Interconnected World

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.

The Evolution of the My Job

It used to be whenever a group of sustainability professionals got together, we'd debate for a few minutes about whether our job was to work ourselves out of a job. Now, it's a question I get asked whenever I'm interviewed about my role.  And I admit, my view has changed in the last 3+ years.

For a short while, I thought that's exactly what I was supposed to do. After all, my mission is to embed principles of sustainability into our strategy, our operations, and our culture. That would imply that at some point I'll be "done".

But I know better now. If "sustainability" is about deliberate decision-making to shape our future, then the only thing that would end the job would be to stop having a future. And let's not go there…

Signs of Change - in the Eyes of Another

The risk of looking for positive signs of change is that you might see them where they don’t exist. That's why I was tickled pink at this episode a few weeks ago.

I'd been invited to have dinner with a local chapter of NetImpact. I almost always accept these invitations when my schedule permits because I pick up great ideas, I learn more about what I think and what I know by being challenged by bright, passionate people, and I make loads of new friends.

Signs of Change Crossing the Pond

One of the lessons I'm learning about driving sustainability strategy is that everything takes longer than I hoped, or expected, or wanted - establishing baselines and targets, developing and (especially) getting buy-in to new principles and policies, harmonizing practices across multiple divisions. But one of the things I've promised myself (and my readers) is that I'd take the time to recognize and acknowledge signs that sustainability is, in fact, infiltrating into the way we work at EMC.

Last month, I visited our Center of Excellence in Cork, Ireland, and saw an amazing example of just what we trying to do.

Simply a Matter of Right & Wrong

One theme that  recurred frequently among the children's drawings in our EcoKids contest was that of the dichotomy: before/after, good/bad, right/wrong, healthy/sick, green/gray, now/then, do/don't, clean/dirty, yes/no etc.

None was more wrenching - or impressively rendered - as that from one of our winners. Nine-year-old Grace from Shanghai showed us an earth on which children are praying to the sky for water, while an alien with a magic "water production unit" shows us images of a restored earth in the passing meteors.

 

Here were some of the others, impressively global in origin and thinking.