www.deborahfleischer.com

One of my favorite newsletters arrived today from Patrick O’Neill, a unique management consultant from Canada. The theme of the newsletter is the essential functions that challenges play in the development of a leader.  He outlines 4 gifts we can receive from challenges:

* They call forward our personal powers – including our gifts, talents, character qualities, fortitude, skills, aptitudes, knowledge, resourcefulness and creativity;

* They help us develop new powers;

* They teach “right application” of these resources; and

* They expose that which requires change or strengthening in our nature or our approach.

He suggests that, “how we respond to a challenge can often tell us more about who we really are than years of contemplation.”

I feel like I am surrounded by talented, experienced colleagues and friends who are feeling discouraged and a bit beat down by the current economy. Both self-employed entrepeneurs and those who took the more traditional career path of a corporate position are being challenged by the current economy.

I personally am seeing the “gifts” play out at Green Impact as the economy and new boom of “green consultants” is pushing me to refine my niche and get more creative and skillful at marketing my services.

I was pondering this morning the fact that we only have 8 weeks left in 2009 and contemplating what my most significant goal for the rest of the year is.  Both professionally, and personally, it is easy to get pulled in so many directions.  I have never been a “niche” kind of gal, but have worked on a wonderful range of issues–land conservation, ecosystem services, program development, cross-sector dialogue, green business, stakeholder engagement and blogging.

If we all need to build our talents and skills and be more creative right now, where are the areas to put our energy? What are the steps to take to help us move forward?

I love these questions, but seem to be stuck answering them.  Do I focus more on my business the next 8 weeks?  Or do I focus less on business and more on my personal pursuits? Or, do I put the list aside and slow down? My list includes the ideas of painting everyday, trying one new activity each week, getting a cardio workout everyday, volunteering more and updating my web site.

What is on your list to accomplish before 2009 ends that can move you toward your goals?

At BSR 2009, a missing piece on the agenda was employee engagement. Yet, at the session on Internal Communications:  Making the Case for CSR’s Value, all of the speakers acknowledged the challenge of getting both employees and senior management behind sustainability.

The panel included Christopher Corpuel, Vice President, Sustainability at Hilton Hotels, Silvia Garrigo, Manager of Global Issues and Policy at Chevron and Kevin Moss, Head of Corporate Social Responsibility at BT Americas Inc. The session, moderated by Eric Olson, Senior Vice President, at BSR, was formatted to allow for deeper dialogue and discussion–much appreciated by everyone!

Getting Senior Management Support

Garrigio from Chevron focused her comments on how to communicate internally to senior management.  Strategically communicating internally is more “of an art, than a science,” according to Garrigio.

She suggested take a step back, map the key stakeholders and identify what lens is important to them–legal, regulatory, shareholder, financial or external stakeholders. Find a way to link your initiative to their key business objectives, frame it in terms of management risks and make it relevant and valuable.

A few other suggestions to consider when trying to get buy-in and support for new initiatives:

• Invest in allies and building relationships;
• Be able to say that ideas are tried and tested with internal stakeholders;
• Stress the shift in societal and stakeholder expectations.  Sustainability is not longer just nice to have;
• Get employees in the field to share their stories;
• Ask leaders to share more of their vision and challenges;
• Create a community of practice; and
• Develop an interactive web site to support efforts.

Getting Employees More Engaged at Work

Moss from BT Americas focused his comments on how to get employees engaged and suggested three key strategies to consider:

1.  Leadership to demonstrate a commitment: You need a policy and position in place, ideally supported by targets. Link the commitment to specific leaders and and get them involved.

2.  Release potential to build momentum:  Because sustainability issues are cross-functional in natural, Moss suggests empowering employees to breakout of their normal confines and give them permission to take action outside their normal boundaries.

He also recommends giving employees specific actions to take that link to a corporate initiative.  For example, after BT Americas installed a solar installation at their headquarters, they provided employees a discount with pre-vetted solar vendors to encourage them to take action at home.

