The five ESG standards efforts are shown in the adjacent figure, beside their corresponding element of the capital market information ecosystem. I describe three of them in my April 15 article for Network for Business Sustainability (NBS) entitled “2015 Will Bring ‘Sweeping Changes’ to Capital Markets.”  They are:

A New Ratings Standard: The Global Initiative for Sustainability Ratings (GISR) A New Voluntary Reporting Framework: The International Integrated Reporting Council (IIRC) New Regulatory Reporting Guidance: The Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB)

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To round out the picture, this blog describes the other two.

• G4 of the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI)
• The Investor Network on Climate Risk (INCR) ESG standard for listings on stock exchanges

New generation (G4) of GRI voluntary reporting guidelines

GRI provides the touchstone indicators for other standards efforts. It has been around the longest and is so widely used that it has earned the right to be the de factor set of indicators on which other efforts build.

The main aim of G4, to be released this month, May 2013, is to further increase the take-up of sustainability reporting by all types of organizations. This means improving the user-friendliness, consistency and technical quality of G3 which was launched in 2006.

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Judging from its Exposure Draft, the main change in G4 is an increase the number of disclosures in relation to governance and supply chain, reflecting the increase in investor and societal attention for these material issues in recent years.

4. New stock market listing standard: INCR Listing Standard

This is the most recent effort. As indicated in the Ceres press release on April 8, 2013, “The initiative is part of a growing effort by investors and stock exchanges to make environmental, social and governance (ESG) disclosure a consistent requirement for corporate listings on stock exchanges.

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While several exchanges have adopted their own sustainability listing requirements and guidance, INCR members and NASDAQ OMX have set out to develop a uniform standard that all stock exchanges can use.”

As described in the NBS article, SASB is looking at what companies should be required to disclose on their Form 10-K to investors who use American stock exchanges. The INCR Listings Standard will define what stock exchanges anywhere in the world should require companies to disclose about their material ESG initiatives. There are wonderful potential synergies between these two standards initiatives.

The GRI G4 indicators, the IIRC voluntary ESG reporting guidance, the SASB ESG regulatory disclosure guidance, the INCR ESG Listing Standard, and the GISR ESG ratings standard are individually helpful. Their real power comes from their harmonization with each other and with other complimentary ESG standards efforts underway in the capital market information ecosystem, as signified by the connecting arrows in the adjacent figure.

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There appears to be a real willingness among the five ESG standards efforts to make this happen as they are developed over the next two years. I look forward to working with them to help us reap the full benefit of these timely and high-leverage initiatives.

As usual, the above slides are from my Master Slide Set.

Please feel free to add your comments and questions using the Comment link below. For email subscribers, please click here to visit my site and provide feedback.

Bob

I thought if I could help them see how more profitable they could be if they embraced sustainability strategies, they would stampede to make the necessary transformation. That’s what my four books, two DVDs, worksheets, dashboard, and hundreds of talks have been all about.

How’s it going so far? Okay, but way too slow. We need to add a push strategy to our pull strategy. We need to wake executives up with the down-side risk of not doing more, to compliment the up-side opportunity of higher revenue, lower expenses, and higher employee productivity and retention. The business case simulator helps companies quantify 14 risks to profit from inaction, but I should have highlighted the mother of all risks: more difficult access to capital when lenders and investors prioritize ESG factors in their company assessments.

Capital markets are gate-keepers to corporate interest in ESG. Here are four strategies to make them a force for transformational change.

If that is the case, why do I assume only a 2% improvement in employee productivity in the business case for sustainability described in The New Sustainability Advantage? Shouldn’t the six sustainability-related contributors to increased employee productivity that are summarized in the adjacent figure add up to more than 2%? Yes, they really add up to at least 20%, but there are five reasons that I deliberately forced them not to.

