August 12, 2010

• ACCO Announces Fall 2010 Climate Change Leadership Series Programs
• ACCO Hosts Board and Community Meeting in DC
• Research Report: Organizational Structures and Climate Governance
• ACCO Talks Supply Chain
• ACCO Member Spotlight: Jeannie Renne-Malone (HDR Inc.)
• Events Calendar

ACCO recently announced a dynamic series of events that it will be hosting this fall as a part of the Climate Change Leadership Series (CCLS). CCLS is a series of events designed to bring together subject matter experts, industry leaders, government officials, ACCO community members and partners and a variety of other interested participants to discuss the business, economic and operating implications of climate change.

Healthy Hospitals: Changing Climate in Healthcare Institutions (Sept. 29, 2010 – Washington, DC)

The healthcare community ranks amongst the top sectors in terms of gross energy intensity in commercial buildings. The U.S. EPA estimates that 30% of the healthcare sector's current energy use — or $1.95 billion — could be reduced without sacrificing quality of care through a shift toward energy efficiency and renewable energy sources. Additionally, the World Health Organization (WHO) reports that climate change is already (and will increasingly) causing a range of complex health impacts, including temperature-related illness and death, injuries and illnesses due to extreme weather events, the spread of infectious disease vectors, increases in water borne illnesses, and wide-ranging impacts from air pollution.

The Healthy Hospitals conference is the first of the CCLS Fall 2010 lineup, and is scheduled for September 29, 2010. The program will be hosted by The George Washington University’s Institute for Sustainability Research, Education and Policy. Co-presenting the event with ACCO are Practice Greenhealth, the Sustainable Packaging Coalition, the United States Green Building Council, and MWW Group (ACCO’s Strategic Communications Partner).

Governor Howard Dean headlines a broad-ranging list of speakers that includes Jim Sullivan (Senior Sustainability Officer for the U.S. Veterans Administration) and Clayton Boenecke (Chief of the Capital Planning Office in the U.S. Department of Defense’s Health Affairs division). Also speaking are senior executives from Kaiser Permanente, Bayer Corporation, Health Care Without Harm, GreenBlue, McKenna Long & Aldridge LLP, Perkins & Will, and MWW Group.

Managing Waste: A Workshop on Addressing Perception, Establishing Metrics and Developing Systems and Partnerships (Oct. 19 – Portland, OR)

Waste disposal is estimated to contribute as much as two percent of greenhouse gas emissions in the United States. But “waste” is just the tip of the iceberg – the life cycle of materials (including waste) contribute 40 – 50% of all greenhouse gases. Waste management can impact both these smaller “downstream” emissions but also the larger “upstream” emissions. As corporate campuses, municipalities, government facilities and universities are addressing environmental sustainability considerations, developing robust waste systems represents a significant opportunity to reduce operating costs, generate revenue streams, conserve energy, develop waste-to-energy infrastructure and improve human impacts on the environment and resource availability.

This second CCLS Fall 2010 event will focus on energy and climate implications related to managing waste, waste to energy, composting, recycling and lifecycle assessment. This workshop, which will be held in Portland, Oregon, is being held in conjunction with the Renewable Energy Markets 2010 conference and is co-presented by the Center for Resource Solutions. Confirmed speakers include David Allaway (Oregon Department of Environmental Quality), Kerry Kelly (Waste Management) and Valerie Patrick (Bayer Corporation), and invitations have been extended to senior officials at the Metro Portland Regional Government, Energy Recovery Council, the Sustainable Packaging Coalition, amongst other institutions and universities.
Additional speakers and program information will be announced for this event by mid-August.

Climate Change Leadership Summit & Gala (Nov. 8-9, 2010)

ACCO’s CCLS Fall 2010 events will culminate on November 8-9 in Washington, DC with the Climate Change Leadership Summit and Gala. This landmark event is being co-presented by the Alliance to Save Energy, the Institute for Sustainable Communities, Alliance for Climate Protection, and the Center for Resource Solutions. Amongst the marquee activities taking place at the summit will be the Climate Leadership Awards Gala (ACCO’s Climate Leadership Awards program which will be announced formally in mid-August). The two-day summit is designed to feature plenary programming each morning, networking lunches with special guest speakers, and working group breakout sessions each afternoon. The Summit will bring together thought and action leaders from industry, government, academia and the non-profit community for what ACCO hopes to become the centerpiece of the Climate Change Leadership Series.

