A growing number of companies are setting science-based targets to reduce their GHG emissions in line with the Paris Agreement goals to limit global temperature increase to well-below 2°C. Over 300 have committed to take action through the Science Based Targets initiative. These companies and others wishing to join are expected to set ambitious goals to reduce their scope 3 emissions when significant. According to data collected by CDP, about 40% of the global GHG emissions are driven – or influenced – by companies through their purchases and the products they sell. CDP’s Supply Chain Program offers companies the potential to collect valuable information from suppliers and engage with them using its unique global platform. Come to this workshop to learn about emerging trends in supplier engagement and science-based target setting. This workshop is for companies and other stakeholders interested in setting science-based targets, with an emphasis on collecting data and reducing scope 3 emissions in their supply chain.

GreenBiz 18 In-Depth Tutorials are intensive half-day sessions held prior to the start of the conference. These are designed to offer participants an opportunity to dive deeper into a topic of interest and develop tangible knowledge and skills. In addition, attendees will have a greater opportunity to network with their peers in these interactive sessions. Concurrent tutorials will be held the morning of Tuesday, February 6, and are available only to those who purchase an All Access Pass.

The move towards circular economy is gaining traction across Europe and the United States as a new approach that maximizes resource efficiency and effectiveness by closing loops in design, disposal and reuse of products and materials. An ethical circular economy emphasizes systems thinking, social values, impact and equity in addition to the traditional approach to circular economy. This workshop, offered through Arizona State University, a global leader in sustainability education, allows participants to work in groups to redesign a marketable product or service based on circular economy principles and models, apply the product to a regional circular economy strategy and complete a high-level net positive assessment against the Sustainable Development Goals.

 GreenBiz 18 In-Depth Tutorials are intensive half-day sessions held prior to the start of the conference. These are designed to offer participants an opportunity to dive deeper into a topic of interest and develop tangible knowledge and skills. In addition, attendees will have a greater opportunity to network with their peers in these interactive sessions. Concurrent tutorials will be held the morning of Tuesday, February 6, and are available only to those who purchase an All Access Pass.

Is water management at your company not getting much attention?  Are you aiming for circular water use, but having trouble making progress?  If so, you are not alone.  A recent GreenBiz survey of industry leaders shows that most companies’ water strategies have not been tapped to their full potential and that there are common barriers to adopting best practices.  Join us for an engaging session where industry experts will share the results of the survey, help you visualize what a circular model for water might look like at your organization,  and get your feedback on a new four-phase maturity curve that will help you chart your course toward smarter water management. 

Is it possible to create a circular economy in the fast fashion industry? As the apparel industry adapts to new circular models, it is posing both challenges and opportunities for how fashion is designed, sourced, manufactured and sold, and the relationships along the value chain. Learn how leading-edge initiatives like Fashion for Good are ramping up to become the catalyst for promoting circular fashion and how one brand is harnessing the power of collaboration with other brands on accelerating and scaling technologies that will be needed to advance the industry.

Setting and advancing compelling goals that stretch an organization to greater heights is a challenge across sectors, but getting it right has many benefits. Ambitious goals can accelerate an organization’s success in creating stakeholder value. Carefully crafted public goals reveal your intentions for making your organization and the world better for all stakeholders, while serving as an internal management tool and source of inspiration for employee creativity. How do you know what goals to set, how high to aim and which metrics to use? How do you overcome unforeseen obstacles to implementation? During this session, you will learn strategies for setting and advancing breakthrough goals based on the experiences of panelists from the public and private sector. Panel members will share lessons learned and educational case studies that illustrate how setting and advancing breakthrough goals is inspiring stakeholders, changing industries and creating new sources of value.

Demand for supply chain transparency and corporate accountability is surging with the public. With an increasing number of activist campaigns, new corporate sustainability measurement standards, and a growing number of shareholder requests, is your company ready to successfully engage stakeholders? If and how your company responds may make the difference. Through stakeholder engagement - the collaborative process between advocates, investors and corporate leaders influence corporate decision-making - corporations can avoid being labeled as laggards and instead become sustainability champions. This panel will outline engagement strategies built for an evolving stakeholder landscape. Experts in shareowner advocacy, stakeholder engagement, and corporate responsibility will discuss how collaboration can mitigate reputational risk and unearth win-win solutions. By examining recent trends in increasing corporate accountability, this session will examine how to avoid traps like “lawyering up”, tap external stakeholders as a resource, and how to use supply chain transparency and disclosure to your advantage.

