Some continuing thoughts on the excellent event in Aspen I went to a few weeks ago (earlier post here). One theme I heard repeatedly was how much sustainability can drive employee passion and loyalty.

I had an interesting conversation with James Murdoch, CEO of BskyB, the largest media company in the UK (and, oh yeah, son of Rupert). Under James’ leadership, BskyB has become very interested in green, declaring that it will go climate neutral, and making many operational and product changes such as redesigning cable boxes to use 50% less energy. But one of the first things he said to me was that the company's green work has made recruiting easier.

Later, Ray Anderson put it powerfully: “In my 51 years in business, I’ve never seen an issue galvanize people in a company like sustainability.”

I’m not surprised at statements like this anymore. Throughout my research for Green to Gold, and in many conversations since then, I've heard the same. Companies discover that the best audience for their CSR reports is actually their own employees, who are generally thrilled to find out what their companies are doing right. As a BP exec told me, the green stuff comes up in recruiting and training meetings all the time now.

Of course the pursuit of sustainability has also driven the work RMI employees and Amory Lovins. While it’s more obvious to see this drive at RMI than at a cable company, it was still inspiring. It also helps explains what has kept Amory working so hard for 30+ years while he waited for the world to catch up to his thinking. Only passion can keep you going for decades. Amory's speech at the gala was incredible -- a vision of what a the future could look like.

This is the core issue: sustainability, once you get past the gloom and doom warnings about environmental issues, is fundamentally an optimistic pursuit – a vision of a healthier, stronger world for all.

Imagine what that kind of optimism can do for your employees and your company.

BusinessWeek seems to have taken on the self-appointed role as debunker of green business, which as I've written before is an odd switch from the beginning of 2007. This week the magazine takes a harsh perspective on an interesting new survey about interest in green values at work.

PR firm Hill & Knowlton talked to MBA students globally and asked them what factors would influence career and job choice. They ranked the factors by % that said it was "extremely" or "very" important. Here's the list from the study:

Career opportunities.......................................95
Corporate culture/working environment.............86
Compensation and benefits package................85
Employee satisfaction....................................84
Quality of products and services......................75
Financial performance/growth potential.............73
Corporate governance and ethics.....................58
Social responsibility/community involvement.....49
Brand and marketing message........................48
Environmental/green policy..............................34

BusinessWeek looked at this and declared "Green Isn't Gold for MBAs" and pointed out that green stuff is at the bottom. Now, color me optimistic, but I think these numbers -- 49% on CSR and 34% on green -- are actually pretty high. Of course career opportunities and money are going to be nearly universal; it's like asking consumers about price and quality versus other considerations -- of course they come first. I would expect that very few MBAs would pick on environmental considerations alone.

But I'm amazed that one-third or more of these MBAs consider green as important as those other factors (remember, this is 'extremely' or 'very' important). And where would those numbers have been 5 years ago? What's the trajectory on this?

What was interesting, and BusinessWeek does get to this after its sensational headline, was what happened when the questions got more specific. Two-thirds won't work for tobacco and half don't want to work for energy or autos -- those are just the two biggest sectors in the world. Finally, to cap it off, 1 in 5 American MBAs -- and 42% and 38% in EU and Asia respectively -- would be inclined not to take an "attractive" job offer from a company with a poor environmental reputation.

If you're recruiting for top talent, and you're not tackling green issues, wouldn't it worry you that 20-40% of your pool of applicants may have no interest in you?

And the numbers may be rising as you look at even younger cohorts. Monster.com did a survey of undergrads recently and found that 92% wanted to work for a green company. They were so impressed by this finding, they launched a green careers website. The recruiting giants are convinced even if BusinessWeek isn't.

This post first appeared at Harvard Business Online.

As an opening post on Harvard Business.org, I figure no topic could be more appropriate than the change happening at Harvard, among other places. I’m talking about the big shift in what business schools are teaching students and, more importantly, what those future business leaders want from their employers. According to a recent article in Newsweek, B-school's are greening their curricula. Students are learning how to weave environmental thinking into core business strategy and they're looking to apply it in the real world.

