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• Making Every Day Earth Day!

  April 22, 2010

  Is today Earth Day? Yes.
  Was yesterday earth day? Yes.
  How about tomorrow? Yes.

  At FMYI, we believe that every day is Earth Day. As Justin Yuen returned from Fortune Brainstorm: GREEN 2010 this past week, it reminded us of the importance for ongoing discussion and engagement around sustainability. We are excited to celebrate the 40th annual Earth Day; we can only truly make a difference if we work towards a solution every day.

  When we talk about our sustainability initiatives and company core beliefs, people sometimes give us a confused look. I am sure many wonder why an online collaboration software company is so committed to sustainability. To help others understand the heart and soul of FMYI, we released A New Day earlier this year. In the video we call for change agents to stop working, start innovating and keep empowering. We believe in a new way of working that is characterized by innovation, empowerment and sustainability. Like the first Earth Day, this new way of working requires just one thing – vision. Forty years ago, Earth Day was just one day. In the past several years it has evolved into Earth Week. Now, with sustainability being incorporate by more and more of us into our daily lives every day is Earth Day.

  The Planet
  We are committed to the triple bottom line business strategy of people, planet and profit. We believe innovation is the key to our efficiency and that doing things differently and sustainably increases effectiveness and decrease long-term impact on the planet. We have not inherited the planet from our parents; we are renting it for our children. We want to leave it a better place for them.

  As we celebrate this 40th Earth Day, here are some the ways we take action every day to be a more sustainable business and do our part to grow a vibrant green economy. 

  Educating Ourselves
  Every member of our team continues to be empowered by Natural Step Network training and Northwest Earth Institute discussion courses. Through these activities we continue the discussion and engage each other around sustainability and how we can continue to deliver on FMYI’s commitment to the planet.

  Energy Use
  We recently achieved the City of Portland’s Climate Champions designation. Carbon offsets for the energy used by our servers and your computer provided by The CO2Stats Project. We’re also a member of the Climate Savers Computing initiative.

  Transportation
  Employees are encouraged to commute using public transportation or by bike. We offer discounts on car sharing through Zipcar, access to bikes, flexible telecommuting options, and provide monthly TriMet mass transit passes for eligible employees through the Lloyd TMA.  As a member of the Zipcar for Business program we were recently selected as a Finalist in Zipcar’s first annual Portland “Wheels of Change” awards for our dedication to improving the sustainability of our business practices and reducing our carbon footprint.

  Sustainable Innovation
  With sustainability in our DNA (along with innovation and Human Energy, of course), we are excited to have been selected as a 2010 Sustainable Business Oregon Innovation Award winner. Presented by the Portland Business Journal and Sustainable Business Oregon, we look forward to receiving the award at the banquet on May 27th.

  Even though we have made great strides in our sustainability efforts, we know this is not a race, but rather a march forward. We hope you will join us to make a difference on Earth Day 2010 by finding events in your community and continue making every day Earth Day. 

  Keep empowering,
  -Graeme

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• Three observations about FORTUNE Brainstorm Green

  April 21, 2010

  It’s been a week since I moderated my panel on sustainability employee engagement at FORTUNE Brainstorm Green 2010 and I’m still trying to digest the entire conference experience. Besides the beautiful setting and my “Hey, I’m from the Pacific Northwest” sunburn, I came away with three key observations:

  1. Collaboration is at an all time high.

  I have to say that the conference was unlike any other sustainability gathering I’ve ever attended. The level of discourse was frequently at the macro level, probably due to the preponderance of C-level executives in attendance, including Walmart Chairman Lee Scott and Ford Motor Company Executive Chairman Bill Ford. Ann Davidson at VOX Global had this to say:

  “...the third annual FORTUNE Brainstorm Green conference had the feel of a high school reunion where the star athletes and cheerleading captains (in this setting, major corporate CEOs and capitalistic entrepreneurs) are now happily walking the halls with the class nerds (the tree huggers and animal lovers).“

  I was struck by how much collaboration I saw going on, including references by corporations to what they’ve learned from partnering with NGOs and sustainability consulting firms. The atmosphere was all about thought provoking dialogue across stakeholders. And the Fortune Editors did a masterful job of facilitating the discussions to minimize speeches and get at pointed questions. The main message I heard was that corporations have learned that sustainability is good business, not just a values-based commitment. Because of these multinationals’ massive footprints, any improvements they make have major positive impacts on their industries. To his credit, Bill Ford said last year he could only attend to give his talk, but this year he wanted to attend the entire conference so he could learn more from everyone.

