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Sustainable Seattle Good Business Workshop.

Imagine if you knew more about corporate social responsibility. What are CSR Raters evaluating? What are new CSR trends? This workshop will help you understand how to improve your Sustainability Report. You may want to work on your environmental performance, increasing brand value, connecting with customers, engaging employees, or accelerating a culture of continuous improvement. These topics will be discussed and analyzed during the workshop.

The workshop is hosted by Sustainable Seattle and led by Seattle's-own Russell Barton and Cynthia Figge. They combine their experience as "internal" strategic advisors to CSR reporting for you. They've consulted with many of North America's most well-known companies and also bring their perspective of being "external" raters.

Date and Time: Thursday, March 21, 2013 6-8 pm

Location

Bainbridge Graduate Institute

220 Second Ave. South Suite 400, Seattle, WA 98104

Map

Registration*

Early Bird (regular): $20

Early Bird (member**): $15

Early Bird ends Friday, March 15th at 11:55pm.

Individual (regular): $25

Individual (member**): $20

Student $15

*Registration includes appetizer buffet, nonalcoholic drinks, and dessert.

** Members will be sent a promotional code, email members@sustainableseattle.org for inquiries.

Panelists

Russell Barton, PhD

Partner and Co-Founder, EKOS International

Russell Barton has for over 20 years served as a lead consultant to the top North American management teams including Boeing, Darigold, Milliken (Baldrige winner), Nike, SmithKline Beecham, and Weyerhaeuser. From 1986-1994, he was one of four Managing Partners of Deltapoint. He has led 12 Executive Study Missions: 10 to Japan and two to Europe. Russell is a member of the original group of trainers who have helped bring The Natural Step to the United States. He is co-author of the book, Mapping the Journey: Case Studies in Implementing Sustainable Development Strategies. He holds a Ph.D. and MA in Organizational Psychology, from the University of Oregon.

Cynthia Figge

Partner and Co-Founder, EKOS International

COO and Co-Founder, CSRHub

Cynthia Figge is a forerunner and thought leader in the corporate sustainability movement. Cynthia has worked with major organizations including BNSF, Boeing, Coca-Cola, Dow Jones, and REI to help craft sustainability strategy integrated with business. She was an Officer of LIN Broadcasting/McCaw Cellular leading new services development, and started a new “Greenfield” mill with Weyerhaeuser. She serves as Advisor to media and technology companies, and served as President of the Board of Sustainable Seattle. Cynthia has an MBA from Harvard Business School.

Say yes! Turning ‘we don’t report’ into ‘we do’

Why more U.S. companies are publicly reporting on their environmental performance and what you can do to stay ahead of the trend.

Webinar: April 10, 2013
11am – 12 noon EST

“It used to be that only firms at the leading edge of sustainable business released environmental reports, but by 2012 a third of American firms had begun disclosing these facets of their operations, along with nearly 40 percent of companies globally.” State of Green Business 2013

The link between financial performance and sustainability reporting is growing ever stronger; companies that disclose their performance frequently outperform those which don’t. A rapidly growing number of companies are reporting on their sustainability efforts, if you are a business which doesn’t disclose you will soon be in the minority amongst your peers.

If you are thinking about preparing a sustainability report, this briefing will help jumpstart your efforts by explaining key issues you should consider, things not to do when reporting, and important benchmarking tactics. This webinar is especially aimed at medium and smaller sized enterprises that are looking to build internal capacity for preparing sustainability reports.

Click here now to sign up

Agenda

11:00        The State of Sustainability Reporting

Bahar Gidwani: CEO and Co-Founder, CSRHub

• Who is reporting and why?
• Overview of key reporting frameworks

11:10        Sustainability Reporting Success Strategies

Lorinda Rowledge: Co-founder, EKOS International

• Trust & Transparency
• Trends
• Essential elements to consider in preparing your first sustainability report
• Lessons learned and tips for success

11:30        Benchmarking:  Find your focus and unlock best practices

James Salo, PhD.  Sr. Vice President Research, North America

• Why benchmark and what can you learn by doing it?
• Fast, cost effective approaches and case study examples

11:45        Discussion, Audience Q & A

12:00        Close          

About the Speakers:

Bahar Gidwani, CFA.  Bahar co-founded CSRHub in 2007.  Its goal is to increase access to corporate sustainability information.  He has built and run large technology-based businesses and has experience building a multi-million visitor Web site.  He worked on Wall Street with Kidder, Peabody, and with McKinsey & Co. Bahar holds both a CFA and an MBA from Harvard Business School.

Lorinda Rowledge, Ph.D.  From a foundation of expertise in world-class management systems and lean production, Lorinda has focused for the last 15 years on helping companies use Sustainability/Corporate Social Responsibility as a key platform for business advantage, innovation, and positive impact in the world.  She partners deeply with executives, mid-managers, and cross-functional teams to design and implement strategy-driven programs that achieve performance breakthroughs and innovative solutions.  Lorinda co-leads EKOS Sustainability Reporting services, helping companies engage with stakeholders and communicate the story of their CSR impact and progress.

James Salo, Ph.D.  James is the senior member responsible for Trucost's research efforts in North America and coordinates Trucost's Advisory Panel. James has been the research lead for Newsweek's Green Rankings and many of Trucost’s environmental performance benchmarking projects.   James will review why companies benchmark and what value and insights companies gain from benchmarking their performance.

CSRHub provides access to corporate social responsibility and sustainability ratings and information on 7,000+ companies from 135 industries in 91 countries. Managers, researchers and activists use CSRHub to benchmark company performance, learn how stakeholders evaluate company CSR practices and seek ways to change the world.