Program Highlights

Water scarcity is predicted to continue increasing which will impose new water-related risks on businesses, communities and the environment. This changing risk profile is rendering strategies focused primarily on operational water use efficiency and pollution reduction ineffective. However, mitigating these risks will require businesses to consider and incorporate broader context-specific water information and global economic development initiatives like the SDGs into business targets and metrics. This session will explore the current thinking behind what (and what does not) constitutes a context-based water metric and what would make them meaningful for both business, investors and other interested stakeholders. The session will also unpack how emerging tools can help businesses better understanding their water risks and move towards developing meaningful context-based water metrics.

Transitioning toward a net positive business model is an ambition that many in the global Sustainable Brands community would like to pursue – if they knew how to get there, that is. The current reality is that the phrase ‘net positive’ tends to raise more questions than it answers, especially when it comes to taking practical actions to match lofty rhetoric. This session convenes a frank and open discussion about what it really takes to formulate specific action plans, find appropriate tools and build the right teams that execute on net positive strategies. Panelists will compare notes on attempts to make progress to date, identifying a few approaches that are proving effective and highlighting ideas for closing existing solution gaps.

While we may be waiting a long time for government to lead on positive social and environmental change, Certified B Corporations and benefit corporations are demonstrating that the private sector can create higher quality jobs, stronger communities and a healthier environment today. With growing interest and support from public companies – including the incorporation of DanoneWave as the largest public benefit corporation in the U.S. and its public commitment to become a Certified B Corp by 2020 — multibillion dollar brands are looking to expand their credentials around sustainability, purpose and accountability. Join this session and learn how you and your company can engage in this movement.

Reporting 3.0 is an international community of sustainability and accounting experts who agree that a new stage in the evolution of corporate reporting can trigger needed economic system design transformation. To explain and demonstrate the paths that the business community can take in that direction, the Reporting 3.0 team has launched a series of four Blueprint Projects on Reporting, Accounting, Data and New Business Models that define a ‘work ecosystem’ in which progress could be understood and then activated. This session will introduce attendees to the logic behind the Blueprint Projects in question, focusing specifically on Reporting, Accounting and Data.

This discussion will track important new developments and players in the area of chemical transparency and footprinting. Speakers will share not only the evolution of this critically important aspect of product design, but also emerging leading assessments, tools and management practices.

AT&T has a net positive goal – the so-called “10x” goal – to enable carbon savings for its customers that is 10 times the footprint of its own operations by 2025. To meet this goal, the company is engaging technology partners along the value chain to implement and scale up carbon-saving solutions. This session provides an in-depth exploration of one such case study, detailing all steps in the process and the contributions of multiple project partners.

This session will revisit the critically-important practices of science-based and context-based goal-setting by sharing the latest from the two tools that have achieved the most traction to date — the Future-Fit Business Benchmark and the MultiCapital Scorecard. Speakers will provide quick introductions to the two methodologies, so that the majority of the session can be dedicated to case studies of some of the latest applications in the private sector.

This session will explore 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. The main objective is to help private companies and CPAs prepare for next-generation requirements and preferences stemming from advancing corporate sustainability agendas and regulations, so that private suppliers can stay competitive in the eyes of their big downstream partners.

Engaged employees lead to better business outcomes. As companies look for ways to boost employee engagement, they are focusing on job purposing — the concept of linking an organization’s purpose and an individuals’ job to societal contribution. And, job purposing increasingly includes sustainability-focused employee engagement. However, despite the rapid evolution and uptake of this practice, many companies still struggle to create meaningful sustainability-focused employee engagement programs and to measure the impact of those programs in ways that demonstrate their value and resonate with decision makers. This session aims to address these challenges by sharing best practices along with the results of a survey designed to measure the top drivers of sustainability engagement as well as its relationship to employee engagement as traditionally defined by HR departments.

This session will summarize the most significant recent research projects studying the financial value of purposeful leadership and employee engagement for sustainability. These brand attributes will be examined from a variety of angles, including their effect on company revenue, stock performance, brand reputation, product-level profitability, employee and consumer satisfaction, reduced risk exposure, and more.

Educating and engaging employees on sustainability solutions is essential for any company’s success. Rating the sustainability of a company’s 401(k) plan is a new tool to boost employee engagement, spread sustainability understanding, and spur staff to save more for a better future. Higher impact portfolios — which can reduce future risk and enhance future return — are possible when employees see the true impact performance of the holdings inside their 401(k) fund choices. Learn directly from high-growth companies on how you can educate, empower and engage your employees in their 401(k), and how to align the 401(k) choices in question with a company’s mission and sustainability goals.

This session will share the results of a new survey among Fortune 500 employees aiming to determine the degree to which there is a trend of social activism inside corporate workplaces. Speakers will analyze what the data says about social activism inside America’s leading companies and employees’ evolving relationships with executives and brand values.