The Real Value of Business

Zach Smith — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 11:53:16 -0400

As I talk with prospective members of Abound about their businesses, the business of sustainability and the challenges of being a leader in sustainable business, one of the recurring themes we encounter is that of value.

Sustainable, Innovative Leadership = Abundance

Zach Smith — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 11:40:56 -0400

Imagine you’re looking at a gauge. The left half of the gauge has black hash marks with numbers that go from “-10″ to “0″ at the top. The background color on this half is red. The right half of the gauge has numbers that start from “0″ at the top of the gauge and go to “+10″ on the lower right. Let’s say the background color for the right half is green.

So, How Sustainable is the Wal-Mart Sustainability Index?

Zach Smith — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 00:21:18 -0400

To quote Eric Clapton: “It’s in the way that you use it.”

The Wal-Mart sustainability index is measuring whether suppliers are measuring their impact on energy usage, greenhouse gas emissions, waste, resource depletion and the communities in which they operate. Essentially it’s binary with annotation. Are you or aren’t you? If you are, please describe what you are doing.

Six Levels of Sustainability: What You Be is What You Get (6) Constellation

Zach Smith — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 22:14:03 -0400

"Sustainability" is not always sustainable. Simply, doing and describing what you do as sustainable does not make it so. For organizations (and us, personally!) to be sustainable in what we do, we have to be sustainable in who we are and how we see the world. This gives us our best shot at doing something that is actually going to get or generate sustainable results.

P&G, Microsoft and Sustainability

Zach Smith — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 22:03:01 -0400

P&G and Microsoft have both recently strongly committed themselves to "sustainability." P&G's

Six Levels of Sustainability: (5) Coherence

Zach Smith — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 08:01:42 -0400

Six Levels of Sustainability: (4) Collaboration

Zach Smith — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 21:03:07 -0400

Six Levels of Sustainability 3: Cooperation

Zach Smith — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 00:01:04 -0500

Six Levels of Sustainability 2: Conformity

Zach Smith — Sat, 14 Feb 2009 20:03:35 -0500

"Sustainability" is not always sustainable.

Six Levels of Sustainability 1: Compliance

Zach Smith — Sat, 14 Feb 2009 19:05:10 -0500