After a couple of days to decompress and digest my experiences at this year’s Ceres Conference, some reflections:

Most educational/thought provoking session attended:  “The Ripple Effect:  Exploring financial risks along the water value chain”

I went to this one because I know that water is a growing part of the corporate sustainability story for a variety of reasons  -  resource depletion, rising costs, increasing expectations of stakeholders around disclosure/goal setting/action, connection to climate change, etc. – and wanted to jump start my understanding and vocabulary around the issue.   The panelists  were a terrific blend of water utilities (American Water), industrial water users (Molson Coors), and investors (Water Asset Management), guided in their discussion by a key stakeholder (Interfaith Council on Corporate Responsibility).

Rather than simply being three mini-presentations about financial risk/reporting, it was a very interesting dialog about the real pressures being put on the Earth’s water resources and the various roles these different entities had in both addressing challenges and creating opportunities that will ultimately move the needle, as it were, towards an integrated, more sustainable approach to managing what may be the most vital resource on the planet.  While the statistics bandied about were a sobering look at where things stand and the current negative trends, overall the conversation focused on how much is and can be done by each of these constituencies, both individually and together.

Some key takeaways and factoids:

• A US household with an income around $36K annually spends around 3.8% of disposable income on electricity, but only 0.5% on water.
• In California, around 80% of water is used for agriculture, while the agriculture industry contributes around 2% of total state GDP.
• Tiered pricing – where the largest consumers pay higher rates – has become increasingly common in the electricity market, but is a very new sparsely utilized tool in the water market.
• When disclosing an organization’s water footprint, it isn’t enough to say how much was used/saved; you also have to talk about where the water comes from.
• There is colossal financial upside potential for companies in a position to address various water issues (efficiency, treatment, leak fix/detection, etc.).

I could really go on and on, and likely will in a later post.  Some great content on this topic can be found in the Ceres report Murky Waters: Corporate Reporting on Water Risk.

Other conference observations:

• Starting your morning off with a plenary speaker that bums everyone out is not constructive.  That isn’t to say we’re not there to talk about serious issues, but in a crowd of sustainability professionals, spending 20 minutes or so talking about how things are so much worse than we think is a demotivating waste.  Seems kind of like going to a blood drive and preaching to people about the importance of giving blood.  Rather, come with your big asks, your suggestions for how we professionals can help your cause, sprinkle in some key factoids that will help educate, but veer away from doom-saying.
• It’s really likely that many in the audience are also expert in many dimensions of the topics presented.  Leave lots of time for Q&A – it’ll enrich the conversation.

Overall, a great conference as usual, with tons of opportunities to meet and talk with a range of committed, interesting folks from the investor, stakeholder, public and private sectors.  Time well spent – nice going, Ceres!

As we stare another Earth Day in the face, I have to honestly say that it makes me cringe.  The symbolic value of April 22 has long ago waned, replaced by what essentially amounts to an annual PR stunt.  Many environmental/sustainability professionals I know look on this day and the weeks leading up to it with a mixture of vexation and resignation.  Too often, it’s an annoying distraction from the day in, day out hard work of actually making progress on the tough challenges we and our fellow life forms on Planet Earth face.  Worse, by jumping on the band wagon and saving your big eco messaging push for the third week of April, you basically guarantee that your voice will be lost in big green glut of promotions, news articles, editorials, and other drum banging.

Many souls more eloquent than I have been sounding this concern for years.

The biggest problem with Earth Day is that it has become a ritual of sympathy for the idea of environmental sanity. Small steps, we’re told, ignoring the fact that most of the steps most frequently promoted (returning your bottles, bringing your own bag, turning off the water while you brush your teeth) are of such minor impact (compared to our ecological footprints) that they are essentially meaningless without larger, systemic action as well. The strategy of recycling as a gateway drug — get them hooked on it and we can move them on to harder stuff — has failed miserably. We can do better.

Put in 2010 terms, Earth Day has become equivalent to clicking “Like” next to a Facebook post.  By reducing the very real risks our biosphere faces into a single day of “awareness,” it kind of implies that everyone can go back to business as usual the other 364 days a year.  Even more revolting, now that the day has been over taken by marketing and advertising, it reinforces the idea that green is a “trend,” something that will go the way of the Pet Rock.

Now, I’m all for environmental education, and we can thank the original Earth Day and the change in mindset it helped elicit  for bringing ecological issues to the fore, resulting in landmark achievements like the Clean Air Act.  But I’m just sayin’ – if we want eco consciousness to be part of every day existence, isn’t it time to start acting that way?

Maybe I’ll spend this week wishing John Muir a happy birthday and look forward to Arbor Day.

I can only hope that the drastic discount indicates that this product is going down in flames.  The horror is magnified if you buy the two-pack.  Where do you even start listing the numerous FAILs here?

The first of two additions to my own gallery of packaging atrocities comes from 1-800-Contacts:

1-800-Contacts, boxes big enough to see without glasses

At least the box wasn't loaded with styrofoam peanuts.

What’s behind the giant box for such a small order?  I get that they probably service both individuals and optometry practices, so sometimes the order would fill a box like this.  However, this is a year’s worth of disposable contacts.  Since that’s probably a pretty common order for individuals, it’s hard to understand why they wouldn’t have a standard, small-size box.

Not to be outdone, Monster Cable was kind enough to wrap my 2-foot iPod audio cable in enough plastic to make a CD.  Thank goodness they filled up the clam shell with cardboard and printed documentation:

Almost couldn't find the cable in all that packaging.

Hopefully Monster will reach out to fellow Bay Area companies like Method to learn how to get serious about packaging reduction initiatives.

Seems like only yesterday our team at Sun was writing a point by point response to the CRO about the “methodology” they used to compile 2009′s Top 100 Corporate Citizens list.  Marcy blogged about it at the time,and her criticisms are, unfortunately, a great primer for evaluating this year’s profoundly flawed (in not just my humble opinion) list.  Mark Gunther really captures the list’s value:

All I can say is that anyone who uses this list to make an important decision ought not to be in a position to make important decisions.

Word.

To be fair, the CRO’s list isn’t the only one of its type to come under fire.  Last week, Will Evans at Slate published a cautionary tale about consulting organizations that also give out awards for corporate responsibility, in this case, Ethisphere.

Just was reminded of the swell compendium of carbon calculators Gil Friend has been collecting on Squiddo.  Makes me wonder how many more GHG accounting “killer apps” we really need.