Panelists: Sustainable enterprises and energy will make better world

Professor Stuart Hart, at the microphone, makes the case for sustainability as a strategic business choice during a Sept. 12 symposium at the Johnson Graduate School of Management. Looking on, left to right, are panelists Paul Myers, an executive with Ten Thousand Villages; Fred Keller '66, CEO of Cascade Engineering; and moderator Steven Wolf, assistant professor of natural resources. University Photography

By Linda Myers

Sustainable development offers "huge opportunities to improve the human footprint on the planet" and attend to the needs of the 4 billion people -- two-thirds of the world's population -- who have been ignored in the past. That was the optimistic message of Stuart Hart to about 100 students and faculty attending "The Business Case for Sustainable Enterprise," Sept. 12 at Cornell's Sage Hall.

The panel was part of a half-day symposium at the Johnson Graduate School of Management that also looked at sustainability efforts in the energy industry. The event was sponsored by the Community Impact Club and the Energy Club, both student groups at the school.

Hart, the Samuel C. Johnson Chair of Global Sustainable Enterprise, who joined the school's faculty this July, is co-author of The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid: Practical Solutions for Sustainability, in which he makes a compelling case for doing good while doing well.

"During the roaring '90s," he said, "there was only limited interest in sustainable enterprises as a strategic, growth opportunity." Now that sales are declining, people are starting to look at sustainable development for some of that growth, Hart said. "There's a multibillion dollar industry out there," but tapping into it will require a whole new mindset.

Instead of such company strategies as "'continuous improvement' to make products 'less bad,' why not find a way to make products that are inherently clean from the start?" Hart asked, pointing to recent promising developments in clean energy, genomics, biomimicry and other areas. Hart also called for a different competitive model than the traditional premise of building shareholder wealth, and a better way of measuring growth than the GNP. "We need massive growth," he said, "but unless the lives of the poorest two-thirds of the planet are improved in a fundamental way, we're in trouble."

Joining him on the panel were Fred Keller '66, founder and CEO of Cascade Engineering, which works to hire hard-to-employ people in its Michigan manufacturing plant; and Paul Myers, executive director of Ten Thousand Villages, a nonprofit that purchases goods at what are determined as fair prices from Third World craftspeople and sells them in U.S. shops staffed by volunteers. Steven Wolf, an assistant professor in Cornell's Department of Natural Resources, served as moderator.

"A minimum income and jobs are essential to anything anyone wants to do," said Myers. "Peace isn't possible without it." It doesn't take a lot of money to provide jobs, he said. With Ten Thousand Villages, "$2,000 in retail value provides one person with work for a year. Each time customers purchase in our stores, they know they are providing food and a basic education for children of the family that made the product."

Keller discussed how his company adopted a successful strategy he called "'readiness' on the part of the employer and the employee" that has enabled it to hire and retain more than 100 former welfare recipients. Two full-time social workers on staff in its Grand Rapids, Mich., plant assist them in making successful transitions to work. "They are proud to work for a place that truly cares," Keller said.

Also discussed during the session was the role of the World Trade Organization, which has been under fire nationally from critics, who charge it favors the world's wealthiest nations at the expense of the poorest.

While the WTO plays a necessary role, "we need a complementary world-level organization with clout that can focus on justice, environmental sustainability, social and labor issues," declared Hart.

Myers offered the last word on international cooperation: "We are neighbors, and we need each other."

The symposium featured a keynote address by Dan Reicher, former U.S. assistant secretary of energy. "The world is not running out of energy, although we are running out of cheap oil," said Reicher, who is now an executive with Northern Power Systems. He described tremendous advances made in sustainable energy technologies in the past decade. Wind energy leads the pack, with advances in high-tech windmills offering the potential to turn farmers in states like North Dakota into wind barons. Other sustainable energy sources include: geothermal, biomass, hydropower, hydrogen, solar and hybrid combinations of energy sources. An S.C. Johnson and Son plant in Racine, Wis., he noted, gets some of its energy from gas piped in from a nearby landfill. "None of it matters, however, if you don't invest in energy efficiency first," Reicher said, calling for public- and private-sector leadership to make that happen.

His talk was followed by a second panel, on sustainability in the energy industry, featuring Michael Freeman, Exelon Corp.; Daniel Goldman, New Energy Capital; and Peter Smith, New York State Energy Research and Development Authority.