Consensus on Standards That Matter: Global Footprint Releases 2009 Footprint Standards and Comments on Stigliz Report

Global Footprint Network, our collaborator on the Summit of Ecological Creditor Nations, has just released its 2009 Ecological Footprint Standards, building on the 2006 standards (the first set of internationally recognized footprint standards), and including more than five substantial revisions.  You can download the Ecological Footprint Standards 2009 but be advised that the report is not for a general audience, lacking extensive, introductory material on analysis or communication.  Reading the report, however, is not necessary for non-experts to get excited about the evolution of consensus not only on Footprint standards themselves but on their increasing importance to sustainability and thrivability.  Good standards matter.  We agree with Global Footprint Network on why standards are important to calculating Footprint:

A growing number of government agencies, organizations and communities are adopting the Ecological Footprint as a core indicator of sustainable resource use. As the number of Ecological Footprint practitioners around the world increases, different approaches to conducting Footprint studies could lead to fragmentation and divergence of the methodology. This would reduce the ability of the Footprint to produce consistent and comparable assessments across applications, and could generate confusion. The value of the Footprint as a trusted sustainability metric therefore depends not only on the scientific integrity of the methodology, but also on consistent and transparent presentation of results across analyses. It also depends on communicating results of analyses in a manner that does not distort or misrepresent findings. To meet these goals, Global Footprint Network initiated a consensus, committee-based process for the development of standards governing Footprint applications, and for an ongoing scientific review of the methodology. Ensuring that Footprint results are both credible and consistent will encourage even more widespread adoption of the Ecological Footprint, increasing its effectiveness as a catalyst for a sustainable future.

Consensus on emerging standards has also been an important issue in corporate social responsibility for decades.  There weren’t always organizations like Global Footprint Network or B Corp to help shine light on which standards really matter, which practices really result in the intended goals instead of, for example, simply green washing.  And building this consensus has been a slow process.  Debate about the inadequacy of Gross Domestic Product as a standard by which the wealth of countries is judged is also decades-long, although today it’s much harder to successfully argue that money spent on things like building prisons and alarm systems actually adds to a country’s wealth–but the debate on standards had to actually (and painfully slowly) penetrate to the level of a collective questioning of what wealth really is for consensus to begin to swing toward new standards.  And such a debate is meaningless unless set in the context of consensus about the physical limits of our planet’s ability to regenerate itself and to therefore sustain our quality of life.

Which is why Global Footprint Network’s response to the Stiglitz report from the Commission on the Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress, which has focused on one challenge–how we can move beyond GDP to broader measures of a nation’s economic, social and environmental well-being–merits significant attention:

The report synthesizes the complex field of economic performance and social progress indicators and substantiates the voices of early pioneers like Hazel Henderson and Hermann Daly. With this report, there is now wide agreement that humanity’s success in the 21st century depends largely on robust navigational tools. The report has built a productive platform for further discussions. However, there is still much work to do. The report points out that there is no consensus yet as to which indicators provide the greatest value, and how they should be applied in guiding public policy.

First, it is crucial to build on the important work of the Commission – and perhaps its most significant finding is the need to track distinct policy goals separately: economic, performance, quality of life, and environmental sustainability. We agree that combining these various aspects of well-being would dilute clarity and provide numerical results with little practical utility. However, there still remain some misconceptions about the Ecological Footprint and the overall significance of ecological constraints, as reflected in the report.   Environmental sustainability is an area that we believe affects all others – from the well-being of a nation’s economy to the well-being of its people. For this reason, we believe it is important to directly address some of the issues about the Footprint raised in the report.

The Commission created by French President Nicolas Sarkozy and chaired by Nobel Prize-winning economists Professor Joseph E. Stiglitz of Columbia University and Professor Amartya Sen of Harvard, has opened a debate about human well-being in the 21st century. To succeed, we must ensure that the debate remains open, comprehensive, and relevant to emerging trends.

We’re strongly encouraging the Commission to work with the Global Footprint Network to build on this work, so critical to creating and accelerating the consensus that can lead to widespread adoption of standards that matter.

