This “B” step represents a huge leap forward and a major opportunity in the green business movement.  Nationwide, there are already 315 businesses, (representing 54 industries and $1.5B in revenue) which are already certified as B Corporations.  There are already two Certified Benefit Corporations in Maryland – Lateral Line of Easton and Norwood Marble & Granite of Brentwood – and there are 45 B Corps in Pennsylvania, eight in DC, five in Virginia, three in New Jersey and one in Delaware.  Until now, all of these businesses could only achieve “certification” as a B Corp.  Now, in Maryland, companies can also choose to be legally recognized by the State as a part of this new sector of the economy.

To become a B Corporation, you have to do two things:

1. Complete a transparent third-party assessment and certification process. Typically, this means taking about 60-90 minutes to start with the (free) B Impact Assessment, which surveys the impacts of your company has on the communities it operates within.  If the resulting report contains a composite score that is above 80 (out of 200 available), then your company is eligible to continue on in the Certification process offered by B Lab.  (Note: The new Maryland law does not specify that you must use only the B Lab certification, and says that the business may choose ANY “third party” verification to show off your “benefit” credentials.)
2. Make it official with the State. Once you have completed a certification, it’s time to for you insert certain language into your governing corporate documents (membership or partnership agreement) that outlines what responsibilities the owners of the company or its board of directors are obligated to maintain themselves and demonstrate to others.  The suggested language states, in part, that the managers will give “due consideration… to the short-term, as well as long-term, interests of its members and the effect of the Company’s operations (and its subsidiaries’ operations) on the environment and the economy of the state, the region and the nation.”

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There are a number of benefits to becoming a B Corporation:

1. Being a leader. If you are already conducting business in a way that is socially and environmentally aware, this will give you the recognition you deserve and an independent and solid and verifiable way to differentiate yourself in the marketplace.  If these are values that you strive to put into action, this is a great way to begin your sustainability journey.
2. Staying true to your course. Because your ethics and values are written into your company’s “DNA,” you can maintain a focus on your mission as you grow, raise capital, sell or plan succession.
3. There’s money on the table. First, there is no annual fee for maintaining “B-Corporation” status, only a one-time State application fee.  Second, there are the member-to-member discounts (e.g. a 75% discount on Salesforce) that are available.  Third, there are a number of lenders and groups of investors now interested in giving preferential treatment to B-Corps because they believe that B Corporations demonstrate reduced risk and the potential for greater reward.  And fourth, there are always the “regular” savings in efficiency and productivity gains that are achieved by all companies who engage in green business practices in a meaningful way.

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Consulting with a sustainability professional and your lawyer before investing deeply in this work is certainly a good idea.  There are certain provisions, such as a requirement that there be a two-thirds majority to ratify the legal changes to the company’s governance documents, that must be adhered to.  And, of course, the sorts of actions and decisions your company will have to take to achieve B Corp status will be unique and may even get to the heart of what makes your business unique and valuable to the communities it serves.  This kind of work can greatly benefit from guidance and facilitation.

Now is your opportunity to be one of the first in the nation to legally earn the “B” of benefit for your business!

There are also plenty lessons within this situation for individual organizations that are working towards sustainability.  For now, this is the overly-simple and not-quite-brilliant lesson that I’ve taken from the whole BP fiasco:

We’re due for some big changes.  And things will never be perfect as we go through them.

These may sound like bland platitudes or something that doesn’t match up to the seriousness of the situation, and I’ll concede that both are probably true.  And at the same time, I’ll maintain that we may not have many other choices at this juncture.  In order to meet the requirements posed by our massive and interconnected social, energy, waste and water challenges, we need to simultaneously (1) maintain a big-picture view and (2) embrace the idea that we’re making up our next story as we go along.  We need big-picture, imperfect action.

First, we’re going to have to maintain a big-picture view. Other systems thinkers share this view.  Alex Steffen of worldchanging.com was first that I noted when he wrote: “If we want to change our impacts, we need to change our systems, on a scope we almost never talk about, stretching through essentially every aspect of our society.” And my colleagues and good friends, Maura Dilley and Derm Hickish did a great job of putting words to the general sentiments from The Natural Step community: “This spill can be another entry on the long list environmental and social tragedies…or it can be used as a rallying point for a bigger movement in the direction of sustainability.”

Both of these sentiments are right on.  Rather than getting stuck in making little changes in engineering “solutions” and government permitting processes, we must confront our principled challenge of depending on fossil fuels and make really big changes to our collective trajectory.

Second, we’re going to just have to go ahead and do all that we can to clean up our messes. It doesn’t matter what our next steps are, as long as they’re in the right direction and not doing any additional harm (for instance, indiscriminately and purposefully spraying toxic chemicals into a large body of open water).  For the oil spill, employing out-of-work folks to skim the water and scoop up tar balls is a good idea.  Getting the biggest “whales” we can find to filter water is a good idea.  Even the Costner centrifuge is a welcome treat right now.