And finally, he stressed, “allow the trivial things to happen.”  He used to think it was a waste to time to have staff focus on issues like eliminating paper cups and water bottles, but he now realizes that for many employees, these small actions are important because they are visible and tangible.

This is where green teams can play a key role in making the issue of sustainability come alive for employees.

John Donahoe, CEO of eBay, gave a key note right after the session, where he also stressed the importance of employee engagement.  Their organic green team has grown from 40 to over 2,000 employees, identifying over 600 ideas on how the company can be more sustainable.

3.  Harness momentum: The final, and most challenging step, is to help employees understand which material issues to pay attention to and to help them see the link between their specific contributions and the bigger picture.

Sometimes a single employee will think, “I can’t make a difference.” It is important to help them understand the implications in their day job–for example, how changing travel habits can make a big impact in a company’s carbon footprint.

Making the Case:  This is Good Business

Christopher from Hilton Hotels presented a very practical approach.  Identify measurable objectives; find the low hanging fruit; evaluate; and move forward. He suggested a variety of specific strategies, including link sustainability goals to performance evaluations and integrate it into existing communications channels:  the newsletter, on-line resources and trainings.

As for convincing skeptics, stress that customers are requesting information on environmental performance.  When possible, provide specific examples of customer requests. For example, Hilton is now seeing RFPs from large clients asking for information on their carbon footprint.

Take it out of feel good into core business. This is good business.

Help skeptics understand the context that sustainability programs can reduce costs, drive revenue and attract and retain great talent.

Other Best Practices

In the breakout session, a smaller group of us had a chance to meet with Moss to discuss best practices for employee engagement.  Some of the strategies mentioned included:

• If you have a global program, be sure it is relevant to your target audience in different locations and cultures;
• Ask employees for their ideas, then prioritize and narrow to top strategies; or, let employees vote on suggested ideas;
• Use green teams to drive employee engagement.  Funding can come from a combination of facilities, CSR and HR;
• Leverage internal communications to guide employees with resources and materials;
• Identify a key senior person and have them drive employee engagement;
• Ask people individually to get involved;
• Create a council where employees come together to share resources and ideas;
• Highlight CSR in the daily newsletter–highlight best practices, build momentum and create friendly competition;
• Create more defined strategies–for example, BT America is focused on climate change, digital inclusion and disaster relief;
• Give stores/facilities latitude to do what they want–for example, Best Buy gives stores only broad, general guidelines. Not as much consistency, but you harnesses what individuals care about;
• Build sustainability metrics into performance objectives;
• Select NGO partners to help;
• Link volunteer hours and community engagement to sustainability priorities;
• Recognize employees by making a monetary donation to employees charity of choice; and
• Engage employees in their personal lives (i.e. Pfizer It Begins With Me and Wal-Mart PSP).

Challenges

Some of the key challenges to communicating sustainability and engaging employees identified included:

• Strategic versus grassroots?:  How do you decide if it makes more sense to link employee activities to the corporate strategy or give them the flexibility to address the issues they care about at individual locations?
• Metrics: What does success look like?  How do you measure the impact and provide feedback on end results?
• Middle Management and Field Offices: How to get them engaged?
• Volunteer or paid time:  Do employees impelment activities on their own time or is it part of their job?
• Skeptics:  How do you respond to skeptics?

***

Deborah Fleischer is founder and president of Green Impact, a strategic environmental consulting practice that helps companies strengthen their relationships with stakeholders, develop profitable green initiatives and communicate their successes and challenges. She is a LEED AP with a Master in Environmental Studies from Yale University and over 20-years of direct experience working on sustainability-related challenges in both the public and private sectors. She brings deep expertise in sustainability strategy, stakeholder engagement, program development and written communications.

You can follow her occasional tweet @GreenImpact.

Yesterday I headed to the Hyatt in San Francisco for BSR’s conference:  Reset Economy. Reset World:  Delivering Business Value by Thinking Big and Embracing Long-Term Sustainability Trends.

BSR works with a global network of more than 250 member companies to develop sustainable business strategies and solutions through consulting, research and cross-sector collaboration. Upon entering, the sea of black suits, high heels and ties reminded me I was no longer hanging out with activists and social change professionals.

