AboutWorkEcology

The Start of Something New

The Start of Something New - the First Post for 2011

by Lavinia Weissman

About a week before Christmas, I simply slowed down. Just before Christmas Day, I picked up my phone for the novelty of it all and called a few people I enjoy and admire.

The first person I called was @jan_morgan; Jan is one of my most favorite peeps in the #csr community nest of the world created by @elainecohen.

Just before Christmas Joe Sibilia, CEO, CSRwire.com, spoke about his powerful partnership with Jan.  My quick summary is that Jan in this last year has woven into the heart and soul of CSRWire giving CSRwire the glue to bind more than 6,000 clients. Jan's enthusiasm, outlook and way of connecting is contagiously empowering and very kind.

Jan was of course working on a day that the office was closed because her staff informed her the day before that she had given them the day off and she forgot! She had booked herself for a day of conference calls.

At the start of our call, Jan told me she looked forward to " my big announcement"……..at the start of 2011.

I laughed and said, Oh…..I can see from how I tweeted that you might think I have some “big biz announcement.”  In truth, I don’t think it is a really big announcement, I think it is more about making a statement after the New Year of how I plan to work.

Since early November more than 6 of the new and best CSR books prepublication and published have come to my desk. I am even proud to say I read all of them, including an early prepublication pre-peer review manuscript by @ericlowitt 's, Strategies for the Long Haul.

I began with Elaine Cohen's remarkable book, which is with all its detail is easy to digest through her conversational format of writing.  Aman Singh, @vaultcsr, reviewed, recommended and described this book with her journalistic prowess.  I took Elaine seriously when she told, “bring it on.” Elaine was inviting me to offer what I really think of her book. I grappled with this for a few weeks and even chatted a bit with Jan Morgan about it and then I realized how Elaine’s book CSR for HR, held meaning for me.

Elaine’s book is going to be featured as part of leadership curriculum that I am developing that will annotate and summarize all the books generously shared with me for review by Elaine, Aron Cramer, Joe Sebelius, Jeffrey Hollender, Carol Sanford, Dave Wann and Eric Lowitt. Okay I confess to am still waiting for @adamwerbach to send me a copy of his book. This annotation will be made available to subscribers of my new sustainability leadership teleconference series that I plan to launch in February. The learning group is for any leader or community organizer wanting to learn to embed a culture of sustainability into a leadership approach of sustainability.

Yet this idea was much too wide. I knew it could span a degree of thought that would burn out anyone.  So I spent more quiet time, swimming a bit and meeting friend for for coffee and sharing a few late night calls.  I used my meditation practice to find a more narrow sport from which to work that I could sustain and contribute value to an audience I really enjoy relating to.

While thinking through all of this from a professional view, I took sought out personal support as well. I participated in a conversation that began with a community of people linked to Joan Borysenko, @jzborysenko.  Joan Borysenko began a personal examination of "burnout" for herself and discovered the topic was perfect for her 15th book.

I was drawn to this topic personally and from the perspective of sustainability. I believe ‘burnout’ holds real relevance to sustainability since  CSR and Sustainability practices have grown in rapid popularity this year in response to economic, health and environmental burnout.

Often in the CSR, Sustainability world people express confusion and overwhelm. I think some of this overwhelm is also due to the experience people and company strategists or economic decision makers feel when a recession shadows everything they are doing to survive. Hence not only do many become personally depressed, many economic decision makers and leaders as a result of this depression obstruct change and cultural wellbeing because of what is implied by personal depression and a bottom line decline due to external events no one seems to be able to control.

So as a practitioner, I had to think about how I contribute to that and also how my work and pace was contributing to my own burnout.

Joan’s book arrived at my door just on time for my Christmas break from my twitter, hoot and blog dance.

The book now aptly titled Fried: Why You Burn Out and How to Revive, is a combination of quality neuroscience analysis of the growing rate of depression and its relationship to burnout; stories of how people experience burnout, and the passages for healing that people can consciously chose beyond simply fixing the symptoms with anti-depressants. 

Most American in the state of the current economy would not  be surprised to learn that Biopharm is in part a sustainable industry due to $9.6B in sales anti-depressants. Yet anti-depressants do not heal depression; they fix the symptoms. So what does it mean that the US gobbles 67% of the supply of anti-depressants on the market?  If drugs aren't fixing the symptoms what will and can healing depression and the burnout that it implies lead to a more sustainable way of health?

Joan’s personal candor and sharing of her own experience with personal relationships and how her career is a valuable story for anyone working today in any profession or field.  Her story of how she shifted from a career as a medical scientist in an academic medical school research settings led to her becoming licensed psychologist, who midwifed the field of mind body medicine while practicing in the Harvard Medical School affiliated Longwood Medical Area.

In some ways this experience runs a similar parallel to why so many professionals I know who are business leaders, environmental advocates, investors and financial analysts have chosen to become practitioners of CSR and Sustainability.  I know it runs parallel to my own. Of a more synchronistic perspective, Joan and I went to the same high school, had offices across the street from each other and similar experiences with our father's end of life cycles that drew us together in FB, while we have never met in person. We even worked within the same medical community and share many of the same friends; but have very different paths.

Certainly this book supports the adage, “healer health thyself.” It also parallels the in depth research I completed in 2009, on the Earth Charter Principle Six, The Precautionary Principle, that invites us to “exercise precaution.”

As 2011 approached,  I want to work to make this year blososm into the greatest impact I ccan have for my work. So I sought feedback from people I respect on how to shape that and I looked carefully at how people who engage with me suggest I shape my work for the “sale,’ where the sale does not imply the kind of work I want to do or the best result I can contribute to.

During a conversation with Joan's FB community about boundaries and self-love, I commented,

“If only the world I work in would catch up with this level of consciousness.”

This comment became the transition for into Fried's Chapter 6 – Letting Go and Moving On; a discussion on careers, burnout, when to move on and why.

Joan's offering clearly did not take into the account the challenge of today's economy.  Where to go with that part of your considerations for a career integrating CSR and Sustainabililty is just one place and simple with an almost daily read of  Aman Singh, @vaultcsr, on the state of the economy, jobs and working in CSR.

As anyone employed or not employed now knows,  the most challenging place to do this kind of work beyond meeting “green requirements” and shifting practices to what @adamwerbach would call Blue Strategies is most challenging in any form of work related to personal health and well-being.

So if there is any big announcement from me this year.  It starts simple, after producing the two series of blogs posts related to Seventh Generation and the CSRwire -Sanofi Aventis/Genzyme M/A Series, I had to pause. These posts were a result of a level of work that was intense, important and once completed opened me to some new thinking that is most critical to focusing my work and assuring its value.

My next couple of  posts will start to roll that thinking out to you over the next week or two.

Happy New Year to all. I appreciate all my readers and the network of colleagues who take the time to read me. 2010 was a challenging year coming into the public view with my thinking and knowledge.  I wish to personally thank Christine Arena, Elaine Cohen, Aman Singh, Susan McPherson, Jan Morgan, Joan Borysenko and others, who I will acknowledge in other ways. Thank you all your numerous generous contributions that often surprised me in form of reward that surprises you on a day when you are questionning yourself and wanting to assure value for your work.

 

The Green Chemistry Challenge - Can P&G and 7th Generation rise to the Occasion?

Part 2 - The Fall of a CSR Hero & What this Implies to #sustainnow

by Lavinia Weissman

@workecology

How the world perceives chemicals and the mom's dream for chemical free was questioned this past September when the National Advertising Division (NAD) of the Council of Better Business Bureaus questioned advertising messages of "CSR" famed brands Seventh Generation Products and Procter and Gamble Detergents. Both companies conceded after the issue was raised that their products are not "chemical free."

Comments on the Seventh Generation Blog announcing the departure of Jeffrey Hollender reflected teh tradition of protest from consumers that lacked the depth of educated analysis on a very complex topic.One  consumer offered a link to the NAD post and positioned Seventh Generation as a green washer who used false advertising tactics. Mixed in with the post were protest-driven remarks about Seventh Generation adding Walmart to its distribution channels. 

Last week, I featured a post that spoke of the end of an era of doing business led by a CSR hero and offered a more balanced overview for any reader from any sector in terms of the evolution of Seventh Generation (and for that matter any CSR company with a heroic founder).

CSR advocacy and protesting is often based on the mixing of "apples and oranges" that should have been give more careful analysis.  Recent press suggested that Hollender has been fired and is taking the fall for Seventh Generation distribution through Walmart and other mainstream channels. Others insisted Hollender took the fall for describing Seventh Generation products  as "natural" when chemicals are in use.

I offered this viewpoint on the Seventh Generation Blog with this comment:

 

Price Points

Posted by Lavinia Weissman | Thu, Nov. 11, 2010

There is a reality not spoken here that has to do with price points and innovation. It is similar to some of the challenges in the biopharm market today.

Pricepoints for new products is often higher. The LOHAS (Lifestyles of Health and Sustainability) for years had a price point higher than usual retail or discount chains. The market research of the 90's showed that people would go into Whole Foods and spend more on Muir Organic tomatoes before they would go to Walmart. Walmart sold the same product.

It was presumed that the market of LOHAS folks would not go to WalMart.

