Roundtables by Date

As atmospheric carbon passes the 400ppm barrier, it is a stark reminder of the outstanding leadership that will be required if we are to avoid extreme climate change.

There is no point in being depressed by this. Instead, we should draw inspiration from a small group of thinkers, companies and entrepreneurs who are already demonstrating how business is uniquely positioned to face up to this challenge.

On 10th June, Amory Lovins and his guests, Nandini Basuthakur and Andy Palmer will give you a framework and real examples of how business can lead in the absence of a strong policy framework. It will be a masterclass in long term thinking, and the new business models that link radical change with the profit motive.

Amory Lovins was rated by Time magazine as one of the World's 100 most influential people in 2009. He has briefed 19 Heads of State and published 29 books, including his most recent "Reinventing Fire". He is currently travelling the globe explaining his vision of a world free of fossil fuels by 2050 without acts of government and led by the pursuit of profit.

Two areas where Amory expects the greatest disruption are transport and electricity and we're delighted to welcome as his guests two leaders from organisations that are thinking very differently, and showing that radical change is possible whilst creating financial value.

Andy Palmer, Executive Vice President Nissan Motor Co., has played an instrumental role in developing Nissan's Electric Vehicle programme. In 2009, The Economist magazine described the company's $4bn commitment to zero emission vehicles as "somewhere between very risky and certifiably mad". Since then every major car manufacturer has followed suit, and in the past couple of months there are signs that the Nissan Leaf is starting to put a dent in the auto market.

You can read the Green Mondays case study of how this decision was driven in large part by an awareness of climate change. 

Nandini Basuthakur is Managing Director for Opower. Opower was set up in 2007 to help customer save energy, and its extraordinary business model has given it a global reach into more than 15 million homes through partnerships with over 85 utilities. It has saved 2 TWhs hours of energy, enough to power a city of 500,000 people for a year, and removed $280m from their energy bills. Opower is in Forbes top 20 most promising US companies.

Following the plenary session there will be a series of specialist roundtables, allowing our crowd to dig-deeper into some of the themes introduced by Amory and his guests.

On the 13th May, in another Green Mondays first, the crowd will come together and debate the motion:

"The corporate community should now embrace genetically modified crops and food"

We'll consider the Genetic Modification (GM) of crops and food in the context of other tools aimed at combatting growing stress in key commodity markets and establish the business community's position.

With the perfect storm of a rising population and declining food yields, GM is once again appearing on the radar of both business and wider-society. Jonathon Porritt and Tony Juniper have recently stated their minds are 'not closed' to GM and Mark Lynas, previously a self-professed standard-bearer for the anti-GM movement has now turned full circle, stating:

"GM is an important technological option which can be used to benefit the environment"

Anecdotal evidence suggests, whilst most businesses are unwilling to publicly support GM, many are privately taking more open positions. And, if a member of the UK government is correct in asserting that one trillion GM meals have now been eaten without adverse health effect, is it time to bring it in from the cold?

However, rising imports of non-GM soya in the EU, the proposed introduction of GM-labelling laws in 24 US states and a moratorium on the growing of GM-crops in China certainly don't suggest any softening of attitudes in the market or amongst policy-makers.

And with continued concerns that GM has the potential to contaminate the food chain, plus unease over the degree of control being handed to a small number of large corporations, is GM a discredited technology diverting attention and resource from systems proven to deliver benefits and increase production?

We believe the importance of this debate goes far beyond GM. It touches on the role technology has to play in solving social and environmental problems, and how society balances the risk of action against the risk of inaction. Nuclear fuel, nanotechnology, fracking, artificial meat and geoengineering can be added to the list.

As Anthony Kleanthaus explains in the latest edition of Green Futures, picking sides on GM is not as easy as it used to be and May’s debate will not be a black & white one. Our expert panel, facilitated by Tom Heap, will give space to absolute positions alongside shades of grey, and use voting technology to establish the perceived importance of GM alongside other solutions to the perfect storm.

It's an important and timely debate.

Sky CEO Jeremy Darroch is part of a growing club of business leaders, including Paul Polman, Ian Cheshire and Jochen Zeitz, who see financial value and social value as inextricably linked.

The April Green Mondays Forum sees Jeremy discuss how he is building Sky into a company that's "committed to doing the right thing, building a sustainable business and playing our part in the communities where we live and work".

Sky have already invested heavily to reduce their environmental impact, not least in the building of Europe's most sustainable broadcasting facility.

However, with social issues creeping ever further up the corporate agenda, it is their work in communities that may be of particular interest - whether it is inspiring over a million more people to get on their bikes, or becoming the largest corporate supporter of the arts in the UK.

But we ask is it possible for business be pro-growth and pro-society? The April forum is your chance to get an insight into a business leader who believes the two are not separate and that playing a positive role in society as a vital ingredient of long-term business success .

To give you the best opportunity to digest and analyse Sky's sustainability strategy we have worked closely with Sky to create a series of roundtables that reflect the key areas of the journey. These discussions, which follow the main plenary session, should be of great benefit to both Sky and the crowd.

April's Green Mondays Forum will be hosted by Bloomberg. It is our first time at this exciting and contemporary space and we think it will do the subject proud.

Is the issue of trust ushering in a wave of creative destruction? Are we about to witness some of our most established companies, unable to respond to a new era of transparency, wither and die - to be replaced by new businesses with 'good' at their core?

And what of Millennials? Are they, their social networks and willingness to act quickly and collectively, the driving force behind trust moving so firmly up the corporate agenda?

Talks from three outstanding speakers at our February Forum will address these questions and more.

Vincent de Rivaz (CEO, EDF Energy) is a leading CEO who is grappling with rebuilding trust in a sector where trust has evaporated. There will be parallels for those working in utilities, banks and media companies.

Huw Davies (Head of Personal Banking, Triodos) will share how trust and transparency can create competitive advantage. If you don't know Triodos, have a look - are they part of a new generation of trust-centric businesses that threatens the incumbents?

Angela Jhanji (One Young World) will explain why Generation Y have higher expectations from business, and how social media is generating conversations between companies and society, replacing corporate monologues.

The link between business and society continues to tighten, as Google, Starbucks and Amazon learned recently. Is your company ready?

Panel Discussion with Matthew Taylor, CEO, RSA

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Q - What do you get when you cross three of the UK's top CFO's with Jonathon Porritt?