Overall, the attendees I met were sustainability professionals at the conference to network (some were skipping the sessions all together), while others were hungry to learn about best practices and new sustainability tools.

See my full post on Triple Pundit.

By Deborah Fleischer, Green Impact

The 20th Bioneers, a three day conference celebrating breakthrough sustainability solutions, kicked off on Friday in Marin. The agenda is chock full of speakers on a wide range of topics, from the arts, indigenous knowledge and restoring our ecosystems to youth and women’s leadership.

I was excited to hear Michael Pollan speak, a leading critic of our industrial food system and author of The Omnivore’s Dilemma and The Botany of Desire (you can listen to his talk here). For those of you who aren’t attending, you can catch some of the keynotes via live webcast.

Strolled On Stage With a Burger

He strolled onto the stage to present a keynote on the growing national movement to redesign the food system with a McDonalds takeout bag in his hands and proceeded to unpack a double quarter-pounder with cheese.

The gist of his message:  the food system is broken and we can’t address the important national issues of health care, climate change and energy independence without address the food system, which contributes upto 33 percent of our carbon footprint.

He illustrated his point by asking the audience to guess,

How much oil are we eating?

Next to the burger, he began to pour oil from a bottle into small glasses.  He filled the first glass, then the second, then the third and needed a fourth to hold the 26 ounces of oil it takes to make a conventional burger. “A disgusting way to eat,” he commented as he licked his oil laden fingers. As the audience moaned, he confessed it was actually chocolate syrup!

For each hamburger made, thirteen pounds of carbon are emitted into the atmosphere, the equivalent of driving 13 miles, in part from the fertilizers needed to grow the corn and soy that farm raised cows eat and the pesticides used on these crops.

And while of course we are not directly eating this oil, as a nation we are eating way too much junk food. According to Pollan, $500 billion of our annual health costs are linked to diet.

Articulating a Framework

He spent the remainder of his time articulating an overarching framework for weaning the American food system off of fossil fuels.  While it is difficult to do his eloquent talk justice in a few bullet points, here are a few key points of the framework:

• Farms:  We need to start providing farmers incentives to diversify their crops and we need more farmers.
• Marketplace: There is a need to create more local foodsheds and rebuild distribution.
• Edible Education: We need to teach kids to grow food, cook food  and take time for lunch in schools.

Then They Fight You

In his opening remarks he stressed we have come a long way in the past few years, but still have a long way to go.  And he concluded by reminding the audience not to underestimate the level of pushback we are going to see from industry. He called up Gandhi’s wisdom on the steps of a revolution,

First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win. –Gandhi

For some details on how the industry is fighting back, see BC Upham’s post from last week.

To Learn More

PBS just launched a beautiful web site on the Botany of Desire with lots of great information and resources. Mark your calendar for the October 28th, 8pm to watch their 2-hour documentary.

And for readers interested in how to bring some of these concepts alive in food service contracts, check out The Low Carbon Diet, a program offered by Bon Appétit Management Company.  According to Bon Appétit, “The typical American diet consisting of a high percentage of red meat may contribute more to global warming than driving a typical sedan.”

***

Deborah Fleischer is founder and president of Green Impact, a strategic environmental consulting practice that helps companies strengthen their relationships with stakeholders, develop profitable green initiatives and communicate their successes and challenges. She is a LEED AP with a Master in Environmental Studies from Yale University and over 20-years of direct experience working on sustainability-related challenges in both the public and private sectors. She brings deep expertise in sustainability strategy, stakeholder engagement, program development and written communications.

You can follow her occasional tweet @GreenImpact or contact her directly at Deborah@greenimpact.com.

By Deborah Fleischer, Green Impact

Ever since I studied adaptive leadership with Ronald Heifetz at Harvard, I have been interested in the intersection between organizational change, systems theory and sustainability issues.  Many sustainability professionals seem to lack an understanding of what it takes to create enduring, lasting change within an organization or system. As illustrated with the recent departure of Van Jones from the White House, a change agent needs a strategic understanding of how to navigate the dangers of leading change without getting scapegoated or sidelined.