The economy has changed and consumer profiles have changed. What people spend on anything now has changed. If the expenditure is for a product that is new and not as easy to purchase, they will pay a high price point. Look at what happened to Apple: Apple is now accessible to everyone.

The other issue is health. The new generation of parents are wise, organic and green and select this way of life no matter their politics. They live within their means and not on credit.

Hence the Seventh Generation customer has changed, the market has changed and step by step, practices and markets are emerging that base their purchases more on education of ingredients and less on who the person is behind the brand.

I received an email about my post from Germany pointing out that I did an analysis that was not about CSR martyrdom.

CSR is a buzz in journalism. In life it is a quiet practice that is not about personality. It is about finding a "new normal."

To stay viable and sustainable, Seventh Generation will have to find a "new normal."

T

 

I also have this view regarding chemicals and #safechem practices that is not easily understood by manufacturers, consumers and government.  Safe chemical practices implies finding substitutes for chemicals in use.  The cost for innovation and research for finding substitutes is often beyond what one company can fund on their own.

In June 2010, I attended the American Sustainable Business Council Meeting on safe chemical practices in Washington DC. Hollender was a panelist where he spoke clearly about his commitment to transparency and the challenges and needs to build a safe chemical practice.  

Through his leadership, Jeffrey Hollender has invested in educating people to the needs for a Safer Chemicals practice. I have dedicated four years of time to research on this topic as well that include my investigations of the impact of REACH and Green Chemistry.  While Jeffrey and I do not agree on method and approach, at least we are both doing something about the issue.

I am always open to meeting with Jeffrey and Procter and Gamble at the same table to work out our disagreements with other experts presesnt to forge ahead on a new innovative practice with others to work out an approach to safer chemicals that can accelerate change, research and innovation. I

I know that this new method of practice for chemicals is not going to be sparked by new regulations.  I also know I cannot depend on businesses alone innovating these practices in a vacuum. 

Seventh Generation and Procter and Gamble responded to the claims of greenwash and false advertising that reflects their practice of transparency while they both continue to be change agents who impact the world to build a sustainable economy.  Procter and Gamble, like other companies similar in size such as General Electric and Walmart, are altering the way they work, globally influencing changes with their supply chains, global consumer communities and internal practices. 

With the departure of Hollender, Seventh Generation as a company faces a door of change where the its future is not clear.  Once a new permanent CEO is selected, it may neither achieve nor accelerate a sustainable agenda and grow into a global giant.  The world of Safer Chemicals also requires a response different than what has already been authored by GE, Walmart and P&G.  I know this with certainty.

 

 

In my investigation on how to impact and lead change for Safer Chemicals, I have been digging more deeply into the history of oil spills before BP and thinking through the challenges of supply chains in working with manufacturers to assure Safe Chemicals and replace harmful chemicals.  I am learning as much as I can in between all I do. Riki Ott's NOT ONE DROP is becoming my primary resource.

It is an excellent crash course for me on the science behind what I observed through my years of participation in the social network that introduced knowledge management at British Petroleum and my short-lived chaotic experience working to implement a KM software application to track data for Shell Oil re: Oil and Drill.

I have been a supporter of chemical-related REACH legislation in the European Union since its inception and have recently come to realize the bureacracy and cost of REACH in addition to how the US-proposed TSCA Reform is not addressing the real issue. The amount of chemical used is not addressing the actual dose of chemical it takes to cause harm.

Recently, I received a copy of Green Chemistry is Good For Business, a letter posted on Forbes.com by Craig S. Criddle, Robert G. Bergman and their colleagues at Stanford and UC Berkeley. Their post validates the concerns I am synthesizing through my own research on Safer Chemical and Non Ionizing Radiation Practices.

Written as a response to California's Bad Chemistry, Dr. Henry I. Miller's post on Forbes.com, the authors state that the California Green Chemistry Initiative is a "proactive regulatory effort" to create a process to "identify chemicals of the greatest concern [and] provide an analysis of safer alternatives."
 
By contrast, the Forbes blog post from Dr. Miller is written from a narrow view similar to the original post from Aneel Kunarni that sparked the #csrdebate in September. I feel that this post invites a similar debate with representatives who are working in the arena to eliminate harm to human health and environment through chemical toxicity.

Our public health research is always ahead of public opinion and government capability.  My belief is that there are many good people working in manufacturing that stay abreast of the current public health research and opinion and the cost of media, promotion and education is exceeding the investment that many good people want to invest in programs of Safer Chemicals.

The Swedish-based non-profit ChemSec.org has become a premier example of a non-monetary incubator that can influence manufacturing and supply chains directly.   Funding sources for this kind of venture are sourced through a lot of hard work and energy.

The expense of media, protest, debate, lobbying, drafting and campaign for legislation is costly and the time lines to organize laws out of fear continue to be the dominant drivers for change reported on by the press.

I believe we need to develop new formats of innovation and communities of practice that lead this change. It is not going to come from the tradition of how science, advocacy and business has worked in the past. It is going to invite new forums of communities of practice, like the forum my partners and I are launching for WE Care Global Health.

I have a professional background as a health care program manager, leader and capacity building of change.  I have a personal passion for working on a safe chemical practice and defining a new capacity to insure every person's right to the best health possible in a world where one out of two people are likely to encounter chronic illness.

I am one person of millions of men, women and children who lives with a chronic illness due to unsafe use of chemicals. As a former health care program leader and manager, I understand more than most that safe chemical practices may in fact be the one of the best vehicles for reducing health care costs in the United States and any country if a perspective of "do no harm" is integrated into how we live, consume and care for health.

An advocacy approach to attack Seventh Generation or Procter and Gamble will not build the capacity we need in a sustainable economy to build safe chemical practices to "do no harm."  We need new methods of building capacity, funding research and resources to manage the use of chemicals and identify chemicals that are hazardous no matter their volume of use.  The amount of chemical in use is never the issue; it is the impact of chemicals of any amount that can be hazardous.

Jeffrey Hollender and I do agree on the importance of convening people of different views to a table to work on this issue.  I believe this table has to invite representatives from industry, government and the non-profit sector to pull together to do the hard work, rather than simply present what each person is doing to contribute from the perspective of the sector in which they work. 

I view there is a need to stop investing in educating politicians and congressional working groups to the need and how to author legislation and invite them to invest resources into community of practices who will seek out the right education on chemicals to find replacement for toxic chemicals or determine "precautionary toxic chemical use."

It is my goal to continue to contribute to build a new forum of "sustainable excellence," that impacts the health of women, children and men battling chronic illness as a result of exposure to chemical, environmental and non ionizing radiation.

While I happen to be a citizen who lives with the impact of this harm on my own health, I am also a former health care program manager, business woman and capacity builder. I have learned to live as best I can with my health challenges while developing the skill and capacity to define the necessary agenda to build "sustainable excellence" for the health and well-being of all global citizens. While this work is challenging on many fronts, it is the only way I know how to make a difference in a confusing world where chaos and protest often obstruct healthy progress.

If Seventh Generation, any company, consumer or politician wants to support this form of capacity building, I welcome any support in which to build this kind of forum of "sustainable excellence."

 

 



The Fall of a CSR Hero & What this Implies to #sustainnow

An Ode for Jeffrey Hollender

 

By Lavinia Weissman 

 

It was a challenge this weekend to try to make sense of what Jeffrey Hollender's departure from Seventh Generation represents.  It inspired in me some thinking that was completely unexpected and actually resulted in my completing a draft chapter for my book, Tales of Meaningful Use.

Background for this Post

By the end of the weekend, Bernie Kelly, my partner in Melbourne AU, read the draft and we took some time on Skype to look at the implications of what I wrote in this book chapter to the current stage of our progress to convene the WeCareHealth Community in Australia. As a result of my conversation with Bernie, we decided that the draft chapter as written now is something we wanted to have reviewed by the people who are forming into our global alliance advisory group and our launching partners for our project in Australia.

I shared this draft chapter with numerous people I turn to for advice before the end of the weekend. It became clear that this draft chapter was a valuable piece of work that could leverage a dialogue of relevance for Seventh Generation that I want to give much greater thought to.  Bernie Kelly and I have decided to do just that and mapped out a process for the chapter review that we will be acting on beginning next week to incubate our next stage of work and action research with people we trust.

Yet after completing this substantial piece of writing, a few words rang in my ears that were spoken by @elainecohen and @vault csr, Aman Singh on Twitter last Friday at the close of Business for Social Responsibility.

What about the people?

By reflecting on these words, I found myself writing this post.

This important question helped me see how the draft book chapter I wrote shed light on Jeffrey Hollender's departure.
 

1. Can Anyone Replace Jeffrey Hollender?

After I completed my "business analysis" of the implications of the Board's resolve to let go of Jeffrey Hollender, I thought back to two years ago when a very important person in my life, Rabbi Alan Lew, went for a jog at a rabbinical retreat where he was teaching in Baltimore and fell to the ground dead. His heart had finally given out.  Alan was a very important person in my life, like Jeffrey Hollender is to many people I know in CSR.  I happened to be in San Francisco the day Alan died, where I had lived for 10 years.  So I joined his congregation and very sizeable personal network of people for a week to celebrate Alan's life.