A - An insight-rich, and potentially explosive start to 2013 with the Green Mondays Forum!

Alan Stewart (M&S) will be joined on the Green Mondays stage by Tim Haywood (Interserve) and Lucinda Bell (British Land) to discuss how sustainability is a growing part of their remit and CFO's needn't be seen as the obstacle to developing sustainable business strategies; often it is just a case of learning to speak the same language.

We are delighted to have Jonathon Porritt asking the questions. He will probing our panel on the above hypothesis. Will it hold true or is it just the smell of money that gets CFO's out of bed in the morning? What happens when the going gets tough? Will they stay the course, or cut and run?

We hope to have a strong showing from finance people and we'd encourage you to 'bring a finance friend', whether they are sustainability experts, or still sceptical -  We want a broad debate.

Want to learn the language of the CFO? Apply today.

Do you believe the mainstream holds the key to a sustainable future? Is it only through engaging and motivating them en-masse we create the commercial impetus to deliver new business-models?

Or, will it be through visionary leadership and new ways of thinking that we deliver change? After all, the internet was created by the vision of a few, and then adopted by the mainstream because it offered a better world.

For this special end-of-year debate, we explore four very different schools-of-thought.

Steven Kotler (via Video-link from the US) - Steven and his partner, Peter Diamandis, caused a storm when they published “Abundance” earlier this year, arguing we have the ingenuity to overcome climate change and population growth.

Joanna Yarrow - Consumers need to experience a sustainable world for them to want it. An expert in making green living attractive, Joanna will share learnings from her BBC3's Outrageous Wasters series, the Ariel 30 campaign, and her work with Unilever.

John Elkington - From 0 to 100: The Power of Stretch Thinking. One of the gurus of sustainability will explore what can be achieved with stretch targets, and how breakthroughs come from a relatively small group in society rather than the mainstream.

Dr. Michael Braungart - The co-creator of Cradle to Cradle thinking, Michael will explain why closed loop thinking is redefining business models, and helping companies to find advantage from thinking differently. Responding will be two people who have an unparalleled understanding of current mainstream opinion.

David Aaronovitch - Author, Tweeter and Columnist for The Times

Greg Nugent - Brand, Marketing & Culture Director for the London 2012 Olympics

Dr Michael Braungart

Panel Discussion, Q&A with Greg Nugent & David Aaronovitch

Jochen Zeitz is someone we expect to hear a lot more of in the future. An admired CEO in his own right, having conceived the environmental profit & loss account ( E P&L) , he is now the principle energy behind the growing movement of EP&L accounting . He has recently co-founded the b team with Richard Branson, a group of international business leaders who will champion concrete solutions to help make capitalism a driving force for social, environmental and economic benefit.

The interview by BBC Journalist Richard Anderson will ask whether E P&L’s will change the way companies make decisions, as well as covering broader topics such as the role of governments and consumers and the next generation of capitalism.

History tells us that it is individuals and new ways have thinking that most impacts business strategy. Marginal Abatement Cost Curves, Life Cycle Analysis, and Closed Loop thinking have inspired a new generation of business models. Will E P&L’s have a similar, or even a greater impact?

A number of global companies are employing E P&L accounting, with results likely to emerge over the next 12 months. Puma developed the first-ever E P&L, and published their full E P&L accounts in 2011 before extending the analysis to the product level in 2012. The further down the journey it goes, the more Puma seems to believe.

Never doubt that a small group of committed people can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.

Those words by Margaret Mead capture the dynamic of every new era, when a handful of leaders see change before others and play an active role in shaping it. And it seems that a handful of today's leaders have decided that sustainability is the defining feature of our future.

Whether pioneering EVs (Carlos Ghosn, Nissan), calling for reform of the financial system (Paul Abberley, Aviva Investors), rejecting short-term investors (Paul Polman, Unilever), or advocating EP&Ls (Jochen Zeitz, PPR and PUMA), these leaders believe they are signposting the future.

But what makes these leaders different? Why are they more aware of environmental and social issues? Are they better leaders as a result? Will they generate more profits than their counterparts? Does it just boil down to them understanding our evolution from self-interest to enlightened self-interest?

Through our September audience, panel of experts and diverse roundtables, we aim to shed insight into leadership in the 21st Century. Here's a little more about our panel:

• Paul Abberley, Aviva Investors. Paul has used the power that comes with GBP200bn in investment funds to challenge the morality of the City, and is one of the few investors to challenge the sustainability credentials of their investee companies.

• Sally Uren, Forum for the Future. Sally and Forum have influenced some of the most remarkable strategies (Unilever, M&S, Kingfisher, O2 etc.). She will explain the importance of leadership at all levels, from the category buyer to the CEO.

• Syed Azmatullah, expert in cognitive thinking. He is mapping the evolution of leadership from the front left to back right of the brain, as collaboration starts to replace direct competitive instincts. We enjoyed his recent Guardian article on the subject.
• Mick Bremans, Chairman of Ecover. Ecover has shown extraordinary leadership, building a successful business with over $100m in annual revenues whilst inspiring companies and sectors through a commitment to environmentally sensitive products.

This is an important event for those involved in changing organisations, and the broad topic makes it a good event for those outside the sustainability function.

Syed Azmatullah, Expert in cognitive thinking

Jim Woods, Director of Content, Green Monday - Event Summary

Q&A Session

The July Green Monday will explore whether we should reframe sustainability as "harnessing our ingenuity", rather than as "scarcity".

There is a growing view that the "scarcity" approach has triggered enough innovation that many of the solutions are now in development, and the question is now how we take that innovation to scale.

In that context, staying on "scarcity" may be counter-productive - rather like "austerity", it doesn't motivate. Instead, Steve Jobs, re-inventor of 4 industries, becomes a shining example of the ingenuity we need, rather than a naughty boy! How do we harness this ingenuity, and how do we deal with solutions that might represent alarming change to some (GM food, nuclear etc.) are key questions.

Our panel:

> Martyn Seal (European Head of Sustainability, PepsiCo): onreleasing the first years results of Icrop, its collaboration with UK potato farmers. Water use down 30%, yields up 7%. Impressive, but still incremental change.

