EDF Innovation Exchange Blog

Making green business the new business as usual

 

Posts in 'Events'

Where You'll Find Us in November

  • Emily Reyna will be attending Opportunity Green November 7th and 8th at UCLA. Opportunity Green inspires a collaborative culture of new thinking and unconventional ideas that pushes change in unexpected ways.
  • We will also be launching  a series of conference calls on the Innovation Exchange. Sign up to receive our blog posts and get updates on upcoming podcasts.

Look for us at these conferences – and let us know if you’ll be there so we can watch for you as well!

You can always see where we’re going to be – and what conferences we’re watching – on the Innovation Exchange Calendar.

Where You'll Find Us in October (Conferences of interest)

Where You'll Find Us in October:

Look for us at these conferences – and let us know if you’ll be there so we can watch for you as well!

You can always see where we're going to be – and what conferences we're watching – on the Innovation Exchange Calendar.

How to Choose Your Sustainability Conferences

Our colleague Victoria Mills recently said, with exasperation, “There used to be just a handful of sustainability conferences. We could make phone calls to a couple people and know who was doing what where. Now they are everywhere!” And it is true.  Triple Pundit alone lists seven events it is going to in the next two months. In many ways, this is a nice problem to have, as it reflects a burgeoning interest in the topic of business and the environment.

Our small EDF Corporate Partnerships team will attend 40 or more events in the next year (here’s our calendar).  Of course we track our carbon production and buy offsets, but conference costs exceed just their environmental impact. They cost us days of work time, stress on families, plus the financial burdens of registration, room and travel. On the other hand, we think attending face-to-face events is valuable.  Our work depends on partnering and coordinating with other organizations – our small team can’t have the impact we want all by ourselves. Meeting face-to-face is still an excellent way to understand common interests, build trust, and make things happen.

So what is a frugal non-profit to do?  A few of us sat down this week to talk “conference strategy.”  Some of our conclusions were: Read more »

Austin, Texas: Ready to drive green business innovation

For me, one of the memorable lines at last week's Green Innovation for Business Unconference (aka "GIBU") in Austin was from 3M's Phyllis Cheatum, who announced in her opening remarks, "I'm uncomfortable.  At 3M we don't show up to meetings without agendas (like this one).  But discomfort drives innovation."  

The nearly 100 green business innovators who filled 3M's Innovation Center on that warm September morning also embraced discomfort in the name of innovation.  Not only did they collectively fill in the blank agenda wall and volunteer to lead sessions on the fly, but they spent the next eight, high-energy hours tackling some of the toughest, most uncomfortable business-sustainability issues we face today: 

  • How do we shift attitudes and, most importantly, behavior of consumers, employees and executives? 
  • How should we engage employees, and support and sustain the champions within our companies? 
  • In a tough economic climate, what are the creative ways we can build the business case for sustainability initiatives? 
  • What does it take to drive green technology adoption?
  • How do we set standards and select metrics?  How should we define what it means to be "green"?
  • How can we market "green" so that we are sure we aren't "green-washing"?

The two big "ah-ahs" for this blogger, after participating in all the GIBU events this year (in DC, Boston and Silicon Valley, in addition to Austin), were these: 

First, the right people – with the necessary talent, passion and connections – are behind this movement, both in Austin and the other regions.  In Austin, the participants were sustainability managers, engineers, product developers and operations gurus from nearly all the local heavy-hitting companies (3M, AMD, Austin Energy, Dell, Freescale Semiconductor, IBM, National Instruments, etc.).  They were joined by entrepreneurs, government representatives, consultants of all stripes, nonprofits and the leadership of key local networks—such the Austin EcoNetwork and Net Impact Austin.

Second, though the GIBU series was designed to be regional, the big, uncomfortable challenges participants tackled in Austin were very much the same as those debated by their counterparts in DC, Boston and Silicon Valley.  Link up these networks, and we've got some real fire power with which to overcome obstacles and drive green business innovation, nationally and internationally.

For the complete agenda and session notes, visit the Green Innovators wiki.  Or search #GIBU09 in Twitter to get a taste of the immediate reactions and other "ah-ha" moments.

And stay tuned for news on the next iteration of the GIBU series for 2010.  Subscribe to this blog if you'd like to get or stay involved.

Four Events for Companies Interested in Reducing Fleet GHG Emissions

With the height of summer now firmly in the rear-view mirror, the workshop/conference season is getting into high gear. There are several great upcoming opportunities to learn about the latest in reducing fleet emissions.

Among the events that EDF will be participating over the next six weeks are:

AltWheels Fleet Day

When: Monday October 5th

Where: Framingham, MA

The event bills itself as  “an event for leaders in fleet management: If you are a fleet manager or commercial vehicle operator looking for new technologies and practical tips for coping with rising fuel costs, come to Fleet Day to learn how to achieve greater efficiency while making the business case for clean technologies that fuel costs and emissions.” EDF staff will be panelists on three of the afternoon breakout sessions.

