Stepping up on the Revolution

By Amanda Coffin

Chief Inspired Protagonist, Executive Chairperson, and co-founder of Seventh Generation, Jeffrey Hollender, has too many accolades and credits to his name to write in just a paragraph. But let’s try.

Jeffrey is the co-founder of the American Sustainable Business Council and the Sustainability Institute, is on the Board of Directors for the Greenpeace Fund, the Environmental Health Fund, and Verite. He also serves in an advisory capacity to the David O’Brien Centre for Sustainable Enterprise (DOCSE) at the John Molson School of Business; to Healthy Child Healthy World (formerly Children’s Health Environmental Coalition); and to Vermont Businesses for Social Responsibility.

Want more? He is a member and former Director of the Social Venture Network, a group of socially conscious business executives. Jeffrey co-founded and was a Director of Community Capital Bank, a New York financial institution that invests in affordable housing and community development and is also a former president of Rainforest Foundation USA, an organization created to protect the rain forest and the human rights of its indigenous peoples.

Having recently released a book, the Responsibility Revolution: How the Next Generation of Businesses Will Win (which we likes), Jeffrey takes some time out to let Amanda Coffin pick his brains on current sustainability issues.

CSRD: Your company, Seventh Generation, was founded on the principle of environmental awareness. Ecological concerns are the essence your business. What advice can you offer to companies whose core business is inherently destructive to the environment? Can petroleum and mining companies take part in The Responsibility Revolution? How, and to what extent?

JH: All business can and must take part in The Responsibility Revolution, but there’s no question that business’s that extract natural resources face larger challenges. Tiffany has been a leader in promoting the extraction and sale of “conflict free” diamonds, at one point BP was committed to moving “Beyond Petroleum.” Sadly they abandoned that endeavor, but oil companies must more to a focus on dramatically increasing revenue from renewable resources. The Chinese government by investing annually 12 times what we invest here is the US is a model of the degree of investment needed to ensure we have a sustainable future.

CSRD: Your account of the management innovations at Linden Lab, the digital media company in San Francisco, was fascinating. They are creative yet easily implemented ways to keep employees engaged and challenged. Are practices like these becoming more common in the USA, or is Linden Lab still on the cutting edge in the personnel category?

JH: Sadly these management innovations are still the exception to the rule, we need more models as well has many more companies utilizing them. The challenge is usually fear and inertia from senior management who too often see these innovations as a threat to their outdated leadership patterns.

CSRD: The story of the Nike shoe designer’s effort to make the latest version of the Air Jordan athletic shoe as sustainably as possible – and meeting with resistance from Michael Jordan – was a good wake-up call to those who put environmental concerns at the top of their priority lists. Professional athletes want, first and foremost, an excellent shoe. As you pointed out, Mr. Jordan was thrilled with Tinker Hatfield’s final product, once he recognized that its renewable and recycled materials did not in fact diminish its quality. As you also noted, Nike had the good business sense not to trumpet this shoe’s “green” qualities, knowing that they wouldn’t impress the customer base. Do you see other examples of companies that are working toward more sustainable practices and products ahead of, or even in spite of, customer concerns?

JH: It’s happening all over the place, yet companies are cautious in their willingness to talk about these innovations. Wal-Mart Canada built a new warehouse using geothermal energy and has turned their logistics capability to accelerating the purchase of locally grown organic produce. Even Seventh Generation has yet to talk about on our packaging that we use sustainably harvested palm oil and donate 10% of our profits to NGO’s.

CSRD: Your book features American and European companies. Much of the world, however, is looking towards the People’s Republic of China when subjects of sustainability arise. China’s manufacturing capability is, of course, monumental, but the country has suffered some serious blows to its reputation with environmental ravages and recent product quality scandals. What are your perceptions and thoughts on China’s ability to join The Responsibility Revolution? What are your thoughts on other emerging markets?

JH: I believe that China is beginning to use an advantage they have that few Western governments are willing to institute, a centrally planned economy. As I mentioned above, this strategy will allow China to dominate the production of alternative energy technology. One key for China is to continue to use its government to deploy a sustainability strategy. The US is failing miserable here and financial influence from old economy, carbon based industry has brought to a standstill the strategy and economic focus we need to move towards a sustainable economy. Just as companies need business strategies, governments will no longer succeed with out them. No country can do everything well, each needs to focus their investments selectively and then drive that focus through education, research, technology development and investment.

CSRD: Any other comments?

JH: Ultimately we need to institute full cost accounting to stop business from externalizing its costs. With-out a dramatic change to the accounting, tax, and regulatory landscape, business will be incentivized to make socially & environmentally destructive products and sell them at deceptively cheap prices to the public.