> Professor Mark Post (Professor of Vascular Physiology, Maastricht University): on in-vitro meat, grown in a laboratory and which uses 1% of the land and 4% of the water associated with conventional beef production. Representing radical change.

> Peggy Liu (JUCCCE Chairperson): a visionary view - how do we harness such ingenuity.

Q&A Session

Jim Woods, Director of Content, Green Monday

We devote our June Green Monday to looking at O2’s strategy with its CEO, Ronan Dunne, in what promises to be one of the highlights of our 2012 programme.

It’s a great opportunity to hear a CEO talk about what sustainability means to his business model, and having recently launched its Think Big programme there is a coherent strategy to debate. The format will be similar to our January Green Monday, when we had an evening with Ian Cheshire, CEO of Kingfisher. Many feel that was the best of our 70+ events - no pressure, Ronan.

Here’s how we will explore, debate and, hopefully offer collective wisdom on O2’s strategy through the June event.

*Green Monday will lay out and analyse O2’s strategy, based on interviews with key stakeholders, which we will share with delegates in advance.

*Ronan will open with a 10-minute speech on why sustainability is important to O2, and why it is innovating with its business model.

*Jim will interview Ronan for 15 minutes, focusing in on some challenging lines of questioning to give Ronan an opportunity to demonstrate the depth of his understanding.

*Ronan will play the Good / Bad Game – great entertainment, but with the intention of identifying his values as a leader.

*We will have at least 30 mins Q&A with the audience, Twitter (#gmO2) and those watching live online.

In the 14 roundtables afterwards we will be focusing on key areas of the O2 strategy, with O2 having provided some of the question as a crowdsourcing exercise.

We may be watching the emergence of new leader in Sustainability, joining the ranks of Ian Cheshire, Paul Polman, and Sir Stuart Rose. We expect a senior audience – many of the O2 board will be in attendance, and we will have many senior business strategists from well known brands.

Apply here, add to your diary here and watch on line here.

Q&A session

Paul Polman, CEO of Unilever, said recently that if social media enabled people to bring down a government in weeks, “it can bring down a company in seconds". Are we entering an "age of damage", a result of the convergence of social media and sustainability?

And maybe it is not all about risk. Leading companies are using transparency and open innovation to grow their businesses. Perhaps that's what FEEFO does - your feedback tells others what you think of Green Monday, whilst helping us to improve the events.

Finding a thread between Wikileaks, The Leveson Inquiry, NewsCorp, BP, Goldman Sachs, KONY2012, #McTweets, is complex. For some it is the most empowering trend in sustainability, whilst others see it as beyond the sustainability remit. Where do you sit?

Join the debate on the 14th May, when we will be supported by an excellent panel:

*Keynote: Kate Robertson, Chairman of Euro RSCG & co-founder of One Young World.Fresh from the stages of Davos, Kate will share her views on the age of transparency.

*Kresse Wesling, Founder of Elvis & Kresse. Elvis & Kresse is a great example of a business being built on the principles of sustainability and transparency.

*Roger Leech, Open Innovation Director, Unilever. Unilever's "Open Innovation" programme is taking transparency to the next level of co-creation – we look forward to hearing how it is working.

*Bob McKinnon, Founder and Director of the GALEWiLL Center for Opportunity and Progress.Bob will give a US perspective, via video link, on the practical application of transparency for different businesses.

Q&A Session

For the past 20 years, the most successful companies have been driven by external shareholders looking to maximise ROI. It has produced impressive economic growth, but often without regard for the impact on society or the environment.

But with growing public animosity towards key sectors such as banks, utilities and retailers, are things changing? Strategies that recognise other stakeholders, particularly employees and society, may be starting to perform better see recent trading from Fairtrade, the Co-op Group and John Lewis Group.

At the same time, a handful of leaders and companies starting to behave like social agitators. Paul Polman has asked speculators to leave the commodity markets, Richard Branson wrote Screw Business as Usual, and Ben and Jerry's are funding the Occupy Movement. Our panel will lead a debate on the strengths of these trends and the implications for business strategies:

• Nick O'Donohoe, CEO of Big Society Capital, on why we are entering a more collaborative version of capitalism.
• Jean Oelwang, CEO of Virgin Unite, on transforming existing businesses to put people and planet at the core.
• Ruth Girardet, CR and Communities Director, Tesco, on why Tesco is seeing a switch back from environmental to social issues.
• Cliff Mills, expert on co-operative structures, Mutuo, on the dramatic revival in the fortunes of the co-operative movement, and whether corporates can collaborate.

This event reflects our view that social purpose is becoming a major strategic issue for a number of sectors. We are particularly reaching out to sustainability and business strategists in the most impacted sectors, including retail, banking, utility, F&B and travel.

Further Reading:
Cliff Mills. Mutuo; "Funding the Future - an alternative to Capitalism"

Business models and technologies for a radically efficient world 

Excellent thinking by Jeremy Grantham, McKinsey, the MacArthur foundation and others (dowloads reports below) have made a compelling case for greater resource efficiency, but what do the business models look like? Our March event looks at the businesses that look extreme today, but may be normal tomorrow. 

• "The disruptive trend of car sharing & how GM is playing". Shelby Clark, Founder, RelayRides.
• "Models that align business, customers and the environment". Rob Crumbie, Marketing Director, Recyclebank UK.
• "How science can feed 9 billion people". Mike Bushell, Principal Scientific Advisor, Syngenta.
• “Small technology leaps that can deliver dramatic change”. Paul Dickinson, Executive Chairman, CDP.

Read more on each of our speakers and topics HERE, apply HERE or add this date to your diary HERE. 

Further Reading: (click to download)

• Jeremy Grantham: April Newsletter "Resource Scarcity". 2011
• Jeremy Grantham: July Newsletter "Resource Limitations". 2011
• McKinsey: "The Resource Revolution: Meeting the world's energy, materials, food and water needs". November 2011
• World Economic Forum and Accenture: "More with Less: Scaling Sustainable Consumption and Resource Efficiency". January 2012
• The Ellen MacArthur Foundation: "Towards a Circular Economy". January 2012. 

The big trends in sustainability for the next 24 months | February 6th 2012 

Sustainability is fast-changing at the best of times, but the increasingly volatile economic conditions are adding a level of complexity to decision-making. As carbon slips down the agenda, resource scarcity and other factors are creating a range of new business models.

