Plenary

8:30-9:00 AM

Chris Laszlo, Managing Partner, Sustainable Value Network
Increasingly, progressive companies are realizing that a powerful strategic advantage lies in the environmental and social impact a business has on the world around it. Sustainability consultant Dr. Chris Laszlo, author of the new book Sustainable Value: How the World’s Leading Companies Are Doing Well by Doing Good (Stanford University Press, 2008), will discuss sustainability-driven business leadership, the latest best management practices emerging from major organizations such as Unilever, Lafarge and others that have made themselves more sustainable, and more competitive in the process. Threaded throughout this presentation will be thoughts from a global perspective on why the push toward sustainability should continue to be a top strategic focus at your company.

Plenary

9:05-9:35 AM

Martin Charter, Director, Centre for Sustainable Design, UK
Despite, and in fact perhaps even because of current economic upheaval around the globe, opportunities for those leveraging innovation for sustainability to competitive advantage are expanding at lightening speed. In this talk, Martin Charter, renowned UK expert on sustainability, will help us define “sustainable innovation” from a global perspective. He’ll provide a current look at what’s driving innovation around the world: from climate change and materials scarcity – to capital, competitors, and customers and how the booming economies of China and India are shaping the future of sustainability. He’ll provide a sneak peak into how companies are starting to jump outside the box in response, and offer his perspective for on what factors will likely drive further change in 2009 and beyond.

Plenary

9:40-10:10 AM

Santiago Gowland, VP Unilever Brand & Global Corporate Responsibility
Of the world’s 100 largest economies, 51 are now corporations, not countries. This remarkable statistic has formed the backdrop for Unilever’s contemplation of two key strategic questions: What will the role of business in society be during the 21st Century; and What will it take, in every country where we have a presence, to continue growing at current rates for the next 20 years. In this presentation, you’ll hear about some of the incredible innovation that has been driven by response to these questions. Hint: Peter Drucker may have said it best: “Every single pressing social and global issue of our time is a business opportunity.”

Plenary

10:40-11:10 AM

Moderated by: Annie Longsworth, Executive Vice President and Managing Director, Cohn and Wolfe, San Francisco, with

• Toshi Ide, President & CEO, CarbonPass, gConscious, Tokyo
• Simon Jimenez, Research Director, GlobeScan Incorporated, Toronto
• Guy Champniss, Global Director, Business Insights, Havas Media Intelligence, United Kingdom

What makes a consumer unique? Location? Culture? Socioeconomic status? And how do today’s global customer subsets view sustainability? The world's leading sustainability research experts will present the global picture of consumer attitudes towards sustainability. These five researchers are here to answer your questions, and give you a solid strategic outlook for the future, and a foundation of learning on which to base both local and global business decisions. In addition to this brief snapshot, each presenter will also offer an afternoon breakout session providing a deep dive look at the detailed findings of their research.

Plenary

11:15 - 11:45 AM

Yalmaz Siddiqui, Director of Environmental Strategy, Office Depot
Office Depot just announced having reached $1.6 Billion in sales tied to their Green Products. In this session, look under the hood at how they have reached this milestone, and where they are headed next. What are Americans and Europeans are each looking for in a green product? When establishing brand criteria where do these two populations overlap? Using examples from experience in various North American and European markets, Siddiqui will discuss what Office Depot is learning about differences in customer demand and green purchasing requirements on these two continents. He’ll share their strategies and decision making processes as they have worked to establish their own internal, cross-continent green brand: issues like establishing the brand criteria, weighing trade offs between going w/ internal self-certification vs. third party eco-labeling vs. a hybrid certification model, communications design and merchandising strategies for each market. Additionally, he'll give us a sneak peak into what comes next for Office Depot Green.

Plenary

11:50-12:20 AM

Mike Barry, Head of Corporate Social Responsibility, Marks and Spencer
In 2007, UK retailer Marks and Spencer embarked on an industry leading, five-year, 100-point 'eco' plan to tackle some of the biggest challenges facing business and our world. In just the past 18 months they have made enormous progress on their 5 core goals: Become carbon neutral, send no waste to landfill, extend sustainable sourcing, help improve the lives of people in their supply chain and help customers and employees live a healthier lifestyle. The breadth and depth of their accomplishments in a short time is inspiring on its own, but perhaps tops on the list is the exemplary job they’ve done at communicating their efforts to their customers and engaging them in the success of Plan A. Hear how these efforts are helping create deeper brand affinity.

Breakout

1:50-2:35 PM

Annie Longsworth, Executive Vice President and Managing Director, Cohn & Wolfe
With a booming population, the Chinese perception of what is "green" and what is "green wash" has never been more important to understand. This survey, just out of the field, presents the most up-to-date information available on Chinese perceptions of the “Greenest Brands.”