  2. Snakes on a plane? Nope - snakes on a stage.

  A priceless moment was when Julie Scardina of SeaWorld brought a few friends of hers on stage, and a 14-foot boa constrictor immediately took a liking to Andy Serwer, FORTUNE’s Managing Editor. It was a metaphor for the most polarizing moments during the conference.

  When Monsanto CEO Hugh Grant took the stage, the Twittersphere lit up with posts accusing him of sidestepping the big issues. But arguably the most controversial sentiments expressed came from long time environmental writer and creator of the seminal “Whole Earth Catalog,“ Stewart Brand. Once he started talking about being pro-nuclear and pro-biotechnology, to many environmentalists in the crowd, it felt as if he had transformed into a snake right before our eyes.

  I don’t know if I came away convinced, but it definitely took me down the path of questioning assumptions. And that’s what the conference did so well with so many thought provoking sessions on major polarizing issues. I’m looking forward to diving into Brand’s latest book, “Whole Earth Discipline: An Ecopragmatist Manifesto.“

  3. Optimism for the future.

  For the most part, attendees were optimistic about the future of sustainability and the prospects of creating a new clean economy. Bill Gross‘ eSolar was out in force, and I wish I could have taken Mission Motors’ electric superbike out for a ride. I had a great talk with the folks at Unisource about their innovative sustainable packaging. And I was also inspired by my chats with Herman Miller, eBay, and many others.

  The intimate environment that the conference fostered helped make the conversations and breakout sessions more effective. I really enjoyed moderating my panel with Sodexo, Hyatt, NBC, and Ernst & Young. It was great to see so many great companies at our panel, including REI, Zipcar, Nordstrom, BMW, Chick-fil-A, and POET. My biggest takeaway from the session is how the trend of engagement is accelerating, and including more stakeholders including customers/clients/consumers. This definitely bodes well for FMYI’s approach to leverage our social media tools to make engagement more effective. I hope to post a transcript of our panel discussion soon.

  For next year, it would be great if FORTUNE Brainstorm Green covers “elephants in the room” in more depth, such as this quote from Patagonia Founder Yvon Chouinard:

  “Saving the economy by consuming more has to stop.“

  Also, with all the old and new economy power brokers and visionary NGOs in the same room, I’d love to see FORTUNE create more “roll up the sleeves” sessions to help forge new innovative partnerships to accelerate our transition to a triple bottom line economy. This could include building a 2020 or 2050 vision for a truly sustainable economy across all sectors, figuring out solutions to reduce the barrier to entry to new markets, or how to create economies of scale to revolutionize sustainable products and services. We all have a piece in creating sustainable prosperity for everyone, and everyone has something to gain from realizing this dream.

  -Justin

  P.S. To read a great summary of the conference, read FORTUNE Editor and conference creator Marc Gunther’s blog post. Also, there’s video online of select sessions. And special thanks to Marc and Starbucks VP of Global Responsibility Ben Packard for giving me the opportunity to moderate a panel at the conference!

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• The five keys to sustainability employee engagement (and karaoke)

  April 09, 2010

  As I prepare for my panel at Fortune Brainstorm: GREEN next week, sustainability employee engagement has been on my mind. What is it and what does it have to do with karaoke? First off, I should say that I’m a terrible karaoke singer. Get me behind a mic and I’m dreadful. So bad in fact, that after just two hours of off-key warbling in a karaoke lounge, my voice will be shot for a week. Fortunately, I can say that I’m a sustainability employee engagement pioneer, having been involved as a change agent for 12 years both as part of a sustainability action team, and as someone who shaped employee engagement strategy at Nike.

  Simply put, sustainability employee engagement is empowering your internal stakeholders to create triple bottom line value. As we all know, there’s been a groundswell of interest and commitment to sustainability in the workplace building over the past ten years. But frequently, the percentage of employees within an organization engaged in applying sustainability to day to day responsibilities is small, confined to corporate responsibility/sustainability full time staff, and perhaps a few key employees involved with some aspect of compliance with climate change, recycling, labor practices, etc. Recently, a study showed that 86% of employees aren’t engaged by companies’ sustainability programs. Sustainability employee engagement is all about getting everyone involved with taking daily actions toward creating triple bottom line results. There’s a strong business case for doing it.