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1. Keep the overall profit improvement below 100%

As shown in the adjacent figure, if a typical company were to simply use best-practice sustainability approaches already being used by real companies, it could improve its profit by at least 51% to 81% within three to five years. That is a Goldilocks range: it is high enough to get attention, but low enough to be credible. If I used the real potential profit improvement percentages from my research findings, the range would be in the hundreds … and no one would believe me. So I worked hard to factor down the potential contribution from each benefit area, especially the “Increased productivity” benefit.

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2. Risk of employee productivity being the biggest contributor to profit increases

In my first version of the business case in 2002, employee productivity was the most significant contributor to the bottom line benefits, more than any of the potential eco-efficiency savings. Understandably, it was lightning rod for discussion, especially since many people consider it an intangible benefit and dismiss it. To protect the credibility of the new business case, I ensure that contributions to the bottom line from energy and waste savings exceed the contribution from employee productivity.

3. Risk of company’s not measuring productivity

It may be hard to believe, but many companies have no idea how to measure employee productivity. So they don’t. If the business case relies heavily on that benefit and a company can’t calculate it for their situation, they leave it out or attack it. That leads to them potentially dismissing the whole business case if it is too dependent on a benefit that is difficult or unusual for them to calculate. I force the employee productivity factor to be low enough to not compromise the whole business case for companies that decide to leave it out.

4. Risk of cost avoidance not being counted
Similarly, some companies are not comfortable with cost avoidance factors being included in the business case. By contrast, savings on the company’s energy bill go straight to the bottom line. They are savings. If you increase employee productivity, you avoid having to hire more people to achieve the same business results. You are still paying the same payroll, but you avoid having to increase it. That’s cost avoidance, not cost saving. Some companies count cost avoidances in their business cases; others don’t. I want to ensure that the companies that don’t count it do not dismiss the whole business case because it was too dependent on a benefit that they don’t count.

5. Risk of double counting

The benefit of employees’ increased productivity may already be accounted for in other sustainability benefits like increased revenue, reduced energy expenses, reduced materials expenses, and reduced waste expenses. That is, the current workforce employees figured out how to do more with less. So I avoid double-counting by very conservatively assuming that only 10% of the potential increased employee productivity benefit remains to be counted. It should be more like 50%, but I have to use 10% to keep the overall profit improvement down to the 51% to 81% range.

In summary, all assumptions used in the business case calculations are conservative. Why? My low-ball assumptions generate profit improvements that are astounding enough. If I use more probable assumptions, especially for employee productivity improvements, I strain the credibility of the methodology.

As a reminder, executives can plug their own numbers into the free, open source Sustainability Advantage Business Case Simulator Dashboard or Worksheets. I want executives to receive a pleasant surprise when they override the simulator’s starter set of data with their own company’s data; replace the simulator’s assumptions with their own experience, judgment, and gut instincts; and discover that the real business case is even more convincing than suggested. My strategy is to under-sell and over-deliver. That’s why I low-ball the employee productivity benefit, so executives can crank it up to reflect their own comfort level and company norms and be excited about the much higher potential in their situation.

Bob

The PowerPoint figures used above are from my Sustainability Advantage Slides set, to which you can subscribe.

Please feel free to add your comments and questions using the Comment link, below. For email subscribers, please click here to visit my site and provide feedback.

Now let’s discuss that final rung: whether a case can be made that sustainability initiatives will have a positive effect on market value/share price.

Executives of publicly traded companies are very interested in share price. They are accountable to shareholders who demand ever-increasing market value and need to convince financial analysts that their return on assets (ROA) and return on equity (ROE) are superior to others in their sector.

At a personal level, they may own considerable shares themselves, and/or their remuneration may include stock or stock options, so they have a personal stake in higher share prices. It would be nice if we could reassure them that sustainability initiatives lead to higher stock valuations. But can we?

Can Sustainability Lead to Higher Stock Prices?

Let’s start with a slightly different question: If a company does not implement sustainability programs, do investors lose out?

