The Stanford Business Reporter

I sat down on the plane after the stopover in Dallas completely exhausted and figured I’d sleep the rest of the way to the Raleigh Durham Airport or at least do my Corporate Finance homework. The guy next to me was about my age, and in my sleep-deprived delirium, I decided to ask him, “Are you going to the Net Impact Conference?” It turned out that indeed, he was, that he went to the University of Arizona, and that we actually had a lot in common. He told me about his idea to start a socially responsible business and I told him about mine. We gave each other feedback, talked about school, and before I knew it, the plane had landed and we were in North Carolina. This set the tone for the rest of the conference, even the part about not getting any sleep, or doing any homework, but finding myself totally energized and inspired by the people I met.  --Aaron Mishel, MBA2. 

On the first weekend of November, four of us from the GSB attended the Net Impact Conference at the Kenan-Flagler Business School at the University of North Carolina. Net Impact is a network of aspiring business leaders committed to using the power of business to create a better world. Originally founded as Students for Responsible Business in 1993 by Stanford PMPers, Net Impact has developed into a mission-driven network of 1,500 MBA students for better business. This year’s conference topic coincided with the GSB Public Management Initiative theme: Redefining the Bottom Line.

For leading businesses worldwide, the traditional separation between core business practices and social contribution is diminishing. In an effort to “redefine the bottom line,” smart companies are now pursuing integrated strategies that encompass social and environmental issues and core competitive advantages. The 2001 conference attempted to examine these innovative efforts.

The Public Management Program sponsored several students from the GSB, and subsidized a portion of their costs to travel and attend the conference. Aaron Mishel (MBA2), Amy Koo (MBA2), Diana Simmons (MBA1), and Nathan Fisher (MBA1) made the trip from California to join MBA students and alumni from all over the country for the weekend. Sixty-five schools were represented from as far away as London and Hawaii with some programs bringing more than 50 people.

The ninth annual conference presented distinguished keynote speakers and panelists, as well as opportunities for experiential learning through case studies, workshops, and field trips. The keynote speakers included Jeffery Swartz (President and CEO of Timberland), Bill Shore (Founder and CEO of Share Our Strength and Chairman of Community Wealth Ventures), and William McDonough (Founding Principal of William McDonough and Partners and Co-founder and Principal of McDonough Braungart Design Chemistry). McDonough is a major leader of the green architecture and sustainable design movements and recently came to Stanford to speak.

Jeffrey Swartz
The business of business is to do good

As President and CEO of The Timberland Company, a $1.1 billion global footwear, apparel, and accessories brand, Jeffery Swartz kicked off the Net Impact conference by emphasizing his belief that “doing well and doing good are inextricably linked.” Swartz includes building our communities as an integral part of how his company defines success, and has developed a Social Enterprise department at Timberland and created a program where all employees receive 40 hours of paid leave to perform community service. He has also forged a unique public/private partnership with City Year, an urban youth service corps in the US. Swartz reminded us that there is a truth bigger than the quarter’s end result, and that the new emerging model of business is to link justice to commerce: “the business of business is to do good.”

Bill Shore
Profit is good

Bill Shore is the founder and executive director of Share Our Strength, the nation’s leading anti-hunger, anti-poverty organization that mobilizes industries and individuals to contribute their talents to fight hunger and poverty. Shore is also the chairman of Community Wealth Ventures, a for-profit subsidiary of Share Our Strength that provides consulting services to corporations, foundations, and non-profits interested in creating community wealth – resources generated through profitable enterprise to promote social change. Shore believes that non-profit organizations really need to generate profits in order to succeed. Share Our Strength, for example, is generating income by doing cause-related marketing at their food and wine benefit events. Philanthropic organizations must become market-based, and non-profit management must undergo a paradigm-shift and start believing that “profit is good.”

William McDonough
If business is doing something bad, it’s not enough to do less

William McDonough is an internationally renowned designer and one of the primary proponents of sustainability in architecture and product design. His firm’s design of the Environmental Defense Fund offices in the mid-80’s helped launch the “green building” movement, and his recent projects include buildings for Gap and Oberlin College, shoes for Nike, and personal care products for Unilever. McDonough asked if innovation and profit warrant the production of toxic chemicals and threats to our health. He claims that if business is doing something bad, it’s not enough to do less. We really need to reevaluate our goals and start heading in a positive direction. “If you want to get to Mexico, but you’re headed towards Canada at 100mph, even if you slow down to 10mph, you still won’t get to Mexico.” McDonough proposes energy-efficient, self-sustaining buildings, toxic-free products, and the elimination of the concept of waste.

Sustainable product development

One of our favorite workshop sessions focused on applying sustainability models to the product manufacturing process. The first part was a panel discussion and the second part was a breakout session where we divided into small groups to collaborate in redesigning a common product (a laptop computer, a McDonald’s hamburger, and a sneaker) to make it more sustainable while considering the entire product life cycle. The panelists came from a diverse set of companies: Johnson & Johnson, Collins & Aikman Floorcoverings, and Evco Research, and each company was making profits by redesigning the traditional product or manufacturing process. Evco, for example, is taking PET soft drink bottles and recycling them into water-resistant coatings. Two and a half million pounds of wax-coated boxes go into the landfill each year. This PET coating repels water, but can break apart so that the boxes can be recycled (imagine individual umbrellas packed really tightly so that no water can get through). Initially, cardboard manufacturers didn’t want to use Evco’s water resistant coating because it is more expensive than wax, so Evco went directly to the supermarket chains and told them they could save $15 million in landfill costs by being able to recycle their water resistant boxes. Evco now has contracts with all the major cardboard manufacturers who are trying to meet new customer demand.

Highlights

By far the most exciting aspect of the weekend was the chance to connect with other smart, motivated MBA students, alums, and business leaders who all have a visible passion for “doing good” with their business or in their business future. (Coming in as a close runner-up for the highlight of the conference was Amy Koo belting out a fantastic rendition of Pat Benetar’s “Hit Me With Your Best Shot” at the Karaoke night.) Overall, the formal speakers and programs were fantastic, but the conversations that took place at meals, on buses, and in hallways were absolutely inspirational. We bumped into old friends – each time connecting on this shared interest of sustainability and vision of business as a powerful tool to create a positive impact in our world. This is exactly what motivated us to forgo sleep, hop on a red-eye, and study for midterms the day after we returned. It was all absolutely worth it.

The bottom line from our experience of “redefining the bottom line” is: GO TO THIS CONFERENCE NEXT YEAR. It was, for all of us the highlight of our experiences this quarter. If additional motivation is needed, Berkeley had nearly 35 participants, and we only had 4. This must change next year. We could even explore bringing the conference back “home” to its founding roots – and host the conference at Stanford in coming years.

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