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SLF Past Events

 Past Sustainability Leaders Forum Events:

Cradle-to-Cradle Materials Management: June 13, 2012

Material flow in a cradle-to-cradle economy means that there is "no waste". Outputs from one process become inputs to another, by design. Expert practitioners from Cradle to Cradle Products Innovation Institute, Adobe, Speciality Solid Waste and US EPA explain on how Silicon Valley companies and cities bring this transformational(and profitable) vision to reality.

 

Green Data Centers: Economics and Operations (Silicon Valley's Annual Earth Day Event): April 27, 2012

Hosted by Vantage Data Centers and GE Intelligent Platforms at SAP

Data Centers represent a significant opportunity for companies (and all institutions) to save energy and costs, while achieving high performance. The life cycle of energy for high technology gear is greater than the cost of the equipment. The event addressed Data Center best practices from companies and experts that have achieved significant efficiencies and savings, resulting in strategic business impact. Presentations at the event also focused on how to achieve a 1.12 PUE without sacrificing reliability and quality.

Speakers

Moderator: Dr. Moira Gunn, host of Tech Nation and BioTech Nation on NPR 

 

Employee Engagement 2.0 - Success Stories and the way ahead: March 8, 2012  

 Hosted by and at eBay, San Jose

Employees can be a powerful force to move the sustainability needle in companies and spread sustainability thinking in hard-to-reach functional areas of the company. The presentations at this event were the NEEF study on Employee Engagement 2.0, eBay success stories and future plans, Environmental Defense Fund’s energy treasure hunts as a way to engage employees and short Pecha-Kucha style presentations on commuting and other sustainability oriented employee programs.  

Speakers

  • NEEF study presented by Suparna Vashisht: Presentation on highlights of the recently published NEEF White paper on Employee Engagement 2.0 which includes the results of the survey NEEF conducted of over 1300 business professionals.  NEEF Study by Suparna (pdf)
  • eBay, J.D. Norton: How to achieve sustained employee engagement. eBay Green Team (pdf)
  • Environmental Defense Fund, Beth Trask: Case studies of companies that EDF has helped establish successful employee engagement program. (awaiting file from presenter)
  • Pecha Kucha 5’ presentations:

               511 Services: 511 Employee Services (pdf)
               RideSpring : Making alternative Commuting Easier and more Rewarding (pdf)
               Satellite Telework Centers : Work Anywhere (pdf)
               SunShares: Silicon Valley Leadership Group Sunshares (pdf)
               Eco Cloud: EcoCloud and Employee Engagement (pdf)

 

Water Infrastructure and CII Best Management Practices: November 3, 2011 

Hosted by and at Intuit in Mountain View.

SLF’s November event was on innovative ideas for Water Infrastructure and Water Best Management Practices in CII – Commercial, institutional and industrial.   Attendees included water conservation managers from utilities, executives from commercial and high tech businesses, facility managers, and many others.   Discussions on these issues occurred.

 The presentations included:

See also EcoCloud Water Metrics and Tools for detailed analysis of over 75 water online and downloadable tools, standards, guidance, software, and certification schemes (many of which are free) for businesses, organizations, and utilities.

You can join the discussion groups on SSV’s EcoCloud on these two issues: CII High Tech-Sector Water Task Force Group and Wastewater as a Resource Forum.

 

Designing for Sustainability through Biomimicry: Sept 8, 2011

  • Have you wondered how to inspire sustainability thinking in different parts of your company?
  • Have you pondered whether there is a more sustainable way for your company to design and make its products?

Design for Sustainability: There are many ways to make products and services more green. Through making products more energy and resource efficient and less toxic or by "dematerializing" products, companies can drive innovation, reduce costs and increase market opportunities.

Biomimicry is based on the idea that we can learn from natural processes to create products and buildings that are models of resource efficiency and beauty. Biomimicry has been used to more effectively and sustainably find solutions to design challenges by emulating nature‘s forms, processes and ecosystems.

Below you will find the presentations from the Biomimicry event hosted by Genentech on Sept 08, 2011:

 

A solutions lab event hosted by NetApp: June 1, 2011 

SSV’s Sustainability Leaders Forum Peer-to-Peer event hosted by NetApp on June 1st, received high marks from the attendees. Nearly 80% of the attendees said that they found the event “Very Useful”.

Six speakers made presentations regarding an experience related to implementing a sustainability initiative. The format for the meeting was patterned on Pecha Kucha or Ignite, with each speaker making a 5-6 minute presentation with slides that auto-advanced every 10-30 seconds. The audience then split into groups and discussed one of the six presentations with a view to learning from the experience or brainstorming solutions to the challenges/setbacks presented. Finally one person from each group shared the synopsis of the discussion with the rest of the audience. The issues discussed were

Click on the links to read more and discuss about the topics on EcoCloud!

 

Making the Case: Storytelling for Engagement and Investment in Sustainability: Apr 01, 2011

"Making the Case" was an active discussion on how to get management, employees or citizens to fund or participate in sustainability programs, and how to sustain momentum once the luster of newness wears off when everyone is stretched to capacity to meet basic business requirements.
It was a hands-on workshop where Sustainability Leaders, EcoCloud Participants, green team members and EcoBoard leaders learnt how to craft stories to create buy-in for sustainability strategies and programs and discovered new ways to make the case for investment and for engagement from executives, managers and individuals.
The workshop was led by master story-teller, Joel ben Izzy, and enabled the participants to apply principles and techniques of story "architecture" in order to draw in their audience, to discover for themselves the point they want to make.
Attendees:

  • Developed story-lines for making their case for investment or engagement
  • Built on financial or other performance data to show the "so what" that motivates commitment and action
  • Found new ways to foster innovative thinking and to drive change

Workshop Instructor:
Joel ben Izzy is an internationally renowned storyteller, author and story consultant. After graduating from Stanford with a degree in storytelling, Joel spent the next fifteen years traveling the globe, gathering and telling stories. Over the past fifteen years Joel has been developing innovative ways to apply storytelling, helping people who do good work to craft stories that shape the world. His story consulting clients include Hewlett-Packard, The Federal Reserve Bank, Stanford University, Genentech and Pixar Animation Studios.

 

Carbon and Energy Strategy Workshop with EcoShift Consulting: March 11, 2011

Sustainable Silicon Valley and EcoShift Consulting collaborated for a workshop by Dr. James Barsimantov (Principal, EcoShift Consulting) and Dr. Alexander Gershenson (Principal, EcoShift Consulting). Attendees learnt how to create a comprehensive Carbon Reduction Strategy, an effective plan to reach their goals of emissions reductions and cost savings. Discussions included the strategy organizations can use to identify actions, gain support for them, and choose the best actions to pursue, with the large range of potential actions to reduce emissions. The focus was on the need for comprehensive strategies, steps to create an effective strategy, quantitative metrics for decision making, and practical information on how to achieve targets.

Topics covered in the workshop included:

  • Collaboration: How to get the right people on board
  • Approaches: What works to get organizations on a path to save money and reduce impact
  • Setting Targets: When, how, and why to set pragmatic targets
  • Carbon Reduction Strategies: Creating a realistic, actionable, and quantifiable strategy
  • Where to Reduce: Tradeoffs and hotspots for making reductions
  • Action Items Case Studies: Buildings, transportation, & employee behavior
  • Decision Criteria: Metrics to compare projects & what to do when numbers aren’t available
  • Prioritizing Action: How to choose which steps to implement and when
  • Innovative Funding Strategies

 

Frameworks for Sustainability Event hosted by Palm, Inc.: March 18, 2010