The Domini 400 Social Index, Dow Jones Sustainability Index, Sustainalytics’ Jantzi Social Index (JSI), and the Financial Times (London) Stock Exchange Index all track companies rated as sustainability leaders. These indices perform as well as, or slightly better than, indices for the rest of the market. Sustainability leaders do not seem to sacrifice financial market value for their efforts, nor are others missing market gains.

On a more positive side, academic researchers have conducted several meta-analyses and have found a small positive correlation between sustainability performance and financial results like return on assets (ROA), return on equity (ROE), and stock market performance. The studies find little evidence of a financial downside of having good or bad sustainability performance.

Does It Pay to Be Good?

For example, “Does it pay to be good?” a 2007 meta-analysis of 167 independent studies on the relationship between corporate spending on corporate social performance and financial performance in the market, found that 27 percent of the studies showed a positive relationship; two percent showed there was a negative relationship; and the rest found no significant relationship.   

Valuing Sustainability in 2008…

More optimistically, in 2008 the Network for Business Sustainability commissioned Dr. John Peloza and Ron Yachnin to do a systematic review of thousands of studies from both academia and the corporate world on valuing sustainability. The two analyzed 159 studies and meta-studies published since 1972 and found that 63 percent showed a positive relationship between sustainability, which they call corporate social performance (CSP), and stock market performance, which they call corporate financial performance (CFP); only 15 percent of past studies showed a negative relationship.

As the authors admit though, methodological limitations of past research — such as over-reliance on old data, inconsistent definitions, sampling problems, concerns about the reliability and validity of the CSP and CFP measures, lack of opportunities to test mediating mechanisms, and a need for a causal theory to link CSP and CFP — could result in either understatement or overstatement of findings. Further research is needed, using more current data.

…to the Eccles Study in 2012

More recently, the “Eccles study” was released in March 2012. The Impact of a Corporate Culture of Sustainability on Corporate Behavior and Performance, authored jointly by Robert G. Eccles, Ioannis Ioannou, and George Serafeim, analyzed a matched sample of 180 “High Sustainability” companies and “Low Sustainability” companies over an 18-year period.

They found that the High Sustainability group outperformed the Low Sustainability group by 4.8 percent on a value-weighted base. The outperformance is stronger in sectors where the customers are individual consumers, where companies compete on the basis of brands and reputation, and where companies’ products significantly depend upon extracting large amounts of natural resources.

Further, the narrower the time frame and the tighter the subset of companies studied, the more impressive the results. Companies with the best ESG performance in four sectors, (energy, mining & steel, media, and food & beverages) as selected for Goldman Sachs’ GS SUSTAIN list, outperformed the average MSCI World Index by 25 percent between August 2005 and June 2007.

Sustainability & Stock Value: Correlation Remains Inconclusive

The big question is: Is improved stock market performance because of sustainability initiatives, or is it just a happy correlation?

We want to believe the connection is as direct as the energy savings to profit improvement connection, but this attribution is difficult to nail down. Unfortunately, academic research and the performance of sustainability indices do not provide compelling quantitative support for a stock price benefit for good CSP, nor a risk of a CFP-downside for companies not embracing sustainability strategies.

Keeping the Iceberg of Value Afloat

However, more and more of a company’s market value is below the water line in its iceberg of value. As shown opposite, in the last 30 years intangibles/non-financials/reputation have grown from just 5 percent of the iceberg of value in 1978 to 80 percent in 2010.Expectations of higher and higher price/earnings (P/E) ratios reflect this trend. The increased weight of reputation/goodwill/brand image in sizing market capitalization is legitimizing sustainability factors as valuation drivers.

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Plus, financial analysts are beginning to view corporate attention to sustainability as a proxy for good governance in their assessment of intangibles.

The writing is on the wall that sustainability-related reputation and governance factors will increasingly impact market value.

So, of the three frameworks for the business case for sustainability, the one framed around potential profit improvements is the strongest; the ROI-based one is a close second, and the one that claims improvements in stock price is a distant third … so far.

Bob

Now let’s consider the ROI perspective.