GreenBiz research shows 84 percent of companies are setting targets to procure renewable electricity — often to meet corporate carbon emissions targets. But accounting for these investments is far from simple. This session will discuss ways companies can report on the "positive" impact of their renewables investments in ways that internal (finance teams and business unit managers) and external stakeholders (customers) can understand. Topics will include RECs, carbon offsets and energy equity.

Businesses manage their waste based on cost, availability of services, and sustainability goals. Sustainability goals have increasingly focused on diversion from landfill and “zero waste”. As businesses and municipalities struggle to meet their goals, it is necessary to evaluate the environmental benefits of available choices, setting aside weight-based goals to look at the lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions of every option for managing materials. Lifecycle thinking recognizes the importance of the potential environmental effects at each stage of a product’s life. Focusing on just one stage or one effect can be misleading; a broader look considers the use of energy, air emissions, solid waste, and more associated with product manufacture, use and end disposal. Sustainable Material Management seeks to reduce environmental impacts by managing material through all stages of their life. It identifies impacts and action to address those impacts across the full cycle of materials products as they move through the economy – from raw material extraction to product design and manufacture, transport, consumption, use, reuse, recycling and disposal.

It is a large undertaking for companies with national and international portfolios to assess waste benchmarks and obtain data to develop strategies for operations, supply chain, and guest experiences. This session will help attendees understand how to best evaluate their choices, using waste data, product suppliers, waste haulers, and any other partners they engage. The content will cover the baselining process and how to utilize this evaluation to move the needle and develop constructive material management goals.

A new generation of “benefit corporations” are emerging among both smaller and larger firms. At the same time, the B Corp certification, once the realm of small businesses, is being pursued by the likes of Campbell’s and Unilever, including by gobbling up smaller B Corps. DanoneWave is poised to become the world’s first multi-billion dollar B Corp, potentially setting a new bar for corporate responsibility. This workshop will describe the difference between the public benefit corporation and B Corp certification, and how companies are leveraging both as a force for good.

Corporate energy buyers are actively purchasing renewables to hedge against future electricity prices and address company wide goals. With the declining cost of technologies including battery storage and fuel cells, there are new opportunities to both boost the reliability and the value to the buyer and also to the utility grid. This session will discuss the operational, policy and technology challenges and opportunities to pair renewable and onsite power assets across agricultural processing plants, hospitality and technology companies.

Join Waste Management on a Zero Waste Tour to understand what goes into creating a Zero Waste event like GreenBiz 18, from working with vendors to engaging attendees and coordinating waste services. This quick tour will provide insight into the collaboration that goes on behind the scenes. Meet at the Waste Management booth at the start of the networking break to participate in the tour.

It has been recently estimated that more than half of the clothing that we buy is disposed of within a year and that in every second of every day, one full garbage truck full of clothing is landfilled or incinerated. This example of the linear economy is straining our resource systems and has a systemic impact on other industries across the globe. These facts combined with the challenge of cycling technology that is not mature and scalable presents a dilemma in creating a circular fashion industry.

There are solutions. Recently, C&A – the fashion retailer, in business for over 176 years and the world’s largest buyer of organic cotton, has embarked on a journey to both create a more circular fashion industry and help others, by sharing their learnings, to make a similar journey. Join this discussion to learn about how they are starting this journey and embodying the circular economy in their products with the first Cradle to Cradle GOLD Certified T-shirt at scale and in upcoming collections. Learn also how C&A and the C&A Foundation are working together with Fashion for Good to drive and scale innovative technologies across the fashion supply chain.

Join like-minded attendees for interactive moderated lunch discussions around a particular topic. Each table discussion will be led by an expert or thought leader, held at roundtables of up to 10 participants. These are freeform discussions, so bring your own challenges, questions, and ideas to talk through and get to know your fellow conference participants.

Do you want to create and measure social change on an issue like sustainability—from employee and consumer behavior to social norms? Building awareness and educating your audience will only get you so far. And just using metrics like advertising exposure and social media engagement won’t tell if you’re achieving long-term change. Join this guru lunch to understand how to plan, predict, and track your campaign's ability to effect real social change, with the help of a new tool, the Social Change Method. We'll link traditional thinking and recent findings about what influences individual behavioral choices and collective change, and address how to update common metrics such as message reach and awareness with newer, advanced measures of social interaction. Learn how to see what’s coming next for your issue, employ the right strategies at the right time, and create change for the greater good.

