Giselle Weybrecht, author of The Sustainable MBA: The Manager’s Guide To Green Business, recommends five steps to take to get started with the implementation of sustainable business practices within an organization: assess where your firm is now; gain a thorough understanding of the regulations that affect your organization; define your strategy and approach to sustainability as well as your drivers; create realistic targets and objectives; and be prepared to monitor your activities, reevaluate your efforts and adjust your strategy to the ever-changing sustainability industry.
A look at the seven best practices in corporate social responsibility (CSR). They include: setting measurable goals, stakeholder engagement,sustainability issues mapping, sustainability management systems (SMS), lifecycle assessment,sustainability/CSR reporting, and sustainability branding.
Today I attended a great session at Sustainable Brands conference by Suzanne Shelton, President and CEO of theShelton Group. Mainstream consumers are complicated. They know just enough buzz words to make you think they know more than they do, and most don’t actually go green to save the planet. How do mainstream consumers ACTUALLY make decisions about which green products to buy?
The Sustainable Brands ’10 session “Sustainability Leadership: The Making, Marketing and Thinking Behind Cradle to Cradle Companies and Products” took a look at the importance of measures of ingredient toxicity and material recyclability in branding products as healthy and sustaining.The presenters introduced the idea of moving past “meeting regulations” and achieving the minimum requirements to efficiently and effectively using natural resources, designing systems to eliminate the concept of waste, and leadership within one’s industry for design excellence. They also explained how sustainable business practices build value for an organization including reduced risk and liability, brand differentiation, enhanced reputation and competitive advantage.
The Sustainable Brands 10 Conference, held in Monterey, CA from June 7-10, is probably the hottest ticket in town for people working with sustainability issues. Unfortunately, not all of us will be able to attend. While we cannot get you there, we can do the next best thing… Live blog Sustainable Brands 10 for you.
With the Sustainable Brands 2010 Conference quickly approaching, consumers are asking more and more the same questions: What is a sustainable brand? How are they different from the rest?
The Environmental Leader has recently released what is already one of the most relevant green marketing studies ever made. Green Marketing: What Works, What Doesn’t takes a critical look at green marketing and digs up eye-opening information such as the green marketing effects on product pricing, what media are most used in green marketing campaigns, and which of these are most effective.
You can effectively communicate your organization’s sustainable efforts, by investing on public relations, strategy social media and making your company open.