Sustainability capital projects are approved the same way any capital project is approved. Companies only invest precious capital in projects that meet stringent payback periods and yield at least a required rate of return—the hurdle rate—in a discounted cash flow analysis. The riskier the project, the higher its required hurdle rate.

When I show audiences the very significant financial benefits that are possible when sus­tainability-related strategies are implemented, they wait for the other shoe to drop. They want to know what the costs are. How much does the company need to invest to reap these benefits?

The Financial Benefits of a Sustainability Strategy

There are several things we can learn from the Veriform case about the investment denominator in the ROI calculation:

1. Reallocating Existing Budgets

First, funds for many sustainability efforts are already in departments’ operating budgets. We are simply finding new ways to use those existing allocations, rather than requiring more “investment” money. If the payback period is less than a year, the dollars can be treated as a cost rather than a capital investment, and a cash flow-based internal rate of return (IRR) would be a more appropriate calculation.

2. Self-Funded Sustainability Projects

Second, sustainability projects requiring capital can be self-funded by savings generated by other sustainability projects. For example, we could peel off some of the savings from energy, material, and waste reduction projects and set them up as a Sustainability Capital Reserve. This rotating pool of capital can then be used to fund/invest in additional sustainability projects. Although the projects are self-funded, their ROI calculations assure executives that the funds could not be invested more profitably elsewhere.

3. Taking Advantage of Government Grants

Third, companies can also take advantage of government grants and incen­tives for many sustainability projects. Early movers usually get the most grants, although Veriform only used $1,000 of such funds to support its 42 projects. Since it is not the company’s money and can only be used for sustainability projects, an ROI calculation is less required for comparative purposes.

4. Hitting the Wall

Fourth, even with savings of 58 percent on its electricity bill, at some point Veriform will hit the conservation wall. It won’t be able to achieve further reductions from ingenious technology changes and employee behavior changes and will need to invest in projects like solar panels, wind turbines, geothermal energy, co-generation, or other capital intensive measures. Then, the projects must compete for the company’s overall pot of available capital and show higher ROI than other competing projects.

Other investments to enrich the bottom line pale in comparison to high-yield, low-risk investments in sustainability projects, especially when judged against how much more top-line revenue would have to be generated to have an equivalent bottom-line impact.

Wal-mart’s Savings From Sustainability

For example, Wal-mart  invested $500 million into sustainability projects that paid back in four years or less. The projects were an incredible profit engine for the corporation. Begun in 2005, the initiatives save more than $500 million a year. Wal-mart works on three percent net profit, so to make another $500 million in profit it would have to sell an additional $16.7 billion in goods. It’s a safe bet that Wal-mart would need more than a $500 million investment in marketing to reap that top-line benefit and achieve a profit improvement equivalent to what it is realizing from its sustainability investments.

So far, we’ve discussed the denominator in the ROI calculation—the size of the investment. The sizing of the numerator—the return—deserves attention as well. Of course, the financial return is important. This is usually the direct eco-efficiency saving that flows straight to the bottom line from projects that save money on the company’s energy, water, materials, or waste bills. The financial benefits should also include:

• A piece of the increased revenue from business-to-business and business-to consumer customers who want to buy from suppliers who care about sustainability, as evidenced by the sustainability project.
• A piece of the increased productivity from employees who are energized by the company’s sustainability efforts, which resonate with their personal values.
• A piece of the reduction in expensive voluntary employee attrition because employees want to stay with a company doing social and / or environmental things that they care about, like the sustainability project.

Plus, isn’t it time that management accountants also include social return on investment (SROI) and environmental return on investment (EROI) in the numerator, as well, to reinforce that they matter?

SROI uses financial proxies and monetization of the value to stakeholders of the company’s efforts. EROI uses financial proxies and monetization of value of company efforts to protect and restore ecological systems and services. These returns can be huge and are vital to the company’s social license to operate. Why aren’t we capturing them and legitimizing their importance to the role of business in society?

The ROI for sustainability projects is very attractive when compared with other investments by the company. When social and ecological returns on investment are included in the equation, the picture brightens even further.

