What I learned about Sustainability at REI

What I learned about Sustainability

at REI

@KevinHagenwww.KevinHagenCSR.org

April 2013

What is Sustainable Business?

A more powerful way of thinking about how enterprise creates and delivers value to customers

“Do the right thing” can be a trap, not a sustainable business strategy

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Slide courtesy of Bob Willard www.sustainabilityadvantage.com

Organizations transition through a

series of stages moving from conventional thinking to

sustainable business thinking.

How do you get there?

1: Abundance over Scarcity

Sustainable Business is not the opposite of conventional thinking – it is a different way of looking at the world.

Rather than scarcity we see abundance

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2: Metrics over IntuitionIntuition formed through conventional business success is likely to reinforce blind spots.

Rigorous, timely sustainability metrics can reveal new opportunities and hidden risks

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3: Incremental and Breakthrough

Incremental improvements deliver near term returns and train us to see more opportunity.

Radical incrementalism can result.

Break-through changes are needed to move from “doing less bad” to “achieving more good”

4: Innovation over Trade-offs

Sustainable business is not about better balance

To accept either/or thinking results in compromise

Holding higher expectations to deliver environmental/ social and economic results drives innovation and business success

5: Systems over Silos

• Sustainability is a successful system.

• Breakthroughs come from radical collaboration

• The goal is achieving more good, not simply less bad

• There comes a time to get out of the way

More on Sustainable Business and

Corporate Social Responsibility

www.KevinHagenCSR.org

@KevinHagenApril 2013