Interconnected World

Trusting the Crowd

One of the reasons that I tend to gravitate toward "influence roles" such as this one is that it exposes me to so many other disciplines and opportunities to learn.  Some of these come in specific functional areas. Much of the education, though, comes more in the realm of skills and techniques that are broadly applicable to almost any job.

Take the question about whether to take the plunge and hand over control to one's audience. It turns out that this is a very scary thing to do, and many people don't do it well because they're not really willing to let go the reins.

I had two recent experiences, though - one as an audience member and one as the "let-goer" - that have convinced me it is a tremendously powerful technique to employ.

ConVERGEnce of Big Data and Sustainability

Disclaimer: I am not a big data specialist. Not even close. So please do not use this blog as a source for understanding big data or big data analytics.

What I am, though, is a big data aficionada. And you can use this blog as a source for understanding how pumped anyone can get about big data!

What's Out of Scope (3)?

[Warning: possible political incorrectness ahead]

We believe in the importance of considering Scope 3 emissions.*

EMC was a sponsor of the WRI/WBCSD Scope 3 work. We have been reporting on emissions from business travel for six years, we have been collecting and examining emissions data from tier 1 suppliers for three years, we have been calculating emissions from the electricity to run our products for two years (and estimate it to be on the order of 8x our operational emissions including losses from power and cooling). We even made a conscious decision to *increase* our Scope 2 emissions from electricity to power a hybrid cooling system for our environmental chambers because of the much bigger reduction in the Scope 3 emissions from the production of LN2. It doesn't help our metrics, but it's the right thing to do.

We believe in the importance of considering Scope 3 emissions.

To a point.

From the Ground at Rio+2.0

[written morning of 2/3] It's only the morning of the first full day of Rio+2.0 at Stanford U, but already it's been worth it ... for ideas, information, new contacts, and especially inspiration.

My first encounter with other attendees was awaiting the shuttle to the Stanford campus. The other two women were from the USDA and from an international NGO, kicking off the sub theme of partnership between government, civil society and private industry right from the start. My dinner discussion on Big Data's role in sustainable development (topics included analyses of groundwater as well as water acquisition in India, climate change and adaptation, healthcare, pandemic prediction, challenges from acquisition of data, politics, and cultural barriers) added a good dose of academia to the mix.

Engaging Mainstream Investors

One of the questions I get asked by virtually every interviewer is, "Do the mainstream investors really care about sustainability?" Answer: "Nope".

Measures of Sustainability

This is another "burr report" - that is, discussion of something that's stuck in my head but hasn't yet blossomed into a plan. The planter was the book "Mismeasuring our Lives: Why GDP Doesn't Add Up". It is the non-technical portion of a report by an international commission to better align metrics of well-being to actual quality of life, with a forward by Nicolas Sarkozy and a quite thorough summary by Jospeh Stiglitz, Amartya Sen, and Jen-Paul Fitoussi.

There is an amazing amount of thought-provoking content in this slim volume, along with some beautifully concise articulations of what we've all been thinking ("One of the reasons that most people may perceive themselves as being worse off even though average GDP is increasing is because they are indeed worse off." Or "We have wound up mistaking our representations of wealth for the wealth itself.")  But - back to the relevance to my job…

Contextual Stakeholder Engagement

This past Thursday, I was privileged to attend the Investor Summit on Climate Risk and Energy Solutions put on by Ceres at the U.N. It was well worth the trip and even the wind-blown soaking we got waiting to gain entry. (No, my job is not always glamorous. See "From the (cold, cold) ground in Copenhagen").

What made it a unique experience for me was that it was the chance to hear the investment community talking amongst themselves.  That has really planted a germ of a thought that I need to noodle on for awhile (if I may mix metaphors).

Role Models

This past October, I had the opportunity to give a 15-minute presentation at the Women In Technology International (WITI) conference in San Jose.  In 2010, I'd spoken about the role of information technology in sustainability, and this year, they asked me to speak about the role of women in sustainability. (Doesn't leave much for next year - "internationalism in sustainability" perhaps?. But anyway…) I illustrated my talk about why so many women have gravitated to sustainability by citing just a few of the legions of role models that came to mind.

Burr Reports

When Chuck - mentor and role model to bloggers throughout EMC and beyond - first suggested I consider blogging about my journey in Corporate Sustainability, we discussed potential topics. One of his many pieces of useful advice was to avoid too many "book reports". After all, they are impersonal, often boring, and readily available in quantity from Amazon.

To date, I've managed to follow his advice. But it's been a struggle, because I read a fair amount and often what is foremost on my mind is a thought, question, or revelation that was planted by my latest read.  Or not "planted" so much as "stuck" - something that has adhered to my thoughts like one of those little burrs that sticks to your socks when you wander through a field.

The Sustainability-Innovation Nexus

I so wanted the plural of "nexus" to be "nexes". But it turns out it's either "nexuses", which is awkward, or "nexus", which is ambiguous. I can't bring myself to use the former, so let me disambiguate the latter - I want to talk about more than one nexus between Sustainability and Innovation.