A few years before Alan passed away, he had decided, like Jeffrey, to start a transition in his congregation and prepare them for a new congregational leader. Alan's talent and capacity as a human being related to spirituality, social justice and hospice had woven into his life a demand on his time from an international audience that was hard to tend to while tending to the needs of his local congregation in San Francisco where he lived.

The first rabbi hired to replace Alan failed and was fired. A search for a second rabbi took considerable time and I had occasion to talk to to two of the candidates that did not end up with an offer.  In the Jewish Community it has been a repeated pattern that when a "beloved rabbi" transitions into retirement or moves on to a respected global role, the rabbi that is hired to replace the "beloved" rabbi lasts less than a year.

I actually know a "beloved rabbi" that was hired away from a congregation in the Southeast US and brought to replace another "beloved rabbi" in Southern California. So after serving one congregation flawlessly for 25 years, this rabbi was rejected by a new congregation in one year.

As I thought of this and Jeffrey Hollender, I was left with the question, can anyone really replace Jeffrey Hollender at Seventh Generation?

2. Was Peter Graham behaving like John Sculley at Apple in 1985?

By Tuesday afternoon, I was completely confused by @janmorgan's remark on Twitter: "Jeffrey Hollender gets the boot."  The previous week, Seventh Generation had released its annual CSR report. In that report was a letter from Jeffrey and the CEO that had been selected to replace Jeffrey who had also recently left his post at Seventh Generation.  What the heck was Jan Morgan talking about?

As the news of Jeffrey's departure leaked into digital ink on the Web, I found a blog post from @marcgunther on the “sad and shocking news”.  This was the first report I could find about the incident that was grounded in some fact and contained a message from the Chairman of the Board, Peter Graham, who described Jeffrey's departure and the current goals of the company. Peter Graham is a friend of Hollender's dating back to childhood. Hollender's wife is also a significant shareholder and board member. One could only imagine the kind of tension this implies.

As I read the detail offered by Marc, this situation reminded me of the episode of change at Apple when John Sculley, Apple's CEO recruited from Pepsi, fired the founder, Steve Jobs. Recently, Sculley apologized to Jobs. It is now 20 years past this episode. It made me wonder: As years pass, what will shape from this episode in the story of Seventh Generation?

I have been a follower of the Apple story back to its founding.  I became an even more serious follower when Jeffrey Pfeffer, faculty at Stanford Business School, summarized his analysis of the cost to Apple of hiring Sculley as CEO and Sculley then firing Steve Jobs. Pfeffer’s book, The Human Equation, provided a remarkable analysis of the cost and impact of this change within cycles of ups and downs at Apple.

There had been rumors of a growing tension between Chuck Maniscalco and Jeffrey.  Like Sculley, Maniscalco has a Pepsico background as a President of a $10 billion division of Pepsico. This made me wonder if Maniscalco was acting as Sculley did, driving a company with a story and history of leadership and product excellence into the ring of operation dominated by brand and advertising operations?

I did a bit of a check-in and thought about other CEOs pushed out of service, e.g. HP's Marc Hurd, Carly Fiorina and Disney's Michael Eisner, and the rocky times those transitions created for these companies. Then I thought about a CEO who was not managed by his board and stakeholders, who led a very healthy company into decline and near death, Ken Olsen. Ken was founder and CEO of Digital Equipment Corporation.

3. What do these CEO departures have in common?

By week's end, Elaine Cohen’s post in support of Jeffrey offered an emotionally mature view from the position that as an outsider looking in, we may never know the real story. Her post also offered a very human side from the heart that spoke about the Jeffrey's contribution to the world of CSR. Elaine, with a posture of dignified emotional intelligence, expressed her concerns for the implications of this abrupt departure. She summarized her view and what this meant to CSR and Seventh Generation, its future, its performance and its moral, ethical and stand on transparency. 

After reading Elaine's post, I ran into a couple I am friendly with at Whole Foods Market on Saturday morning.  The two were taking a morning to relax with no plans. They were both exhausted. The previous day, my woman friend had lived through a pink slip session at Genzyme of 100 layoffs.  Her life-partner told me they were were both vegging and he was going to cook and pamper her the entire weekend.

My woman friend currently works in a company that is going through the stress of change. If you read reports about Genzyme in the paper, the problems with the bad performance of the CEO, Henri Temeer, and the harm to Genzyme's reputation and performance have been spiralling since 2009. The Board went through a period of tension without being aligned, and now in light of the Sanofi bid to purchase Genzyme the board is aligned on one thing and one thing alone: The estimated share value of $89.00 they want from the sale of the company.

By the time I got home, I thought: Seventh Generation is not for sale like Genzyme, it is not being acquired, it is positioned for growth, its products continue to be relevant more than before.  But the Founding CEO, the Board members and a short-term CEO, now candidate for the next generation of leadership, are all at odds and brought Seventh Generation into a transition grounded in a form of conflict—and that can result in harm.

4. What about the people?

Whatever I think of Jeffrey Hollender, Peter Graham or anyone in their networks of outreach, at this time, I am left with the same question Elaine and Aman asked at the end of the BSR conference: What about the people?

As a person more mature in years and age with a history of experience in the generation of CSR and Sustainability as a global practice, I have lots of opinions, stories and more. Some of them are now in my new book chapter.

In writing my book chapter, I concluded, as I often do with any project I work on: How has the leader I am writing about altered the lives of the people this person worked with, and what does his absence imply to these people?

My first answer is this. My hope and prayer for Seventh Generation is that the many competent people who served with Jeffrey to build Seventh Generation as a company of "sustainable excellence" do not have to suffer from a rocky transition that harms their capacity and ability to continue to work wisely to sustain personally, for their families and communities of residence.

In my own career experience that drew me to help contribute to the formation of sustainability and CSR as a practice, I simply have seen too much harm to the hard-working people.  I hope 10 years from now, I won't be writing a case study similar to what Jeffrey Pfeffer wrote about Apple in his book The Human Equation.

Just as I am a follower of the Story of Seventh Generation, I have been a follower of the Apple story back to its founding.  I became an even more serious follower when Jeffrey Pfeffer, faculty at Stanford Business School, summarized his analysis of the cost to Apple of hiring Sculley as CEO and Sculley then firing Steve Jobs. Pfeffer’s book, The Human Equation provided a remarkable analysis of the cost and impact of this change within cycles of ups and downs at Apple.

In my experience it is simply difficult for the "good people," who represent all the stakeholder groups that surround a company, to maintain and leverage from the good work they do in an environment of conflict where there has been an abrupt leadership change as a result of conflict within the board or with potential investors carving out a new stage of business for a company.

5. Serving and sustaining the future.

While I don't always agree with Jeffrey and his approaches within his closest network of colleagues,  Jeffrey and I are aligned on the one thing that brought me to CSR in 1993 and led me to form WorkEcology Thought Leadership. 

Like Jeffrey, I became committed to creating organization, business and economic forums that would serve seven generations forward.  I wanted this personally to move beyond the harm my daughter and I experienced with millions of others from the abrupt changes imposed on us in Massachusetts during Digital Equipments's late 80's decline, followed by a very harmful recession cycle in Silicon Valley in the early 1990's.  This harm imposed on millions in both California and Massachusetts became the dress rehearsal for the global chaos of 2008 and the worst two economic years in the United States, worse than the Great Depression.

The reign of a founder is often challenged when it is time to steer a course that is new and different. Only the passage of time will help the CSR world understand what the change in leadership at Seventh Generation implies, and if Peter Graham will be apologizing to Jeffrey Hollender 20 years from now. 

Perhaps both men will find a new form of friendship, or both come to recognize they are both setting out to engage a new form of learning that is not based on Seventh Generation's success of the past. Any company, no matter how innovative, has to face change. This rings true for Seventh Generation and all the people associated with the company. A strategic framework will have to be shaped for all people working with Seventh Generation to allow them to work wisely, live well and sustain.

 

Arena & McPherson Move the CSR Headline from Movement of Change to Best Global Practice for Business

 

What happens when two women, who are colleagues and leading practitioners of CSR perceive a need to follow up the 20+ blog responses and 250 individual comments posted to Dr. Aneel Karnani’s #WSJ Blog post, “The Case Against Corporate Social Responsibility?” 

Voila... Here is What Happened!

Susan McPherson,
a Senior Vice President with Fenton.com and Christine Arena,
blogger, author and founder of sparkUP, produced and moderated  a panel of today's top thought leaders in CSR practice representing companies, think tanks and media outlets of reputation.

The panel, entitled CSR and the Role of Business, A Spirited Discussion, provided an accurate benchmark of CSR today and how it has matured and now operates beyond the "movement" that formed in the late 1970's from which it has taken form.

The event sponsors included Fenton.com,  the Paley Center for Media and CSRwire;  the leaders in reporting on the impact of CSR in society, business and culture.  Fenton.com, true to its mission, produced this event as a campaign to create change.The Paley Center for Media has staked itself to be the hub of the intersection between media and society; CSRWire has created the leading wire service format  for anyone working in or reporting on CSR.

Seven of the nine panelists were drawn from companies, networks and media that represent the "best practice" CSR today. Each of these panelists has exercised  competence in the arena of CSR as a leader and contributing to this field of practice.

