The Enbridge project has the potential to radically alter the social and ecological landscape of Western Canada. The construction of this massive pipeline and the roads used to access it will result in extensive loss of wildlife habitat. Waterways and communities will be contaminated as statistically inevitable oil spills occur along the pipeline route. It will lead to expansion of the tar sands- adding to already critical global atmospheric carbon levels.

The 1,150km journey is a very long walk. But here’s a very short lesson: The length of this pipeline makes oil spills a statistical inevitability.

Of course, if we just ban the tankers, the pipeline idea will just go away….

What if Darth Vader’s voice was in your GPS?!

It doesn’t hurt that the intro video is hilarious, either:

You see, Maddy’s on a hunger strike.

She’s the most recent in a week-by-week relay of awareness-raising citizens who are concerned about the fact that roughly half of all Canadians live in fear of poverty. More to the point, there are somewhere between 10,500 and 15,000 people in BC alone who have no homes. Every 12 days, one homeless Canadian dies.

Scary statistics. But scarier still is the fact that until 1993, Canada had one of the most widely recognized social housing programs in the world. Federally funded and progressive, it was canceled after 20 years of effective support for people marginalized by hard luck or hard times. Since then, support for the most troubled of our fellow citizens has become fragmented. And progressively less effective.

So Maddy’s hunger striking for a new Federal Housing Program. There’ll be a new volunteer every week throughout 2010. Maddy’s the face of week 73. She follows UBC Professor Michael Byers, Vancouver activist David Eby and many others. I wonder who’s going to be number 74… 75… 76… 77….

Learn more about the Homelessness Hunger Strike Relay.  They might be on to something here….

This is the question posed in the title of a Harvard Business Review article published April 28 and written by Ron Ashkenas, author of The Boundaryless Organization. His answer, which draws on the current case against Goldman Sachs, and the ongoing trials and tribulations of Toyota’s quality control progams, among others, posits that reputation management “may need to be part of everyone’s responsibility.”

When any stakeholder—customer, employee, investor, etc.—chooses to buy from, work with or invest in any organization, their decision is based at least in part on the organization’s reputation. Based on the historical performance and customer care of an organization like Disney (another of Ashkenas’s examples), we expect a certain experience: For customers, that’s fabulous, family-friendly entertainment; for employees, its an amazing, innovative work environment; for investors, it’s a healthy, reliable return on their investment in the form of regular dividends.

Organizations that don’t hold to their own standards of responsibility inevitably erode their own reputations: Toyota’s current experience, for example, implies a betrayal of their legendary quality control practices. They’re fortunate to have such a strong reputation, forged through decades of strict adherence to their core values; they’ll likely weather the current storm. However, their customers won’t be fooled again. Repeated errors and quality gaffes will erode Toyota’s reputation, sales, and market share.

Reputation management—and brand management—require the care and attention of leaders, managers, and everyone else in an organization. A strong brand requires a remarkable degree of personal responsibility. How successful and consistent is your brand at enhancing its reputation?

This expectation of an experience is precisely our definition of the word brand.

Organizations can choose to embed responsibility for this expectation in their operations and standards, or they can choose to let it follow the whim of circumstance. In Disney’s case, leadership and management “make every employee feel responsible for the entertainment products and services they provide.” Johnson & Johnson, legendary for their adherence to their ‘credo,’ emphasizes every employee’s “responsibility to put the well-being of the people they serve first.” These are two of the most reputable firms in the world. And they’re also two of the most valuable brands in the world.

Their consensus, not surprisingly, was that ‘eco-efficiency,’ as they call it, will be the “biggest economic ‘game-changer’ for organizations in the next 20 years.”

They outline three specific essentials that leaders will need to pursue:

1. Deliver highly efficient “‘green’ infrastructures,” that overlay digital intelligence atop of physical infrastructure.
2. Promote resource efficiency and reduce social impact.
3. Embrace open standards for better infrastructure, water and transportation management.

In our work consulting to mission-driven and responsible organizations, we’ve learned that these points from IBM’s report summary are but the beginning of the work needed to adapt to the Sustainability Imperative. Or more accurately, they’re just the front edge of the opportunities.

It is more valuable to focus on implementing positive social impact than it is on simply reducing the negative. Organizations like the members of our new client TheChange.com are building thriving businesses that also deliver positive, enduring environmental and social value.

It is essential to rethink the nature of new physical infrastructure, as much as it is to develop and deploy the digital intelligence that can monitor existing infrastructure. Buildings, for example, are responsible for more carbon output than any other category of emitter. While organizations like Vancouver’s Pulse Energy monitor their output and empower owners and managers to improve their impact, designers of new buildings must think about the impact of a project that will exist 50, 100 or even more years from now.

And open standards are revolutionizing an incredible array of social, environmental and technological realms of our work and lives. Open government is springing new business ideas and new efficiencies in our communities; open data is helping innovators and entrepreneurs to build business opportunities that reach around the world in a fraction of the time it used to take companies to build global brands; and open communication is changing fundamentally the way our world interacts—with news from Thailand reaching overseas in mere moments.

“Outperformers in the near future will be those that will adapt a proactive and holistic approach,” says IBM. We couldn’t agree more. The challenge for organizations and their leaders today is that “the near future” is incredibly close. And with the transparency of instant global communication, there’s no space for hedging bets or balancing profit vs. benefit. The leaders are defining models and practices that are inherently sustainable.

Downloads:

The IBM Institute for Business Value report. (PDF 1.4MB)

The Executive Summary. (PDF 736KB)

Octopus Strategies’ involvement was through my invitation to sit on the application review and selection committee, which shortlisted the numerous applicants to the three presenting companies. Along with Adam Wilkins of REV and BC Social Venture Partners, I also coached Katrina Pacey of Pivot Legal LLP on her presentation.

Pivot was first to present. Katrina, their Managing Partner, outlined a unique social enterprise law firm, whose purpose is to turn the profits from their general law practice to the advantage of social change initiatives such as their recent Red Tent campaign.

Mission Possible’s MP Enterprises went second. Their Executive Director, Brian Postlewait, presented an ambitious but promising plan to develop their graffiti cleanup company into a diverse general maintenance company.

And third was Public Dreams‘ Samantha Jo Simmonds, who explained their organization’s 25-year legacy, their recent success with 2010 Winter Olympic Games contracts, and their goals to develop their social enterprise—a full service event management firm.

All three presentations were inspiring. Each organization is uniting the value of business with the values of mission-driven mandates. And in the end, the Dragons couldn’t decide between them, and awarded one prize to each organization. Public Dreams was awarded a $2,500 grant from ENP, MP Enterprises was awarded a pro bono engagement from JDQ Systems, and Pivot Legal was awarded $15,000 from Vancity Community Foundation to develop their marketing and outreach.

The event itself also featured a good deal of networking among the sold-out crowd, catering by Vancouver’s Pot Luck Cafe & Catering, a social enterprise itself, and a showcase of the wares of various local social enterprises. It was a great opportunity for the social enterprising community to come together, and share ideas, contacts and plans. I look forward to being even more involved in the 2011 edition!

Citing various case studies, From WalMart to Warren Buffett, they argue that “a vast number of firms are starting to realize that if they want to hire the best people, they will have to stand for something more than profit maximization.”

Purpose beyond profit. It’s a concept we’ve been exploring and espousing for years. And we think Bishop and Green are spot on in their assertion that most companies are less greedy than the headline-grabbers, and more responsible than they’re given credit for being.

This is a pretty inspiring 20 minutes!…