This isn't idle academic stuff. Top talent is increasingly demanding more from employers. As a survey run by Hill & Knowlton revealed, up to 40% of MBAs in some countries won't take a great offer from a company with a poor environmental reputation, and half don't even want to work in environmentally-challenged sectors like energy or autos.

My work - writing, talks, and advising corporations - focuses heavily on what's driving companies to seek green strategies and how to profit from these forces. A big part of the story is about stakeholder pressure, from innovative NGOs to shifting regulatory environments to B2B customers greening the supply chain to shifting consumer preferences. But I return again and again to employees because I believe that no stakeholder group is more important. A global talent strain and shortage is in the works across many industries. How will companies compete if they don't attract and retain the best people?

But companies should not think that the MBAs who are learning more about green business are only the ones with a deep moral commitment to the environment (and there are plenty), or that they are only looking to work for green-focused companies, such as Patagonia in the U.S. or IKEA in Europe. One of the most fascinating parts of the Newsweek piece is the opening profile of Ash Upadhyaya, a Stanford MBA from India. Even though he's been studying sustainable business, Ash wants to work for a private-equity firm and says, "Am I really driven to do this by my values? The honest answer is no...It just makes good business sense to be sustainable."

This profound shift in perception from seeing green as a moral cause to green as good business is the real story here - it explains why b-schools are covering it so much more, and why large portions of the student community are on board. It's a great thing for the planet that more employees see green as a core strategic issue, no matter what your company does (even perhaps private equity). I'm optimistic that planet- and market-changing innovation will be coming from these fresh new minds.

But I'm not optimistic for the companies that don't make the shift and actively court the new talent. Another theme in my work is that green isn't really optional anymore. With resource constraints a harsh reality, you get leaner and greener, or die. And that culling of the weakest in the herd will go much faster when the best people stop coming to work.

The lesson here is simple: without a clear commitment to sustainability, a strong message and tactics that bring that commitment to life, and measurable results, you will be unable to compete for talent in the coming years. In fact, you may already be at a significant disadvantage.

[This appeared first on my Harvard Business blog here]

In hard times, focusing your company on environmental challenges and opportunities — or "greening" your business — can be a terrific source of employee motivation. But I make the case in my new book Green Recovery that increasing engagement and knowledge around green issues isn't just about pumping up morale — it also gives your people a solid foundation to innovate and create value in new ways.

The world is changing, and fast. Profound shifts are under way as the world mutates demographically (more, younger, less white), politically (new bases of power to the East), and perhaps most importantly, physically (climate change, water stress, resource constraints). How can your company prepare for markets that will be driven, unavoidably, by a quest for sustainability? As I argue in the book, you need to get all your employees on the same page on three essential realities:

1. Resources are not infinite. This goes against everything we've experienced as a species for millennia. We are reaching limits in resource availability, from fossil fuels to water. You know it's serious when Forbes Magazine casually mentions that Exxon is going to natural gas because it's "running out of oil."

2. The value is in the value chain. In most industries, the largest part of a company's environmental footprint lies outside of its direct control, falling either upstream in the supply chain or downstream with customers using the product. The environmental risks (such as discovering lead in your toys like Mattel did in 2007) and opportunities (like creating energy-efficient products that consumers lap up) reside outside your four walls. Everyone will need to think more holistically.

3. Climate change is a political and business reality regardless of what anyone thinks about the scientific reality. I won't belabor this idea, but getting lost in debates about whether Al Gore is plotting to take away your SUV is missing the point. Virtually every country in the world is joining international negotiations about climate or directly regulating carbon. Most of the world's largest businesses are actively tackling their own carbon emissions and demanding the same of their suppliers. The cost of doing business is changing permanently and being carbon-fat is getting much more expensive. These are critical business issues to understand and prepare for.

