Corporate Social Responsibility with Kellie McElhaney

Amazing people sweep through Oklahoma. Last week it was Dr. Kellie McElhaney, a professor from Berkeley. Her specialty is corporate social responsibility aka "corporate citizenship." Her pitch to corporations is to make their philanthropic causes align with their core business mission. Sometimes the obvious just isn't.

Kellie is an engaging speaker who amazed and delighted MBA students with her fresh take on maximizing shareholder value. Her Whirlpool example was a real tear jerker. Sales also increased.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GeliQtSuCkM

Buy the book and you'll have a first-class understanding of CSR.

Teacha Teacha

Maybe a college instructor isn't supposed to care quite so much but I am so fond of my students. I look forward to watching them learn the language of the industry, reading their papers with dozens of typos, and seeing those light bulbs go off above their heads. Sustainability is a funny field; it ranges from moments of gentle ecological enlightenment to being horrified and sometimes even morally outraged. Sadly the semester is coming to a close which means I'm also inventing extra credit opportunities to help those borderline students who were distracted by life.

Today some my students went to their first city council meeting to watch citizenship in action. We have a new Mayor who is a 27-year-old OSU student. They saw people standing up for principles. At issue was a $25 fee assessed to Senior softball players who lived outside the city limits. Dozens of citizens gave up their evening to politely protest this discrimination; it was the principle not the money. Sustainable societies springs from citizenship.

The $25 fee generated a total of $750 additional revenues, but it was a net loser because teams disbanded taking with them thousands of dollars of team fees. Teams opted not to travel to Stillwater for the day; there is a loss of economic development. Goodwill was not increased. If you take a sustainable holistic analysis of this situation, it becomes clear the community backlash coupled with revenue loss makes this $25 fee suddenly not a viable idea. I think they can find a win-win, even now, because a dialogue has been initiated.

Greenest CEO in USA

Ray Anderson Speaks in Tulsa

I very well could be Ray Anderson's biggest fan in Oklahoma. I have a deep abiding respect for all he is and does. He is the CEO of Interface Carpet: a one billion dollar carpet company with 27 plants worldwide. He read Ecology of Commerce in 1994 and became a "reformed plunderer" who publicly states his quest is to make Interface a restorative company. Ray earned the ultimate green business PHD: Paul Hawken Degree.

As a teacher of green business I have to confess, Ray is the poster child for what I want all my students to become. You can hear his famous speeches on Google video or YouTube. The first thing you'll notice is his disarming southern drawl and then you'll hear him humbly speak of integrity, responsibility, courage, and love....all in the context of profitable manufacturing.

http://www.interfaceglobal.com/Sustainability.aspx

Lunch with a CAFO

As chance would have it, I happened to meet a representative from a confined animal feeding operation (CAFO). Seaboard Foods, an integrated producer of premium pork products, is one of the top ten pork producers and processors in the United States.

CAFOs are an interesting evolution in business. Think "Henry Ford makes bacon... lots of bacon." Factory farming is a logical extension of product manufacturing invented in the Industrial Revolution. This means it comes under the scrutiny that all mass production now requires and it also brings a host of ethical questions.

Because I strive to hybridize sustainable business practices I feel it is not only appropriate but necessary to engage the people from the CAFO industry. We may agree to disagree but surely we can have conversations and learn about each other and maybe, just maybe find some common ground for the mutual benefit of those in the present and those of future generations. Sustainability begins with a conversation and that begins by listening. We all want to be heard.

Our thoughts Balance the World on a Fulcrum

Holy Curves

Turning PointS
A dot, a basic building block
A point, a point of view
A fulcrum, for leveraging conception
A dot turning full circle, is still a dot
A point turning, pivots understanding
A fulcrum turning, tips the balance
A dot moving, engenders a line
A point moving, engenders another
dimension
A fulcrum moving endangers the world
Our world, a dot in the universe
Our world is, just a point of view
Our thought, a fulcrum on which to move
the world

- Sachin Phatak
16th December’01

There's No Place Like Sustainability. There's no place like sus.. t aaan.. abiiii l ity ...

One of the richer conversations in sustainability is a circular one around quality of life and prosperity. “What are we sustaining?” is posed.

Sustainability starts with palatable dialogue about energy efficiency, which slides into green business practices and sometimes metrics, life cycle analysis, cradle to cradle, or holistic planning. It only becomes beautiful when people realize that all these dance steps we learn lead us back to ourselves. It is there, as Dorothy told us and all of Oz, right there in the private life and the inner thought realm where the complexity of sustainability suddenly becomes exquisitely elegant and simple; it is no more or no less than about maintaining the connection to the authentic self and all those life forms and nature’s services that sustain our hearts and our homes.

Who Matters

The majesty of our accomplishments and of Nature are obvious but cast your eyes toward the bottom of this photo and rethink what matters. Could it be the people of the world? Your newborn child? Or that one special person who holds your soul?

Perhaps what matters is the smallest of gestures, intention of actions, and the way we treat each other? I suggest all the majesty is but a glorious backdrop for those who are precious. Let's not overlook that simple tiny truth in our quest for a sustainable world.