Posts in 'About Us'

Here at Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), we look for market based solutions to environmental problems. As the guy in charge of managing our partnership pipeline process, I’m constantly on the lookout for new win-win environmental and business solutions we can pioneer with companies. I’m often asked how we identify the companies that we partner with. And increasingly the word I use is LEVERAGE.

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Award-winning journalist Edward Iwata, chatted up our very own Gwen Ruta for a post on his CoolGlobalBiz.com blog.  Check out his post to see what she had to say about:

• Companies forging ahead on green strategies, despite the global recession
• Corporations going beyond lip service and window-dressing on green issues
• Charting the real progress of companies on their environmentally-friendly practice
• Private-equity firms going green

This afternoon, I did a Twitterview (a mini-interview on Twitter) with Elizabeth Seeger, the inaugural Geballe Fellow, about her work over the past two years in EDF’s Corporate Partnerships Program.
This was an experiment, so please comment and let us know what you think about the format & style.  And if there are other questions we should have asked, put those in as well and hopefully we can get Elizabeth to answer them.
The transcript of the Twitterview from Twitter Search follows (since the most recent posts are at the top, start reading from the bottom). Read more »

By Gwen Ruta

With the global economy in turmoil, corporate environmental initiatives could have faced a fatal blow. The good news is that companies today have not forgotten that green business is good business. The question that remains for many executives is not whether to embrace environmental sustainability, but how to get it done.

One path of action that has gained traction in recent months is for businesses to partner with Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) on environmental initiatives. On a macro level, this is a good thing. Both businesses and NGOs have a lot to learn from each other; neither can solve today’s global environmental challenges going solo; and it will take a newfound collaborative spirit and sharing of best practices to both address challenging issues like climate change and succeed in today’s challenging economy.

But on a micro level, businesses and NGOs should avoid the dating game unless their relationships are meaningful and lasting. It’s not the volume of business/NGO partnerships that will change the world, but the quality of the results produced.

It’s been almost twenty years since Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) worked with McDonald’s on our first partnership to conserve resources and cut waste. Since then, we’ve found time and again that these unique relationships can achieve remarkable business and environmental results. Most recently, our “green portfolio” partnership with KKR, the giant private equity firm, resulted in $16 million in annual savings from measures that included reducing truck fuel usage at US Foodservice, cutting paper consumption at Primedia, and improving material use at Sealy. And that’s just the start. We’re now working with KKR to roll the project out to its entire portfolio of companies.

So what’s the recipe for success? While no two partnerships are alike, we’ve found the following principles invaluable for us over the years.

1. Have a clear end goal in sight. Both partners must be clear about what they are trying to achieve together. Tons of greenhouse gas avoided? Costs savings through efficiencies? Employee awareness around eco-innovation? Spell out the goals and ensure that all parties involved are committed to them.

2. Measurement is key. We’ve all heard the maxim “you manage what you measure.” Progress can only be celebrated when you know where you started. And quantitative results make is clear when success has been achieved.

3. Mutual commitment is a must. If one side of the partnership is doing all the work, the risk is lack of buy-in from the other side. The project will lose momentum and results will be far less impressive than they could be.

4. Timelines matter. Set up check-ins and updates to make sure that both sides are achieving intermediate objectives, increasing the likelihood that partnership goals are achieved within the agreed upon timeframe. This keeps stakeholders focused and engaged in the project at hand.

5. Objectivity ensures transformational change. At EDF, we take no funding from our corporate partners. We act as advocates for eco-innovation, not corporate consultants. This enables us to push our partners beyond their comfort zone and keeps our eyes on the right prize – transformational environmental change.

6. Transparency enables economies of scale. Even if a partnership involves only two partners, the results can transform an entire industry – as long as they are widely and publically shared. For example, EDF teamed up with FedEx to develop a cleaner, more fuel-efficient delivery truck. We spread the news and the technology, and within two years of our partnership, no fleet tradeshow was complete without a hybrid offering.

7. Communications shouldn’t be taken lightly. In any NGO-business partnership, it’s critical to track communications closely. Both sides need to agree on how the partnership will be characterized to outside audiences and not over – or under-state the commitments and the work at hand. This will prevent message distortion and avoid “greenwashing.”

NGOs have deep expertise in social and environmental issues combined with an unwavering passion to make the world a better place.

Corporations have the power of commerce and markets on their side, helping catalyze change quickly and enabling scalable concrete results.

