As I left the Sustainable Brands conference in June, I felt exhausted and buzzed at the same time. Buzzed from exposure to amazing ideas and inspiring people. Emceed by “rock stars” of sustainability like Andrew Winston (Green to Gold) and Gil Friend (Natural Logic) it was easy to follow the thread of continuity as we covered a broad landscape.
Hazel Henderson set a great baseline with a call for new economic tools that eliminate “negative externalities”. R Paul Herman (HIP Investor and author) made it more tangible with a panel on radical transparency. Having dinner with Paul and a small group was even more powerful, as he explained in detail how available data drives smarter business and investment decisions. Instead of ‘green investment’ being a charitable effort, turns out that public companies that operate based on this new economic reality consistently perform 4% above the norm. Just like the data was available to tell us that BP had 72 safety infractions to the next player at 8, there are metrics available today and those metrics are improving.
Lorie Vogel of Nike explained that “as experience curves run out of steam, everything gets marginal”. Which is why they are opening up their patent information for open sourced innovation in the GreenXChange to help spur innovation even faster. The way the panel explained it, “there isn’t much use innovating in an industry that is going to disappear. If we don’t fix the systemic problems in our industries, it won’t be sustainable for any of us.”
The conference included 18 hours per day of pure opportunities for inspiration and collaboration. Now that I’m leaving, I feel as if I’ve run a marathon. But in reality, it was just a sprint. Hearing Gil Friend and others talk about their perspective from starting their journey in business sustainability back in the 70’s, made me realize how much has changed in 40 years. And how much will change in the next 40 years. The ideas that blow our minds today will seem commonplace in 40 years. As a young company, it was amazing to be included as a speaker and I really enjoyed speaking about Waste as a Resource. The reception for newcomers, including RecycleMatch as well as other start-ups like Summer Rayne Oakes of Source4Style and SB Innovation Winner BioLite, was amazingly warm. It was truly an inspiration and a call to gird ourselves for the long haul ahead. It has been described as a journey, but it feels more like a marathon. I think we’re all going to need some power bars!