Green Buckeye

Do you wonder what advantage there is in making your company greener? Author and consultant Chris Laszlo will talk about Sustainability for Strategic Advantage in a free online workshop February 14.

Laszlo is a visiting professor at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland and is the author of two books: The Sustainable Company: How to Create Lasting Value through Social and Environmental Performance and Sustainable Value: How the World's Leading Businesses Are Doing Well by Doing Good.

February 14, 2008
11:00 am – 1:00 pm
Chris Lazlo on Sustainability

This workshop is part of a series of open houses for the Case Masters in Positive Organization Development and Change (MPOD) program, and it will be followed by an online MPOD Open House with the program director Harlow Cohen.

To ensure participation, register online at least 24 hours in advance.



Tags: Chris Laszlo, MPOD sustainable business

Labels: events, green business, sustainability

Sustainable Worthington is sponsoring a number of gardening programs this winter, including one that may result in a community garden for Worthington! If you're interested in eating locally, you can't get food much more local than the veggies you grow in your own garden.

Check out Sustainable Worthington's upcoming programs on their Meetings page.

Franklin Park Conservatory's Growing to Green program supports local efforts to create and maintain community gardens. You can also learn about community gardens and find a list of community gardens in Central Ohio at the American Community Garden Association web site.

Tags: community gardens Franklin Park Conservatory Sustainable Worthington

Labels: events, resources, sustainability

Central Ohio is the home of The Ohio State University, which provides us with lots of opportunities to benefit from research and higher learning. The Center for Resilience at OSU is one such hotbed of research that supports "resilience of industrial systems and the environments in which they operate" - in other words, industrial and environmental sustainability.

If your organization is looking for ways to improve supply chain resilience or to explore a by-product synergy network, you owe it to yourself to check out the work going on at the Center for Resilience.

The Winter 2008 issue (.pdf) of the Center's newsletter lists several other sustainability-based research efforts ongoing at OSU, and provides a brief explanation of by-product synergy (i.e., Bill McDonough's waste = food).

I heard Joseph Fiksel (.pdf), the executive director of the center, speak at a meeting of the Capital City Organization Development Network (CCODN) last year. He's very knowledgeable and dedicated to taking a systems approach to environmental sustainability.

Center for Resilience, Joseph Fiksel

Labels: research, resources, sustainability

If you haven't viewed The Story of Stuff yet, please take 20 minutes to check it out. It's an entertaining view of the systems we've created as a culture that are negatively impacting the planet. It's simple, but not simplistic, and it makes a clear case for sustainability.

Tag: The Story of Stuff

Labels: sustainability

I attended the Rocky Anderson keynote at the Green Building Expo this week. In his presentation, Mayor Anderson presented evidence supporting the case that global warming is caused by human activity. For me, this is no longer in question, but likely there are still those who need convincing. The images of melting ice caps and disappearing glaciers, as well as of Tuvaluan homes surrounded by the ocean at high tide were good reminders, at any rate.

Labels: events, leadership, sustainability

In July, the Sustainability Roundtable of Central Ohio (SRCO) voted to join the Central Ohio Sustainability Alliance. As a result, SRCO has changed its name to the Central Ohio Sustainability Roundtable (COSR).

There are a lot of intelligent and thoughtful people on the COSR listserv. You can join the conversation by subscribing to it here.

Labels: resources, sustainability

Late last spring, Executive Director Neil Drobny announced that Keep Franklin County Beautiful was pursuing a new strategic direction and changing its name to the Central Ohio Sustainability Alliance (COSA).

As a result, COSA will expand and enhance its focus on sustainability, which is great news! You can help them out by volunteering, or perhaps by getting your business or school involved in the Waste Not Center.

Labels: resources, sustainability, volunteering

This week Belgian blogger Ria Baeck points out videos that describe conversations about creating sustainable and affordable healthcare here in Columbus. While her primary interest stems from her practice of hosting and facilitating meaningful conversations, we can directly appreciate the story told by Phil Cass of his journey to develop a better community - our community.