I recently learned that Sustainable Silicon Valley (SSV) is offering a two-day Sustainability Change Agent Training with Alan AtKisson, November 16th and 17th. I’m excited that I will have the chance to attend (I will be attending to cover the event for Triple Pundit).

I realize many of us have “workshop-itis” these days after attending a few too many workshops and conferences.  But I feel this topic has not been well covered at past green trainings. And Sustainable Silicon Valley is offering Triple Pundit readers a discount of $100 off the registration fee (applies only to SSV partner and non-partner rates). Go to the registration page and use the code “triplepundit” when registering.

AtKisson and The ISIS Agreement

AtKisson is a strategic consultant and author of the recent book, The ISIS Agreement:  How Sustainability Can Improve Organizational Performance and Transform the World. I’m still working my way through the book, which is not a quick read. It is chocked full of information on global trends, practical guidance, systems-based analysis, case studies and profiles of successful “change agents.”

Hunter Lovins, president and founder of the Natural Capitalism Solutions says of the book, “AtKisson’s Accelerator tools and ISIS Method are powerful–I’ve seen them in action.  This book is the essential guide, while also being an inspiring and informative read for just about anybody.”

As a consultant, AtKisson works with large companies, business associations, governmental initiatives, cities, foundations and global NGOs, helping them to find new and accelerated strategic pathways forward. His clients have included Nike, Toyota and Levi Strauss.

What the Workshop Covers

The course, based on his new book, has two goals:  to deepen your understanding of sustainability and provide you with the tools necessary to facilitate real change. The workshop will teach participants a suite of tools aimed at breaking sustainability down into its essential elements in order to identify levers for effecting change.

AtKisson offers, “Not only will you learn the ISIS Method and get hands-on experience with the ISIS Accelerator tools — I am quite sure you will come away energized and inspired. Do you know what the most frequent complaint is about our workshops? Participants complain, I wish it were one day longer!”

At the end of the two days, participants will have a deeper understanding of sustainability indicators and assessment strategies, be introduced to systems thinking and change agent skills and have a better  ability to lead and facilitate change.

Who Should Attend

This training is appropriate for anyone who wants to accelerate the adoption of sustainability in their company, organization or community. Corporate leaders, sustainability officers, green team leaders, governmental agencies, sustainability professionals, educators and elected leaders are the ideal target audience. To date, a diverse group has registered from both the public and private sectors.  Representatives from NASA, Yahoo!, Intel and the City of Palo Alto will be attending.

Testimonials From Past Workshops

Julie Weiss, an environmental specialist from the City of Palo Alto, recently attended one of AtKisson’s trainings in Europe and enjoyed the combination of technical skills, organizational change theory and personal reflection time. She believes the tools will be very useful when she is wearing her sustainability hat. “I really loved the class–it was very positive, rejuvenating and inspiring.”

Registration Details

I mentioned this earlier, but it is worth repeating again here.  Sustainable Silicon Valley is offering Triple Pundit readers a discount of $100 off the registration fee (applies only to SSV partner and non-partner rates). Go to the registration page and use the code “triplepundit” when registering.

***

Deborah Fleischer is founder and president of Green Impact, a strategic environmental consulting practice that helps companies strengthen their relationships with stakeholders, develop profitable green initiatives and communicate their successes and challenges. She is a LEED AP with a Master in Environmental Studies from Yale University and over 20-years of direct experience working on sustainability-related challenges in both the public and private sectors. She brings deep expertise in sustainability strategy, stakeholder engagement, program development and written communications.

You can follow her occasional tweet @GreenImpact or contact her directly at Deborah@greenimpact.com.

By Deborah Fleischer, Green Impact

When you think of installing a solar system on your home, what is the first thought that comes to mind?  It will cost too much?  It will be complicated to install?  Or perhaps, you like the idea, but think solar panels are ugly?

A new start-up Armageddon Energy is working to remove these barriers and bring to market a “plug and play,” modular solar system that is visually appealing, smaller and cheaper than a standard home system and will possibly do for the home solar industry what Ikea did for home furnishings.

