Climate School with Al Gore, part 1

What a summer it’s been in New England! Sunny, blue skies, occasional excessive heat wave usually followed by an excessive downpour, but overall lovely. I think summer is one of the main reasons people live in New England. They have historically been fairly dry. That’s why when I was growing up our homes never had air conditioning. But that’s changing. It’s getting increasingly humid and I learned a lot more about why a few weeks ago from Al Gore.

As a guest of The Climate Reality Project, founded by Gore, I had the privilege to attend the conference both as a participant and a presenter. Joined on stage by my good friend Anne Kelly from Ceres and Stephanie Berger from Bell Canada, we discussed the critical role of the private sector in driving systemic change and, more importantly, how to go about gaining that support economy-wide. We also highlighted the Ceres Climate Declaration, which continues to gain momentum and demonstrate the recognition that addressing climate change is smart business.

While that was a treat, the real gift was being able to participate in the whole event while being taken on a deep-dive into the realities of climate change by Al Gore. It was such a rich few days you’ll be seeing a few more posts from me on various aspects of the conference. But now back to the increasing humidity.

The cause is water vapor. We all learned about water vapor in science class (a big part of the ‘water cycle’), but it doesn’t come up in conversation. And while it’s a Greenhouse Gas in its own right, it tends not to make the hit parade. As the atmosphere warms, more water is evaporated which in turn traps more heat. With each 1°c in temperature, the atmosphere can hold 7% more water vapor. In the last 30-40 years, our atmosphere has already increased its humidity by 4%. Aside from the uncomfortableness (and bad hair days) that it brings, it also means there’s more water pulled into storms resulting in excessive rain and snow and, in some cases, floods.

Clearly, it’s a ‘cycle’ we need to break.

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What Makes You Green? Sharing Ideas at ‘Green Gadget’ Day

I’ve been meaning to get around and publish a post about this for awhile.  The Green Team at the CA corporate headquarters in Long Island has been up and running for a close to a year,  and are continuing to push the envelope with new and creative ideas and interesting programs.  These guys are great.  In a conversation with the team captains Loni Frazita and Brett Prochazka we discussed a recent initiative they ran that was designed to get employees involved in sharing ideas about a green lifestyle that I wanted to let you know about.
“Green Gadget Day was a one day program in which employees were encouraged to bring in items that they use in their daily lives that allow them to live a more sustainable lifestyle”, Loni explained.  “We set up an area in the main lobby where employees could share their green gadgets with each other, meet with some local green companies and register to win prizes.”

In order to raise awareness for the event, the team sent a number of internal emails, posted internal details on “Chatter”, the SalesForce.com social network application and posted details via digital signage.  There seemed to be some good buzz around the office and on the day of the event great ideas and gadgets started rolling in.  A few of the highlights included:

●    One team member brought in his car that he has retrofitted to run on biodiesel from recycled cooking oil
●    An employee that is an avid hiker brought in a kinetic energy generator that captures energy from his motion while hiking that can be used to charge cell phones and gadgets
●    One team member brought in a paper thin solar energy gadget charger that can be unfolded and used to charge cell phones
●    One employee brought in sponges.  It may not sound very green initially, but she color codes them in order to ensure they are used for only one task at a time - Yellow for dishes, red for counters, blue for general cleaning, etc..  She keeps them clean by sterilizing them in her dishwasher, allowing her to extend the life of the sponges and eliminate the need for almost all paper towels
●    Employees were encouraged to visit the ‘idea table’ at which team members offered suggestions for sustainability initiatives they feel the company should pursue

In addition, the employees had the opportunity to interact with a number of vendors that exhibited at the event and gave presentations.  These included a residential solar company, a ride share company, and our avid hiker even convinced the hiking products company to present.  All of these groups were very pleased with the turnout and the interactions with the employees throughout the day.  Finally, Brett (the Senior Principal of Facility Services at CA) gave a presentation on sustainability updates underway and completed in the main facility so employees could get a better sense of the progress already being made.

And these guys are nowhere near done.  Coming soon, a ‘Green Garage Sale’ in which the team will be encouraged to bring in unwanted or unnecessary items in order to ensure they are used and not just thrown away.  As Brett mentioned, “One man’s trash is another man’s treasure.”  All employees will be encouraged to buy or bid on the gifts with proceeds going to charity.  Reduce, Reuse, Recycle and ReGift!  Sounds like a blog post coming up on that one. 

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Ceres 2013 - The Business of Sustainability

As a leading event focused on the intersection between business and sustainability, the Ceres

conference is always an compelling event, and this year was no exception.  When the event wrapped up in San Francisco, however, I left with mixed feelings.  On the one hand, there were some truly anxiety producing insights into the state of global warming and the challenges it will produce for businesses and society, delivered by Bill McKibben, Carl Pope and others.  On the

other hand, it was announced that General Motors, Autodesk, Eastern Bank and other leading companies have signed the Climate Declaration to encourage Congress to enact sensible, meaningful legislation to lay the groundwork for a more robust, energy efficient, lower carbon future.  In addition there were some terrific sessions and workshops and announcements on commitments from leading businesses that had me leaving feeling optimistic (what can I say,

I’m a glass half full type of gal).  Here are some of the highlights.