Download the Stiglitz Commission Report
Download Global Footprint Network’s Response to the Report

The “Phoenix Economy,” State of the World Forum and Global Coherence Initiative

“A new economic order is rising from the ashes—and a new generation of innovators, entrepreneurs and investors is accelerating the changes essential for delivering scalable sustainable solutions to the world.”

The Phoenix Economy:  50 Pioneers in the Business of Social Innovation

Global Footprint Network has been named one of the “Phoenix 50,” a new list generated by Volans, an organization that describes itself as “part think-tank, part consultancy, park broker and part incubator.”  They are in the business of helping develop and scale social innovations to financial, social and environmental challenges.

They distinguish between four types of markets instead of the usual two we’re used to hearing about–Bull and Bear markets.  The Dragon characterizes markets like China, where social cohesion is just strong enough to keep the double-bottom line economic engine roaring, while the Phoenix is the kind of market we have to do more than hope we’re destined for–a market that “blurs across national borders and works to integrate the triple bottom line of economic, social and environmental value added into its DNA—as a triple helix of change and new growth.”

From the website:  “From the ashes of the downturn, a new Phoenix Economy is self-assembling—focused on providing social and environmental solutions, where markets and governments have failed. If the pioneers of the Phoenix Economy are to succeed, they will still need substantial assistance from governments, foundations, investors and businesses, and we identify urgent opportunities for facilitation, collaboration and support.”

Volan’s Phoenix Economy report was supported by The Skoll Foundation, SustainAbility, NetImpact, and the United Nations Environment Programme.  It’s a market intelligence report of scale solutions leading into a Phoenix economy, and ends with a “Phoenix Agenda,” detailing how different sectors can help enable this paradigmatic shift.  The Phoenix 50 are organizations–for-profit, non-profit, and NGO’s–that are, in the authors’ opinions, among the best currently doing this work.  (Heartening to see the Haas School of Business, UC Berkeley on the list, since I was there pioneering socially and environmentally responsible curriculum for corporations during most of the 90’s, when awareness of the need for this kind of work was quite low–except among the student body in the form of the self-organized Students for Responsible Business, which has since become NetImpact.)

The report quotes the same”everyone a changemaker” remark from Bill Drayton that I quoted in an earlier post on his presentation at the Tech Awards last year.  Drayton is convinced that we’re about to hit the “awareness tipping point” in which “the public at large will engage.”  This is one of the functions of collab partners like the 2009 State of the World Forum–to move the momentum towards a tipping point in which the public is not just aware, but is also motivated and empowered to act; that is, where a critical mass feels sufficiently networked into solutions capable of addressing the challenges we face in transforming ourselves and our societies.

One of the most interesting parts of the report is the “Pathways to Scale” model, which is described as 5 stages:

1. Eureka!, in which growing dysfunctions of the current order reveal emerging opportunities
2. Experiment:  trial-and-error responses to those opportunities
3. Enterprise:  building responsive business models that support new value creation
4. Ecosystem, in which critical mass is achieved through alliances and imitation
5. Economy:  the system transcends to a new equilibrium.

These stages remind me of what Belgian chemist and Nobel Laureate Ilya Prigogine said about a system in balance and functioning well.  Such a system is difficult to change, but as that system falls into disorder, change becomes more and more feasible and finally inevitable.  At that inevitable point the least bit of coherent order (or critical mass) can usher in a new higher form of order.  We are clearly at that inevitable point.  Now we need to facilitate the critical mass that will usher in a higher-functioning order out of the “ashes of the downturn.” Reports like the Phoenix Economy, and organizations such as those that comprise the Phoenix 50, are helping to get us there.  And for an example of an initiative working to create critical mass on the level of being to complement the doing, see the Global Coherence Initiative.

Read the full report, or watch for the second half of this post which will summarize remaining highlights.