Next: Is a share price-based business case for sustainability equally convincing?

Bob

The strength of any business case depends on agreement on what we mean by “business case”—how we’d know one if we saw one.

These headlines have caught my eye in the last few months [and these are just five of many more with similar wording]:

• What Is the Business Case for Sustainability?
• Maybe Wall Street Is Beginning to ‘Get’ Sustainability: More Evidence
• The ROI of Sustainability – Making the Business Case
• The Business Case for Sustainability: Is That the Right Question?
• Only 30% of Firms Have a Business Case for Sustainability

What the …?

As a researcher, author, and speaker on the business case for sustainability, I am both encouraged and troubled by these headlines. I am encouraged that the business case for sustainability is getting so much attention. In addition to these articles, Natural Capitalism Solutions has an annotated list of 20 studies that support the business case for behaving in ways that are more responsible to the planet and to people.

My home library has least as many books that say the same thing. There is growing documented evidence of sound business justification for companies doing more to make a positive social and environmental impact.

That’s great.

However, I am troubled by the headline of the last article listed above. Why are companies so slow to connect the dots between being environmentally and socially responsible and being a more successful company? Maybe it’s a terminology problem.

Trouble With Terminology

The strength of any business case depends on agreement on what we mean by “business case”—how we’d know one if we saw one. Recognition is in the eyes of the beholder. A business case shows that the material benefits of doing something outweigh its costs. It is not enough for the initiative to be the right thing to do from a moral, environmental, and social perspective. Rightly or wrongly, the game of business requires that the project also adds to the tally on the financial scoreboard.

Therefore, we need to build our business case for sustainability around a financial metric that is material to executives’ focus areas. Otherwise, our assertions about a compelling business case will be ignored and executives will continue to look for a business case that relates to their priorities. That’s how they’ll recognize it when they see it.

Justifying Innovation

How does a company justify doing anything different from, or in addition to, what it is already doing? There are basically three kinds of financial rationale or business cases. To be credible, a compelling sustainability business case must be built around one or more of these financial key performance indicators (KPIs).

1. Profit: The sustainability proposal must show how it will increase revenue and / or reduce expenses so that the bottom line is positively impacted. As a bonus, it would be helpful if the project also mitigated potential threats to revenue and reduced the risk of expenses escalating.
2. Return on Investment (ROI) / Payback Period: If the sustainability-related project or initiative requires capital investment, its proponent must show that it meets the company’s stringent payback period guideline and yields at least a certain rate of return — the company’s “hurdle rate.” Since they compete for the company’s limited pool of available capital, sustainability projects need to yield higher ROI and shorter payback periods than other competing capital projects.
3. Share Price: Executives of publicly traded companies are accountable to shareholders who demand ever-increasing market value. They need to convince financial analysts that their return on assets (ROA) and return on equity (ROE) are superior to others in their sector. At a personal level, they may own considerable shares themselves, and / or their remuneration may include stock or stock options, so they have a personal stake in higher share prices.

In two subsequent posts, I’ll look at the strength of ROI and share price justifications for sustainability projects. For today, let’s assess the strength of the first, profit-based business case for sustainability-related initiatives.

Sustainability Leads to Profit Improvements

The research shows that if a typical company were to use best-practice sustainability approaches already being used by real companies, it could…

1. Increase revenue by at least 9 percent
2. Reduce energy expenses by at least 75percent
3. Reduce waste expenses by at least 10 percent
4. Reduce materials and water expenses by at least 10 percent
5. Increase employee productivity by at least 2 percent
6. Reduce hiring and attrition expenses by at least 25 percent
7. Reduce strategic and operational risks

As described in The New Sustainability Advantage, these benefits lead to profit improvements of at least 51 percent to 81 percent within three to five years for two sample companies, while avoiding a potential 16 percent to 36 percent erosion of profits if they did nothing more than they are already doing to be more environmental and social responsible.

