Net Positive: The Future of Sustainable Business
by Tim Greiner
12 May 2015
I highly recommend this insightful article by Jeffrey Hollender, Former CEO and Co-Founder of Seventh Generation and Founder and CEO of Sustain. He challenges businesses to chart a path that is net positive, restorative and regenerative. Sharing his experiences as CEO of a sustainable condom company, he highlights the work he and I did together to develop a "roadmap to becoming net positive" by developing a framework for tracking both positive and negative impacts in four areas important to Sustain's mission. It's a work in progress, but one that other companies can learn from and be inspired by.
Net Positive: The Future of Sustainable Business By Jeffrey Hollender | Apr. 29, 2015
Business efforts must become more sustainable and responsible to turn the tide on social inequity and environmental decay. Net positive is a new standard that can help ensure a resilient and regenerative world.
“Governments no longer govern the world, or even their little bits of it. The nation state—yes, even America and China—has been usurped as the pre-eminent unit of power. Save for extreme outliers like North Korea, all governments now share power in a shaky but so far relatively steady balance with the largest of the multinational corporations. No one has asked us, the public, whether we approve of this new arrangement; it happened while we were busy shopping.”—/TheRules, “One Party Planet”
Forum for the Future, WWF-UK, and the Climate Group have recently articulated a new vision that businesses should adopt to ensure that our planet and its inhabitants have a future that provides the best chance for common well-being. They have called this new standard net positive. While embracing this concept, I believe that we have yet to develop the operating principles and metrics required to fulfill this vision.
Written by Tim Greiner
Tim Greiner, a Pure Strategies Co-founder and Managing Director, has pioneered approaches to building environmental and social integrity into products, brands, and businesses. His experience spans the spectrum from developing sustainability strategy, drafting sustainability goals, designing product sustainability programs, creating approaches to transform sustainable supply chains and fostering collaborative mechanisms to lift the sustainability performance of entire industries. He is currently working with several progressive businesses on developing science-based targets and comprehensive climate strategies. He is a co-founder of the Chemical Footprint Project and has guided sustainable chemicals management strategies for companies across diverse industries. He has also led regenerative agriculture projects with food brands and retailers. Current and former clients include Annie’s, Walmart, Seventh Generation, Ben & Jerry’s, The North Face, Stonyfield Farm, MilliporeSigma and U.S. EPA.
Tim holds Masters’ degrees in Environmental Policy and Business from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a Bachelor's degree in Materials Science Engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. He is a founding member of the Massachusetts Toxics Use Reduction Planners Association and a former Board member and President. He is also founder of the Cape Ann Climate Change Network and is a Research Associate at the Lowell Center for Sustainable Production. Tim has experience in industry as a Process Engineer for Fairchild Semiconductor. He also worked for the Massachusetts Office of Technical Assistance as Project Director and Chief Engineer.