Renewable Energy Goals and Corporations

In a fascinating kickoff discussion, including participants from Ceres, Starbucks, GM, the National Resource Defense Council and SustainabilityEye (representing the investment community), the state of the renewable energy market was discussed.  Ceres started by laying out a goal that businesses should aim for sourcing 20% of their energy from renewable sources.  Starbucks’ Jim Hannah quickly upped the ante by announcing that Starbucks has set a target of 100% renewables globally, up from their already impressive 60%.  Ceres presented more sobering research based on a survey of 600 companies showing that investment and commitment to renewables was slowing and has actually decreased in the last year.  

Part of this is due to the fracking / natural gas boom, and a big part is due to the roller coaster ride that is federal renewable energy policy (for example, uncertainty around renewable energy tax credits and the elimination of the DOE loan program).  Even with all of this, the panel was optimistic about the future of renewables due to rapid innovations, the convergence of technologies (like EV’s, smart grid and smart buildings), and signs of thawing in the political climate.  Mark Fulton, the investor on the panel, suggested that the next 3 to 5 years is going to be dominated by natural gas, especially as China rushes towards this cleaner fuel as the the health crisis caused by the air pollution from their current coal-based energy policy reaches critical mass.

Investors and the Value of Sustainability

Daniel Hesse, the CEO of Sprint, participated in a plenary conversation and he was terrific.  He spoke eloquently on the role that innovation will play in moving sustainability forward and making it an asset for businesses.  He also went on to call on investors to heighten the value they place on sustainability.  He indicated that Sprint is increasing its focus on the Socially Responsible Investment community in hopes of changing the dialogue, saying that it is vital investors perceive the real value in running a business to positively impact the quality of life on a healthy planet.

He pointed out that shareholders are currently the #1 concern of businesses (some may say the only), but he hopes this will change over time and become more balanced as investors and business executives see that this short-term approach is at the expense of everything else.  This was highlighted by comments from KB Homes, builders of some of the most energy efficient homes in America.  While they are doing tremendous work, their homes are not as inexpensive to build as less efficient homes built with lesser materials and care and the market is punishing them due to the resultant tighter margins.  Would this be different if the market and investors placed a higher value on resource efficiency and sustainability?  Perhaps more business leaders will follow in the wake of Unilever’s CEO, who recently stopped offering quarterly earnings guidance to investors in order to allow the company to make better and more informed long term business decisions.

Climate Change - Taking the Blinders Off

Bill McKibben and David Blood (a former Goldman Sachs executive that left to start a energy generation investment firm) provided a lunch plenary on Investment Strategies for a Low Carbon Future that scared the wits out of me.  I’m not going to go into detail here, but instead I will highlight that since the event, the atmospheric observatory in Hawaii recorded the first week

ever in which the Parts Per Million of CO2 in the atmosphere exceeded 400.  This is the highest

level of this heat trapping gas recorded on Planet Earth in the last three to five million years....or since humans evolved to stand on two feet.  

To give you an idea, leading scientists have long held that to avoid the most devastating impacts of climate change, we should maintain CO2 levels below 350 PPM.  McKibben’s famous climate change advocacy non-profit is called 350.org for this very reason.  We didn’t only blow through that in the past few years, we just jumped past 400.  

Hold onto your hats.

Water and Energy

The last day of the conference kicked off with a  discussion between Mindy Lubber, the president of Ceres, and Catherine Bessant from Bank of America (BofA strongly supports a price on carbon....bet you didn’t know that did you?)  in which they discussed amongst other things the connection between water and energy.  Ceres released a report concurrently called Hydraulic Fracturing & Water Stress: Growing Competitive Pressures for Water.   This discussion was immediately followed by a panel titled Squeezing a Stone:  Lessons from the Western Water Crisis.

Featuring Michael Glade from Molson Coors, Peter Gleick of the Pacific Institute and Lester Snow from the California water foundation, this panel took a no holds barred look at the water crisis in the overstressed Colorado River Basin.  Gleick from the Pacific Institute made it clear “We've over allocated the water of the river, layer on top of that climate change and we have an unprecedented challenge.”  As Snow from California followed up, “The water allocations were made based on flawed assumptions, and now we have no possible way to meet those commitments.  If we don't have a serious policy dialogue, we'll just limp from one crisis to the next.  We'll end up like Australia with a 10 year drought and then do stupid things.”  

As energy generation, climate change and cities in the desert continue to stress our single most important natural resource (drinkable water), a lot can be learned from how the crisis in the Colorado river basin plays out.  Will we make good decisions or limp from one crisis to the next?  Will it be too late for places like Las Vegas?  Either way, businesses should play close attention as these battles will have real world implications.