The CSR panelists joining Arena and McPherson were

• Matthew Bishop – U.S. Business Editor and New York Bureau Chief, The Economist
• Bob Corcoran – Vice President, Corporate Citizenship, President & Chairman, GE Foundation
• Aron Cramer – President and CEO, BSR
• Georg Kell – Executive Director, UN Global Compact
• Dave Stangis – Vice President, CSR and Sustainability, Campbell Soup Company

 

Each individual made their case for CSR based on their own first hand experience and the results.

As result the reports offered benchmarked CSR as it operates in today's global marketplace within 15 minutes of when the broadcast began.

An Event Benchmarking CSR as a Business Practice Impacting Societal Change.

There is no question from the majority of people represented on this  panel that CSR is fulfilling a need to address some of the most controversial complexity that effects business, the workforce and society today as reflected by the escalating frequency of catastrophes e.g. the BP Oil Spill, PG&E explosion and a summer of record hot temperatures.

The two panelists contributed to an opposing view of the value of CSR, Dr. Aneel Karnani, Associate Professor of Strategy, Stephen M. Ross School of Business, University of Michigan and Chrystia Freeland – Global Editor-at-Large, ThomsonReuters. The academic view of Dr. Kurnani and mainstream press perspective of Freeland were based on generalizations to simplify a very complex subject matter expertise for which they both lack hands on experience and simply draw conclusions from what they observe based on their "expert" education and discipline. 

I wondered if Karnani or Freeland had the education and experience to grasp the complexity of CSR agenda. I questions whether or not Karnani or Freeland  have made note or participated in the learning available through the  educational incubators. These non-profit incubators draw membership from business, government and non-govermental organziations that are advancing the CSR agenda and synthesizing the science and expertise that has become "mission critical" to building a CSR strategy in any company.

The incubators include 

• The Environmental Defense Fund
• ChemSec.org
• World Resource Institute
• Radiation Research Trust 

Each of these organizations have attracted participations that form into learning communities distilling the best science from which companies can base change on subject matter, e.g. climate warming, substitution of hazardous chemical, eco-system degradation and the effects of non-ionizing radiation.

Kurnani’s post stoked the fire that led to the production of this event. The reaction to this post ignited a new passion and recognition of CSR. While Kurnani views CSR as harmful and dangerous, he seemed to lack any experience or participation in the social networks that have formed and shaped communities of practice that are setting the standards and measuring the impact of CSR strategy in action.

The umbrella organization synthesizing this scale of activity is the UN Global Compact. George Kell, Executive Director, who contributed to this discussion/debate leads an organization that  now sustains a membership of 7700 global companies.  Membership into the UN Global Compact requires a demonstration of acting on the principles and values that have been authored by the community and fulfilling reporting requirements that show how a company is concretely acting on these principles and values with a framework authored for its membership by Deloitte Touche and a metric system and knowledge gained from Ceres and the Global Reporting Initiative.

The goal of this community is to learn to "exercise precaution" and work to prevent the oversights of harm that had historically been responded to by NGO campaigns against corporations that in turn invested profit to lobby and oppose the prospect of government regulations to mandate compliance.

The New Concrete CSR Agenda

Panelists provided reports of their experience with CSR as a vital business strategy, to create new markets, mitigate risk and lead to building as sustainable economy. CSR practice in its current formation has: 

1.   Demonstrated that the business motivation for CSR and Sustainability compliments rather than replaces what governments do and never as a substitute.  

2.  Built an accelerate response and trajectory of learning by global business that in the 20th century grew based on reaction to the tradition of  NGO campaigns and the political processes to form and pass regulation to solve major problems that companies had not historically addressed proactively.

 3.  Become  part of being a company's capacity to be competitive by staying ahead of the game and responding to new emerging markets in.

4. Taken on non-financial issues that fall between the cracks that can be very costly and decrease future profits.

5.  Shifted the historical view of CSR as philanthropic/volunteer practice to a practice that integrates with core to the business strategy that takes responsibility to solve world problems.

7.  Addressed the issues of complexity that business faces today. For example, Campbell Soup’s CSR strategy is one of the 7 core business strategies because it makes the company better, builds engagement, attracts talent and makes us better as a company, make us more nimble to drive a change in culture that drives the mission of the company.

8. Out of the challenge of the terminology of "corporate social responsibility," CSR has provoked a struggle that is shaping in a world of accelerated change where geographical boundaries and rules by which companies have operated in the past have simply become obsolete; hence creating new emerging markets (and economies of scale).

9.  Challenged the Milton Friedman view that business's sole purpose is to make money; and therefore challenged the focus on  short -term profits and the ways in which the stock market has not been prudent in influencing a long term business approach.

10. Recognizes that corporate citizenship is as important as compliance and for business to aspire to do ethical business.

11.  Resulted in China  adopting the model of corporate social responsibility and applying it to China's state owned businesses with the goal to keep these state owned companies competitive and build China's capacity to enter new markets and achieve outcomes that permit them to compete in the global world.

12.  Opened a new understanding of how business issues spill over into  regulatory issues; and  where there is a conflict assure that business and regulators work it out by naming the problem and working it out.

13. Begun to reconcile the difference in perspectives, culture and diversity that exist around the world by recognizing in the global market place that the same rules cannot be applied everywhere. 

 

Conclusion

CSR expert panelists summarized some meaningful points in the end that influenced the panel and debate.

Dave Stangis suggested that focusing a debate on articles, pushes people to get too simple.

Matt Bishop suggested that it would be valuable to shape a future debate around what companies are doing for CSR and Sustainability or Corporate Citizenship and how invite more transparency and quality of journalism to the debate.

George Kell pointed out that the American tendency to shape conversations that are generalized does not work for construction of complicated issues that involve CSR.

Araon Cramer provided an example of how Google, Microsoft, Yahoo and Facebook have united to examine Freedom of Speech that goes beyond the grasp of government to deal with and for business to take this on collaboratively and not just sweep these difficult challenges under the rug, accelerates the an examination that would not be addressed at a pace that makes sense by government alone.

Any person working in industry, government or for a non-governmental organization should review this broadcast and consider joining this type of debate, which I believe will accelerate the value of CSR to society, culture and education.

George Kell pointed out that unlike most American press, generalizations cannot empower what is needed to have a constructive CSR conversation. One of Kell's final remarks offered related to reporting on  the membership of the UN Global Compact  response of 20% interest to climate change that he anticipated would grow to 30% next year represented an indicator of importance.

During the last 25 years, the global audience of companies interested in CSR has formed a learning infrastructure that has accelerated learning and adoption of this approach to core business practice.   CSR has gained the traction of a living system of thought that millions of people in business and outside business now grapple with. 

Join me in giving a standing ovation to Susan McPherson and Christina Arena for putting a stake in the ground with this event to redefine CSR and its value today. Susan and Christina produced an event of meaning that provided a shared understanding of CSR beyond its initial formation of a philanthropic and publicity strategy and tactics.

CSR has formed  into a mature complex practice  that I would not have predicted when I attended my first Stanford University BSR presentation by Anita Roddick in 1992.  Anita was Founder and President The Body Shop. She conceived her idea for a CSR business in 1976, launched her company from her home and when she went to shape it into a professional global company, she wrote a business plan that was worthy of bank financing. Upon applying for financing by herself, she was turned down by the bank. When she returned to the bank with her husband, who offered co-signature she was funded.

Anita,one of the  founding leader, who help to create this movement of change passed away September 10, 2007 at Age 64 of cancer. I am regret she could not live to see this acceleration of CSR principles and values in practice globally.

Christine and Susan, you have provided through your outstanding leadership and production of this event a form of celebration for this movement of change that has become a global business practice reflectin the hard work of men and women over the past 40 years working hard to build what you brought to light on September 17th, 2010.

The CSR panelists, for the #csrdebate, are role models of CSR professionals today who shaped the CSR agenda as an agenda that demands board and director attention and performance.

Thank you,

Lavinia Weissman

 

 

 

 

 

Is Genzyme Really Downsizing or Building an Ecosystem to #sustainnow?

As a Massachusetts resident, I have been following the story of Genzyme back to Sept. 2001 drawing on my understanding of the ecosytem that surrounds a corporate balance sheet and the intersection of a business game with government, people and non government organizations.

While I have not worked at Genzyme, I have developed an opinion that Genzyme operates a culture lost in its past success based on a founders passion and has not adapted itself in an ecosystem that can sustain itself and influence a health ecology around the globe.  Genzyme is operating in the tradition of any company responding to "Wall Street" ups and downs and has shaped its agenda to sustain.

This is no surprise.   Most US based companies that mustered fast growth profits based on a tradition of investment that limits its focus on ROI for shareholders rather than a triple bottom line. Most of the companies and economic decision makers perpetuate a corporate culture based on historical success profitable until a harmful event occurs. The response to the harmful event become the roadmap for the future.

Genzyme has experienced this kind of event. June 2009, a virus outbreak in its Allston MA manufacturing plant resulted in steep delays of production of drugs critical to the treatment of people with Gaucher or Fabry Disease. The initial response shut down this plants operations. In the months that followed, it became clear that Genzyme had not developed manufacturing production systems that  prevent  hazardous exposure. The delays to correct the problem indicated Genzyme did not have skill and competence in applying the systems and processes for manufacturing that comply with FDA requirements or are standard practice for a mature and stable company with profit.  By April 2010 the FDA levied a $175M fine on Genzyme for the event and poor response. 