The February Green Monday looked at the big trends that will take sustainability into the board room over the next 24 months.

We had an expert panel made up of Unilever, BMW and Triodos Bank, with a strategic overview from Green Order’s Andrew Shapiro, and an audience of 160 people in London. The final vote found that it is “innovation in business models” that will lend the most importance to sustainability. See the pre and post debate poll HERE and scroll down to see the videos from the evening.

The. speakers and topics:

- Organisations that understand how to collaborate will thrive - Karen Hamilton, Vice President, Sustainability, Unilever

- Sustainability is becoming the prime driver of innovation  - Dr Thomas Becker, Vice President of Government Affairs, BMW AG

- Organisations with social purpose are aligned with the emerging paradigm - Charles Middleton, Managing Director, Triodos Bank

- An overview of the relative strengths of the different drivers, with an “across-the-pond” twist - Andrew Shapiro, Founder and Partner, GO Ventures

Kingfisher: an evening with Ian Cheshire.

With increasing responsibility being parked at the CEOs door, we have an evening with one of the most progressive of the FTSE100 CEOs.Ian is an excellent public speaker, and it's a rare opportunity to get inside the mind of a FTSE100 CEO just as he is embedding sustainability into core strategy. Kingfisher is gearing up to be a big sustainability story of the future

Ian wants a two-way flow of information. He will summarise Kingfisher's strategy, answer questions from the audience and then crowd-source the audience's expertise in key areas. We expect the evening to cover the following areas:

• What inspires a CEO to transform an organisation?
• What are the main obstacles a CEO will encounter in driving change?
• How can sustainability succeed in tough economic conditions?
• How should the Sustainability Function communicate with the CEO?
• Should companies actively promote the value of sustainability to investors?
• Is the "social contract" between business and society strengthening or not?
• The future for the Sustainability / CSR Function: bigger or redundant?

This event will fill up quickly, so book early

The demand for transparency, unleashed by social media, may be the biggest enabler of the sustainable economy. Discuss.

If the industrial revolution gave power to the company, the digital revolution is returning power to the stakeholders. This is opening up a myriad of issues for how companies report their sustainability strategies, such as:

• How transparent should companies be?
• What is the role of the sustainability report?
• Is “integrated reporting” the future?
• How should companies measure the contribution to profit from sustainability?
• And what sustainability data should management be looking at?

To guide us through these fast-changing sands we have a diverse group of experts, including:

Louise Tyson, Head of Corporate Reporting at BP.  Louise will give us her views on the art of sustainability reporting, with the experience of BP’s trust rebuilding programme since the Deepwater Horizon disaster. Having subsequently undertaken a major survey of sustainability experts, BP has launched a new sustainability section on its website with a wide range of information from community engagement to its view on the energy future. What does Louise think about mandatory and integrated reporting?

Dr Rory Sullivan is a reporting expert and author of 7 books including “Valuing Corporate Responsibility: How Do Investors Really Use Corporate Responsibility Information?” (2011). Rory will be looking at how investors use environmental and social data, and he will question whether integrated reporting really is the Holy Grail that John Elkington and others have argued for. Is there a better solution?

Adam Elman, Head of Delivery of Plan A, M&S. M&S has pioneered the measurement of profit from sustainability programmes, and it has been highly effective in gathering support for its sustainability programme. In 2010, Plan A contributed profits of £70m, the equivalent to 10% of M&S’s pre-tax profit. With many other companies looking to follow suit, Adam will explain how M&S measure its profit contribution and will chair a roundtable on the same topic afterwards.

Alan Mak, a generation Y leader. Alan is a remarkable person and a representative of generation Y’s thirst for transparency. The youngest person to address the Green Monday audience, he will tell us how the digital revolution is demanding transparency from businesses. Inherent in this are some profound questions about the future for sustainability reporting.

We welcome you to the debate, apply for your place here. 

Jim Woods, Chairman, Green Mondays

Louise Tyson, Head of Corporate Reporting, BP

Dr Rory Sullivan, Independent Adviser

Adam Elman, Head of Delivery of Plan A, M&S

Alan Mak, Global Advisory Board, One Young World

Q&A Session Part 1

Q&A Session Part 2

Change Management - how Sustainability can transform an organisation.

Management teams that deliver successful change management programmes are rare and highly valued. Something will have created the need for change – a new disruptive technology, a competitor with a new business model or a failed strategy – and the Board recognises that the continuation of the current strategy could be fatal to the organisation. But, identifying the need for change is just the beginning – you then move to challenges such as engaging key people who are obstructive to change, determining the right level of innovation risk, managing the “old” business whilst building the new etc.

Green Monday on the 7th November will look at “green” change management – programmes that are necessitated by issues such as resource scarcity, the emerging policy framework, or stakeholder pressure, sometimes a combination of all three. It is the sort of programme that has been introduced at Nissan, GE, Siemens, M&S, Philips and Unilever, to great effect. We will hear from a big company that is undergoing a green change management programme, a company that underwent a successful programme during the dot- com disruption, someone who is delivering change from within a FTSE100 and an advisor to companies who are embarking on change.

Confirmed speakers include;

• Richard Tarboton, Director of Energy and Carbon for BT, will talk about how individuals can create the basis for change from within an organisation.
• Doug Johnston, Director of Climate Change and Sustainability at Ernst and Young, will give us insights into how to construct an effective change management programme.
• Kersten Barth, Sustainability Director, Siemens AG. We put Siemens firmly in 5% of the Global 500 that have a “next generation” Sustainability strategy – not only do 33% of total revenue now come from environmental products, but it also has an effective energy efficiency and supply chain strategy. Kersten will tell the story of the transformation of Siemens.
• Jerry Hardcastle, VP for Engineering in Europe & Vehicle Marketability Globally, Nissan. Nissan's electric vehicle story may turn into one of the biggest sustainability strategies of the decade - Jerry will tell us how CEO Carlos Ghosn's decision in 2008 to put EVs at the heard of the Nissan strategy has changed the way Nissan do business.

Jim Woods, Chairman, Green Mondays

Kersten Barth, Sustainability Director, Siemens AG

Jerry Hardcastle, VP for Engineering in Europe & Vehicle Marketability Globally, Nissan

Richard Tarboton, Director of Energy and Carbon for BT

Doug Johnston, Director of Climate Change and Sustainability at Ernst and Young

Resource Scarcity - do you need to change your business model?

