methods, informative case studies and advanced frameworks are featured, including continued threads of conversation on new ways to measure the ROI of sustainability, quantify employee engagement and performance, measure shared value and impact along the supply chain and benchmark ESG performance ratings/rankings.

Compelling corporate initiatives and leading-edge business performance metrics presented this week include:

Practical tools for evaluating and reporting water use with Christina Copeland, manager of Disclosure Services at Carbon Disclosure Project, Val Fishman, VP Corporate Partnerships at Bonneville Environmental Foundation, Lindsay Bass, Manager at WWF, Libby Bernick, SVP North America at Trucost and Eliza Roberts, Manager at Ceres.
Natural capital valuation, net positive goals and innovating toward a circular business model with Neil Hawkins, Corporate Vice President and Chief Sustainability Officer at Dow Chemical.
A review of over 300 research studies with Steve Rochlin, Co-founder and Senior Partner at IO Sustainability demonstrating that well-run corporate sustainability programs bring multiple benefits including increased sales, growing market value reduced risk exposure and higher employee productivity. Discussions with Aaron Frank, Director Corporate Responsibility at Disney, Matthew Swibel, Director of Sustainability at Lockheed Martin and Niki King, Senior Manager at Campbell Soup Company follow.
A strengthened emphasis on program topics for and by the investor community including new research from Morgan Stanley Institute for Sustainable Investing on the ROI of both public and private sustainable investing, new insights on gender equality in leadership positions with Pax World Management and eRevalue, and discussions with Trillium Asset Management, HIP Investor and PRI on fossil-free investing.
The introduction of a comprehensive set of guidance tips for US institutional investors on engaging with brands and the public policy world on sustainability issues with Michelle Edkins, Managing Director at BlackRock.
A discussion with Alyson Genovese, Head of Corporate and Stakeholder Relations US and Canada at Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) on the introduction of a new tool that provides guidance for companies aligning their business strategies to the UN Sustainable Development Goals.
A conversation with Dirk Voeste, Vice President of Sustainability Strategy at BASF on how breakthrough product portfolio assessment is changing business strategy and yielding new value.

“We’ve seen tremendous growth in the advancement of new business performance metrics within the SB community over the years,” states KoAnn Vikoren Skrzyniarz, Founder and CEO of Sustainable Brands. “The translation of previously ignored environmental and social impacts into corporate financial performance indicators, the spread of goal-setting methodologies and the proliferation of innovative tools have elevated the conversation to the point where we are seeing accelerated shift to new norms. We are proud to acknowledge the brands who are finding business success by implementing these new performance metrics into their corporate strategy.”

Over 300 senior sustainability and financial executives from leading companies such as Levi’s, Avery Dennison, HP, Bank of America, P&G, Oracle, REI, TD Bank, Bloomberg, MIT Sloan, Ben & Jerry’s, Esteé Lauder and Alaska Airlines are attending this week at the Royal Sonesta Boston in Cambridge, MA. In addition, senior leaders from the SB Corporate Member Network are holding a concurrent meeting at Iron Mountain Headquarters in Boston to collaborate in a more intimate setting on science-based goal setting and assigning dollar values to previously ignored social impacts.

Further information can be found at www.NewMetrics15.com, by emailing [email protected] or by calling 1.415.626.2212. Onsite registration is still open, but capacity is limited. Proud supporters of this event include BASF, YK Center, TD Bank, Lucid, Tennaxia, CoClear, Offsetters, Vivreau, Thomson Reuters, Waste Management, Bonneville Environmental Foundation, WBCSD, Ceres, Wharton IGEL, Triple Pundit among others.