| |
News and
Media
About the Conference Organizers
Network for Business Innovation
and Sustainability/NW
The Network for Business Innovation and Sustainability is an independent
organization focused on helping business leaders “do well
by doing good.” The Network fosters collaboration between
businesses, universities, non-profits, government agencies and other
community stakeholders with a common goal -- to bring together environmental
brainpower, creativity, and institutional resources in the service
of promoting sustainable business practices. Founded and directed
by Karl Ostrom and Mary Rose, the Network is located at Seattle
University’s Albers School of Business and Economics.
The Network’s core mission is to help raise awareness, implementation
and profitability of a fast-emerging paradigm for business: the
idea that sustainability now includes accountability for a triple
bottom line of benefits – business profits, community well-being,
and environmental health. By mobilizing regional resources, the
Network helps business successfully embody the new corporate ethic
of profitable sustainability.
The Network works with business leaders to shift sustainability
from a theoretical to practical level, through workshops that teach
attendees how to make real, tangible changes that reap big financial
AND environmental benefits. From eco-friendly purchases for their
own businesses, to buying products and supplies from reputable companies
with good labor practices and environmental ethics, to incorporating
sustainable management tools into manufacturing and operations,
the Network shows businesses that doing well by doing good is not
just admirable, but a successful business model as well.
For more information: www.nbis.org
Future 500
Future 500 is a business network formed by the CEOs of several Fortune
500 companies with a simple mission: to create alliances between
member companies and key stakeholders, to maximize return and profits
while prioritizing sustainability. These stakeholder groups include
those representing shareholders, employees, communities, consumers,
and the environment. Future 500 members apply management tools to
maximize measure and document performance across all five sectors.
Future 500 CEO Bill Shireman has been called a "master of
environmental entrepreneurism" for his work to develop profitable
business strategies that drive pollution down and profits up. While
CEO of the largest recycling lobby in the country, Shireman wrote
California's bottle bill recycling law. He has brokered deals between
some of the world's largest corporations and most impassioned activists
- from Coca-Cola, Coors, Nike, Mitsubishi, and MacMillan-Bloedel,
to Greenpeace, Rainforest Action Network, and the Sierra Club -
to recycle over 100 billion beverage containers, help save four
million acres of forest, and harness corporate buying power to drive
down consumption of resources, at an overall savings of over $3
billion.
Shireman co-wrote "What We Learned In The Rainforest:
Business Lessons from Nature” with Tachi Kiuchi, Future
500 co-founder and CEO Emeritus of Mitsubishi Electric America.
The book introduced a revolutionary business principle: by applying
strategies and practices gleaned from nature, business can adapt
rapidly to changing market conditions and attain greater and more
sustainable profits.
For more information: www.future500.org
|
|