Stanford Social Innovation Review

NNCollab met some of the people at the Stanford Social Innovation Review at last fall’s SoCap08 in San Francisco and Social Venture Network member gathering in La Jolla.  Here’s SSIR’s Top Five Articles of 2008 that posted today.  They include one called, “Rediscovering Social Innovation”–close to our hearts:

Highlights of 2008: Top Five Articles

In the spirit of awards season, SSIR brings you the best of 2008—starting with the top five most-read articles (as measured by hits on our Web site). We’ve listed them in order of popularity.

Achieving Breakthrough Performance
From the Girl Scouts, to Partners In Health, to the city of Providence, R.I., great organizations have one thing in common: great managers. These managers, in turn, share four simple management principles that they use to guide organizations from mere mediocrity to stand-out stardom.

The Greening of Wal-Mart
For much of its history, Wal-Mart’s corporate management team toiled inside its “Bentonville Bubble,” narrowly focused on operational efficiency, growth, and profits. But now the world’s largest retailer has widened its sights, building networks of employees, nonprofits, government agencies, and suppliers to “green” its supply chains. Here’s how and why the world’s largest retailer is using a network approach to decrease its environmental footprint—and to increase its profitability.

More Bang for the Buck
Scores of pundits have written books, research reports, and articles about how business leaders extracted greater productivity from their companies. Yet few have paid attention to this topic in the nonprofit sector. Recognizing that increasing productivity could be a powerful way for nonprofit organizations to multiply the impact of their work, the authors explore how three nonprofits succeeded in reducing costs without sacrificing the quality of their services.

Rediscovering Social Innovation
Social entrepreneurship and social enterprise have become popular rallying points for those trying to improve the world. These two notions are positive ones, but neither is adequate when it comes to understanding and creating social change in all of its manifestations. The authors make the case that social innovation is a better vehicle for doing this. They also explain why most of today’s innovative social solutions cut across the traditional boundaries separating nonprofits, government, and for-profit businesses.

2009 Sustainable Industry Trends

NextNowCollab was introduced to Hanson Bridgett LLP’s Sustainable Business series through Social Venture Network and the B Corporation movement.  The next one is on January 22.

What are the major trends that will influence sustainable industries in 2009?  Hanson Bridgett LLP is hosting “2009 Sustainable Industry Trends “ in San Francisco on Thursday, January 22, 5:30 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.  Topics will include renewable energy, smart building, green jobs, climate change, new policies and the latest developments in the new economy.  Panelists include:  Brian Back, Sustainable Industries; Jared Blumenfeld, San Francisco Department of the Environment; Mark Kerstens, BP Solar; and Sandy Mendler, Mithun Architects + Designers + Planners.  For more information, please visit HBsustainable.com. Pre-registration is required.  Space is limited.  Admission is $35.

Sustainable Business Leadership Forum

Get the latest developments and trends in sustainable business every month at Hanson Bridgett LLP. The Sustainable Business Leadership Forum features expert speakers from various sectors of the sustainable movement to discuss private/public sector initiatives, political advocacy, and corporate social responsibility. You’ll get in-depth information about the opportunities, challenges, and profits associated with going green.

2009 Sustainable Industry Trends

Thursday, January 22
5:30–8:00 PM

Please join us to explore emerging trends and opportunities that will impact sustainable industries in the Western U.S. in 2009. Topics will include renewable energy, smart building, green jobs, climate change, new policies and the latest developments in the new economy.

Featured speakers:
Jared Blumenfeld — Director of the San Francisco Department of the Environment
Mark Kerstens — VP Marketing & Sales, BP Solar
Sandy Mendler — Principal of Mithun Architects + Designers + Planners

Moderated by:
Brian Back — Founding Editor & Publisher, Sustainable Industries

Location:
Hanson Bridgett LLP Conference Facilities
425 Market Street, 26th Floor
San Francisco, CA 94105

Pre-registration is required.
Space is limited.

Admission is $35

Register Here

These events (and their attendees) may be photographed, videotaped, or otherwise recorded by Hanson Bridgett LLP. By attending, you consent in perpetuity to any and all use of your image, voice, or other participation in the event in any such recording.