[Please see the rest of the post here]

A couple posts ago, I talked about the ways you can use green data — footprinting information on your products and services up and down the value chain — to create enormous value for your company. As they say, you can't manage what you don't measure. And those with the best information can cut costs, reduce risk, answer customer questions on environmental and social impacts, and help customers reduce their footprints.

But it's a fair question to ask how you might gather this data, especially when budgets remain very tight as the economy gradually recovers. Conducting a full, detailed lifecycle analysis (LCA) is likely to be a time-consuming, resource-draining affair. But luckily there are some shortcuts. Here are a few principles and guidelines for getting smarter about your footprint with the least resources possible:

1. Qualitative analysis is good. In fact, it's better to start with a more strategic view on your products or services than to dive right into detailed numeric analysis. Map out your value chain for a quick view on resource use. Then ask really top level questions that aren't part of the normal day-to-day thinking for most functions in a company, like what comes in the door, and what did it take for suppliers to produce it (are there processes energy or water intensive, for example)? What do we do with our inputs, and how much energy and resources do we use? How much energy and resources do our customers use? What happens to our products after customers are done with them?

You're looking for directionally-correct answers on where the biggest risks and opportunities are...or at the very least, where your data gaps are and how best to fill them.

2. "Back of the envelope" analysis is also okay. Top-line numbers on your own impacts and energy use, from departments like IT, facilities, and distribution, can give you sense of where cuts are most needed or valuable. The data may not be readily available at first, but it certainly isn't capital intensive to find it.

3. Use data that's already out there. A truly detailed LCA is, frankly, a pain. Following a product through every stage of its creation and use is difficult. Luckily, the resources available to help you are multiplying. Industry groups and academics have conducted LCAs on many products. You can extrapolate numbers from similar categories to save time and at least understand where the biggest issues lie. For example, let's say you produce food products, some of which have a big dairy component. The dairy industry has conducted an extensive LCA on a gallon of milk. That study can tell you that the methane produced by livestock may dominate your life-cycle carbon footprint as well.

Another option: public (or quasi-public) databases. See the wonky-sounding Economic Input-Output Life Cycle Assessment (EIO-LCA) data at Carnegie Mellon, or the data collected by AMEE in the UK. Without going into too much detail, the EIO-LCA captures data on flows of goods in and out of all sectors of the U.S. economy, along with data on energy use in each sector, and allows for big picture estimates on impacts. It's a back-of-the-envelope calculation — on a very big envelope. But if you don't want to dig into databases yourself (and who does), then you'll be glad to know that some smart developers have embedded these data sources into handy software products, so...

4. Seek out tools to help you. There is also a wealth of options for software that can help you get a handle on your impacts, including those throughout your supply chain. There are a few now classic providers of product LCA software, such as Ecobilan's TEAM and GaBi Sofware. But new niche players and products that focus on a company's carbon footprint include offerings from both the usual suspects and new entrants: Carbon Impact (formerly Clear Standards, now part of SAP), Planet Metrics, SAS for Sustainability Management, Computer Associates eco-Software, and two open source solutions Carbon Counted and Earthster (in beta).

I've worked with, or been taken through demos of most of these players — all are offering good tools and expertise. But I'm sure I've missed many others so please send me tools you've found useful (andrew@eco-strategies.com).

On top of these carbon modeling tools, companies are offering a range of other green data-tracking services: a sustainability dashboard from Microsoft, Google PowerMeter to measure energy consumption (for homes, but how far off are business-targeted versions), and a cool new product from AngelPoints (working with Saatchi S) that puts the Wal-Mart Personal Sustainability Project program into tracking software so companies can show employees what all their pledges of behavior change add up to.

Beyond these more self-help methods, there is an ever-growing number of consultants that can guide you (including partners of mine such as Domani). You may need to start small with my guidelines above and estimate if resources are too tight, but if you can, working with experts can provide you with a much deeper picture of your company's data-gathering capabilities.

Finally, a larger investment in getting smarter — building that internal capacity to understand footprints on an ongoing basis, and even real-time — will pay back in ways you can barely imagine. Those with the best data win.

This first appeared on Harvard Business online.

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