The incident and the lack of quality response that follows is smaller scale than the impact of the BP Oil skill, but reflects the ongoing types of drama that occur when a profitable company grows in size and does not put systems in place to respond strategically to the requirements of GRI, GRI or ESG metrics.

Most of the ongoing drama's in industry today and years past reflects this viscious cycle. The State of Massachusetts where I lived has not been successful in breaking its this destructive pattern.  I saw this pattern form in the mid 80's with the demise of Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC).  In 1986,  DEC stood strong with 160,000 employees globally.  Then through the dysfunction of its CEO, Ken Olsen, who did not believe personal computing was the new wave, DEC began a cycle of destruction and downsized over the next 5-7 years from 160,000 employees globally to fewer than 35,000. DEC was then acquired by Compaq.   Compaq was absorbed by Hewlett Packard and the drama continues with a focus on CEO behavior and ethic that has resulted in HP dismissing its past two CEO's; Carly Fiorina and Marc Hurd.

On the brighter side, I view Genzyme can shift away from this vicious cycle because of the current progress by 7700 companies that comprise the membership of the UN Global Compact.  

Genzyme today stands at a door of possibility to sustain its company by adopting the action research practice of the UN Global Compact and can learn from the progress of companies, e.g. Danisco and Sanofi Aventis and the results they have achieved from defining a a steep CSR/Sustainability Agenda.

In this particular case, Sanofi Aventis happens to be a company that offered an unsolicited bid to Genzyme which was refused and is now rumored to be positioned to be conversing with Genzyme Board of Directors, e.g. Carl ICann; who are open to selling their stock to Sanofi Aventis.

Whether on its own or merged with Sanofi Aventis, the solution for Genzyme to sustain is to organize itself to view the Genzyme economy as a participant in an ecosystem that can sustain if it shifts its attitude and perspective to adopt a global agenda for sustainability from which to survive. If Genzyme economic decision makers embark on embedding sustainability as part of a global agenda, they could even influence a struggling state that has had massive economic decline and job loss and shift the US challenging experience of a declining economy.

  If Genzyme can begin now with review of Sanofi Aventis, 2009 CSR report. Sanofi Aventis has had significant progress in implementing its steep commitment to CSR, as reported in its recenlty released 2009 CSR report. This could be the simplest gesture of getting on track that Genzyme could initiate now.

Sanofi Avenits' virtual report provides an audio presentation Christopher A. Viehbacher, CEO, Sanofi Aventis outlines in less than 2 minutes Sanofi Aventis clear commitment to its steep global mission to improve the health of as many 6.8B people walking the planet.  The strategy includes addressing present and future public health agenda,  increasing innovation to R&D and opening the company to merger acquisitions and building infrastructure to make the world a better way to live.

Genzyme's auditor is Deloitte Touche, who authored the CSR Sustainabililty Framework for adoption by the UN Global Compact membership. I must admit, I find it ironic that I have seen nothing in the Boston or national investment press about how an agenda of Sustainability is an opportunity for Genzyme. I did one last quick "internet" search at Foley and Lardner, LLP search engine that brought me to an archive of articles on Genzyme at the Mass High Tech Press Outlet.

How is the EcoSystem that surrounds Genzyme Responding?

If you take the time that I did last night to trace through 2 years of press dating back to June 16, 2009 - you can view some serious glitches in the the system of regulation that surrounds Genzyme based on the American tendency to respond to issues in business by evoking "laws of fear" or fall back on the drama of the shareholder reports authored by investment sites and legal authorities that Genzyme is leading itself into a corner to end up with a "hostile takeover." Yesterdays headline in the Boston Globe announced a 1,000 person layoff. If you read closely in the fine print, there is no immediate threat of a 1,000 person pink slip day of layoff. The threat of layoff was defined as a workforce reduction over the next 15 months of 1,000 employees.

The other feed to Genzymes instability has been it price per share dance since 2008. With the outbreak of viruses that contaminated the Allston plants drug production of Fabrizyme and Cerazyme that Genzyme's stock value fell from its all time high of $80 a share in 2008 to an all time low of $47.16 this Spring.  With the press buzz regarding the Sanofi Aventis offer the stock climbed slightly above $70.00 a share by the end of July 2010. This would make any company ripe for a merger acquisition.

In contrast to share value, Genzyme profits in 2009 of $422.3M on $4.5B in sales sustains its position as a Fortune 500 company. So the $175M FDA fine paid from profit seems to have sparked more harmful activity rather than inspire a change to leadership based on ESG investment practices.

Biopharm has been slow to move into a Sustainability framework beyond the metrics of corporate citizenship, green building and volunteerism. Genzyme is proud of its  Green Building Corporate Headquarters in Cambridge, MA.   But none of this allays my continued concern as a person who residees in the United States in Massachusetts where Genzyme is head quartered. Successful Biopharm of the 90's is no longer the path for success today.  Matthew Emmens, CEO made this clear in his presentation last April at Babson College Conference for the Life Sciences.

The ecosystem that surrounds Genzyme is a system of defeat perpetuating the economic downturn in Massachusetts that also swells throughout the United States. Genzyme lives in a system of government, regulation and economic development that is faltering on a federal and state level and does not speak the speak of a company living in a global economy. The FDA views this fine cutting into their profits as a constructive step. This makes me wonder why the FDA could not have simply asked that these funds of profit be directed to resources that correct the problems and steer Genzyme to a sustainable future?

The tradition of response in the United States to catastrophes of this kind, is to fire a CEO, fine a company or make the company directly responsible for the harm it has caused its consumers.  Massachusetts now stands to have another decline in its job census the the Massachusetts High Technology Council and our State Leadership has failed to alter.

I could not find  through my screen to the "Internet," anything that showed me that Genzyme has formed productive partnerships with government and NGO economic development leaders to breath life into a regional and global ecosystem in the economy of suppliers, patients, distributors through out is global geography.

The most popular news outlets reporting on Genzyme are perpetuating the tradition of reporting that focused on lost profits, hostile take overs, lost jobs, and a stock valuation that is unsteady and emotionally reactive.  A human side to this story was brought to life by reporters, who interviewed patient families about their history of loyalty, but I could find no story on how Genzyme was going to assure a response of quality for the production and supply maintenance of the drugs these families have come to rely on. .

 

Can Genzyme find an Ecosystem to Regroup ?

No where have I found in the reports, a "tale of meaningful use," where Genzyme is adopting the priniciples modeled through strategy and action similar to the approach led by Kathryn Winkler, Chief Sustainability Officer for EMC.  Aman Singh, Vault.com CSR and Diversity Editor interviewed me last April on how I perceived Kathryn's  CSR role and why this is different response than most companies as to how they approach the green, csr or sustainability practices.  In my interview with Aman, I pointed out that

"Kathrin's skill of engaging the EMC workforce into the vision of sustainability is based on a simple premise: 'corporate sustainability is really about business survival: Take the long view, or your business won't survive in a failing global society or environment. Long-term sustainability affects customers, employees, suppliers, neighbors, partners, governmental bodies, and civil society. If we make our business choices based on how we interact with those stakeholders, then we are promoting sustainability."

This view of engagement, which I teach in a program to my leadership clients hold high regard for the social network that surrounds an economy of resource that serves all stakeholders with a global view that we now live in a time of business, work and living that requires values, principles and infrastructure that sustains health, environment, and planet. Without this view, we will continue to perpetuate a more rapid stream of destruction as evidenced by the BP Oil Spill and the increasing number of hazards impacting the health of the environment and people.

What is in the future for Genzyme?

I chose not to approach Genzyme's current situation by writing a tale of woe that predicted more failure or advised a Sanofi Aventis purchase or merger.  I cannot directly influence  Henri Temeer, CEO of Genzyme and its Board of Directors  on what strategy to follow.  Ultimately the market will see a future for Genzyme, whether it remains standing on its own as a Fortune 500 global company or merges with another global biopharmaceutical leader.  Ultimately Genzyme still has time to chose its own future if they are prepared to act to #sustainnow that exercises precaution.

 

Cordially,

Lavinia Weissman

Lavinia Weissman is an ecologist and sustainability leadership coach with a practice based in Boston MA. Through her practice, Lavinia draws on people representing all sectors of thought to build ecological approaches to work and the economy to sustain health and the environment.  Her imagination and passion is to empower practical and concrete strategies of action that exercise precaution.

About Lavinia's Approach to her Work.

Lavinia's  practice draws on knowledge of ESG, CSR and Sustainability pracitces and the system of network that  surround this subject matter expertise based. She is a capacity builder who draws on  social network analysis and to develop deliberately designed methods of educationthat lead cultures of change through the convening of people to learn to do and act sustainably.

Lavinia is available to guide the imagination and development of thinking from a practical view for anyone who choses to navigate the chaos at the present time and find a personal path that is more productive to assuring the eco system is nourished and lives so employees, patients, shareholders and economic regions can survive.