Breakout

1:50-2:35 PM

Steve Davies, Global Marketing Director, NatureWorks, LLC
As brands develop new green strategies and products, they often must address unanticipated questions and concerns that can vary widely around the globe. For example:

• Is this product truly green?
• What does ‘green’ mean in different geographies, and how does this affect how the product is locally positioned & marketed.
• Where does the product fit in the differing recycle systems around the world?
• What unintended consequences arise in different geographies (e.g. competition for food stocks, differing practices & philosophies in local agricultural, use of GMO technology, etc)

Mr. Davies will share how Nature Works has grappled with these issues as they’ve worked with leading brands & retailers to serve the unique needs of local markets around the world. Providing several short case studies from both US & international product launches, he’ll illustrate how market leaders are better at finding clever ways to make sustainability work within their system.

Breakout

1:50-2:35 PM

Priya Haji, CEO & Co-Founder, World of Good Inc.; Amy Skeeters-Behrens, Global Marketing Manager, WorldofGood.com
As globalization opens markets and generates opportunities for developing nations, social innovators are challenged with ensuring that the benefits reach marginalized informal laborers, many of whom are women, working to support their children and families in the developing world. Priya Haji and Robert Chatwani, the visionaries behind WorldofGood.com by eBay, will discuss their unique co-branded ecommerce marketplace, launched in September of 2008, and its ability to create a dedicated space in the $136 billion online retail market for marginalized producers around the world to sell their wares. Representatives from several organizations will join them to speak for the artisan producers they represent in ten countries.

Breakout

1:30-2:20 PM

Brooks Beard, Partner, Morrison & Foerster
Everywhere we turn, we are faced with "green" advertising claims. But when can a company properly make "green" claims? And what risks do they run in making such claims? This presentation will examine the latest developments in the "green" advertising arena, including an up-to-date report on trends in international and national governmental enforcement efforts and false advertising litigation, how to avoid the pitfalls of "greenwashing," and how to inform consumers about the environmental and socially responsible attributes of your products and services without violating the law across multiple jurisdictions.

Breakout

2:45-3:30 PM

Karin Laljani, Senior Vice President, Market Strategy & Sustainability, InterfaceFLOR Europe, Interface, Inc.
Even heavy eco-impact manufacturing industries can have dramatically reduced negative impact on the environment while improving the bottom-line. Per their 2007 results, Interface has achieved:

• 75% Reduction in waste from manufacturing to landfill since 1996
• 82% Net Greenhouse Gas Emissions reduction
• 44% reduction in total energy consumption per unit of output
• 100% use of renewable electricity in manufacturing in Europe
• 27% Global consumption from renewable energy
• 75% reduction in global water usage
• $372 million cumulative avoided waste cost

And the journey continues, now with more emphasis on social sustainability addressing global economic issues. In this session you will gain insight into the continuation of Interfaces journey, including a unique partnership and some early results on how InterfaceFLOR in Europe is responding to the change of the corporation's role in society. This effort goes beyond philanthropy, volunteering and employee engagement, to building a way to work toward a fair business model enabling a more balanced distribution of global wealth.

Breakout

2:45-3:30 PM

Joep Meijer, President, RightEnvironment Ltd. Co.
Life Cycle Assessment, or LCA, started off as a dark green approach to product design. Through it's increasing adoption, LCA is rapidly becoming a baseline procedure in any design process. Joep will provide a comparative overview of the top 5 LCA frameworks and explain how LCA goes hand in hand with sustainable brands and business operations. He will show you how to apply LCA tools to benchmark your business and help align future strategies and goals. This engaging presentation will showcase examples from daily life where we encounter hidden results from choices to explain the importance of building a habitual practice of thinking in whole systems.

Breakout

2:45-3:30 PM

Katie Fry Hester, Manager, Research & Advocacy, SustainAbility
Building on just fielded research from Europe, North America, China, South Africa, India and Brazil, this session begins with a vision for the future CSR reporting. By 2011, reporting has evolved beyond the “one-size-fits-all” glossy report into a powerful, mainstream, valuable combination of tools and communication vehicles.

• Reporting is an implicit attribute of products, branding, contractual arrangements etc., and fully integrated into mainstream communication channels;
• Where explicit, reporting focuses on business strategy in relation to a handful of the most material sustainability issues;
• From a resources and utility perspective, the reporting effort is weighted towards internal stakeholders and management systems.