Phil is the CEO of the Columbus Medical Association. The ongoing conversations around healthcare are happening under the banner of Our Optimal Health. If you would like to participate in these conversations, RSVP to attend an upcoming assembly at the Fawcett Center. The next one is August 9.

This is the first in the series of three videos available on YouTube:



Thanks to Ravi Tangri, who uploaded the videos to YouTube.

Labels: healthcare, resources, sustainability

Cleveland blogger Jack Ricchiuto blogs his personal practices for sustainability this week.

I have tried to become more mindful of how much printing I do at work. In the last month I've stopped printing my daily calendar from Lotus Notes. At first I thought it would be hard to live without it, but it turns out I don't need it most days. That's one piece of paper less each workday - it seems small, but year after year and person after person it adds up!

There are so many small things we can practice in our lives to improve and extend our use of resources. What practices have you taken up or built upon recently?

Labels: consumer choices, resources, sustainability

Months ago I listened to a podcast that featured John Mackey of Whole Foods talking to Michael Pollan, the author of The Omnivore's Dilemma.

I was impressed that Mackey reached out to Pollan, who had criticized Whole Foods in the book. Listening to Mackey talk, I thought he sounded sincere in his desire for Whole Foods to do the right thing. He was educated and passionate about organic foods and corporate farming. He seemed self-aware and conflicted about the impact of Whole Foods on the organic food movement.

It's disappointing to learn now that for years Mackey was surreptitiously posting comments on a Yahoo stock-market message-board that bad-mouthed rival Wild Oats. Why? Yeah, the company could potentially gain from such antics, but at what cost? He claims he was "having fun."

It looks like Mackey, aka "rahodeb," and his company will discover the long-term costs in loss of reputation in the coming days, months, and years.

Of course, no one is perfect. We all make mistakes, even (or maybe especially and most publicly and sensationally) CEOs of large corporations. If we're lucky, the mistake is such that we can recover and learn from it. I hope Mackey gets a clue about transparency and integrity and recovers personally. His personal redemption, though, is not the end of the story.

What is most disheartening is that the cynics will say, "I told you so." They'll say that no successful businessperson is truly sincere about transparency, which is an aspect of corporate sustainability and the "triple bottom line." They'll say that people like me are naive about the way the business world really works. They'll say that they're justified in continuing with "business as usual." Because Mackey was a high profile example of someone who was - at least publicly - trying to do the right thing. And his fall from grace will be very expensive in terms of good will and momentum for the sustainable business movement.

Tags: "John Mackey", "Whole Foods"

Labels: business, news, sustainability

Did you know Columbus is a Cool City? According to the Sierra Club website, this means that Mayor Michael Coleman has officially signed the U.S. Mayor's Climate Protection Agreement. So what does that mean? The web site says:

Labels: climate change, sustainability

Until now I've expressly kept this blog free of partisan politics. That's because I believe that sustainability is not a political choice - it is a human imperative, and it's the right thing to do.

However, in the interest of transparency, I must let you know that I recently sent $25 to support something called The New Hampshire Project. Why did I do this?

Well, first of all, Jerid Kurtz, the initiator of The New Hampshire project, is a blogger - he's the administrator of the (Democratic) Buckeye State Blog. Second, Jerid is a law student at Case Western Reserve University, my alma mater. Third, Jerid has decided to spend the summer season in New Hampshire blogging the 2008 Democratic presidential primary campaign.

Since I'm not free to spend my summer bumming around New Hampshire blogging, I'm hoping Jerid will be my proxy. When Jerid meets and interviews the candidates and their staffers, I hope he will ask about their plans for creating a sustainable future for the US and the rest of the world. When he reports on those responses, I will link to his posts so that you can see what the Democratic candidates are saying.

In the interest of balance, if I find a blog that covers sustainability for the Republican candidates, I'll share those, too.

Jerid, we're counting on you.

newhampshireproject

Labels: 2008 Presidential Primaries, about greenbuckeye, New Hampshire Project, sustainability