The business model?  Make it easy, accessible and affordable to sell small home solar system to the masses in a “big box” retail setting.

One of the most promising start-ups to watch

While the name, which alludes to the final battle between the forces of good and evil, has been a bit more controversial then CEO Mark Goldman expected, the company was named one of the five most promising start-ups to watch at the Clean Tech Open by Fast Company.

Fast Company reports, “Armageddon’s solar panels are significantly lighter than traditional 40-pound silicon-panels, mainly because the solar cells are coated in Teflon instead of glass. At $6 per watt, the

panels produce power cheaply, too–that’s $1 per watt less than conventional systems.”

Removing the pain

In a greentech solar post, the Armageddon Energy system is described as “a solar system-in-a-box” that removes a lot of the “pain and expense from installing solar systems.”

They have designed a framing system and a lightweight solar panel that easily can go straight from a few cardboard boxes to your roof. Here is a short video clip illustrating how easy it is to install.

Siting and permitting issues

Another hurdle to get through with solar is siting and permitting issues.  Armageddon is working to tackle these challenges by developing a simple solar shade analysis tool to help home owners identify where to locate the system. They also have plans for a simple on-line training program to train installers how to permit and install the systems. Goldman’s hope is that the flat, streamlined design and simple install process will facilitate a simplified permit process.

When can you buy yours?

The initial prototype system was recently sold to a Fortune 100 company and they expect to have retail product on the market in June, 2010. The initial systems are expected to run $6,000 after rebates for a 1 kilowatt (kW) system, which can produce 1/5 of the average home’s energy. The system, when bundled with a consumer dashboard, has the potential to reduce home energy use by 20 to 25%. Eventually,  they hope to have their product on the shelves of Ikea and Best Buy.

I initially thought the company name related to the idea that if chaos hits and the power systems go down, those with solar systems will have enough back-up juice to keep the lights on.  However, the system is more complicated then that. According to Goldman, if the grid goes down, all the systems go down unless you disconnect the home system from the grid.

When I asked why a smaller system is better than a larger one (the average home system is 5 kW), Goldman explained it relates to peak shaving and creating a highly distributed system that is more stable and useful for utilities. And a smaller system and lower entry price can translate into a total system with more megawatts.

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Deborah Fleischer, founder and president of Green Impact, a strategic environmental consulting practice that helps companies identify key environmental issues, strengthen their relationships with stakeholders, develop profitable green initiatives and communicate their successes and challenges.

Since majoring in environmental studies in 1983, Deborah’s career has focused on environmental issues in both the public and private sectors. She is an expert in sustainability strategy, stakeholder engagement, program development and written communications. You can follow her occasional tweet @GreenImpact.

A centerpiece of the stimulus package is an effort to put 3 and 4 million people back to work over the next two years.

The site Recovery.gov includes a map of the U.S. with the estimated jobs expected under the Recovery Act superimposed over each state. California leads with 396,000 anticipated jobs, while North Dakota and Vermont expect the least job growth with 8,000 each.

I’v been curious to better understand who is leading the charge on training the workforce for the wave of new green jobs we are expecting.  Are companies taking the lead?  Federal agencies or state governments?  It seems to be a bit of a chicken and egg scenario.  If you deploy training programs without partnering with business, you will have a trained workforce, but no jobs.  And if you create the jobs, but neglect workforce development, critical shortage of specialists in growing professions could occur.

According to the National Renewable Energy Lab, the major barriers to a more rapid adoption of renewable energy and energy efficiency in America are insufficient skills and training.

Sources of funding for green jobs training

According to Green for All one of the leading non profits working to promote green jobs and build the green economy, the Recovery Act invests nearly $4 billion in training and employment services and a good portion of that — $500 million — will go specifically to “research, labor exchange and job training projects to prepare workers for careers in energy efficiency and
renewable energy industries.”