While headline speakers will be announced later this month, confirmed speakers already include C-suite executives from several Fortune 500 companies, senior officials from Federal agencies, subnational leaders and heads of non-profit organizations with an expertise in climate related issues. Members of the ACCO community along with senior representatives from the co-presenting organizations will play key roles in leading and facilitating the breakout working group discussions in the afternoons each day.

To learn more about these exciting events, please visit: http://www.ACCOonline.org/ccls

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ACCO Hosts Board and Community Meeting in DC
Board Members Discuss What ACCO Means for Their Organizations
By Hillary Weinberg, Program Coordinator

ACCO hosted its first in person Board meeting on June 15 in Washington, DC. After the meeting, approximately 20 members and partners of ACCO joined the Board for our first Community Meeting. This five hour community meeting featured numerous discussions including prospective working groups, ACCO’s research projects on organizational structures and climate leadership in industry and academic institutions, the ACCO Climate Leadership Awards program and our Fall 2010 Climate Change Leadership Series events.

ACCO Board Meeting Recap – What Does ACCO Mean to You?

During the meeting, ACCO’s Board of Directors discussed why ACCO was valuable to them and what motivated their organizations to join as charter members. Many of the Board members cited a need to take action within their companies before legislation forced movement. All members referenced the business opportunities for taking climate change action, and the risks if their organizations do not. Other motivating factors discussed included:

• Valerie Patrick (Bayer): “ACCO represents an opportunity to further embed climate strategies into the organization (for example, supply chain and other functions that aren’t inherently climate focused).”
• Mitch Jackson (FedEx): “ACCO’s primary focus is on action (while still incorporating policy discussions) … ACCO is about the how.”
• Michael Mondshine (SAIC): “ACCO represented an opportunity for improving our company’s response to climate change.”
• Jim Sullivan (SAP): “Gathering people to develop solutions on how to address significant challenges and opportunities is critical – this needs to happen at the C-Suite … ACCO can make that a reality.”
• Melissa Adams (Washington Gas): “ACCO was the first forum that had members with similar responsibilities as mine. Also, bringing structure and order to the chaos of this function is vital and ACCO is uniquely suited to help in that arena.”
• Steve Engler (Deloitte): “Climate is an enterprise issue as it relates to risk, governance, accounting, systems and strategy. ACCO’s members and partners operate with that mentality and the organization can help drive enterprise management of climate change.”
• Peter Gray, co-founder of ACCO (McKenna Long & Aldridge): “We wanted to make a significant impact in the absence of legislation. The real leaders of change are corporate leaders. Building ACCO is a way to contribute to positive change.”
• Peter Gillon, co-founder of ACCO (Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman): “In addition to aiding in the development of our members, by establishing the professional credentials of the person in the role of climate officer, we will this person to further develop credibility in their organization.”
• Valerie Patrick (Bayer Corporation): “ACCO represents the principles of ADKAR … Awareness, Desire, Knowledge, Abilities and Reinforcement.”

What does ACCO mean to you? Please send us your thoughts to ideas@accoonline.org

ACCO Community Meeting Recap

ACCO’s Board of Directors was joined at the Community Meeting by a broad range of senior officials from organizations such as Amtrak, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the Pew Center on Global Climate Change, GW Institute for Sustainability Research, Education & Policy, and Waste Management (who joined ACCO as a charter member shortly after the meeting).
Three areas that received the most focus at this meeting were the progress of a research study at the University of Michigan on work structures in climate leadership at corporations, the upcoming Climate Leadership awards and plans of creating a working group on managing waste.