A growing number of investors and economists are joining environmentalists in arguing that resource scarcity is going to disrupt the economic landscape. After over 100 years of declining commodity prices, oil prices started rising in the 1970’s and most commodities have been rising since 2002(1). Most attribute this to a combination of population growth, climate change and accelerated by a growing regulatory structure.

Recent Green Mondays have looked at the strategies of Nissan, GE and Siemens in the context of rising commodity and energy prices, but in October  we will ask ourselves whether it amounts to what Jeremy Grantham describes as the “rarest of rare birds; a new paradigm” . 

To guide us in the debate we have;

• Tim Lenton, Professor of Earth System Sciences at The University of Exeter, will look at our relationship with the environment from the perspective of Earth Systems Science, and how we are necessarily entering an era of recycling and efficiency over exploitation. The Malthusian perspective.
• Simon Ellis, Managing Director at Legal and General Investments, who will look at how this “global megatrend” is impacting the investment landscape. Specifically he will look at the impact for companies exposed to low carbon energy, resource efficiency or waste and water management.
• Andy Wales, Group Head of Sustainable Business at SAB Miller, will share SAB’s vision for the future in terms of resource prices, and what SAB Miller is doing to manage the impacts of rising resource prices on its margins.
• Brendan O'Neill, Editor of Spiked, will lock horns with Professor Lenton from a Cornucopian perspective. Brendan will argue that the Earth’s resources are infinite which coupled with man’s ingenuity means the demands of the growing world can easily be met.   

(1) Jeremy Grantham April Newsletter Time to Wake Up: Days of Abundant Resources and Falling Prices Are Over Forever

Jim Woods on "Jeremy Grantham in 6 minutes"

Timothy Lenton, Professor of Earth System Science, University of Exeter

Brendan O'Neill, Editor, Spiked

Simon Ellis, Managing Director, Legal and General

Andy Wales Group Head of Sustainable Business, SAB Miller

Q & A Session Part 1

Q & A Session Part 2

M&S - Review of Plan A after 4 years

This is not just Sustainability - this is M&S Sustainability. Ok, enough.

We are devoting our September Green Monday to Plan A at M&S. It is a pleasure to announce that 2 of the key people behind Plan A will each speak, before a 30-minute Q&A session. M&S' willingness to share its strategy and the lessons learned from 4 years of Plan A speaks for its commendable collaborative approach. This is a unique opportunity to learn about one of the most successful change management programmes around Sustainability.

M&S recently published its "How We Do Business Report 2011 ", a 50-page document reviewing its own progress against the 180 targets that make up Plan A. The breadth and depth of the programme is remarkable - we can find companies who have greater ambition on any one target, but we are not aware of any company that has put in more effort to engage all stakeholders, from customers to its own pension scheme.

Plan A is an inspiration for many companies because it is a victory for a large number of small initiatives. Other Sustainability leaders such as Siemens, GE and Philips have significant revenue opportunities that drive the agenda internally. In 2010/11 Plan A contributed £70m to profits, around 10% of group pre-tax profit, with energy efficiency being the single biggest contributor.

We expect the evening to focus on the following areas;

• How M&S has engaged senior management across its different business divisions.
• How it calculates the contribution to profit.
• The difference that an external Advisory Board has made to the pace of change.
• How it has overcome internal resistance to change.

Join the debate: apply for your place here. It will be a fascinating evening.

Mike Barry, Head of Sustainable Business, Marks and Spencer

Richard Gillies, Director of Plan A, Marks and Spencer

Creative Disruption: Strategies for the new paradigm

The August Green Monday is for those working a Sustainability framework into their core business strategy. That includes the Main Board, and the Strategy, Operations and Sustainability Functions.

We will look at Sustainability as the next major disruptive economic force - similar in impact to the internet. Over the past 15 years, companies that underestimated the power of the internet, such as Kodak, HMV and Waterstones have seen their value decline by over 90%; those who understood it, including Apple, Google and Amazon, have been on exponential growth journeys.

Many are now seeing the new economic paradigm being shaped by resource scarcity. Companies that recognise this are building different strategies to their competitors, particularly around the efficiency of their products, and there are already major success stories. Some examples:

• Nissan: Gained competitive advantage in the Electric Vehicle (EV) market - see below
• M&S: Plan A generates £70m in profit, around 10% of its Net Profit.
• Philips: 30% of revenues come from Ecovision, with a plan to get this to 12bn Eur by 2015
• Siemens: 27bn Eur revenues from Energy Efficiency & Renewable Energy products in 2010
• GE: Ecomagination revenues reached $18bn in 2010, 12% of  GE's total revenues.

Nissan
Expecting rising energy prices to shape car demand, Nissan was the first major car maker to switch its R&D focus to EV's. It recently-launched "Leaf" which travels 100 miles on a £2 charge, and its electric knowledge helped Nissan to win the $1bn New York taxi contract in April. With the market now following Nissan, its Sustainability framework has given it a major strategic advantage.

Your panel
Our panel comes at the subject from a variety of angles, designed to give us a thought-provoking debate.

• Simon Waldman, author of "Creative Disruption", an excellent book on how the internet disrupted the corporate landscape.
• John Miles, Chairman of HaloIPT. HaloIPT are working on technology that allows cars to wirelessly recharge batteries whilst driving - the implications for the car industry are profound. 
• John Elkington, Chairman of Volans. A long standing green business guru, John is an expert on the scale of the disruption to come.
• Tony Gale, Director of Infrastructure GE. Tony will give the perspective from the Corporate side; articulating the scale of change ahead – and how disruptive the future is likely to be.

The event will be chaired by Jim Woods, who has 8 years of CEO experience, including CEO of the YO! Group (YO! Sushi and YOTEL).

With resource scarcity starting to take over from policy as the main driver of Sustainability strategies, the July Green Monday looks at Sustainable supply chains as a strategic issue.

Just 12 months ago, few would have argued its case as a strategic issue. But with commodity prices having risen by 32% over the period[1], and wholesale UK energy prices for December delivery being 25% up year-on-year[2], companies that are not engaging their supply chain are potentially facing a future of lower margins than their competitors.