9/11/10 New Emerging Ecological Patterns for People , Environment, Health & Economy

Four Mile Canyon Fire on the outskirts of Boulder Co on this morning of the 9th anniversary of 9/11, is now 56% contained. The ecology of this 6427 acres is now destroyed for years to come.  Over 170 households have lost their homes. A place of home is sacred and essential form of stability from which people can refuel and nurture their mind, body and spirit. This disaster is gripping its victims similar at the edge of the envelope that swept New York Citizens with the terrorism attack on the World Trade center.

The cause of the 4 Mile Canyon fire remains unknown.  It is unlikely it will be equated to an act of terrorism and certainly is not in the realm of impact of a Tsunami, Katrina or the BP Oil Spill.  It is  a symbol that opened the eyes of many others to the impact of an explosion and fire that followed in San Bruno, California. This incident destroyed 38 homes, injured 50+ people and took 4 lives.   This morning's news carried another report from Manhattan of a fire on East 39th at 3rd was responded to by 200 fireman of which 12 were injured along with 2 EMT's.

Groups of people convened on Facebook to report, form conversations for the victims, announce community response activity and to pray for the residents of the town of Gold Hill, which experienced the most harm. This response is by far visible by nature of virtual reality where a group of people bonded by friendship, spiritual practice who have historically combined their voices on FaceBook out of common interests are articulating the real cost of harm like this.  This harm is life altering, traumatic and no matter the history of the person or emotional intelligence; it strips anyone of their health, spirit and faith. It leaves the world a very clear message, "How do you respond to stripping experiences like this that good people did not ask for?" What is the format of the Earth Charter Principle in this instance to the idea of 'exericsing precaution."

The outpouring of response from over 90 fire brigades, mental health counselors, clergy is more person to person and integrates a form of comfort that no government agency, rescue instution or political figure of prestige can offer anyone.  It is the hidden story that may not have been reported by mainstream press and bloggers who responded to Katrina and 9/11. This hidden story recognizes a value for sustainability and a respect for the extensive loss that is leaving so many speechless.  This response is caring and far different than the political responses in years past to the invisible turmoil so many know from the American pattern of economy, real estate foreclosure, corporate downsizing or the criminal impact on ordinary human beings and workers afflicted and victimized with losses of home and retirmenet by Enron, Worldcomm, Digital Equipment Corporation or the rapid belt tightening of the technology and telecommunications sector during economic downturn or the health care institutional response of reducing insurance coverage for catastrophic illnesses or the response of employers to chronically ill workers who can't sustain a 24/7 schedule.

The picture of the falling towers 9 years ago at Ground Zero

portrays a different ecology than the film of the 4 Canyon Fire

Social media  in 2010 is bringing a different look, feel and touch to disasters and the impact of the experience on people living local to the disaster. We no longer rely on mainstream media to see the real impact.

Since 9/11, the United States taxpayer dollars of $3 Trillion plus have gone to fighting terrorism in Afghanistan and Iraq. Our country now has to heal the harm of our response in 2001 that has resulted in a declining infrastructure, qualty of health care delivery and education. This has resulted in double digit recession and a government focus of attacking harm by authoring laws of fear and corporate response to thsoe laws of lobbying and freezing the use of assets and cash reserves so the layoffs continue. The US real estate market continues to decline and more people are jobless or income less if self-employed and have lost their power to influence change through a consumer market and a consumption pattern of a growth economy that is no longer realistic to sustain.

 

Perhaps the residents, community members, and good people of Colorado will embark on a journey that is about restoring human spirit and an ecology that can only repair and thrive with a new approach to economic development, health and treatment of trauma that strips any human being of their health and strenght to survive the dying 24/7 pattern of work and consumption that has put Americans at risk to sustain. I am seeing very strong hints of this already on FaceBook through the people in my social web.

 

There is a lot of work needed to structure a response of repair that grows beyond an emergency response to hardship. It is not business as usual for NGO's, government or commercial ventures.  To bring life back to an ecological balance, we have to begin to act like our monetary systems and economic formulas that respect the need for health and well being. 

This all implies the necessity for a new human consciousness that embodies - mind, body, spirit and economy. To achieve this kind of consciousness is more than an act of individuals living on spiritual values of forgiveness, letting go, compassion and loving kindness. This consciousness will  integrate an ecological platform as a center of practice that draws on resources that are spiritual, scientific and adopt use of technology in support of the new practice.  Expertise will not be a dominating factor. Expertise will be a backdrop for building responsive innovation through learning new forms of strategic response that measures value.

Communities of people will build a foundation of practices that  will build a sustainable economy. ecological. These communities will learn to assure the resources, knowledge and education access for people who want to live with an advantage to sustain themselves to work wisely to live well; rather than work agressively to accumulate for a rainy day.   Rainy days are not the issue any longer. We have to investigate new values and principles that help hard working and good people to recover from disasters they did not cause.

The September 11th attack opened the door to this learning.  But the lessons learned have not been sufficient to date.  We have not safeguarded our citizens from less destruction by events.  The BP oil spill impact on the Gulf Coast and 4 Mile Canyon Fire impact on Colorado make this the case.

The learning that followed 9/11 and Katrian has been choppy at best.  The intitial response to terrorism and economic upheaval has added more harm and created more people in strife over this past decade.

September 11, 2010 should be a benchmark in time to #sustainnow. Communities need to be able  to call on resources from government, non profits and commercial interests to build sustainable infrastructure that equates protecting human health, the environment and economy with individual or commercial methods of earning. The people of 4 Mile Canyon have opened our eyes to that possibility out the voices of conscious citizens e.g. Joan Borysenko and many others.

Please take a moment to reflect, breathe and find strength to empower the same in your community after you read this editorial.

 

Peace,

 

Lavinia Weissman

 

WorkEcology Insight Note: 090110 - #sustainnow Learning from the Science of Chemistry

@elainecohen has been using her twitter and blog posts to mix up a lot of ideas that added great value to the idea of chemistry (#safechem) as a metaphor for a sustainable leadership practice of "sensemaking."  Elaine directs us to think of the chemical practice of "mixing up of ingredients"  as a metaphor from which companies can build learning and sustainable outcomes ( OR NOT).

I pointed out something similar this past week, as a guest blogger at IN GOOD COMPANY. In this post I provided my thesis for how CSR and Sustainability has to move from its frontier form of startup into a practice that mixes up all the ingredients that sustsainability implies.

By the time I completed and published this post, Elaine had me on my toes again without permitting me any time to take a breath!   

Interacting in the CSR Social Media world has most certainly become an opportunity to gain more precision with life balance. While Elaine finds stress relief with Chunky Monkey; I have taken to the treadmill and nautilus for my own stress relief. Right now I can't imagine doing anything else but breathing and sweating my way through the chaos of opportunity that has shaped in CSR and Sustainability.

On a daily basis, I am pushed to distinguish my writing time to the art of research and story telling versus the art of summary and analysis. Your combined intelligence productively distracts me!

In the last few weeks, Elaine's blog posts and twittering have generated rapid forms  forms of response and analysis that set me back from doing the thorough reearch my work requires to teach and capture the story of change in sustainability.  Hence, I am getting far more selective in what I read and harvested these links most recently that are relevant to my own work.

From Elaine's blog  CSR-Reporting

1. Dow Chemicals 2009 CSR Report

 

2. Danisco's 2010 Sustainability Report

 

and Elaine's tweeting

3. Sanofi Aventis 2009 CSR Report

 

All these post have sparked me to conduct a more indepth social network and cultural analysis of distinguishing the elements of sustainable leadership that  I first described to @vaultcsr 's Aman Singh withwere first my analysis of Kathrin Winkler's leadership as Chief Sustainaibility Officer at EMC.

This is keeping me on my toes to perform a more in-depth of analysis on how companies are embedding education in their culture to lead change responsive to a need for sustainability.

These last 3 reports presented me a lens into how companies can build out strategies that contribute to to redefining health to mean more than health care.

Within Elaine's Dow Chemical analysis, she asserts an important meta-perspective using the practice of chemistry as a metaphor for sustainable business practice, when she asserted:

"This rigid structure, together with the impersonal nature of the report (only one photo of the Chairman and none of employees or any other stakeholders)  made me think of comparing the Dow report to a chemistry experiment - sterile laboratory conditions, detailed lab notes, exact measures of all materials, a process conducted in perfect sequence and an output which delivers a predictable result. A CSR Report is, after all, not just a report. It is a story. A story of how PEOPLE are doing sustainable business. Even chemistry labs need people."

 

This metaphor implies and supports how critical PEOPLE and HUMAN CAPITAL are to '"mixing the ingredients" of CSR into sustainable business practice.

As a consultant to @jeffreyhogue, Elaine provided the idea and driver for the the Danisco synthesis of its report with the title she gave to Danisco for their 2010 report, "Ingredients for Sustainability."

This morning, Elaine twittered the link to Sanofi Aventis 2009 CSR report

 

 

After quick review of these links, I formed these questions:

 

1. What is the obligation of a company in a merger acquisition to  to repair any harm created by the previous CEO and Directors? 

For example, what lessons and change did Dow Chemical lead with the acquisition of Union Carbide and its repair of the Bhopal Chemical Crisis?

