Events
Sustainable Brands ... New Metrics 2016

16 Insights into Measuring the Value of Sustainability ... (TPB: mostly talk and not that much about numbers and methodology ???)

Burgess COMMENTARY

Peter Burgess

16 Insights into Measuring the Value of Sustainability

As one of the focal points of the global Sustainable Brands conference network, New Metrics ’16 will explore how brands can succeed by adopting new methods of measuring and managing sustainability-led innovation and stakeholder engagement. More than 100 influential thought leaders, business strategists and cutting-edge practitioners of environmental and social innovation will contribute to the program by leading interactive discussions, deep-dive workshops, plenary presentations and networking activities designed to cultivate forward-looking win-win conversations.

Here are 16 categories of program highlights organized under 4 event tracks:

Investor Trends & Relations

• Nasdaq, SASB, Future-Fit Foundation, Sustainalytics, PivotGoals, The MultiCapital Scorecard, GRI and Reporting 3.0 will share a diverse and rich set of outlooks for the next generation of science-based, investor-friendly and stock-exchange-approved sustainability disclosure schemes.

• Arjuna Capital, Pax World, Becker College, Restore the Earth Foundation, Intellecap and HIP Investor will help attendees stay up to date with several important trends in the investor community, including but not limited to shareholder activism, directing entire investment portfolios toward environmental and social benefits, investing in restoration of natural capital, and measuring social impact in context, among others.

• Robert Ruttmann will lead a deep-dive discussion of a quiet revolution taking place in finance and financial services, a digital tornado with fintech as its center featuring waves upon waves of companies changing the ways we make payments, send money, borrow, lend, and invest.

• Members of the Chemical Footprint Project will examine a couple of important and still under-appreciated blind spots in the investor community – namely, the sustainability, or lack thereof, of chemicals commonly found in today’s economy and the arrival of healthier materials likely to play a pivotal role going forward.

Corporate Strategy & Operations

• Marks & Spencer, Virgin Atlantic, DONG Energy, Reputation Dividend and Bob Willard will share several new and upgraded methods for calculating the ROI of sustainability, looking at investments in employee behavior change, product portfolio shifts, business model pivots and brand reputation.

• Dell, Biogen, Humanscale, the International Living Future Institute and Valutus will host a frank and open discussion about practical progress on net positive strategies, considering what it really takes to formulate specific action plans, find appropriate tools and build the right teams that execute well.

• SAP, Novo Nordisk, BASF and AIM2Flourish will summarize leading approaches to aligning strategy, goal-setting and innovation with the UN SDGs, teasing out lessons that can help the Sustainable Brands community contribute to the SDGs while deriving business and brand value in the process.

• Stok, Biomimicry 3.8 and PlastArc will examine how Organizational Biomimicry uses a personalized, multi-stakeholder engagement process to redesign organizations for success in the modern economy using a science-based, data-driven, nature-inspired approach.

Supply Chain Impact & Management

• Intel, MillerCoors, 3M, Avery Dennison, CDP and SupplyShift will walk attendees through exemplary case studies in supply chain leadership, sharing a variety of cutting-edge strategies for engaging and collaborating with suppliers to help them deepen purpose-driven innovation.

• The Natural Capital Coalition and a few of its members will provide an overview of the Natural Capital Protocol, which launched in July 2016 and is intended as a comprehensive source of trusted, credible and actionable information enabling understanding and management of natural capital.

• The ISEAL Alliance, the Forest Stewardship Council, the Marine Stewardship Council and the Sustainable Agriculture Network will discuss best practices in measuring the social and environmental impacts of sustainable sourcing programs and outline communication strategies proving effective, focusing above all on the impacts of labels and certification.

• EMC, Fourstar Connections, Ropes & Gray and Crowe Horwath will be at the center of a workshop exploring the evolution of supply chain sustainability programs through three important lenses – supply chain management teams at consumer-facing public companies, executives and sustainability leaders of smaller private suppliers, and the broader CPA community that serves both of the above with respect to disclosure, compliance and auditing.

Customer Insights & Engagement

• Nielsen, Enso, GOOD Corps and JUST Capital will present valuable research intelligence on the current landscape of consumer attitudes and behavior around sustainability, prevailing perceptions of key influencers and leaders in the space, as well as the business case for purpose-driven brand strategy and innovation.

• Hello World Labs and Krukow will offer fresh insights and tools to help brands make progress in the difficult quest toward incentivizing consumer behavior change, combining the power of ‘nudging’ strategies, behavioral economics and new emergent data streams coming from smart cities and the Internet of Things.

• Hemmings House will analyze the kinds of ROI that brands can get out of producing or sponsoring films that support positive social change and show why brands that have acted on such opportunities are already enjoying newly-earned customer trust, loyalty and ultimately profits.

• Evonomics and the Post-Growth Institute will outline bold new visions for a world in which purpose and positive impact are more important than profit, and yet everything works smoothly – a thriving economy and humanity based on the next evolution of economics and business.

All these insights will be presented at New Metrics ’16 this November 14-16 in Boston, MA. Reserve your spot now to join the leading brands and businesses who are continuing to learn from remarkable thought leaders working to create a path toward smarter, more accurate and more inclusive business metrics that create value for all stakeholders.