And whilst a clear gap exists between the leaders and the rest of the pack, the market is moving on the issue. The Carbon Disclosure Project recently reported that the number of their member companies who measure Scope 3 emissions more than doubled in 2010 to 43%[3].

And with innovation playing an increasingly important role in Sustainability, Green Mondays needs to challenge itself as well. For the first time we will be doing a live link-up  - we will bring in Puma from the heart of their supply chain in Vietnam, who will tell us about their recently released Environmental Profit and Loss (EPL) accounts. With many companies considering EPL’s, it is an excellent opportunity to learn from a pioneer. Other solutions that we will be exploring include; 

• Systems for identifying the hidden costs (or “externalities”) of production models
• Tools for identifying carbon and water “hotspots” in the supply chain
• Moving from auditing and remediation to supplier education and engagement
• Ways of positively remunerating and incentivising Sustainable supply chains

Our panel includes 3 of the undisputed leaders in supply chains – SAB Miller, ASDA and Puma. We also pleased to welcome back David Metcalfe, CEO of Verdantix as our market commentator.

[1] Index Mundi Commodity Price Index, [2] Centrica's announcement http://www.utility-exchange.co.uk/centrica-warns-25-increase-in-wholesale-gas-yet-to-be-passed-on-to-customers-14122/ (cited May 9th) [3] CDP Supply Chain Report 2011

Julian Walker-Palin, Head of Corporate Sustainability, ASDA

Ramon Arratia, Sustainability Director, InterfaceFLOR

David Metcalfe, CEO, Verdantix

Reiner Hengstmann, Global Director SAFE Supply Chain, PUMA

Will the real investor please stand up?

What will be the trigger for taking Sustainability out of a silo and into the organisation's core business strategy? That question sits at the back of the minds of most Sustainability strategists. Many of the core drivers remain weak: the policy framework is evolving too slowly, only 10-15% of consumers typically seem to care and employee preferences generally fail to impact strategy.

Is it time for the Investor to stand up?

There are signs that Institutional Investors are starting to wake up, and they may be the most important driver group to watch. If the environment enters the conversation between the CEO, Investor Relations and their shareholders, it will quickly enter core strategy. There are a number of reasons for thinking that this is starting to happen:

• Osmosis Investment Management has shown that companies who use resources most efficiently tend to outperform the market.  Its resource efficient FTSE World Companies outperform the FTSE World Index by 6% per annum on a consistent basis.
• Environmental supply chain issues are starting to impact values. In February, Britvic saw its share price fall by 12% when it announced its raw material costs rose to 10% due to the rising cost of oil. 

Green Monday on the 6th June will reach out to Institutional Investors, Investor Relations and internal Sustainability strategists to discuss the significance of these changes, and how these groups should be communicating with each other. 

We have a panel of experienced speakers – detailed below - who represent the different stakeholders and will lead the debate.

Gerrit Heyns, Partner, Osmosis Capital

Roger Seabrook, VP Investor Relations, Unilever

Philip Middleton, Speciality Finance Research, Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Matthew Sexton, Head of CSR, B&Q

To CSO or not to CSO: What is the right role and structure to embed your corporate sustainability strategy

9th May 2011- 18:15 to 20:15, Bank of America Merrill Lynch, London

The most common characteristic of companies who incorporate sustainability into core strategy is a main board appointment whose focus is sustainability, typically called a Chief Sustainability Officer. This will usually follow on from the board identifying a strategic opportunity in sustainability – be that new markets, growth opportunities from making products and services more environmentally efficient, or major cost savings – and their role will typically involve both strategy and execution. But there is not a one size fits all solution here – and your company needs to work out what works for you. It may be the most important move in terms of strategy execution.

• How they engage their organisation
• How they work with the other major departments within their company
• The obstacles that naturally lie in the path of a CSO

Bill Eyres, Head of Sustainability, O2

Mike Peasland, CEO Construction Services UK, Balfour Beatty

Alan Knight OBE, Founder, Single Planet Living

Ian Hill, CSO, Openreach

The £25bn investment opportunity – through the lens of a MAC curve

We want to challenge our hypothesis that there is £25bn worth of attractive investment opportunities in carbon abatement in the biggest 2,000 companies in the UK. We define “attractive” as an IRR of 16% or more, which is a better IRR than most company’s core business. Many people in the Sustainability Function want more evidence of the scale of commercially attractive investments.

Why it’s important
If this hypothesis is correct, we estimate this would be the biggest commercially-attractive investment class in corporate sustainability. Most importantly, it does not require subsidies nor the consumer / investor / employee to drive the agenda – it is a true win-win, with everyone making profit. Put it the other way round, it would be a commercial crime if it didn’t happen.

About MACC’s
Marginal Abatement Cost Curves are a highly visual and effective way of seeing the commercial returns on abating a company’s emissions. It allows a number of initiatives to easily be seen together, when they can add up to substantial investments. One of the most advanced MAC’s that we have come across was at the Royal Mail, which identified £38m worth of investment with an IRR of 16%. MACC’s work because they encourage quality data collection and use of the latest in technology innovation.

Our panel of experts
We have confirmed the following line-up of speakers;

• Marcel Brinkman, McKinsey – on the size of the investment opportunity
• Professor David Strong – applying MACC’s to individual buildings, key lessons from Royal Mail Group pilot
• Richard Tarboton, Head of Energy & Carbon, BT
• Joanna Lee, Chief Partnerships Officer, The Carbon Disclosure Project

The April Survey
We will use our monthly survey to try to capture the most comprehensive list of real carbon abatement examples in major companies. We will give any corporates who give us key information on investments in excess of £1m a major discount on attending our June conference on MACC’s. We hope to capture data from over 100 major UK corporates, which we will share with our community.

Who is it for?
In addition to targeting senior members of the Sustainability Function in FTSE350’s & equivalent (the core Green Monday’s audience), we are going to reach out to Finance Directors and other members of the Finance function. We want 180 people, including 40 from the Finance Function.

The International Policy Framework: The evolving policy framework - the drivers, corporate strategies and leadership

If Lord Stern is right to describe climate change as the “greatest market failure the world has seen”, then policy is the natural solution to the problem. Consumers, investors, employees are all influencing the strategic agenda, but in the December 2010 Green Monday survey 66% of you said policy has a high impact on your strategy, marginally ahead of consumer pressure.