Green for All reports that, “The challenge of finding qualified workers is particularly pronounced in the energy-efficiency and renewable-energy industries, as they are new fields requiring new skills. That is why the Recovery Act specifically targets these industries with the $500 million Energy Efficiency and Renewable Worker Training (EERWT) Program. The available funds can be used for research, labor exchange, and job training projects that get workers ready for entering “green collar” industries.”

Chapter 7 of the Green Guide to the 2009 Stimulus Package highlights a few of the green jobs training programs funded by the stimulus package:

• AmeriCorps State and National Recovery Act Assistance–$201 million:  Current AmeriCorps grantees are eligible for the additional funding. Among the jobs that AmeriCorps personnel may do are job training and counseling activities and constructing and rehabilitation of housing and other buildings.
• Department of Labor Employment and Family Services Job Corps Centers–$250 million: Up to 15% of these funds can be allocated to training programs for careers in renewable energy, energy efficiency and environmental protection.
• Housing and Urban Development Tribal Governments–$40 million: This money is set aside to train tribal members in skills associated with the building trades such as pipefitting and plumbing, as well as training in environmental protection and renewable energy.
• Workforce Investment Act (WIA)–$3.95 billion: Of the $3.95 billion, $2.95 billion is provided for formula grants to the States for training and employment services with no specific “green” requirements. Of the remaining $1 billion, $750 million has been set aside for a program of competitive grants for worker training and placement in high growth and emerging industry sectors such as green jobs and health care.

California and Massachusetts take the lead

Massachusetts just awarded $1 million new green job training grants to develop vocational programs in the cleantech sector through the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center. The grant winners will work with at least two clean energy companies each in developing curriculum and instruction materials. While specific to each institution, programs will train high school, college, low-income individuals, workers in the trade industries and clean energy employers to perform tasks in energy efficiency retrofitting, solar photovoltaic and heating system installation, wind energy, green building and clean energy policy fields.

California’s Green Corps is investing at least $10 million in federal economic stimulus funding from the U.S. Department of Labor and an additional $10 million from public-private partnerships to develop a 20-month pilot program reaching at least 1,000 of California’s at-risk young adults. All programs will be public-private partnerships that include green job training, a stipend, an educational requirement and community service.

Green for All’s New Capital Access Program

Green For All’s new Capital Access Program (CAP) focuses on creating, sustaining and scaling green jobs in the U.S, with an emphasis on building the capacity of green businesses and non-profits. Their new report, A Business Guide to the Recovery, is a resource to help businesses identify opportunities to leverage Recovery Act investments to bring the green economy to scale.

They will be hosting a webinar on September 9, 2009 at 4pm EDT to highlight emerging opportunities to leverage stimulus dollars and to offer examples of best practices from across the country.

According to the new report, “ARRA doesn’t direct any funds specifically to federal apprenticeship programs. Still, states are trying to find ways to create economic incentives for employers to provide more on-the-job training.”

I agree with the take home message from the new Green for All report–business must take a leadership role and partner with non profits to pursue innovative strategies to lift America out of this recession.

Perhaps clean tech investors should encourage start-ups to integrate workforce development partnerships into their business plans, so when businesses are ready to rapidly scale up, skilled workers are ready to go.

***

Deborah Fleischer, founder and president of Green Impact, a strategic environmental consulting practice that helps companies identify key environmental issues, strengthen their relationships with stakeholders, develop profitable green initiatives and communicate their successes and challenges.

Since majoring in environmental studies in 1983, Deborah’s career has focused on environmental issues in both the public and private sectors. She is an expert in sustainability strategy, stakeholder engagement, program development and written communications. You can follow her occasional tweet @GreenImpact.

Employee engagement is a growing strategy for driving performance and building competitive advantage for companies with a commitment to sustainability.

“The engaged workforce will find more opportunities to get lean and identify more opportunities to innovate and create products and services that lower customers’ environmental impacts. All of this work will improve the top and bottom lines,” comments sustainable business expert Andrew Winston, in his recent book Green Recovery.

Based on his book, and some of the other recent literature available, I offer the following three tips for engaging employees in sustainability:

• Look at the big picture and identify your greatest impacts across the value chain;
• Involve staff in sustainability on multiple levels, both at work and at home; and
• Integrate sustainability into operations and everyday decisions on products throughout their life cycle.