Join like-minded attendees for interactive moderated lunch discussions around a particular topic. Each table discussion will be led by an expert or thought leader, held at roundtables of up to 10 participants. These are freeform discussions, so bring your own challenges, questions, and ideas to talk through and get to know your fellow conference participants.

Is your organization getting the most it can out of the energy it invests in? As companies around the world plan for a decarbonized future, the importance of pairing a renewable energy purchasing strategy with a strong energy productivity target cannot be overstated. Join the Alliance to Save Energy and The Climate Group for a discussion of the tips, tricks and strategies that help companies commit to doubling their energy productivity through the EP100 program while simultaneously going 100 percent renewable through an RE100 commitment.

Join like-minded attendees for interactive moderated lunch discussions around a particular topic. Each table discussion will be led by an expert or thought leader, held at roundtables of up to 10 participants. These are freeform discussions, so bring your own challenges, questions, and ideas to talk through and get to know your fellow conference participants.

There are now over 2,300 Certified B Corps and more than 5,000 benefit corporations around the world. If you've ever wondered about B Corp or want to know how to get involved, join this discussion to learn how the B Corps are leading the global movement of people using business as a force for good. We will discuss how the B Corp movement is helping companies embed purpose into their organizations, what the future of the movement looks like, and how your company (large or small) can get involved.

Join like-minded attendees for interactive moderated lunch discussions around a particular topic. Each table discussion will be led by an expert or thought leader, held at roundtables of up to 10 participants. These are freeform discussions, so bring your own challenges, questions, and ideas to talk through and get to know your fellow conference participants.

The U.S. currently wastes 63 million tons, or $218 billion, of food annually, presenting both an urgent problem and a unique opportunity to conserve natural resources, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, alleviate hunger, and create new jobs while simultaneously generating cost savings for businesses and consumers. Join Chris Cochran, executive director of ReFED, the largest national organization devoted exclusively to reducing U.S. food waste, to discuss emerging trends in food waste reduction strategy. Chris will highlight insights from ReFED’s brand new Retail, Restaurant, and Foodservice Food Waste Action Guides, which are being launched at GreenBiz 18. Created in partnership with major trade associations and many of the largest companies in each sector, the guides are designed to help industry leaders develop and implement food waste reduction strategies.

Join like-minded attendees for interactive moderated lunch discussions around a particular topic. Each table discussion will be led by an expert or thought leader, held at roundtables of up to 10 participants. These are freeform discussions, so bring your own challenges, questions, and ideas to talk through and get to know your fellow conference participants.

If solving climate change requires roughly $1 trillion annually for the next 30 years, how do we get there? This lunch session will explore the breadth of climate finance strategies, including green bonds, green banks, sustainable retail banking, carbon risk disclosure, cleantech investing, and climate-smart institutional investment. Come prepared to participate in an interactive and lively discussion.

Join like-minded attendees for interactive moderated lunch discussions around a particular topic. Each table discussion will be led by an expert or thought leader, held at roundtables of up to 10 participants. These are freeform discussions, so bring your own challenges, questions, and ideas to talk through and get to know your fellow conference participants.

Public-private partnerships are a primary organizing vehicle for taking on challenges and realizing opportunities – with the potential to transform cities, industries and societies toward resilient and regenerative models. This session launches an exploration of the state-of-the-art of the varied and delicate organizing structures behind the PPP moniker. It will share and solicit examples of PPPs addressing a wide range of objectives. It will then ask participants to help shape the key questions we must ask and answer in order to expedite and accelerate the design, formation, financing and operation of effective PPPs.

Join like-minded attendees for interactive moderated lunch discussions around a particular topic. Each table discussion will be led by an expert or thought leader, held at roundtables of up to 10 participants. These are freeform discussions, so bring your own challenges, questions, and ideas to talk through and get to know your fellow conference participants.

From 2013 to 2016 the amount of mandatory or voluntary regulations that either require or encourage organizations to report sustainability related information more than doubled from 180 to 383 regulations. And the number continues to grow. How can companies keep track and know that they are meeting all the required regulations? Join us as we discuss this growing phenomenon and how companies can meet the expectations while also benefiting from disclosure in our complex global economy.

Join like-minded attendees for interactive moderated lunch discussions around a particular topic. Each table discussion will be led by an expert or thought leader, held at roundtables of up to 10 participants. These are freeform discussions, so bring your own challenges, questions, and ideas to talk through and get to know your fellow conference participants.