The last few years has seen a high degree of policy innovation, from emissions trading schemes, to Feed-in-Tariffs to state-funded banks, with varying success and different costs and impacts on the corporate community.  Whilst great uncertainty remains, especially around the emergence of a global trading scheme, the direction of travel is becoming clearer and corporate strategies easier to draw up.

Strategic Opportunities and Unlocking Strategies - That Light Bulb Moment

The February 2011 Green Monday looks at the trends, processes and structures that may help you find the major strategic opportunities that unlock your integrated sustainability strategy. It’s a big topic, but if we can give 10 people “light bulb” moments, it may be the most important thing we can do. 

The benefits of building a sustainable business are well documented – higher staff retention, easier hiring, higher staff productivity, being alert to new market opportunities and reducing costs. However, many of the components of an integrated sustainability strategy get stuck with the Finance Director, who compares the perceived returns of these intangibles with investment in other areas, and often in the context of tight resources.

The FD is often right to put a higher value on the directly measurable. However, a number of Sustainability 2.0 companies are showing – Siemens, GE & M&S to name a few – that when you genuinely enter the new paradigm, opportunities keep flowing and competitive advantages builds. All of these companies have at the heart of their strategy a major strategic opportunity, driven by the CEO and board, giving it commercial respect within the organisation. The FD sees the benefits, the door opens.

Energy & Carbon Prices: Creating the correct strategic response

Thanks to the efforts of many, Cancun has strengthened the hand of policy makers which will benefit the policies that are currently on the drafting table. The Energy Market Reform (EMR), will go into consultation in the next few weeks, with 2011 promising to see the biggest overhaul of the energy sector since privatisation 20 years ago With rising underlying energy prices, this is a good time to review energy strategies.

Carbon floor prices, the extension of the Feed in Tariff and a new emissions performance standard, will all increase the unit price of energy and the complexity of energy management. Energy Managers need to understand the specialisms of their roles, and senior management needs to weigh up the merits of self operating versus outsourcing this non-core function.

The January survey
Please fill in the January survey at http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/greenmondayjanuary2011. These surveys take around 5 minutes to fill in, and give you an opportunity to benchmark your strategies against your peers. The results will be circulated ahead of the event and may provide interesting points for speakers to pick up on.

Having a good sustainability strategy is obviously the most important step, but you can fail if you do not communicate this strategy effectively to your various stakeholders. In our survey of 90 Heads of Sustainability this came out as a top three topic, so it is still an area where sustainability functions are looking to become more effective – and critical to building momentum into sustainability strategies.

Leading thinkers from the various stakeholder groups discuss what you need to get right.

Communicating with consumers
How consumers best respond to communications regarding the sustainability of your actions/products. How do you best leverage your sustainability performance to improve sales.

• Ed Gillespie, Co-founder, Futerra

Overall communications strategy
The relative importance and skills needed to succeed with all three groups.

• Adrian Northover-Smith, Head of Corporate Public Affairs, Sony

Communicating with employees
How employees can best be engaged on sustainability strategies and motivated to execute them to the best of their abilities

• David Grayson, Director at the Doughty Centre for Corporate Responsibility, Cranfield School of Management

Communicating with investors

How are investors motivated by sustainability performance

• Paul Dickinson, CEO of the Carbon Disclosure Project

The event will be aimed at our usual Sustainability leaders, plus marketing, HR Functions and investor relations.

The 2010 Energy Bill, due to go before parliament before the end of the year, is likely to be the most important sustainability policy to come out of this government and may change the UK energy landscape. Those in the Sustainability and Energy Functions of energy-intensive companies, and the home retail sector, are watching this policy very closely. It is expected to create £10bn markets around home and SME retrofits, create a greater need for ESCO’s, and deliver certainty on carbon prices and the successor to ROC’s.

We have an excellent panel for this event, including the following:

- Patrick Erwin, Head, Energy Bill Team, DECC
- Gary Parke, Founder, Breathe (an ESCO)
- Matthew Sexton, Director of CSR, B&Q UK

Patrick is heading up the drafting team and is probably the most informed person we could hear from on the shape of the bill. Gary has 20 years experience in ESCO’s in the US and the UK, and will talk about the growing case for the ESCO model and discuss issues around Energy Performance Guarantees, innovative off-balance sheet funding solutions and the human resourcing challenges. Matt will talk about how B&Q are building major services into the Green Deal markets.

We will shortly be posting a survey specifically related to the Energy Bill, with our three speakers inputting many of the questions. Once you have been accepted, we will ask you to fill in the survey, so that we can go through the results at the event. You will be able to see how your company’s strategy on this compares with other FTSE350 companies.

In the 2009 McKinsey Global CO2 abatement curve, they identify 42 initiatives that reduce carbon whilst having a negative cost associated with them, i.e. you save money whilst saving carbon, what some would call the “low hanging fruit”, the “no-brainer”. 

Together these initiatives would account for an estimated 12 gigatonnes of CO2 annually, more than the IPCC are estimating we need to reduce our global emissions by in 2050 to avoid dangerous climate change. Around 2 gigatonnes of these are energy efficiency initiatives controlled by the corporate sector, or 1/5th of the estimated carbon savings needed by 2050.

As we all know, however, we are making  slow progress in this area despite it not being dependent on a policy framework. There are a number of reasons why this is not happening as;

1. These initiatives are competing for capital against core business activities, which will often have  a higher ROI and which add to the top line.
2. The business case is not being made correctly.

Finance wouldn’t normally be a “sexy” theme for Green Mondays, but in this context we think it’s important. We are going to devote October’s session to methods that you can employ to unlock your financing problems  and present your main board with win-win solutions.

1. How it was used in Germany - reflections for businesses from the architect of the German FiT scheme
2. Returns on different scenarios for your properties: renting your roof to installing your own PV
3. What are your options as a tenant: how can installation benefit your business
4. Funding & Installation: who does what who finances the work
5. Creating a consumer proposition: How the big brands are looking to front mass market offerings
6. What can go wrong: the risks of the scheme
7. FiT, the RHI and the wider implications for funding renewables 

Until recently, there has been no financial motive for UK businesses to support small-scale renewable energy production. The Feed in Tariff (FIT) scheme that came into effect on the 1st April has the potential to create a new market dynamic by providing a financial incentive for businesses to install renewable electricity-generating technologies, and selling the produced energy back onto the grid. This can also mean new revenue streams.