• Waste Working Group: After the Community Meeting kicked off with a meet and greet session, participants launched into a discussion on opportunities for collaboration on areas of convergent interest. The area of most significant interest in this discussion ultimately turned out to be the climate and energy implications of waste. Kerry Kelly (Director of Federal Public Affairs at Waste Management) commented that “waste-to-energy technology is already widely used in Europe as a renewable energy source. It works by converting or beneficially using materials in waste before its “end-of-life” by removing organics for their greatest energy value. However, the technology has yet to become as broadly accepted in the US, as there are only 16 facilities in the country.” Meeting participants commented that challenges with respect to waste-to-energy lie in the lack in general public knowledge, uncertainty of standards, metrics and safety, and lack of research in terms of balancing fossil fuel use, time use, public health, etc. ACCO community members agreed that this was an important area of focus and agreed to launch a working group on the topic. As of now, representatives from SAIC, Waste Management, Bayer, FedEx and EPA will help launch the working group at ACCO’s Managing Waste workshop on October 19, 2010 in Portland, Oregon.
• University of Michigan Students’ Research Project: Graduate student researchers at the University of Michigan’s Erb Institute presented the status of their study on organizational structures and climate leadership in industry and explained that the purpose of their study was to learn more about governance, staffing and culture in these companies as it pertains to climate change response. The student researchers received suggestions from the ACCO community to incorporate questions into the survey that would focus on learning about quality management controls at these companies, the nature of the people tasked with being accountable for climate change response, and to whom these people report (as well as who reports to them). The students announced that the questionnaire would be ready for distribution to companies by October 2010 and that the survey findings and reports would be announced and presented at a two-day event hosted by ACCO in Spring 2011.
• Climate Leadership Awards Program: ACCO Executive Director Dan Kreeger provided meeting attendees with a sneak peek at ACCO’s soon-to-be-launched Climate Leadership Awards (CLAs) program. This exciting new awards program will mimic aspects of the EPA’s recently retired Climate Protection Awards program (note that ACCO hosted the EPA Climate Protection Award Roundtable in Spring 2009). The meeting attendees concurred that this awards program should recognize organizations who go above and beyond compliance in an attempt to influence the general public’s response to climate change. Feedback from the meeting participants included suggestions that the CLAs focus on areas such as technological innovation, efficient business practices, etc.

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Research Report: Organizational Structures and Climate Governance
Graduate Students at the University of Michigan and Duke University
to Study Climate Governance and Culture in Industry and Academic Institutions
By Daniel Kreeger, Executive Director

In Summer 2009, I worked with a number of ACCO community members to author a paper on organizational structures and climate leadership that was published by BNA in Fall 2009. The paper has been a cornerstone thought leadership product for ACCO, speaking to the heart of one of the driving forces behind the founding of ACCO.

Following the paper’s publication, ACCO developed a proposal for a number of partners and foundations to collaborate with ACCO on a CDP-like questionnaire that would be sent to corporations, subnational government entities and academic institutions. Little did we know when this proposal was developed that ACCO Technical Advisor Kristen Taddonio would send it over to her colleagues at the University of Michigan (where she earned her undergraduate degree). Several months later, I found myself in a classroom at the Ross School of Business talking about climate leadership and governance to a full room of graduate students.

The end result? A team of four students from the University of Michigan’s Erb Institute formed to conduct research on these issues focused specifically on industry. Shortly after the team formed, former BP America CEO Steve Percy agreed to advise the group, and we began planning this project.

The quick progress with the Michigan students led ACCO to pitch the idea to faculty at Duke University’s Nicholas School for the Environment. Shortly thereafter, we had another four graduate students volunteering to conduct a similar research project focused on climate governance and culture in academic institutions.

Both student groups have put considerable thought into the process, and have interviewed a number of ACCO community members to ensure that the survey targets topics and areas that will be of the greatest value to the ACCO community. The groups are now in the questionnaire development phase and are aiming for October 2010 distribution of the survey to target organizations. Organizations will be given approximately one month to respond to the survey.

The students will begin reviewing and assessing the received data in November 2010, and will schedule follow-up interviews with a select group of companies and academic institutions to take place in January 2011. Those interviews will results in the development of a series of case studies focused on experiences, actions and motivating drivers.

ACCO plans to publish the survey findings and case studies in April 2011 and will present them as well at a two-day event that will be conducted that same month in Washington, DC.