Catalyzing your employees to integrate sustainability into both their lives and work decisions can be a low-cost strategy for saving money, driving innovation and keeping employees happy.

Three tips for getting started

1.  Look at the big picture and identify your company’s greatest impacts

Review your key business operations to understand the key environmental issues for your business and the opportunities and risks presented by these issues. Think broadly about what sustainability means to your business–look beyond your four walls and up and down your full value chain.

If possible, quantify your impacts and prioritize the areas where your impacts are the greatest. And while doing a complete life cycle assessment (LCA) is beyond the scope of many companies, a back-of-the-envelope assessment can highlight the key areas to focus on.

In Green Recovery, Winston suggests that a key strategy for getting the most value out of green thinking is to “give employees a base knowledge on environmental issues and their implications for the business.” He highlights the need to make sure employees understand that climate change is both a threat and an opportunity.

2.  Involve staff on multiple levels, both at work and at home

Hewlett Packard provides a great case study for employee engagement. They engage employees on multiple levels, ranging from providing them energy kits to reduce their personal carbon footprint at home to offering incentives for biking to work to encouraging them to innovate more and find ways to embed sustainability into product design, the supply chain and the sales process.

Green teams are a growing tool for more informal employee engagement to build awareness, educate employees on important issues, provide opportunities for cross-functional brainstorming and implement quick wins both at work and at home. This approach focuses more on engaging employees in their personal lives and around the office.

Tim Mohin’s post on GreenBiz.com earlier in the year has some resources for getting started.

One of the employee engagement strategies gaining traction is low carbon food service. Companies such as eBay, SAP Labs and Yahoo! are all working with Bon Appétit Management Company to lower the carbon footprint of their food and bring more sustainable food choices to their employees. Environmental Defense created a short video that frames the issue from the corporate perspective. I recently had the chance to eat at one of Bon Appetit’s cafeterias and their commitment to local, fresh, organic and healthy food is impressive (see recent 3P post by Bon Appetit for more details on their sustainable agriculture policies).

Stay tuned for more–I am currently working on a white paper for AltaTerra Research that will go into more depth on the best practices for engaging green teams.

3.  Integrate sustainability into operations and everyday decisions on products throughout their life cycle

In addition to more informal programs, some leading companies are taking employee engagement to the next level by integrating sustainability into operations and everyday decisions on products throughout their life cycle, from product development to manufacturing to marketing to product use and ultimately end-of-life.

Scott Johnson, Managing Partner at FairRidge Group, comments, “We have typically used two approaches to help jump start employee engagement efforts at our clients, such as Red Bull North America.” In addition to using informal “Green Teams” efforts to build awareness and engage employees in a cross-functional setting, FairRidge uses a more formal “Continuous Improvement” process that “focuses on the systematic review of departmental activities, working with the managers and employees to understand the key activities, inputs/outputs, key environmental issues and opportunities for improvement.”

The next level of employee engagement will begin to think about such issues as:

• Securing a commitment to action from senior management;
• Discovering quick-win solutions that reduce energy use and waste;
• Creating a culture that supports innovation and identifies products and services with a smaller footprint;
• Web 2.0 tools to promote communication and learning;
• Engaging informational seminars for employees;
• Considering packaging and end-of-life issues; and
• Linking performance evaluations to sustainability metrics.

For additional case studies and information, see The Engaged Organization, a recent report from National Environmental Education Foundation.

And while Deloitte’s report Crossing the Green Divide is a a year old, it has some strategy ideas for channeling your team’s passion for greening into actions for your bottom line.

Other Green Team resources include:

How Intel Engages Employees in Sustainability

Intel Leading the Way in Employee Engagement

Five Tips for Getting Employees Involved in CSR

***

Deborah Fleischer, founder and president of Green Impact, a strategic environmental consulting practice that helps companies identify key environmental issues, strengthen their relationships with stakeholders, develop profitable green initiatives and communicate their successes and challenges.