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Jared Blumenfeld
Director of the San Francisco Department of the Environment

Jared Blumenfeld is Director of the San Francisco Department of the Environment. SF Environment develops innovative, practical and wide-ranging environmental programs, fostering groundbreaking legislation, and educating the public by providing comprehensive and easily accessible information on a wide range of sustainable practices.

Some of SF Environment’s ambitious—but deliverable—environmental goals include attaining 75 percent recycling by 2010 and curbing San Francisco’s greenhouse gas emissions to 20 percent below 1990 levels by 2012.

Blumenfeld is a member of the Board of Directors of the Treasure Island Development Authority. He was the chair of U.N. World Environment Day 2005. The five-day event, which was held in San Francisco on June 1-5, 2005 was celebrated with “Green Cities: Where The Future Lives” as the overarching theme. He received his law degree from Boalt Hall School of Law at UC Berkeley, and the University of London.

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Mark Kerstens
VP Marketing & Sales, BP Solar

BP Solar is one of the world’s largest solar companies with over 30 years’ experience and installments in over 160 countries.  BP Solar designs, manufactures and markets products which use the sun’s energy to generate electricity for use in the residential, commercial and industrial sectors.  With new headquarter offices in San Francisco and 2,300 employees, the company has ambitious growth plans over the next few years, and plans to invest about $1.5 billion in alternative energy projects this year.

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Sandy Mendler
Principal, Mithun Architects + Designers + Planners

A principal with Mithun architects + designers + planners, Sandy Mendler is a nationally recognized design leader, author, and advocate for Sustainable Design to transform the construction industry. Her innovative high-performance office and mixed-use projects include the NOAA Pacific Region Headquarters in Hawaii, EPA Environmental Research Center in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, new Veterinary Medicine research laboratory for UC Davis and headquarters buildings for the World Resources Institute and National Wildlife Federation.

Sandy has been an active member of the American Institute of Architects (AIA) Committee on the Environment (COTE), and previously served as chair. She has also served on the board of directors of the US Green Building Council (USGBC), and contributed to the early development of the LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Green Building Rating System, and participated in the evolving international standard to rate green buildings around the world. Sandy has been recognized by the IIDA, Interiors & Sources magazine as an Environmental Champion, and recipient of the Collins & Aikman “Sustainable Design Leadership Award” and the Construction Specifiers Institute’s National Environmental Sensitivity Award.

Previously sustainable design principal for HOK, Sandy joined Mithun in San Francisco. Mithun is a nationally recognized sustainable design practice focusing on architecture, landscape architecture, interiors, urban design and ecology.

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Brian Back
Founding Editor & Publisher, Sustainable Industries

Brian Back serves as President and Owner of Sustainable Industries, the leading media company for business leaders, policymakers and entrepreneurs working in the new economy on the West Coast and beyond. Sustainable Industries highlights how businesses are achieving economic advantage through environmental innovation and social responsibility initiatives.

Brian is a leading expert in clean energy, green building, social innovation, and economic trends impacting business in these emerging sectors. For nearly two decades, Brian has worked in journalism and the media. His career began as a reporter for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, where he covered urban development and sprawl issues in one of the fastest-growing cities in the United States. Brian was one of the first business journalists in the United States to develop a beat in sustainability for business, while working as a reporter and columnist for The Business Journal in Portland, Oregon. His work has been featured in significant magazines, newspapers, trade journals and online media outlets. He speaks regularly at business conferences and the well-respected annual Sustainable Industries Economic Forums.

New B Corp Website

There are now 124 B Corporations representing a $910 million marketplace and 31 industries.

Visit B Corp’s new website and watch the new video explaining the founding of B Corporations and why they decided to help build a new economy.  This is Cultural Creativity.

To subscribe to B Corp’s Newsletter, email hardik@bcorporation.net.

