sig members lay plans for learning, doing

Tuesday, October 20th was the first meeting of the Sustainability & Social Change SIG. We were a lively and diverse group of ten in a private room at the back of Ben's Deli (209 West 38th Street), which at least for a while will remain our meeting place. Sharing information was a key part of the evening. Jenny Ambrozek followed up with the wealth of articles, wikis, Ning sites and more listed below. At the end of the meeting, Anne Ditzler and Tanya Hossli kindly volunteered to take the lead on creating our own Ning site.

Discussing our individual and group goals was also an important part of the evening, as well as thinking through how to best start setting those in motion. We very much want to be a "doing" group, not only a learning group. We spoke of inviting social entrepreneurs to join us, learning from them the issues they face and, in return, giving us the opportunity to offer potential solutions. Bringing in a panel of Chief Sustainability Officers in 2010 is also of high interest.

Our next meeting is Wednesday, November 11th at 6:00 pm - yes, at Ben's Deli. Erik Fabian has made arrangements for our guest, Andrea Pizziconi, the principal of The Christie Company, a "mixed-use urban development company investing at the crossroads of education reform and urban revitalization." They have a triple-bottom-line investment strategy that develops projects around educational facilities.

If you would like to join us, please RSVP to Cathy Joseph (cathyjoseph@optonline.net) so that we can be prepared with seating.

Here is the material from Jenny:

A. Sources: Here are some links that you might add to help fuel discussion in a Sustainability SIG Group within the ODN Ning Network.

1. Why Sustainability Is Now the Key Driver of Innovation Harvard Business Review September 2009 pp56-64 with CK Prahalad as one of the authors
2. Creating Sustainable Value 2003 Article by Stu Hart & Mark Milstein recommended by Victoria Zelin http://e4sw.org/papers/Hart_Milstein.pdf
3. An SAP White Paper on Sustainability Challenges & Opportunities. Downloading requires registration and clearly SAP is promoting their product line that now includes tools for measuring Green House Gases and Carbon Emissions. Still, I see the paper as instructive for explaining how businesses are making the case for sustainability initiatives.
   
   http://www.sap.com/solutions/sustainability/business-process/index.ep
4. Essay In Pursuit of Sustainability by David Grant, CEO Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation. http://www.grdodge.org/br/downloads/GDR_2006_07_Report_essay.pdf
5. Jenny's blog post reporting the recent Women's Network for a Sustainable Future conference that included stelllar representatives from DuPont, IBM, Pfizer, TIAA-Kref and Walmart:
   http://c21org.typepad.com/21st_century_organization/2009/10/sustainabili...

B. Wikisourcing Sustainable Enterprises

Jenny welcomes input and suggestions around the Wikisourcing Sustainable Enterprises initiative that she and Victoria Axelrod are striving to build: http://www.open-sustainability.org/wiki/WSE

They identified the need for a living library of examples of enterprises taking action towards sustainability at The Sustainable Enterprise Fieldbook launch events. Now they're focused on finding conributors and partners including a more inviting technology platform to help fulfill the promise. They've developed forms allowing anyone to:

i. Profile enterprises leading the way http://www.open-sustainability.org/wiki/WSE/Profile_Form

and/or

i. People influencing their thinking http://www.open-sustainability.org/wiki/Influencer_Profile_Form

C. Sustainable Enterprise Network

This network on Ning was created to continue the conversation started by Fieldbook authors. http://sustainableenterprise.ning.com/