Julie Stofer | January 4, 2010
Environmental Defense Fund started this blog in February, just after launching the Innovation Exchange website, as an experiment to help us leverage and multiply the ideas and success of the Corporate Partnerships Program, of EDF and of the many innovators around the world working on business sustainability. We began with a focus on what we have to offer from our 20 years of working with business and have continued to grow these resources while also finding new ways to support the network of innovators – or "do'ers" – who are ultimately making the difference in companies.
This year, we've had 140 posts on a variety of topics, including what our
Climate Corps MBA fellows have learned about energy efficiency, highlights from our work in the Private Equity and fleet vehicle industries, exploring what innovation means and showcasing innovative practices at a variety of companies.
Some of this year's top posts foreshadowed trends on which we'll be building in 2010:
- You Set the Agenda: Green Innovation for Business Unconferences introduced the series of events affectionately known as GIBUs through which we brought together some 450 business, government and non-profit professionals to discuss what they are doing and thinking about to improve and accelerate sustainability in business. In 2010, we'll be expanding the program and changing the name to better reflect the results that the events are intended to produce: solutions. This year's Solutions Labs will support a well-informed, well-connected, rapidly-learning, network of innovators making business more sustainable in at least 10 cities around the country. We have also launched the EDFix conference call series on the second and fourth Mondays of every month to explore topics in more depth.
- In I've Seen the Future… and it's Transparent, Andrew Hutson wrote about the work we are doing with Walmart in China to assess technologies that are creating the greatest environmental impacts by identifying cleaner alternatives. We'll be writing more about our work in China in 2010.
- Sustainability managers can look forward to more posts in 2010 like Social Media: Is it the Sustainability Manager's Job? and Sustainability Managers – Research Shows You're Not Alone that address timely issues each of you face as you design and implement sustainability strategies in your companies.
- We'll focus more on energy efficiency in 2010 and continue to highlight what our Climate Corps fellows are learning on the job – and the challenges they are overcoming – as they spend their summers running technical and financial analyses to identify energy efficiency improvements that can cut costs and reduce emissions at their host companies.
As always, we'd love to hear your thoughts on what you like, what you don't and what other content you'd like to see, so please, let us know.
Wishing you a prosperous 2010 from all of us here at EDF!