B Corporations and the Fourth Sector

NNC recently had conversations in Paris with representatives of FourthSector.net.  That we need new and better forms of organizations is a conversation that many of us have been part of for a long time, at least since David Korten’s “When Corporations Rule the World“; I myself spent years involving corporations in rethinking true “wealth creation” at UC Berkeley in the 90’s.  The current momentum of the conversation is encouraging.  In the spirit of “The Perfect is the enemy of the Good,” I include this brief post:

The Emerging Fourth Sector

In exploring cross-sector collaborations, it’s clear that, as they say on their website, the boundaries between the public (government), private (business), and social (non-profit/non-governmental) sectors have been blurring.  This has resulted in a renewed effort to create a “fourth sector:”

“The archetypal Fourth Sector model is sometimes referred to as a For-Benefit organization, and the sector itself is also referred to as the For-Benefit Sector. There are a wide variety of other Fourth Sector models and approaches, bearing different names and emphasizing or embodying different aspects of the For-Benefit model.  For-Benefits are a new class of organization. They are driven by a social purpose, they are economically self-sustaining, and they seek to be socially, ethically, and environmentally responsible.

“Like non-profits, For-Benefits can organize in pursuit of a wide range of social missions. Like for-profits, For-Benefits can generate a broad range of beneficial products and services that improve quality of life for consumers, create jobs, and contribute to the economy. For-Benefits seek to maximize benefit to all stakeholders, and 100% of the economic “profits” they generate are invested to advance social purposes. Because of their architecture, For-Benefits can embody some of the best attributes of other organizational forms. They strive to be democratic, inclusive, open, transparent, accountable, effective, efficient, cooperative, and holistic.

“For-Benefits represent a new paradigm in organizational design. At all levels, they aim to link two concepts which are held as a false dichotomy in other models: private interest and public benefit.”

Earlier this summer NextNow attended a party celebrating the creation of a new class of corporation, the B Corporation–”B” for “Beneficial.” Jay Coen Gilbert of Social Venture Network and B-Lab, the non-profit founded to certify and promote B Corporations, spoke briefly to the crowded room, along with Jeff Mendelson of New Leaf Paper, Mike Hannigan of Give Something Back, and Scott Leonard of Indigenous Designs, 3 of the more than 20 founding Bay Area companies. Jay called the Bay Area a “hot bed” of the B Corporation movement, which is about creating and holding to exacting standards for environmental and social performance and accountability, making it harder for companies to do things like greenwash, “misleading consumers simply by putting windmills in their commercials.”

In creating the standards they leverage the good work already done by efforts like the Global Reporting Initiative and groups like the Natural Capital Institute and SVN.  The point, Jay said, is to “change the DNA” of corporations so they become accountable on these issues not just to shareholders, but to all stakeholders, in a way that persists beyond the current management:  “B Lab has created a legal framework that enables purpose-driven companies to maintain their mission as they scale, seek outside capital, or plan succession.”

Like OpenEco (see previous post about this collaboration between NN’s Natural Logic and Sun Microsystems), B-Labs provides a free online assessment tool that allows companies to get a snapshot of the current impact of their operations, as well as tools to improve their performance.  Unlike OpenEco, the assessment tool is not anonymous, and is scored–a certain score is required to be eligible for B Corporation status, and even then the status is only granted for periods of 2 years at a time.

In seven months since the program was created it has grown to over 80 certified U.S. companies representing $650 million in revenues.  However, what became clear to us in Paris is that this is a worldwide emergence.  According to Alissa Mickels of Hastings Law School and Fourth Sector, some of the international entities that currently exist include Society for Social Purpose in Belgium, Sociedad Laboral in Spain, and Social Economy Enterprise in Canada.  The RCI (Research Collaboration Initiative), a report that surveyed 108 countries covering over 96% of global GDP, with geographical representation on all five continents, lists the Unites States #18, behind the Netherlands and Switzerland in terms of countries focusing efforts to promote responsible business practices.  Clearly, we still have a lot of work to do.

Any NextNowers interested in collaborating on this topic can contact Claudia Welss cwelss@nextnow.net.