The rationale behind the policy is to increase the level of electricity from renewables in the UK to reach a target of 30% by 2020 and, in the short-term, help to ensure security of supply for 2013.

This highly-topical Green Monday’s event will address the key issues to help businesses of all shapes and sizes unlock the commercial value of FIT, secure upfront capital and how to overcome some of the implementation hurdles. 

BT will explain how they are leveraging the scheme to create new revenue streams for their organisations. Richard Tarboton of BT will discuss how decommissioned telecommunications sites resulting from network consolidation are being transformed and how they leveraged funding to support the roll-out of renewable energy projects. 

Brendan Fogarty of SEGRO will explain the three options they are exploring for their properties: renting out the roofs to a third party investor, investing themselves and gifting the energy as an incentive or investing to charge tenants at a reduced rate.

As many UK businesses are still finding their feet in this space, Mr Hans Josef-Fell, who was the driving force behind the German Feed-in-Tariff scheme, will share his extensive experience of the German system, and will be at hand to answer your questions.

Sainsburys and Royal Mail will reflect on the full range of clean technologies they have installed, are installing and plan to install in the short, medium and long term. From refrigeration to wind turbines. Rob Wylie will give a wider perspective and reflect on the emerging technologies, the growing maturity of more established technologies, the areas of serious uncertainty (not backing the betamax technologies), what corporations are using, the business cases for installing/deploying these technologies and how they might work better with the technology companies. There are some significant strategic decisions here. And this session will be a perfect warm up for our September session on feed-in tariffs.

This event will ask the critical question of whether our companies and economies can continue to grow without ultimately increasing ecological impacts. It will explore the relationship between our economy's cultural structure and the aims of the sustainability agenda. And explore the limits therein.

A number of businesses have recently announced ambitious plans to cut emissions, but they fall in to two distinct camps. One group are talking about absolute cuts and the others are talking about relative cuts - i.e. the second group are not pledging to cut their emissions at all, they are only agreeing to drive down the intensity at which those emissions are produced.

The question we need to be asking for our Scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions is can they be properly de-coupled from growth (the rate at which the services and products sold increases). There are other questions here around the incremental degrees of contentment that further growth brings and questions around the current model that values shareholder value over all else. But the main theme for tonight is: can businesses and economies continue to grow without a rise (and sufficient decrease) in ecological impacts.

Tim, who wrote the fascinating “Prosperity without Growth” and sits on the SDC, will be giving a snapshot of his thoughts on the topic and a feel for the alternative propositions. Santiago, VP, Brand Development at Unilever, will be explaining their view of the consumer business model going forward.

Green Innovation & Disruption: Devising and introducing new sustainable models within established businesses

All commentators agree that the green agenda brings with it a great deal of disruption. And for any well established large corporate it always goes against the grain to change a formula that works. This poses a quandary for all incumbents, who know that their modus operandi will one day be successfully challenged. Do you rip up the rule book, wait and follow or resist.

In this session we are delighted to be hearing from Ian Cheshire (CEO of Kingfisher, who own B&Q and others) on the opportunity he sees for his business and how it will be grasped.

The end game attached to Google's recent forays in to the energy marketplace are not totally clear, but it is clear this is an area that's in for a lot of upheaval. Benjamin Kott will reflect on this work and offer his thoughts on how Google's cultural mindset helps them grasp the new.

Hugo Spowers, an entrepreneur with a big vision around our future personal mobility, will be talking about what is involved in challenging the status quo with all stakeholders.

And Ramon Arratia from Interface will be offering some reflections from their pioneering journey. They are the original corporate re-invention story around the green agenda.

This may seem too big picture, but understanding the way in which you unlock innovative streaks in your business is vital to it surviving and thriving in the face of the sustainability agenda.

Sustainable Supply Chains: Why and how do you improve the sustainability of your supply chain

The green supply chain movement won't stop - April 12th talks

Wal Mart's ambitious announcements earlier this month show the growing trend towards greening the supply chain. Many companies have stressed that they want to see their whole industry drive down emissions (and related environmental impacts), they have acknowledged that they want to "outgreen" the competition. Lee Scott (CEO, Wal Mart) is very clear that he sees this as a key differentiator for his company. And for their suppliers that is already a reality. 

Our panel will explain what is going on: the business case, the complexity of the challenge and how it is set to develop. Paul Kelly will explain Asda's plan to introduce Wal Mart's "Sustainability Index" in the UK. Fiona Page and Paula Widdowson will explain the "supplier" journeys that they have undertaken at Pepsi and Northern Foods respectively. And Paul Dickinson will give his insights on the back of their project to get the suppliers to the world's bigger businesses to measure and disclose their climate impact information.

Pre-Election Special: What role does each party see business playing?

Marketing & Sustainability: A key collaborative relationship in creating long-term and successful sustainable products and services

Marketing + Sustainability = Innovation?
The FMCG (fast-moving consumer goods) community have long been the most sophisticated readers of consumer demand. And, as with most consumer aspirations, there is often a disconnect between their stated sustainability intentions and their purchasing habits. However, armed with the correct knowledge, marketing can absorb sustainability principles in their product development cycles – and create sustainable options that perform well at affordable prices. And which people buy in big numbers.

The recent case studies from P&G (e.g. Coldwater) and a number of others show us that when sustainability and marketing functions understand each other they can really innovate – and that there are significant market gains up for grabs. This is a chance for both B2B and B2C to understand the importance of this relationship and innovation. P&G, Mars and Reckitt Benckiser will offer their FMCG experiences, drawing on recent work and Virgin will offer a slightly different perspective. And we will be asking the audience what lessons B2B businesses have to learn here. 

Business Beyond Copenhagen: What Copenhagen means for your business

SMART grids UK: A new world of partnerships and opportunities, and how to make them real

There is a big opportunity with SMART grid plans to make a telling contribution to the climate change agenda through infrastructure optimisation, getting renewables online, and better end-user energy management. However it requires the subtle melding of many different parties who have not historically collaborated and with varying agendas. This event will look at the priorities for business and how those aims might be positively applied to climate targets. It will also consider the range of collaboration that is needed and the range of opportunities that are out there for different organisations.

Copenhagen and your Business