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If executives want to project the case for their company, they can enter seven key company financial parameters into a business case simulator Dashboard or Worksheets. They can drill down into specific areas of interest and fine-tune the assumptions to their specific situation. By adjusting the simulator’s parameters according to their own experience and good judgment, executives can assess the profit improvement that is possible from smart sustainability-oriented strategies in their own company.

The profit-based approach business case for sustainability strategies is not a black art. It is doable and straightforward, and we have the tools to size it. It is compelling.

Bob

I asked myself that question a few years ago on a strategic planning retreat – being a sole proprietor, I can hold those in the shower. I had settled into a pattern of doing 80-100 talks a year on the compelling business case for sustainability-related strategies, yet I was concerned that the momentum on the sustainability journey in the business community was not building fast enough.

Wouldn’t it be great if I could spread the word faster and wider by doing 1,000, 10,000, 100,000, or even 1,000,000 talks a year all over the world without increasing my carbon footprint … even if I got hit by a truck on day one?

Now that’s a BHAG! That’s when I realized that I needed to clone myself by making a DVD of my typical talk. Thousands of people could watch it anytime, anywhere, without me being there. So in 2007 I created The Business Case for Sustainability DVD of the talk I was giving at that time about the content of my first book, The Sustainability Advantage, which was released in 2002. It worked so well that I made The Sustainability Champion’s Guidebook: The Presentation DVD in 2009 to reflect the content of talks I was starting to give on The Sustainability Champion’s Guidebook that was released that same year.

However, the first DVD was made obsolete by the publication of The New Sustainability Advantage that was released in March of this year. Ta dah! I am delighted to announce that The New Sustainability Advantage: The Presentation DVD is now available. It has been ten months in the making and features a composite keynote presentation made of excerpts from three talks on the sustainability business case as described in my new book. In all modesty, I’m quite proud of it.

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The DVD completes the 5-resource tool kit about the new / improved business case for sustainability: the book, the dashboard, the worksheets, the slides, and now the DVD. For some, my live talks might be considered a sixth resource, if they are able to attend one. These resources are the training kit for sustainability champions who want to be able to more effectively articulate the potential bottom-line benefits if their company were to improve its environmental and social impacts.

As a sustainability champion, I continuously look for ways to leverage my influence and make a positive difference. The new DVD helps do that. It widens my ripple effect in the English speaking world. Next, I need to figure out how to make my resources available in other languages. I’ve added that project to my job jar.

Fun.

Bob

I love it when a plan comes together.

—Colonel John “Hannibal” Smith, A-Team leader—

March was a great month. I’ve been counting backward from that date for two years. I wanted to co-release four new interrelated business case resources for sustainability champions. It worked.

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1. The New Sustainability Advantage On March 11, I held my new book in my hands for the first time. It is a total rewrite of its 2002 version. Thanks to New Society Publishers’ usual outstanding help, our two-year writing and editing journey went perfectly. The first hot-off-the-press shipment of the book was waiting for me in my hotel in Vancouver in time for a book signing at GLOBE 2012 that week. The book is in stores now, and its printed and e-book versions are available through this web site.

The best part is that three companion resources to the new book were released at the same time. On March 13, this website was revamped to include them.

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2. Sustainability Advantage Slides This is my master set of 700 presentation and backup slides that I have built over 10+ years of talks to hundreds of audiences. I humbly consider this as my most valuable resource because they summarize my four books, including the new one; they summarize current sustainability surveys, articles, books, reports, and other research; they are designed to be plagiarized; and they include two typical presentations to help users get started. A $39 annual subscription entitles you to the latest version of the slides, plus three quarterly updates.

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3. Sustainability Advantage Worksheets These free, open source, heavily-annotated, downloadable Excel spreadsheets were used to calculate the +51% to +81% potential profit improvement projections for the two sample companies in the new book. Think of them as an interactive Excel summary of the book. Users can plug in data for a specific company and immediately see its potential profit improvement from sustainability strategies.

