Posts in 'Events'

• Jason Mathers will be at the North American Council for Freight Efficiency Symposium on November 3^rd in Chicago.

• Emily Reyna will be attending Opportunity Green November 7^th and 8^th at UCLA. Opportunity Green inspires a collaborative culture of new thinking and unconventional ideas that pushes change in unexpected ways.

• Elizabeth Sturcken is guest lecturing for a Sustainable Business class at the Haas School of Business, UC Berkeley on November 10^th.

• Net Impact North America Conference 2009 on November 13^th -14^th is designed to mobilize members through an exciting array of keynotes, panels, case studies, simulations, and special events. Rachel Beckhardt Hinchliffe will be leading a panel on Climate Corps; she and Robyn Scrafford will be conducting interviews for MBA students interested in applying for the 2010 Climate Corps fellowship program. Jana Holt will be manning a booth at the conference, and Kirk Hourdajian will be attending.

• Beth Trask will be at the Behavior, Energy and Climate Change Conference in Washington, D.C. on November 15^th-18^th.

• Thomas Murray will be guest lecturing in Dan Esty & Stephen Ramsey's Environmental Management & Strategic Advantage course at the Yale School of Management on November 16^th.

• Kirk Hourdajian will be at The Deal Economy 2010 on November 18^th and 19^th at the Union League Club in New York City.

• 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:

• Elizabeth Sturcken is a panelist speaking about partnerships and getting past barriers towards efficiency at the Sustainable Supply Chain Summit on October 16^th in San Francisco.
• Rachel Beckhardt Hinchliffe and Jason Mathers are both leading panels at the Green Fleet Conference October 19^th- 20^th in Chicago.
• On October 5^th in Framingham, MA, Rachel Beckhardt Hinchliffe and Jason Mathers are leading panels at the –AltWheels Conference.
• David Witzel will be moderating a panel at Social Media for Sustainability in San Francisco on October 19th.
• Andrew Hutson will be at the World Resource Institute's Greenhouse Gas Protocol Steering Committee in Washington, DC on October 7^th-8^th.
• On October 1^st, Elizabeth Sturcken will be guest lecturing at UC Berkeley's Goldman School of Public Policy for the class "Environment and Technology from the Policy and Business Perspective."  This class is part of the cross-Berkeley graduate certificate program on "Engineering and Business for Sustainability." She will also be guest lecturing at UC Berkeley during a Sustainable Manufacturing class on October 13^th

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.

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 »

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.

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 6^th

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:

• Audrey Davenport and Beth Trask will be attending Social Capital Markets in San Francisco, September 1-3.
• Jason Mathers will be sharing the results of EDF’s survey of fleet managers at the AFLA conference in Phoenix, September 9-11.
• Dave Witzel will be discussing how the Innovation Exchange can help companies at the ASA Sustainability Stakeholder Engagement Conference in New York, September 14-15.
• Dave Witzel, Beth Trask, and Melanie Janin will be at the EDF/Ashoka Green Innovation for Business Unconference in Austin, September 16.
• Hear Fred Krupp speak at the Atlantic Green Intelligence Forum on September 16 in Washington, DC.
  
• Tom Murray will be attending the Dow Jones Private Equity Analyst Conference in New York, September 16-17.
• Gwen Ruta will speaking at the Greening the  Supply Chain Conference on September 17 and at the GEMI Senior Advisory Council meeting on September 23. Gwen will also be a panelist about the future of energy at the Financial Times U.S. Energy Business Conference in New York, September 24.
• Audrey Davenport and Kirk Hourdajian will be at the Leadership for a Better World Conference on September 25.

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.

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 »

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 »

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 »

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 »