This combined ability to capitalize on rather then cower from today challenges, both environmental and economic, will enable companies and NGOs to achieve and maintain long-term success.

Partnerships will play a significant role in this success, but only if they are treated as value-creating relationships, not marketing maneuvers. Through such collaborations, the environment moves out from the sidelines to become a key driver of innovation and growth.

This column originally appeared on Environmental Leader.

As part of the strategy planning effort for the Innovation Exchange we've been working on refining a clear statement of what it is we will produce and how. Here's the most recent version of our "elevator pitch" though, as Gwen points out, it would have to be a pretty long ride…

Goal: The goal of the EDF Innovation Exchange is to facilitate rapid and widespread adoption of environmental innovation in business. The network we create will be used by businesspeople and entrepreneurs around the world to solve environmental problems and create new standards for corporate environmental performance.

Approach: EDF has a 20-year track record of helping the world's largest corporations create simultaneous environmental and business value. The Innovation Exchange will build on this success to create a problem-solving system which will encourage environmental innovation. Its members will develop and spread innovations that encompass both business operations and processes, as well as new technologies, products and services with environmental benefits. We will focus first in sectors that are closely linked to EDF's current 5-year plan, and where we have a proven track record, including fleets, consumer products/retail, and finance, information technology, real estate, and agriculture.

Tactics:

1) Content. We will capture and package our learning and experience for widespread reuse. From quarterly website updates and practically real-time twittering, we will discuss and share our learning with a focus on the process of innovation as well as the outcomes. The primary vehicle for content will be the http://innovation.edf.org website, and we will leverage other websites and services.

Examples: green dining materials, Innovation Review, Fleets Driver training workshop, Fleets GHG calculator, blog posts, open licensing of content

2) Networking. We will actively plug into and help galvanize a large, inclusive network of actors (people and organizations) who will share their experiences and talk about ours. We will engage in person (through events we organize, events we participate in, and direct meetings and conversations) as well as online (through our web properties and via a variety of social media, and other collaborative platforms). The network will include large and small businesses and well as academia, government, and NGOs.

Examples: Conference calendar for speaking, attending, twittering. Unconferences. Memberships in Justmeans, SBNoW. Implementation of CRM.

3) Systems. We will identify specific offerings — software, data, facilitation, training — that will enable members and users of the broader Innovation Exchange network to systematically improve their ability to develop, spread and adopt environmental innovations. We will partner, promote, fund, develop, and define these products as necessary.

Examples: (all notional thus far) – carbon footprint calculator for small business, Patent Exchange, ARPA-E program for energy & conservation innovation, energy efficiency curriculum development.

We will continue to refine and evolve our ideas as we go. If you'd like more detail about our thinking and activities, please visit the strategy and planning website and join the mailing list there.

Today, EDF releases Innovations Review 2009: Green Advances for a New Economy.  As the title implies, we're highlighting compelling new practices and technologies that drive operational efficiency, create new business opportunities and carve out competitive advantage in these challenging times.  Why?  Because even though these practices have been proven to be technically and financially feasible, they're not yet in widespread use.  Simply put, we want to see these innovations – and the environmental benefits they represent – spread more quickly.

Innovations Review 2009 covers advances in business sectors from food service to agriculture to real estate to financial services.  For just a sampling, check out:

• High-tech computer systems that monitor real-time weather data and soil conditions to help companies reduce the water needed for crop irrigation and commercial landscaping by 15-40%.
• A new mortgage program that is boosting sales by offering homebuyers lower interest rates if they elect to install solar panels in their new homes.
• Annual employee performance reviews that now tie environmental results to compensation, up to the senior executive level.

We hope that Innovations Review 2009 will provide your company with useful models and inspire your team to go even further.  We'd love for you to share stories about what’s new at your company and think about nominating yourself for inclusion in the 2010 edition of our Innovations Review. Please leave your comments below or send them to Innovations Review Editor, Beth Trask.

Talk and follow the conversation about Innovations Review 2009 with the tag: IR2009

A recent article in the New York Times' Green Inc. column suggests that the dual concerns of greenwashing and reputation management are critical for corporations and non-profit organizations alike – especially as the prevalence of partnerships between these two groups continues to rise. This is something we've known for a long time at Environmental Defense Fund (EDF).

No partnership between a non-profit and a corporation should be taken lightly on either side. For the NGO, it is critical to maintain the independence, ability to challenge and focus on environmental results that are at the roots of its mission.