The language of the benefits, the assumptions, and the calculation formulas can all be tailored to better fit the realty of that company. I encourage users to treat the Worksheets as their own.

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4. Sustainability Advantage Dashboard This is so cool! The online, interactive, slider-enabled dashboard is a five-minute version of the above Worksheets. You may want to play with it first and then download the Worksheets to drill down into specific areas of interest and fine-tune the assumptions.

The intent of these four resources is to give sustainability champions the confidence and competence to accelerate our journey toward a more sustainable future. We need to get on with it. These resources are designed to turbo-charge our progress.

Still to come is a fifth resource. A new Sustainability Advantage DVD will encapsulate my talk about the new, more compelling business case for sustainability. It will be ready in the summer and will include footage from several recent talks.

Stay tuned …

Bob

Pre-Publication Discount Valid Until March 1st 2012

The New Sustainability Advantage has a recalibrated, and more compelling business case for sustainability strategies than described in its 2002 version. Based on recent case studies, it shows that if a typical company were to use best-practice sustainability approaches already being used by real companies, it could improve its profit by at least 51% to 81% within three to five years, while avoiding a potential 16% to 36% erosion of profits if it does nothing.

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The fully revised business case is organized around seven easy-to-grasp bottom-line benefits that align with current evidence about the most significant sustainability-related contributors to profit.

1. Increase revenue
2. Reduce energy expenses
3. Reduce waste expenses
4. Reduce materials and water expenses
5. Increase employee productivity
6. Reduce hiring and attrition expenses
7. Reduce strategic and operational risks

The new version is a 90% rewrite of the 2002 version. Compared to the first version of The Sustainability Advantage, it has three other enhancements beyond the more compelling business case and the new list of seven benefits.

• It more rigorously estimates 14 risks to profit if a company chooses to opt out of the sustainability imperative.
• It calculates the potential bottom-line benefits for both a typical large corporation and a typical small enterprise.
• It is formatted in the same concise two-page, text-and-sidebar treatment of each subtopic that is used in Bob’s other two books, The Next Sustainability Wave and The Sustainability Champion’s Guidebook.

As context, as a certified B Corp, my vision is a sustainable world in which individuals, communities, and businesses thrive within nature’s limits. My two-fold mission is to inspire business leaders to integrate sustainability strategies into company strategies, and to provide useful resources for an army of sustainability champions so that they have the competence and confidence to accelerate the transformation toward a sustainable global society. I want to spend more effort on that last part.

As some of you know, my new book, The New Sustainability Advantage will be released in March. (If you are interested, my publisher is offering a 20% discount on pre-orders.) It is a 10th anniversary edition of its first version, with a recalibrated and more compelling business case for sustainability strategies.  I am working on a new open source set of Excel worksheets to accompany the book.

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I am also working on a jazzy, slider-enabled dashboard version on my web site that will enable people to do a quick simulation of the business case for their company. My Master Slide Set will be renamed “Sustainability Advantage Slides” and will contain a full set of slides to support the new business case.

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In addition to the new book, dashboard, worksheets, and slides that will be released together in March, I’m also creating a new Sustainability Advantage DVD that will encapsulate my talk these days on new business case for sustainability. It will be ready in the summer and will include footage of several talks that I am doing between now and then. I’m still on track to do another 80-100 talks this year. Last year, I did 93 plus wrote the new book, so paying attention to the bi-weekly blog was a bit of a challenge. For people who are unable to attend one of my talks, the DVD will provide an opportunity for them to experience it virtually.

What happens to the blogs? The archives will still be available on my website. You will find them in the sidebar on the right. The part of the home page that was used for new blogs will become a “What’s New” alert area for visitors to my website.

The beginning of a new year is wonderful opportunity to step back and reflect on how I can best use my time. My upgrading of all my resources for sustainability champions deserves priority. I very excited about how they are all coming together, and how much more useful they will be over previous versions.

Watch this space for more alerts about their availability…

For email subscribers, please click here to visit my site and provide feedback.

Bob