  Which brings us back to karaoke. How in the world are the two concepts similar? Let us count the ways — allow me to present you with the five keys to successful sustainability employee engagement and bring down the house karaoke:

  1. Create an inspiring vision for success.

  Sustainability employee engagement: Create a vision of the ideal sustainable future for your organization so everyone has something to shoot for — and be sure to involve a broad cross section of employees to development the vision. The beauty of this kind of exercise is you’ll learn so much about your brand, what employees believe your organization stands for, and you’ll identify areas for triple bottom line growth. The Natural Step offers a framework for creating a vision.

  Karaoke: Who are you ultimately trying to emulate? Beyoncé? Tim McGraw? Lin Yu Chun? Whoever you decide on, study the entire package and go for it. (Note: if you’ve developed your own unique singing style, dance moves, and lyrics, then you should be performing at concert venues instead of the karaoke lounge.)

  2. Have a process.

  Sustainability employee engagement: The New York Times Magazine recently had a feature on “Building a Better Teacher“ which focused in on not the subject matter knowledge needed to be an effective teacher, but the 49 classroom techniques required for getting students to focus and learn. Sustainability employee engagement is the same — you need to at least have a simple process for each team involved with engagement to do things like create ideas for improvement, put them into practice, measure the results, and spread them to other teams. Definitely check out the Northwest Earth Institute’s “Sustainable Systems at Work“ discussion course for an easy way to empower your teams to develop their process solutions.

  Karaoke: It’s definitely about the entire performance, not just the singing. How will you grab the audience’s attention at the start? What hand gestures to use during the crescendo? Do you memorize the lyrics so you can look them in the eye during the big finale? Having the process nailed down will guarantee success. That and making sure everyone has enough drinks in their hands.

  3. Build up your toolbox for scalability.

  Sustainability employee engagement: It’s vital to have effective tools. Otherwise, the engagement won’t spread beyond the initial green teams. Having the right tools is the difference between isolated pockets of sustainability activity and generating widespread triple bottom line results across a broad cross section of employees. When I was involved with Nike’s Shambhala program in 1999, it was a wonderful series of offsites designed to catalyze sustainability employee engagement efforts across the company. 55 middle management folks created their own green teams spanning multiple regions and divisions. But what prevented the momentum to continue after the offsites ended and from spreading to more areas within Nike was the lack of a platform to nurture the innovation community, share best practices, manage projects, and track results. That’s why I started FMYI to build a tool to do just that for sustainability employee engagement and beyond. We have a template for engagement initiatives, and companies like Hyatt are using it to bring people together across the globe to achieve sustainability business integration. It’s wonderful to see FMYI’s passion for sustainability realized with all the sustainability-related initiatives using our platform.

  Karaoke: Now, when it comes to karaoke, the tools may be different, but just as vital. Be sure to crank up the echo on your mic when singing to large crowds. And for maximum effect on your target audience, and to try out some new moves before a larger audience, book a private room.

  4. Capture the results.

  Sustainability employee engagement: Senior management is going to want to see results. Whether it’s metrics or success stories, make sure you’re capturing them along the way. This will help allocate more resources for engagement activities, attract new team members, and generate positive stories for sharing with external stakeholders. Above all, it’ll help you develop best practices for new projects. In an ideal world, each initiative would have its own living “Impact at Work“ guidebook like Net Impact’s.

  Karaoke: This one is easy. While someone is up there signing, be sure to capture photos and videos to post on Facebook and Twitter. That way, their performances are immortal reminders of excellence for family and friends to admire for years to come.

  5. Evolve constantly.

  Sustainability employee engagement: There is no finish line. This is a process of continual improvement and innovation, which can be exciting for everyone involved. For example, how can the concept of a “CarrotMob“ be leveraged? What are ways to embrace social media for building a community of practice? New ideas, new approaches, new people, new goals. And ultimately, scalable triple bottom line results.

  Karaoke: In order to keep your audience begging for more, and to keep things entertaining, you’ll have to figure out ways to evolve your act. Adding new artists, songs, and moves to your repertoire will pay dividends. And some day, you might be doing a karaoke performance on stage at the VMAs.

  
  So perhaps this entire blog post was a ruse to make me feel better about my sagging karaoke skills. I guess it’s in my nature to turn challenges into opportunities. I’m sure you can sing better than me, which means it’ll be even easier for you to be a sustainability employee engagement change agent!

  -Justin

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