When I first agreed to participate in these events, I must admit that I was a little apprehensive, because I wasn’t sure how receptive the audiences would be to the message. I knew SAPPHIRE had a special track on sustainability topics so I wasn’t as worried about that one; for the other two conferences, I really thought I’d be out on a limb. I often suspect that many people think the ideas around sustainability are only of interest to “tree huggers” trying to save the planet and that valid business reasons to pursue a strategy that incorporates sustainability concepts don’t actually exist. This is the attitude I feared I’d facing at these conferences.
I’m happy to admit that I couldn’t have been more wrong!
SAPPHIRE
At the SAPPHIRE conference, the sustainability track had more than 70 sessions throughout the week. They had former Vice President Al Gore as keynote speaker, who, as expected, stressed sustainability as being very important to businesses. What was unexpected was that Sir Richard Branson, the U.K. billionaire, addressed the same topic. He said that “the enemy is carbon” and then described how he started a group called the Carbon War Room, which is focused on (as stated on their website) “harnessing the power of entrepreneurs to implement market solutions to climate change.” He said the goal of this group of business and public sector people was to remove “gigatons of carbon out of industry.”
He also talked about how IT has a role in this and noted that IT equipment is now responsible for more greenhouse gas emissions than air travel and other transportation. After the conference, I did some research on Branson and discovered that he’s been focused on this problem for several years and has even offered a prize of $25 million to the first person or organization that creates a way to scrub greenhouse gases out of the atmosphere. This is called the Virgin Earth Challenge.
Other presentations at SAPPHIRE that were very interesting were:
- Andrew Winston talked about creative things companies are doing to reduce their environmental footprint while encouraging their suppliers to do the same.
- SAP Chief Sustainability Officer Peter Graf delivered a fascinating presentation on what SAP is doing to manage their environmental footprint using their own sustainability-focused tools. Graf also showed their 2009 Sustainability Report, which is one of the most informative and interactive sustainability reports I have seen. I think they set a bar that other companies will try to meet. He also highlighted the business benefits of their efforts to reduce their environmental footprint, stating that they saved more than $90 million by reducing energy consumption and employee travel.
- A series of client case studies revealed significant benefits seen as a result of sustainability actions.
Chemical Week CFO Conference
The next week, I was in New York at the Chemical Week CFO conference. I really didn’t know what to expect but was pleasantly surprised when the keynote speaker, Kurt Bock, CFO of BASF SE, started the ball rolling by giving his perspective on sustainability. He said that “a focus on sustainability is a key to BASF’s success.” He also said that “climate change is one of the greatest challenges society faces” and “chemical companies need to be part of the solution.” I almost fell out of my chair when I heard this, because I hadn’t expected such passion on this issue at this conference. Keep in mind that this isn’t coming from some “hippy freak” – this is the CFO of the largest chemical company on the planet that has been in business for 145 years. That same CFO won the Chemical Week’s CFO of the Year award later that evening.
Four out of the next eight presentations (including mine) at the conference addressed sustainability-related topics:
- A.T. Kearney talked about the major risks chemical companies need to manage. This discussion highlighted sustainability and climate change prominently.
- A PricewaterhouseCoopers tax specialist and a tax director from Georgia Gulf discussed the tax implications at the state, federal and international levels related to investments in green technology and reducing carbon footprint.
- The last presentation was from the CEO of a company that wants to go public and is producing a biologically based pesticide that’s supposed to be better for the environment compared to alternative chemical pesticides. He talked about securing funding in tight credit markets.