Given this vision, how will the role, responsibilities and scope of the “sustainability report manager” evolve? What new skills and resources are needed? What reporting principles and key lessons still hold? Working with SustainAbility, over 50 sustainability professionals at top global companies, recently redrafted their job descriptions for 2011. Hear how their role may evolve in light of the growing connection between sustainability and brand.

Breakout

2:45-3:30 PM

Moderated by Will Sarni, CEO, Domani, withKate Brass, Program Manager, Ecomagination, General Electric, and Jim Sullivan, VP, Advisory Services, Clear Standards
Your company's internal co2 goals should be part and parcel of your overall strategy, positioning our company for what is already a reality in Europe and what is a coming reality for many other parts of the world. This panel will provide an up-to-the-minute look at current market drivers (cost reduction, disclosure/regulation, new market opportunities) with a focus on ROI, and how to keep sustainability programs robust in tough economic times. You'll take away great ideas about metrics for success and how to structure a successful program.

Breakout

4:00-4:45 PM

Moderated by: Jacquelyn Ottman, President, J. Ottman Consulting Panelists Include: Shelley Zimmer, Environmental Marketing Manager, Hewlett Packard and Anastasia O’Rourke, ecolabeling.org
Ecolabeling is a challenging task for any organization, and even more so if you are a multinational marketer. Not only is there a plethora of labels specific to individual countries, but environmental issues differ from country to country and region to region. Its costly to say the least, for multinational marketers to monitor the scene in the countries in which they operate and pay sometimes hefty fees to test their products and adhere to various ecolabeling schemes around the world.

Moderated by Jacquelyn Ottman, green marketing expert and author, this panel will discuss the issues and explore the solutions successful multinational companies are using to label their products effectively while controlling costs and reducing the risks of greenwash, providing insights for even local marketers on the changing global landscape and how these changes may impact you going forward.

Breakout

4:00-4:50 PM

Charlie Sheldon, Co-Founder, Link Studios

Inherent pragmatics surrounding mass-market products lead large brands to great profits through thin margins and economies of scale. Unfortunately for all, negative impacts on society and the environment often follow. This discussion will help change your perception about the scale of impact associated with sustainable vs. unsustainable product design architecture and planning on a small and large scale, and encourage you to think in new ways about where to find both incremental and paradigm changing product design opportunities, as well as principles and methods to instill in order to lead your company in the right direction.

Breakout

4:00-4:45 PM

Simon Jimenez, Research Director, GlobeScan, Inc.
With over 30,000 interviews conducted annually since 1999, GlobeScan research provides an authoritative measure of the evolution of how consumers are responding to the corporate responsibility agenda around the world. Drawing on their latest 30-country opinion leader and public opinion research, this session provides a look at how expectations of corporate responsibility differ across China, India, Brazil, Russia, Europe and the United States. You’ll learn what impact the current economic context is having on people's expectations of companies when it comes CSR and what implications other societal trends related to corporate responsibility have corporate communicators and brand builders.

Breakout

4:00-4:45 PM

Diogo Teixeira, Brand Strategist, Brandia Central and Joao Freire, Brand Strategist, Brandia Central

LOGZ is a newly created logistical company south of Lisbon. The location was set up by the government of Portugal with the objective of reorganizing the logistics process in Portugal. LOGZ will not only compete with other platforms in Portugal but also with several in Spain.

After careful market research, LOGZ’s agency, Brandia Central, the leading brand agency in Portugal, determined that sustainability offered the opportunity to differentiate LOGZ from their competition, and that becoming a green platform was not only important for the LOGZ brand but it was also relevant to the rest of the market and an important selling argument. Thus the company positioned its brand around a concept dubbed ECOLOGISTICS -- Sustainable Logistics Platform. Delve in to the details of this rich case study involving both the sustainable underpinnings of the business and execution of the brand story.

Evening Conversation Starter

5:00-6:00 PM

Tamara Giltsoff, Managing Director, OZOlab; Jeff Mendelsohn, CEO, New Leaf Paper; Yalmaz Siddiqui, Director of Environmental Strategy, Office Depot and Robert Lapides, Managing Member and CEO, Bosque Pico Bonito, LLC
Panelists will discuss the unique, unfolding opportunities for collaboration between small nimble entrepreneurs and local players, larger multi-nationals with their access to capital and distribution channels, NGOs with the ability to address large scale problems and solutions, and by new investor categories. Participants will engage in a dialogue about the connection between whole systems thinking (connected thinking) and these new sorts of emerging collaborations. Examples of 'David and Goliath' collaboration/investment to date (other than M&A) will be presented, and new thoughts from those in the trenches (including the audience!) will be explored.

BIRDS OF A FEATHER DINNERS

7:30-9:30 PM

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