 

2. What can other companies can learn from Danisco's culture as to how they Danisco embeds a sustainability agenda into its operations at 80 sites around the world?  What does this imply?

What could BP can learn from Danisco?

 

Is Danisco seeking to follow Walmart and General Electrics' example of reorganizing as an ecological economy by design rather than focusing on strategy as an exercise of organization and business planning?

 

3. Will Sanofi Aventis rapid position and action steps their leadership has taken to acquire Genzyme for   $18.5 Billion embed sustainability into its agenda? 

Will the focus for the merger be based on how much Genzyme's CEO, Henri Temeer can personally gain ($23M projected personal gain).  Or will Sanofi Aventis bridge its sustainable agenda with Genzyme influenced by Sanofi Aventis' membership in the UNGlobal Compact?

Deloitte is inside Genzyme now as we speak conducting an analysis or audit.  Given their role in developing the UN Global Compact Framework for Sustainability will they use this as away to value the company and contribute to the design of the merger/acquisition?

If Sanofi Aventis acquires Genzyme, will it introduce an initiative that leads current Genzyme employess into a culture of change that engages Genzyme's social network to experience sustainable improvements through the supply chain

What is at risk here?

• Will competent employees be put at risk by downsizing and layoff for what or will Sanofi Aventis value the richness of human capital and address the barriers within the culture that have prevented competent people from performing for the benefit of all Genzyme stakeholders?

• How will Genzyme improve on the delivery of current and new treatments to patient populations suffering with illnesses related to diseases, e.g. renal failure, leukemia gaucher disease?

 

The implications of questions like these are critical to embedding education into a culture of change initiative. This type of perspective requires looking and engaging  outside the traditional boundaries of organization.

What are the core group economic decision making patterns within all these companies and what makes their CSR performance distinct and valuable or not?

A Personal Thank You to Elaine

Elaine, thank you so much for inspiring my week with your fast pace and intelligent analysis; While keeping me on my toes to shape my message in a productive and cohesive form, please forgive me if I occassionally seek out quiet from your very on demand world of media, please forgive me for not reading every valuable word of what you write.  It seems after a year of posting on AboutWorkEcology,

it has become time to focus on my book, the indepth analysis I am doing to

• to market and conduct workshop program (for individuals, communities of practice and organizations) to inspire new formations fo social networking that embed sustainability into Stakeholder Engagement to construct education formats of learning that impact and measure economic metrics for sustainability;
• defining a new forum that is responsive for #safechem practices;
• getting focused on taking my book proposal for Tale of Meaningful Use; Giving Economic Backbone to Sustainability the attention it requires to complete the book sooner rather than later.

And for now, simply adding a note of Congratulations to @Jeffrey Hogue on his marriage.  Jeff, I saw you could not keep away from twitter, before your 9/6 projected return to work. Jeff, I hope I can connect with you constructively sometime post 9/12 so we can review my questions on the  impact of Danisco's sustainability agenda from an economic point of view beyond organization practice.

Warm thoughts,

Lavinia Weissman

 

 

 

Benzene - The New Chemical Agenda - Empathy after the Spill #safechem

This morning a comment on FaceBook arrived at my door, 

"Benzene EPA allowable 0-4 parts/billion. Gulftest=3,400 parts/ billion"

My heart immediately sank deep into an experience of sorrow. When I get that way,  I let my fingers walk through Google to clarify what I am feeling with facts.  I found  a few websites of facts on the implications of this  health hazard.

1. I found this entry from US Government - Department of Labor dated 01/12/2010. When I read this page, I found it difficult to make sense of the harm.

2. I then found this page date - December 22, 1997 from the Canadian Center for Occupational Health and Safety, easy to read, educational and for any consumer it provides a clear understanding of how Benzine which is contained in petroleum can impact human health.

3. Then I read this information on the  Impact of Benzene on Leukemia and Lymphoma provided by a law firm, BarronBudd.com. This research summarized in this site on how Benzene as a hazard and exposure can lead to Leukemia and Lymphoma.

After reading this, my mother's voice went off in my head; the message she use to give me when she was angry and had to "tell me I told you so."

 

I found this cartoon from Huffington Post that contained a picture that replaces the thousands of words communicated in media every day that could force me to forget and bury my head in the sand re: this hazard that is going to impact the health of people living by  the #BP #Oil Spill.

 
I chose empathy today and I  chose to be awake and not deny this problem. Is there anyone out there that cares to join me.

It has gotten very simple for me. At present, there is a lot of attention on legislation for chemicals to make sure we assure safety for people and exercise precaution related to the 80,000 chemicals now used in products on the market. The legislation often implies we have to make priority the chemicals based on their volume of use.

Science now tells us that the amount of chemicals (volume used) does not dictate the impact of a chemical even in a small amount.  Therefore substitution of chemicals of immediate concern has to have a new approach of examining the chemical, the amount of chemical and hazard potential.  

ChemSec.org is an educational center in Europe that exists as a non profit for the purpose of creating a "toxic free world."

At their website, ChemSec describes the focus of their work as

"CHEMSEC - for a toxic free world

" Our focus is to highlight the risks of hazardous substances and influence and speed up legislative processes. We act as a catalyst for open dialogue between authorities, business and NGOs and collaborate with companies committed to taking the lead. All of our work is geared to stimulating public debate and action on the necessary steps towards a toxic free world. "

This week, I have had to deepen my empathy for the millions of people who have lives challenged by chemical exposure.

There are currently two reports in my collection that can open anyone's eyes to the opportunity represented by the BP Oil Spill Catastrophe.

1. A US Report by the President's Panel on Cancer recently released a report Reducing Environmental Risk on Cancer.

2. A European Union Report, Late Lessons from Early Warnings, the Precautionary Principle 1896-2000

As Simon Thomas, founder of Trucost stated so eloquently last week in my previous editorial on Embedding Precaution

"...I have often feared that it would take an environmental disaster for capital markets and society in general to start taking the environmental impacts of companies seriously."

So as I deepen my capacity to have empathy for all human beings effected by this disaster, I am now asking, "is it time to do something and do it right?" and "what does that mean."

to the ordinary person and the system of health and care that serves them to live out their lives in the best sustainable way possible?

Best,

Lavinia Weissman

 

After BP - Will the Global Economy Embed the Precautionary Principle?

 
 

Today, I sought some quiet to begin to imagine the world without BP. In my life-time and through my work, I have had opportunity to think in this way. The last time was when I began to imagine life without Digital Equipment Corporation. 

Since the BP Oil Spill occurred, I have been reading and listening to news reports portraying the views of reporters, leaders and analysts that I respect. One such leader and analyst is Simon Thomas,  
 founder of Trucost.com.  Simon has turned his personal mission to build sustainable investment analytics and metrics by building a highly skilled and innovative  network of people he has by founding Trucost.com.  Simon's blog post this week provided context and relevance to what I have been synthesizing in my own mind since the beginning of the BP Oil spill. 

"Since I founded  
 over a decade ago I have often feared that it would take an environmental disaster for capital markets and society in general to start taking the environmental impacts of companies seriously.

In the same way that the Enron and Parmalat crises catapulted corporate governance into the mainstream investment agenda, so the BP oil spill is likely to change investment behaviour forever.

The Deepwater Horizon crisis is of course the result of a terrible accident and terrible accidents are impossible to predict reliably.  Research providers struggle as much as anyone else in predicting such events; they are not clairvoyants. 

Clearly the extent of the environmental impacts that are associated with the oil industry are well known, despite the concerted attempts of oil company public relations executives to paint an entirely more benign."

I recommend reading  Thomas's post in its entirety.  

Before Thomas's post, members of the #griconference live reporting group sent a link to  Marc Gunther's report sharing Gunther's view that  the next debt crisis will be ecological.

Gunther known for his perspective,    

blogged live from Amsterdam:
  

that the event was generating  in his opinion" a lot of words to describe an event that is, at heart, about ... living within our means, understanding that we are interdependent and getting the accounting right."

I began to take note of a swarm that has grown around  me over past few weeks in various leaving me an ache  inside my gut that is loudly shouting that "we can no longer afford more of the same."  This voice has echoed loudly  numerous times through  my life.

To get to the point of thinking about life after BP, I remembered a number of devastating catastrophe's that I have experienced or witnessed.  I was born and currently live in Boston.  People from Boston are very stoic.  The experience of catastrophe or devastation to the New England economy is not new to most born here. There are very reminders of my numerous experiences with catastrophes with polio epidemics, hurricanes, recessions, fuel shortages and wide spread shut down due to a domino effect of lost industry. New England has a rich history in its experience of economic harm suffered from lost manufacturing, challenges to the fishing industry, lost defense contracts and the Harvard Community's HMO put into state receivership. 

I remember in 1986, the explosion of the Space Shuttle, Challenger explosion took the lives of 7 astronauts

    

Americans had to own that their perfect space program could make mistakes and the magnitude of a mistake could take the lives of people. 

Shortly after that experience, I found myself working and living in a community of people employed directly  by Digital Equipment Corporation or within DEC's supply chain. Ken Olsen as CEO could not see that the personal computing revolution was going to overtake his obstinate view that DEC mini computers would dominate the market. This resulted in a loss of business that reduced a global workforce  from 160,000 workers globally to approximately 35,000 workers who were absorbed into a Compaq acquisition followed by the 1990's HP acquisition of Compaq.