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What is the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) and Why You Should Care

It seems as if it is always reporting season in the sustainability world. People are heads down working on the CDP, the now official name of what was formerly known as the Carbon Disclosure Project (the logic is missed on me as well); the Dow Jones Sustainability Index (not for the faint of heart); and their sustainability reports. The most widely accepted standard for company sustainability reporting is the Global Reporting Initiative. While spearheading reporting at CA Technologies, we’d been adhering to the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) guidelines since our first report was issued five years.  I found this to be a highly worthwhile exercise, with many benefits to the organization, so I wanted to take a few minutes to bring you up to speed on this important group, how it works and what it can mean to your company.

What is the GRI

The GRI is a non-profit organization that promotes economic sustainability, and it produces one of the world's most prevalent standards for sustainability reporting.   Unlike financial reporting, or even carbon reporting GRI’s sustainable reporting framework delivers a structure which companies use to provide information about economic, environmental, social and governance performance inside their organizations.   Their mission is to make sustainability reporting standard practice for all organizations.

This broad scope, which has been developed with input from thousands of businesses, NGO’s and governments, provides a framework for groups to investigate their performance in these four areas that are critical to a company’s ability to endure (or be sustainable).  As the GRI states on their website, “Sustainability reporting is a vital step for managing change towards a sustainable global economy – one that combines long term profitability with social justice and environmental care.” 

Global Reporting Initiative – Reporting Guidelines

The basis of the GRI’s importance comes down to their reporting guidelines.  Now on their third iteration, these guidelines provide guidance to encourage organizations to look beyond financial and focus on the aspects of their company that contribute to the triple bottom line.  As their website explains:

The G3.1 Guidelines are an update and completion of the third generation of GRI's Sustainability Reporting Guidelines, G3. The Guidelines are the cornerstone of GRI's Reporting Framework.
G3.1 includes expanded guidance for reporting on human rights, local community impacts, and gender. G3.1 was launched in March 2011 and is the most comprehensive sustainability reporting guidance available today.
 The G3.1 Guidelines are made up of two parts. Part 1 features guidance on how to report. Part 2 features guidance on what should be reported, in the form of Disclosures on Management Approach and Performance Indicators.
 G3.1’s Performance Indicators are organized into categories: Economic, Environment and Social. The Social category is broken down further by Labor, Human Rights, Society and Product Responsibility sub-categories.

Global Reporting Initiative – Reporting Outcomes

As you may have noticed in this recently released sustainability report, CA received an A+ on our most recent submission to the GRI.  While we are very proud of that rating, we certainly didn’t start out that way.  Here’s what I learned about grading and your GRI sustainability report.
 
If you are just getting going and submitting your first report, don’t stress about it.  Do your best, learn the process, do the due diligence inside your organization, start the conversation with the key stakeholders and submit your report.  You will be amazed with what you find and will generate significant momentum.  When CA filed its first report with the GRI, we gave ourselves a self-declared ‘C’, which is the lowest grade that you can get with the GRI. There’s no shame in that – it was a reflection of where we were, which was at the beginning.

The next year, we made some real progress, learned much more about our organization and provided more details.  For a small fee, GRI will review your submission and grade it based on their protocols.  Our second report followed about 18 months later. We needed the additional time to better refine our strategy. We received a ‘B’ and were very happy with the improvements we’d made.  Last year, we’d made significant strides, not only with environmental sustainability, but also in areas like governance, and increased transparency of our commitment to improve the diversity of our workforce.  All that earned us an A based on the GRI standards. We also had KPMG provide third party verification of our submission for which we received the extra brownie point of the “+”.  Our benchmark is now an A+, and I’m pleased that we’ve attained it again with this year’s report, Future Ready.

Global Reporting Initiative – Benefits to Companies

So you’re probably thinking, “Wow, this sounds like a lot of work, what’s the upside?”  Good question!

From my perspective, the most important aspect of GRI reporting is transparency – both internally and in the greater market.  By preparing and submitting your initial report, you are pulling back the curtain on your operations and collecting and sharing with all your stakeholders’ details of your organization that you may not have ever reported on before (let alone realized).  This process of discovery should provide your organization with an increased understanding of internal and external risks and opportunities, better visibility into the link between financial and non-financial performance, and improved influence on long term management strategy and policy. 

It also provides a framework to start important conversations amongst key stakeholders in your company and community.  Meanwhile, the increased transparency provides pressure – interestingly mostly internal – to address and improve issues over time, the main objective of the GRI.
Sustainability Reporting can lead to improved outcomes because it allows organizations to measure, track, and improve their performance on specific triple bottom line issues.  There is truth in the ‘if you can’t measure it, you can’t improve it’ statement.  By proactively collecting, analyzing, and reporting on the steps taken by your organization to reduce potential business risk and improve performance, it allows you to tell a strategic and tactical story to stakeholders.

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