For more information about these research projects, please contact me at dkreeger@ACCOonline.org

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ACCO Talks Supply Chain
Bayer, PepsiCo, Ford, SAIC, Motorola and United Technologies Headline
June 22 Climate Change Leadership Series Workshop in Chicago
By Elizabeth Elliott

ACCO held its second 2010 Climate Change Leadership Series workshop in Chicago on June 22 in conjunction with the North American Climate Policy Forum. The program, titled “Operation Supply Chain: Assessing Material Risks and Opportunities Related to Energy and Greenhouse Gas Emissions,” was inspired by ACCO member Rick Love (Manager of Environmental Programs, United Technologies). In a Spring 2010 call with ACCO Executive Director Dan Kreeger, Love commented that “while the work [United Technologies is supporting] with the World Resources Institute on metrics and standards related to GHG emissions in the supply chain is important, our executives look at this issue and ask how we can operationalize this and make it about the bottom line.” Subsequent research yielded findings from a 2008 McKinsey study indicating that as much as 80% of a company’s climate-related risk and opportunity resides within the supply chain.

The workshop was attended by approximately 40 professionals from a wide range of sectors. Speakers included Rick Love, Ahmad Soltani (Chief Procurement Officer, Bayer Corporation), Bill Olson (Director, Office of Sustainability and Stewardship, Motorola), Rob Meyer (Group Manager, Environmental Sustainability and Resource Conservation, PepsiCo), David Shepps (Logistics Value Engineering Supervisor, Ford Motor Company) and Jill Gravender (Director of Western Region Climate Change Services, SAIC).

Program Highlights

Bayer’s Ahmad Soltani discussed a number of approaches by which Bayer leverages process, product, and commercial innovation in order to address global challenges. He also discussed the Bayer Climate Check, a climate-relevant decision-making basis for the design of production processes to complement the usual profitability calculations. The Bayer Climate Check is a two-part assessment model, which first measures the Bayer’s Climate Footprint of Bayer’s production processes. The second part of the Bayer Climate Check, the Climate Impact Analysis, generates a ranking of measures for all relevant processes and plants to achieve the carbon dioxide emissions reduction potential identified in the first part of the climate check. Additionally, Bayer Technology Services offers the Bayer Climate Check to other, outside customers. Other highlights included:

• “Big hurdles in implementing supply chain programs are trust, capability, and capital. Ensuring a responsible supply chain is an expectation. Key elements are people, process, and technology.” - Rob Meyers, PepsiCo
• SAIC’s Jill Gravender identified three elements of success in supply chain programs: engagement, demonstrating value, and creating transparency.
• Rick Love from United Technologies suggested the creation and implementation of a universal supplier questionnaire with consistent framework, with master questions with subsets by industry and supplier standards. ACCO will be launching a working group shortly whose primary missions will include this task.

While there were some initial audio difficulties with the host site’s audio/video equipment, the overall event appeared to be a great success and was well received by attendees.

The complete presentations from the workshop are available in the Past Events Archive on ACCO’s website at http://www.accoonline.org/event_archives.html

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ACCO Member Spotlight
By Elizabeth Elliott

In each edition of CCO Perspectives, we will spotlight one of our members. This issue, we interviewed Jeannie Renné-Malone (National Technical Director, Climate Change and Greenhouse Gas Management Services at HDR Inc.)

Jeannie provides leadership and guidance across HDR’s engineering and architecture businesses in GHG accounting and management best practices. In addition to her internal role at HDR, Jeannie also advises clients on policies and technologies that reduce GHG emissions, and also helps clients explore carbon financing options to implement projects. She has worked to generate a substantial amount of interest within her company and with her clients in establishing a ‘triple-bottom line’ perspective to Sustainable Return on Investment (SROI), in which she and her colleagues weigh the social, environmental, and economic return on investment to society in addition to the traditional financial return for all project investments.

Recently, Jeannie has worked with HDR’s energy and community planning groups on U.S. Department of Energy programs, and various city-wide integrated sustainability programs, and she has worked with HDR’s solid waste group focusing on landfill related issues involving carbon credit revenue from the voluntary carbon market. Jeannie will be speaking about these issues at ACCO's Managing Waste workshop on October 19, 2010 in Portland, Oregon.

According to Jeannie, there are “so many entities that want to take early action (before legislation),” which creates both a tremendous amount of opportunity as well as an equal number of challenges. Jeanie identifies the greatest challenge she faces to be the uncertainty that lies within emerging energy and climate change legislation, which makes assessing energy prices and the precise degrees of compliance necessary extremely difficult. “Participating in forums such as ACCO is critical to sharing experiences and successes about what can be done to further address climate change, particularly in the absence of comprehensive climate policy,” said Jeannie. “The more we can collaborate and coordinate across sectors, the better.”

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Events Calendar

ACCO Events

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