       
 
 
 

I  lived in the Bay Area during the next two recessions and watched more Fortune 2000 companies disappear,  e.g. Amdhal. By the end of 1993, I had seen the impact of pervasive downsizing of 800,000 workers in California destroy communities, make families homeless and strip children of any hope for a future.  

Around 1994, while living  in Cupertino, CA, (home of Apple.com) during one of my numerous episodes of layoff, I participated as a volunteer in a meeting of a community group  with the Superintendent of the Cupertino School System).  As a member of this group, I was privy to the results of a school based study to diagnose why children in the Cupertino School System were malnourished.  

The findings of this study challenged a very "thick denial" in the room by the wealthy people in the room, who were not personally derailed by the recession. These people were shocked to learn their neighbors who were laid off could not feed their  children.  Most of these children were going through a school day with no food, because their parents had lost their jobs. Parallel to this study in San Jose, CA  diagnosed the source of a growing homeless problem in San Jose. The problem was accelerating as a result of economic challenged  families;  the homeless population no longer could simply be seen described as the drug addicted, alcoholic or depressed PTSD diagnosed Veterans.

 
 

This past week, John Sculley, former CEO of Apple 35 years ago, spoke with Daily Beast's Thomas Weber  about his regrets and rift with now Apple CEO, Steve Jobs in 1986.  Do you think it has occurred to Sculley to examine the harm that he followed by Michael Spindler, CEO of Apple in the early 90's? These  layoffs and a phase of decline grew out of the rift with Jobs that Sculley sparked and spiraled into a recession that left children malnourished  and causing families to lose their homes.

       

Through May and into early June, as the BP Oil Spill continued and I did my best to absorb the implications of the message from the Global Reporting Conference 2010 and the overwhelming value of reports from the Ceres 2010 Conference, the week prior to GRI, I found myself at a meeting in Washington DC with a safe chemical community partnership that has been formed to help lobby and advocate for to revise update US Chemical legislation and policy. 

Hard working people from around the country attended this meeting. They represented Ngo's, corporations and government agencies, Everyone participated with a sincerity and intent to have impact. The meeting was well designed, informative and presented an opportunity for quality networking.  

Along with my experience of research re: REACH and Non-ionizing radiation, I left the meeting knowing intuitively  all the quality legislation in the world in any country will not prevent the equivalent of a chemical BP Oil Spill. All the legislation passed cannot protect people from disasters as they occur if business perpetuates a culture of harm, government invests and writes laws of fear that create expensive bureaucracies and non profits continue a focus of raising philanthropic investment for media campaigns and protests that create confusion and do not empower learning to lead change and repair harm.

This week, the volume of my intuitive message increased in decibels. This voice was shouting in my head as loudly  as it did during other occassions when

1.  I resigned from Harvard's HMO in the early 80's;
2.  I experienced the DEC frenzy resulting in my layoff late 80's,  
3.  The eruption of E-commerce turning into a recession in the late 90's;  
4.  I returned from California to Boston in 1999, to witnessed the full cycle of harm from years of financial mismanagement that put Harvard Pilgrim Health Care in receivership.

    
 

What is MIssing?

That question has been burning in side of me since I returned to Boston from WDC last week from the meeting related to TSCA and Safe Chemicals.

Nothing is going to escape what I know is the only way to construct an economy of change through lots of people to bring about a new form of complex work that breathes life into the global and local economies to become a living ecosystem of sustainability.  Within companies, government entities and non profits that oversee the payrolls of workers , who want to carry out their jobs with the intent to live stable lives there is now absolutely no escape from doing the hard work that it means to assure and build a sustainable economy.  

You see it would have taken hard work to synchronize the medical record system at Harvard Pilgrim with the financial system; and more hard work to get the information organized and feeding in synch with the hospitals that billed Harvard Pilgrim insurance. This was know years ago even before my resignation in the early 1980's when I made the decision to leave while I could still be viewed a success. For some reason my voice among many other hard workers was not heard.

Many at Digital Equipment Corporation knew that Ken Olsen's view of mini computing was not responsive to the new frontier of personal computing.  The people could not counter act Ken Olsen's stubbornness and the harm that followed. 

I recall at one point in grad school seeing a film simulating the engineering conversation about the Challenger where one male engineer's voice expressing concern about something faulty was overlooked and what he said diminished.  I recalled a conference call I attended with a major petroleum company (not BP), earlier in this decade with a team was working with an $800K investment in software for an oil and drill knowledge management system.  Again those of us who were hard working, questioned how a corporation could invest $800k in a system that was not put into wide use, could not get heard.

Many say they are confused by the term sustainability and don't know what it means. Let me offer you a simple definition I provided to  Aman Singh, Vault.com's CSR correspondent,  in a review of Kathrin Winkler's role at EMC as Chief Sustainability Officer,

" sustainability is based on a simple premise: 'corporate sustainability is really about business survival: Take the long view, or your business won't survive in a failing global society or environment. Long-term sustainability affects customers, employees, suppliers, neighbors, partners, governmental bodies, and civil society. If we make our business choices based on how we interact with those stakeholders, then we are promoting sustainability."

Let me in this moment return the chemical agenda I have been researching that has grown out of Europe's REACH legislation and the movement of other countries to adopt this regulation or build new legislative platforms e.g. the US revision of TSCA.

Again somewhere in the crowd is a chemist who understands that one of the 80,000+ chemicals in use in a small amount may be showing signs of doing wide spread harm and at present this chemist cannot prove it. This hard working individual has an idea that needs research and support and encouragement but from a financial view and from the perspective of shareholder investment pushing on the perception of this voice who understands it is necessary that a large volume of this chemical is in use.  

REACH regulation contains a 1 ton qualifier. It does not apply to a potential chemical in use where the proportion is much smaller than the potential harm. There are now 350+ chemicals that have been identified that are  worthy of research and further investigation that are not based on this 1 Ton in use qualifier. The 1 Ton qualifier diminishes the voice of a hard working chemist or health professional, who loves his/her job or has a feeling in his/her gut that a chemical they recognize should be of concern. This is one point of vulnerability of many that investors and economic decision makers or company leaders never gain insight into potential harm.

 
 

In following the rapid change over the past few years at General Electric and Walmart, I have been slowly grasping what it means when a major global corporation views itself as an economy rather than a company and a player that influences the natural ebb and ecological flow of an economy.  Neither GE or Walmart have perfected their science and they are demonstrating methods of continuous learning that convene the small voices of natural leadership to do the hard work that assures a viable scientific agenda and resources to assure no harm.  

This week, Elaine Cohen, found a hidden jewel in Warren Buffet's complex of business. She found one company  Shaw Floors wrote a CSR report., I wondered if this could be a door of possibility through which Berkshire Industries might follow Walmart and General Electric and begin to lead itself as a sustainable economy? I am holding similar thoughts for HP to do the same. Last week, I learned that HP's material purchases from its supply chain over 179 countries totals $79B.  I bet HP could benefit from sitting at the table with GE and Walmart it may find a formula to invest in the research of numerous chemist within its supply chain to exercise precaution based on the Earth Charter Principle to do no harm.

          
 
 
    

 

This week after a sinus infection, I discovered a love for mixing Trader Joes' rasberry and lemon sorbet to lighten that sour feeling in my mouth from learning to be patient as people in reaction from all sectors learn to stop the BP oil gush and sort out a system by which to repair harm and prevent further harm.  Hopefully the press and community voices and groups will move into a format of reporting on the emerging resources and activities that are surfacing to repair  the trauma, harm and fee of unproductive chaos of reaction. 

Warm thoughts,

Lavinia Weissman

WEAnnounce- UC Berkeley Green Chemistry Initiative 042310

 

This letter came to my desk today from my colleague, Meg Schwarzman, MD, MPH, read about Meg at this previous entry,

Two Women Making REACH Simple as SIN 

It is a note associated with this WorkEcology Insight Note 020910.

Dear Colleagues,

Registration is now open for the second in the workshop series sponsored by Cal/EPA Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment, and the Centers for Occupational and Environmental Health (COEH) at UC Berkeley and UCLA:

California Green Chemistry Workshop - Indicators of Ecotoxicity Hazard and Exposure Potential
May 10 and 11, 2010
David Brower Center, Berkeley CA

 

Senate Bill 509 requires Cal/EPA's Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment to evaluate and specify the hazard traits, toxicological and environmental endpoints and other relevant data to be included in California's Toxics Information Clearinghouse.  The Clearinghouse will be constructed by the Department of Toxic Substances Control and will include traits related to human health, ecological toxicity and potential for exposure.  This workshop explores indicators of ecotoxicity and exposure potential for inclusion in the Toxics Information Clearinghouse.

To obtain a copy of the agenda or to simply register, please send your name, email address and affiliation to: elina.nasser@ucla.edu

Regards,

Megan Schwarzman

--

Megan Schwarzman, MD, MPH
Research Scientist

Berkeley Center for Green Chemistry
Center for Occupational and Environmental Health

School of Public Health, University of California, Berkeley

Loading...