Since majoring in environmental studies in 1983, Deborah’s career has focused on environmental issues in both the public and private sectors. She is an expert in sustainability strategy, stakeholder engagement, program development and written communications. You can follow her occasional tweet @GreenImpact.

By Deborah Fleischer, Green Impact

Planet Metrics is a relatively new start-up with a solution to help corporations model and analyze the life cycle of carbon emissions and energy use throughout their entire supply chain, from cradle to grave. Fast Company covered the start-up  in June and called their Rapid Carbon Modeling “a potentially powerful tool.”

What makes Planet Metrics stand out from the crowd of carbon management tools? For one thing, they secured $2.3 million in Series A funding from angel investors and Draper Fisher Jurvetson about nine months ago. They also are working with several large clients, including Method, an environmentally-friendly cleaning product company, a large Canadian retailer and an automobile manufacturer.

The pricing of the software is not public. There is an upfront fee in addition to an annual subscription fee for continued access to the software. They are targeting larger retail, manufacturing and consumer packaged goods companies with complex supply chains, committed to getting started on addressing Scope 3, indirect emissions.

Identify risks and opportunities

If oil reaches $150 a barrel and carbon costs $30/ton, Planet Metrics’ software can help companies understand the risks associated with the carbon and energy embedded in their supply chain. It is also a great tool for  identifying the greatest opportunities for reducing embodied carbon and energy from a product’s complete supply chain.

On August 27th, Planet Metrics released the next version of their Rapid Carbon Modeling software. The new release dramatically expands the what-if scenario capabilities available to their customers. Users are now able to create and evaluate any substitution scenario imaginable, including change specific amounts and weights of materials within selected parts of a product or across all parts of selected products and change specific materials provided by selected suppliers.

“We are helping companies design smarter, more innovative products that save money, reduce risk and have fewer environmental impacts,” explained Jorgen Vos, Director of Product Management.

Get smarter: Make better decisions

“Build a deeper understanding of your environmental impacts and costs up and down the chain, and you’ll be able to focus cost-cutting and innovation efforts much better,” proclaims Sustainability expert Andrew Winston, in his new book Green Recovery. In the chapter titled, “Get Smart,” he talks about how a large Canadian retailer used product-level information generated by Planet Metrics to identify $127 million of carbon price risk in their products.

Armed with this information, the software also allows companies to model different scenarios, such as changes in raw materials, packaging, suppliers or the distribution system, to determine which changes will have the biggest impact.

Winston concludes, “What managers can do with this environmental data represents a totally new way of running the business. This is the future of strategy.”

Method

The software has given Method better insight into the carbon intensity of their products and packaging. “This has meant we’ve been best able to understand exactly where the key drivers lie in product carbon footprint and can incorporate this insight into our product design process,” commented Drummond Lawson, an environmental strategist at Method.

“They provide x-ray vision for embedded energy in product supply chains and achieve this in an accessible, economically viable fashion,” continued Lawson.

“Planet Metrics helped us map precisely what carbon emissions are associated with the production of the different types of plastic, the process of making them into the packaging material, and their contributions to the process of fitting the whole product together. It allows us to focus most specifically on where we can reduce the carbon footprint of our product line, which is one of the primary environmental objectives of our company,” said Lawson.

Don’t forget the bigger picture

Back in June TreeHugger reviewed Planet Metrics and had some concerns that sustainable sourcing is more than just a smaller carbon footprint. They commented, “While this software is incredibly useful, and can be utilized with ease by companies, it isn’t necessarily the only thing companies need to make the best sourcing decisions.

Planet Metrics is a big step in the right direction. Perhaps a future version can integrate other key social and environmental issues into the equation.

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Deborah Fleischer, founder and president of Green Impact, a strategic environmental consulting practice that helps companies identify key environmental issues, strengthen their relationships with stakeholders, develop profitable green initiatives and communicate their successes and challenges.

Since majoring in environmental studies in 1983, Deborah’s career has focused on environmental issues in both the public and private sectors. She is an expert in sustainability strategy, stakeholder engagement, program development and written communications. You can follow her occasional tweet @GreenImpact.