Technology has the power to unlock deeper and more meaningful engagement towards sustainability. This table discussion will focus on how technology can aid sustainability initiatives within the supply chain, how companies are using technology to support their efforts today, and what opportunities lie in the future. The Sustainable Apparel Coalition’s Higg Index is one example of an online platform helping leading global apparel and footwear companies measure sustainability performance and improvements today. This is an opportunity to share insights and brainstorm ideas with other companies and industries.

Join like-minded attendees for interactive moderated lunch discussions around a particular topic. Each table discussion will be led by an expert or thought leader, held at roundtables of up to 10 participants. These are freeform discussions, so bring your own challenges, questions, and ideas to talk through and get to know your fellow conference participants.

We’ve seen a recent cadre of CEO activism movements regarding climate change, human rights, diversity and other hot-button issues. In this session, we’ll share recent research regarding employee and stakeholder expectations regarding CEO activism and discuss the role of sustainability leaders in fostering corporate activism. How can corporate sustainability teams support or influence climate change and sustainability activism in their leadership? What does this mean in terms of employee engagement? What are the potential risks and rewards regarding corporate sustainability reputation? We’ll share case studies and lessons learned regarding effective CEO activism. And, we’ll discuss the role, opportunities and challenges that corporate sustainability leaders for consideration to advance effective CEO advocacy.

Join like-minded attendees for interactive moderated lunch discussions around a particular topic. Each table discussion will be led by an expert or thought leader, held at roundtables of up to 10 participants. These are freeform discussions, so bring your own challenges, questions, and ideas to talk through and get to know your fellow conference participants.

The EPA estimates 75% of the American waste stream is recyclable, but we only recycle 30% of it. When unsure about whether an item can be recycled, 50% say they throw the item away. Addressing waste in the work place or any location can be the key to unlocking sustainable initiatives that actually stick.  Talk trash with recycling  experts from TerraCycle to learn the psychology of trash.

Join like-minded attendees for interactive moderated lunch discussions around a particular topic. Each table discussion will be led by an expert or thought leader, held at roundtables of up to 10 participants. These are freeform discussions, so bring your own challenges, questions, and ideas to talk through and get to know your fellow conference participants.

Companies with a clear sense of purpose and social impact are increasingly attractive to today’s workforce. Those that effectively integrate social and environmental impact into their businesses also enjoy better employee engagement, productivity and retention. Join this discussion for a deep dive on Salesforce's 1-1-1 integrated philanthropy model and how pledging just 1% of resources and employee time early on can help build a culture of community engagement and establish a strong foundation for additional corporate impact programs as your company matures.

Join like-minded attendees for interactive moderated lunch discussions around a particular topic. Each table discussion will be led by an expert or thought leader, held at roundtables of up to 10 participants. These are freeform discussions, so bring your own challenges, questions, and ideas to talk through and get to know your fellow conference participants.

This in-depth discussion will address the "why," "what" and "how" of business advocacy for clean economy policies at the state and federal levels. We'll explore the need and opportunities for clean economy businesses to show up at the policy table, the bills coming up at the federal level that can determine markets for clean energy, climate and sustainability products, and the platforms for efficient and effective policy advocacy.

Senior management and boards are facing growing pressures from investors, customers, and regulators to be able to answer this question: what is climate change doing to your organization? In response, management teams will need a clear and common framework to assess and report on related risk, strategy and opportunity associated with climate resilience. This session will provide an overview of why your company needs to define its climate resilience and approaches it can adopt to assess its climate resilience, including the implications of the recommendations of the Financial Stability Board’s Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) and the application of scenario stress-testing to assess climate resilience. Join this session to hear how organizations are working to apply these recommendations, the challenges they have faced in assessing climate resilience, and solutions they have developed.

What if corporations had an intelligent and automated real-time way to secure large-scale, last mile data on their CSR and Sustainability performance from across geographies? How are corporations scaling social impact without losing sight of all that goes into a citizenship or a sustainability program? Join this panel discussion with leaders from Fortune 500 companies to understand how technology is transforming impact measurement and management, by ensuring that every development dollar is made to work harder.

Every sustainability strategy requires some key components that make it successful – such as a vision, a roadmap and a clear set of targets. Equally, a sustainability campaign requires authenticity, crisp messaging, targeted communications and clear creative to cut through the clutter. Either without the other can fail. This approach is what we call Logic and Magic. We’ve seen this happen many times - Logic without the Magic stays niche and wonky. Magic without Logic becomes greenwash. So how can sustainability, marketing and communications practitioners connect the dots between the two and make sure their efforts pay off? Join Futerra to decode the sweet spot between logic and magic – and learn how to create your own map for success. We’ll begin with a brief set up on why we believe the Logic + Magic framing works, move on to a short panel discussion on the components of Logic and Magic with two-three sustainability leaders and culminate with audience questions.