EDF has built a twenty-year track record of doing this by establishing partnerships when there is clear potential for measurable and significant environmental improvements and by holding our partners accountable to achieving and reporting on them – all while maintaining our financial independence.

EDF does not accept payment or financial contributions from our corporate partners. This helps us uphold high environmental standards and makes it clear that the innovations we develop with our partners are to be publicly shared. We are advocates, not consultants, so the new best practices and innovations we create are for the broader public good. Our ambitious goal is to spread these innovations across entire industries, multiplying the environmental benefits.

Understandably, at times EDF is lumped in with NGOs that do accept funding from corporate partners, as Ms. MacDonald has done in her book.

Are we saying our model is the only way to go? No, but we believe it has contributed heavily to our results over the years.  We've seen time and time again that corporate-NGO partnership can create both credible environmental results and business benefits like cost savings, market growth and improved risk management. When this happens, the environment stops being sidelined and becomes a key driver of innovation and growth.

For more on our model, check out the Guide we issued last year for a run down of best practices for partnering. And for more on the results of our work with corporate partners, visit www.edf.org/partnerships.

Last week I attended a lecture entitled "Building a more ethical world" by Ed Freeman, PhD, at The George Washington University. The event was sponsored by GWU's relatively new Institute for Corporate Responsibility.

Professor Freeman was introduced as "a rock star of business ethics." Well, he may not be an actual rock star, but he is one of the world's top business ethicists – I remember reading several of his articles on stakeholder engagement during my b-school days.

Most interesting to me were Professor Freeman's ideas about the role business could play in a more comprehensive dialogue about ethics and the opportunity that exists right now for leading businesses to "write a new story about what business is."

Freeman's vision is a story about business where companies not only maximize profits, but change the world. In this story, value creation comes from producing great products and services, engaging with stakeholders, protecting the environment, building healthy communities, etc.

In light of what's happening on both Wall St. and Main St., I agree that its time for business to write a new story. Challenges – including economic downturns – can be the fuel for positive capitalism. I'm optimistic that leading companies will see the current crisis as an opportunity to help write this new story. In my version of the story, leading companies innovate using an environmental lens to focus on efforts that deliver business value, helping them come out on top when the economy recovers.

After the lecture I had a chance to talk to Professor Freeman and get his thoughts about EDF and our work with companies to development new best practices that deliver business and environmental value. It turns out that he's a pretty big fan of our work. In fact, he mentioned Lee Scott (of EDF partner Wal-Mart) and Henry Kravis (of EDF partner KKR) as two unexpected business leaders who are starting to pen a new story for their companies.

What will your business' new story be?

No, really, we're asking you – what should the EDF Innovation Exchange do? We're going through a strategy and planning exercise that will guide our work for the next few years and we'd like your input.

The objective of this effort is to"grow and strengthen a 'problem solving' network that can generate rapid and widespread adoption of environmental innovation in business." The bottom line is to help make sure that both the economy and the environment are sustainable. Of course, the devil is in the details.

Over the past two decades EDF has worked directly with a number of large corporations including McDonald's, FedEx, and now others like Wegmans, KKR, and PHH Arval. We've had great success with these engagements and are proud of our work, but think we need to do more. As Joel Makower said in a recent post, "The point is that time is short, and getting shorter. In that light, where's the urgency? Where's the audaciously big thinking? Where's the scale?"

So, for Innovation Exchange planning, what are the big opportunities we should jump on? Do we need new software infrastructure, bigger online communities, better training, closer partnerships, more conferences? Should we share patents, share data, share lessons, share ideas? Are there weaknesses in our knowledge base or our networks that EDF can help solve? What sectors are most critical and which are most open to our engagement? We know lots of other individuals and groups are working on related problems. Who, in particular, should we partner with? Are there specific contributions we can make that will have broad impact? What special value can we create?

I hope that you will join us in thinking about and discussing this problem. Our draft planning materials are online for your review and comment (you have to sign-in to comment). If you prefer, send your thoughts directly to me or post comments below.

Thanks in advance for your help.

An objective of the EDF Innovation Exchange is to participate regularly in the broad, global conversation that is happening about how business can get greener and green can be better business. We intend to talk about the work we are doing, events we are attending, people we are meeting, problems we are having – all of it. Ideally, we'll hear back from you and other folks also engaged in this work.

To that end we've consolidated some communications channels onto our relaunched Community page.   We're pulling together four services: Read more »