And, at the same time, it should be clear that these imperfect and reactionary steps are not going to be enough to get us to where we need to go. There are no quick fixes available for the problems with the larger systems here.  Our work will require lots and lots of patience. Scooping up miles and miles of tar-ball-infested sand takes a while.  Changing our consumption habits will take a while.  And certainly switching to a clean energy economy will take a long while.  (Much to the Sierra Club’s chagrin, oil drilling won’t stop overnight – we’ll need fossil fuel energy to make our patient, and imperfect transition to an un-burning economy.)

This is the place where the really difficult work lies. The act of looking at the big picture and really acting to avert our core issues takes a deep level of patience on the part of many players.  And the act of “just getting something done” requires a deep faith in a larger, collective direction.  The chasm that exists between these dichotomies is the place where our challenge resides.

Your organization most likely doesn’t have any direct involvement with the BP Spill.  But we are all facing sustainability challenges. So, what can your organization do to advance these efforts?

Plenty.

There are three basic things:

1. Make sure you’ve taken advantage of the easy, first-win actions that are available to you. (We have partners who can conduct thorough energy and waste audits).
2. Develop an understanding of your organization’s sustainability from a big-picture perspective. (We offer a one-day, 56-question, to-to-bottom Sustainable Business review that is the most thorough available anywhere today).
3. Begin the process of developing the organizational capacity it will take to (1) stay patiently focused on the big picture, while (2) doing everything that you can to get there. (We offer strategic planning workshops that can help your team develop a common understanding of your organization’s direction and capacity for change).

For now, the most effective “solutions” are the ones that invite big-picture and imperfect action.

All federal agencies are facing a sustainability push. President Obama has tasked every Federal Agency for a target in Greenhouse Gas (GHG) reductions and sustainability.  This is going to require a tremendous amount of effort.  Navstar and STACK Coordination have a growing expertise in this area to help you with your auditing, planning, and consulting.

The first step in our partnership was to dive into this executive order to see where we can help out. The results were a few best practices in key areas to guide the newly appointed Senior Sustainable Officers. Hopefully, these tidbits can alleviate some pressure as they get a crash course strategic sustainability planning:

Sustainable Contracting – Procurement

Per the order, Federal agencies must:

“Ensure 95% of new contract actions, task orders, and delivery orders for products and services are energy efficient, environmentally preferable, contain recycled content, etc.”

In addition to using EPA recommended Energy Star and EPEAT products. The Regional Municipality of Whistler has developed and implemented an excellent Sustainable Purchasing Guide that uses a six-step decision-making process to help managers make sound decisions. It guides decisions towards those that reduce costs and impacts and ensure long-term success and demonstrates that this seemingly daunting requirement can be met.

Baseline Assessments

The best way to develop a strategic plan is to develop a baseline of energy use. It is quite a challenge to measure your overall energy use, including the new challenge of identifying them as direct (scope 1 and 2) and indirect (scope 3) carbon emissions.

There are lots of programs for measuring carbon out there.  But to be truly effective, you need to study the whole issue of sustainability (including CO2).  The Natural Step Framework and the PROBE for Sustainable Business tool offer ways to comprehensively evaluate and measure your organization’s full impacts (beyond just CO2) and potential for improvement and change. This can provide the much needed longer term, budget focused, understanding of the sustainability challenge.

Reducing Energy Intensity

How to reduce our energy use? Where to start? Who to contact?

Many of these answers can be found in the commercial world. Some key takeaways to keep in mind when searching for ways to increase energy efficiency:

1. Begin by implementing a few proven projects and easy wins to get the ball rolling. Here are some great examples from the Midwest Energy Effeciency Alliance.

2. Bank the savings earned from your early wins and get familiar with the people and information sources that will help you with more difficult projects along the way:

• Federal Energy Management Program (FEMP)
• Flex Your Power
• Northeast Sustainable Energy Association (NESEA)

3. Plan for the long-term savings by integrating energy efficiency into ongoing operations with a comprehensive Environmental Management System (EMS).

Zero-Net-Energy Buildings

Getting to net zero – it’s possible, but complex. The tips above help you to reduce the impacts of existing operations and maintenance, but much more can be done in longer term planning. Things like retrofitting our old buildings to designing new buildings. This reaches deep into top-of-the-line strategic planning in building design, construction, operation, management, maintenance, and more.

To meet this challenge is essential to work through the design process with an understanding of how the building, its surroundings and the design team function as a whole. Creating ‘zero-energy,’ ‘green,’ or ‘sustainable,’ development requires extensive coordination to ensure that the building’s various systems work together in an effective way.

The Whole Building Design Guide is a great place to start, as is the GSA Sustainable Design Program.

Even more is possible when we “redesign the design process” as explained in a new book on the integrative design process for green building.

Addressing the Challenge.

Meeting the challenges of Executive Order 13423 will be challenging.  Navstar and STACK Coordination can help your agency develop a strategic plan for addressing it.