Markets and businesses are already receiving sustainability information, but is natural capital dropping off priority lists too easily? Making decisions based on only partial information leaves investors and companies open to risks and missed opportunities. In this interactive session you’ll explore the link between natural capital, finance and decision-making by jumping into the shoes of a decision-maker who needs to manage trade-offs, preferences, risks and opportunities with the information you have at hand.

Are you 2° Company?  If you are not, join the crowd.  If you are, well done!  Join us for a lively discussion where we explore why this is a hot topic, how investors are thinking about this issue and using company data, and how companies can respond.

Renewable natural gas (RNG) can be an important alternative to diesel and gasoline for companies looking to lower their carbon footprint and contribute to a healthier environment. However, there are a number of myths and mistaken assumptions about RNG that may be holding back greater adoption. This workshop will help clear the air as representatives from UPS, Clean Energy, and the RNG Coalition help attendees understand the difference between fossil extracted versus renewable natural gas and why industry leaders in the transportation industry are choosing to make the switch from fossil fuels to RNG.

Many companies have ambitious goals to eliminate waste at the end of their product's lives, including ensuring their packaging is recyclable, leveraging their brands to engage consumers, ensuring consumers have access to comprehensive recycling infrastructure, investing in emerging technology to improve recycling, and incorporating PCR into their packaging and products to drive the market for recycled commodities. In this session, these companies will discuss how massive corporations like theirs intend take on these goals, how to set and achieve ambitious goals around waste, and the need for partnerships and cross-industry collaboration to solve an issue that is bigger than their company.

Arizona State University workforce development programs for solar PV and microgrid technicians will highlight the Mobile Microgrid Training Platform for hands-on training in deployment, component integration, system operation, troubleshooting, and maintenance. Detailed lesson plans and activities allow participants to work directly with solar PV, lead-acid and lithium-ion batteries, a backup diesel generator, an inverter and controller, various loads, and advanced data logging/monitoring devices. The lessons prepare participants for real-world problem solving through various on-grid and off-grid microgrid use cases and sizing activities, as well as control strategies to optimize system runtime. The unique, hands-on approach to training improves knowledge retention and instills confidence and understanding in participants. 

When it comes to increasing energy efficiency (and reducing greenhouse gas emissions) in buildings, changing lightbulbs is no longer enough. How do sustainability professionals and facilities managers make efficiency innovative and fun, and what are the big wins beyond just savings? A diverse group of leading building portfolio owners and the head of the Department of Energy's Better Buildings Challenge share some new strategies for tackling efficiency that take advantage of new financing models, help streamline the piloting of new technologies, and reinforce an ongoing incremental desire for change within their organizations.

When it comes to addressing issues like deforestation or water scarcity, the potential for change is huge at the local level — especially in developing nations. How can a multinational company convince thousands of small, independent farmers within its supply chain to think differently about how they work their land, sowing the seeds for more sustainable agricultural practices and improved economic livelihoods for the surrounding communities? This workshop will showcase proven programs from across several sectors, including paper production, food and the automotive industry. We'll discuss strategies, cultural challenges and the power of partnerships in growing a new model of supply chain collaboration.

What is the responsibility and role of business, government, and civil society in addressing and eradicating forced, bonded, and child labor? How can these groups best collaborate and engage to create meaningful impact and change? This session aims to explore how partnerships can be leveraged to advance the agenda of eliminating child labor and forced labor in supply chains. Hear from leaders across industries, including electronics and agriculture, on the role companies can play in better management and oversight of working conditions in upstream supply chains.

Join this hands-on workshop to hear learning from the Embedding Project’s Global Corporate Community of Practice on Contextual Strategy-making. Organizations are increasingly being asked to provide more than a materiality assessment to ‘contextualize’ their sustainability performance. While there are various initiatives and tools designed to aid this process, including the Future-Fit Benchmark, Net Positive, Science-Based Targets, and the MultiCapital Scorecard, corporate organizations have asked for more information about how they all fit together and what the shift to context might look like in practice.

In response, the Embedding Project has been working together with organizations and experts and developed a guide that explains the road to context. The guide provides guidance to help companies integrate real and relevant socio-ecological thresholds into their strategy and goal-setting processes. A companion casebook was developed that highlights how early pioneers are applying these ideas in practice. Hear what early leaders are doing and how this concept can be applied to your own organization and work.