BSR Insight

A Weekly Newsletter for BSR Members | November 3, 2009

   
 

In This Issue

Editor's Note

Innovative Business Models for Sustainability

At the BSR Conference 2009, BROAD Air Conditioning CEO Zhang Yue had an interesting take on his company’s business model: It’s not about selling air-conditioners, he said, it's about "allowing our customers to be more energy efficient."

Innovative business models such as Zhang's will help us achieve sustainable success in the reset world. This week, BSR's Diane Osgood outlines four unique business models (including one that borrows the "less is more" idea from bikini swimsuit retailers) that can promote sustainability.

Part of innovating for the future involves knowing what the future looks like, and then prioritizing the issues. A new open-source tool gives us a preview of possible climate change scenarios, and a survey we conducted at our Conference gives us a picture of where business intends to focus its sustainability efforts in the year ahead.

Sustainable Business Models: Time for Innovation Department Icon

In Depth

Sustainable Business Models: Time for Innovation

Business leaders face not only the economic fallout of the financial crisis, they face the substantial challenge of transitioning to a low-carbon economy that is constrained by dwindling natural resources. These pressures also represent opportunities to innovate new business models—including ones that help consumers make sustainable choices. Read about four categories of innovation that, with more development and experimentation, will ensure business success in a reset world.

Read more →
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Toolbox

A Window Into the Future of Climate Change

The Climate Rapid Overview and Decision-Support Simulator (C-ROADS)—developed by the Sustainability Institute, Ventana Systems, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology—simulates climate change, giving decision-makers a peek at the long-term implications of potential global climate agreements to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

The open-source C-ROADS "Common Platform" translates emissions reduction commitments into overall global emissions trajectories and presents models of future greenhouse gas concentration, temperature, and sea-level rise.

You can access C-ROADS resources in several ways:

  • Download a five-page overview of the simulator.
  • Review the 77-page technical reference guide.
  • Use C-Learn—a three-region, simplified version of the C-ROADS simulator—to understand the long-term climate effects of various actions to lower carbon emissions, reduce deforestation, and grow more trees.

Read the C-ROADS results of mock global policy negotiations that took place during the BSR Conference 2009 session "Climate Action Initiative."

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Quick Hit

The State of Sustainable Business

For a snapshot on the state of sustainable business, take a look at our brief report from the BSR/GlobeScan survey of nearly 300 business leaders at the BSR Conference 2009. Highlights include:

  • Climate change tops the list of "very significant" priorities in the next 12 months, followed by human rights and workers' rights. (See graphic below)
  • Companies should take two key actions to rebuild the public's trust in business: demonstrate positive social and environmental impacts and innovate for sustainability.
  • Those surveyed are increasingly optimistic that sustainability will be a core part of business strategy in the years ahead.
  • Nearly nine out of ten people said their companies’ sustainability budgets would stay the same or increase next year.
  • Most companies either measure the ROI of sustainability efforts or plan to do so soon.

Download the presentation to get detailed results and graphics on these and other issues.