For more information: http://www.altwheels.org/fleetday09.html

Fleet Challenge Ontario: Green Fleet Management Breakfast Forum

When: Tuesday October 6th

Where: Toronto, ON

I will be joining Keith Kerman, from the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation and Recipient of National Association of Fleet Administrators 2008 "Greenest Fleet" Award, and Roger Smith, Director of Fleet Challenge Ontario, to discuss best practices for reducing emissions from fleets.

For more information: http://www.fleetchallenge.ca/breakfast_2009.html

The Green Fleet Conference

When October 19-20

Where: Chicago, IL

This event will convene corporate and government fleet managers from across the nation to discuss successful strategies for reducing emissions and keeping fleet costs in check. EDF staff will participate on the panel covering funding opportunities for greenfleet efforts and lead a discussion about engaging drivers on fuel-smart driving behavior.

For more information: http://www.greenfleetconference.com/

Hybrid Truck Users’ Forum

When: October 27-29

Where: Atlanta, GA

The leading event focused on the medium-to-heavy duty hybrid truck marketplace. EDF staff will attend and participate in several activities throughout this event.

For more information: http://www.calstart.org/projects/hybrid-truck-users-forum.aspx

Look for us at these conferences – and let us know if you’ll be there so we can watch for you as well!

You can always see where we’re going to be – and what conferences we’re watching – on the Innovation Exchange Calendar.

Where You'll Find Us in September (Conferences of interest)

Where You'll Find Us in September:

Look for us at these conferences – and let us know if you’ll be there so we can watch for you as well!

You can always see where we're going to be – and what conferences we're watching – on the Innovation Exchange Calendar.

Also, please join us in congratulating Rachel Beckhardt on her impending nuptials and honeymoon.  We’ll be welcoming her back as Rachel Beckhardt Hinchliffe later this month.

Sustainability leaders tackle big issues at Silicon Valley's GIBU 09

The 130 sustainability leaders who gathered at the recent EDF/Ashoka "Green Innovation for Business Unconference" (or GIBU) in Silicon Valley didn't shy away from tough questions. Here are a few of the thornier ones:

* Should "green" be a source of competitive advantage—or does that hold us back from critical knowledge-sharing?

* Should internal sustainability initiatives continue to be presented to employees as voluntary programs and/or special projects? What are the tradeoffs if we require participation rather than incentivize it?

* Can we continue to shift all knowledge and commercial transactions to the computing "cloud" without confronting the total environmental costs of data transfer and storage?

Luckily, there was no shortage of brain power at this latest installment in the GIBU series, which eBay hosted at its San Jose conference center on August 5. Dozens of companies—including Cisco, Hewlett Packard, Intuit, NetApp, Nvidia, Palm, Salesforce.com and Yahoo!—were at the table, along with consulting firms and leading-edge nonprofits and foundations (such as Grid Alternatives, Imagine H20, Net Impact, Skoll Foundation and Sustainable Silicon Valley.) Read more »

Treasure Hunting for Gigatons

While on her way to present at the Conference Board Business and Sustainability Conference, Gwen Ruta's flight ran into weather and she got rerouted to Harrisburg, PA. Her misfortune was my luck as I got to present her slides and participate in a great conversation about what companies are already doing to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

The thrust of Gwen's presentation is that we can actually make money addressing the first 20% or so of the climate change problem. These 4 to 5 gigatons of "low hanging emissions" come from energy inefficiencies that actually cost firms money. A sizable chunk of the opportunity lies in two areas where we know we can have big savings – buildings and corporate fleets. Read more »

Green Innovation in the City of Clean Tech

Boston was recently named the nation's "best city for clean tech" and we were fortunate enough to hold our second Green Innovation for Business Unconference across the river in Cambridge this week at Microsoft New England. Close to 100 business leaders, entrepreneurs, academics and advocates came together for a day-long group-think to figure out how to drive environmental improvements deeper and more quickly into the private sector. Read more »

Green innovators accelerate change at DC's GIBU 09

What do you get when you throw 100 green business innovators in a room for eight hours with no formal agenda?

We found out this week at the Green Innovation for Business Unconference (or GIBU 09), the first event in a series being convened by EDF and Ashoka this summer. This gathering in Washington, D.C., held at Google's offices, brought together a cross-section of sustainability innovators from the public, private and nonprofit sectors.

The "un-agenda"

Using the "unconference" format, GIBU 09 offered no formal speeches or scheduled panels. Instead the participants were presented with a challenge for the day: "How can we accelerate the diffusion of the best ideas–at the pace and scale needed to outrun the environmental problems we face?"

To the surprise of many unfamiliar with the "unconference" approach (this blogger included), the participants quickly built out a robust agenda of impromptu discussion groups and brainstorming sessions on the topics of greatest interest to them. Read more »

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