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Branding for Sustainability
New York City - Monday, October 20

Workshop Overview

Join executives from EILEEN FISHER, strategy consultancy SustainAbility, branding agency BBMG, CSRwire and Ode Magazine for a workshop series on sustainability and brand value.

Designed for CEOs, CMOs, brand managers, communications directors and CSR/sustainability officers, the informative panel and interactive work session will explore how the latest trends in branding and marketing are advancing corporate sustainability programs, creating new opportunities for business innovation and offering new possibilities for triple bottom line value creation.

Date and time
Monday, October 20, 2008
9:00 am to 12 noon

Location
Puck Building
295 Lafayette St
New York, NY 10012

Register

Speakers

 
Amy HallAmy Hall
Director of Social Consciousness
EILEEN FISHER
Mark LeeMark Lee
CEO
SustainAbility
Joe SibiliaJoe Sibilia
President
CSRwire
Raphael BemporadRaphael Bemporad
Principal and Co-Founder
BBMG
Jurriaan KampModerator:
Jurriaan Kamp
Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Ode Magazine
Mitch BaranowskiMitch Baranowski
Principal and Co-Founder
BBMG
Michael SadowskiMichael Sadowski
SustainAbility
 

Topics and TakeawaysSpeaker BiosModeratorAbout the Presenters

Topics and Takeaways

Pioneering Sustainable Brands

Which sustainability practices drive brand equity? Do certification labels clarify or confuse? How can brands build trust, avoid consumer backlash and break through the clutter?

Informed by a proprietary ethnographic study and national poll on the attitudes, experiences and priorities of conscious consumers, BBMG will share new trends, principles and practices for building sustainable brands and engaging increasingly savvy, values-driven consumers.

Leveraging Sustainability to Create Value

What market trends will determine success for sustainable businesses? Which stakeholders are shaping perceptions and driving innovation? How can businesses measure and communicate sustainability performance for increased brand value and bottom line impact?

From stakeholder engagement to performance measurement to supply chain solutions and innovation, SustainAbility will reveal how businesses can understand and address the environmental and social impacts of their products and services, how corporate sustainability activities affect society’s perceptions and trust and how to integrate these considerations into core strategies and operations.

Learning from Business Best Practice

Is sustainability compatible with scale? Is there a connection between sustainability and financial performance? What are the challenges and opportunities for sustainable business success?

Executives from Gap Inc. (San Francisco Workshop), Whole Foods (Austin Workshop) and EILEEN FISHER (New York Workshop) will share practical case studies and takeaways for building socially responsible brands in the mainstream marketplace. Through the lens of their real-world experience, gain insight into the challenges, solutions and success factors for taking sustainable brands to scale.

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Speaker Bios

Amy Hall, Director of Social Consciousness, EILEEN FISHER

Amy HallAs Director of Social Consciousness and a member of the Leadership Forum for women’s clothing designer EILEEN FISHER, Amy helps the company carry out its commitment to practicing business responsibly. In her role, Amy guides the company’s human rights program (both within the company and in its manufacturing facilities), develops community partnerships, oversees their commitment to environmental sustainability and helps to foster a climate where living the mission ranks equally to job performance. Amy also co-leads the company’s People and Culture area, together with leaders of the Human Resources, Leadership Learning & Development and Internal Communications teams. Amy came to EILEEN FISHER 15 years ago following a fundraising career with various Asian-American cultural, educational and social service organizations in New York City. Her educational background includes a B.A. from Georgetown University and an M.A. from Teachers College, Columbia University. She currently serves on the advisory board of Social Accountability International and the boards of the Social Venture Network and the Greyston Foundation.

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Joe Sibilia, President, CSRwire

Joe SibiliaAs a visionary of the socially responsible business movement, Joe Sibilia is founder and CEO of Meadowbrook Lane Capital (MBLC) (www.meadowbrooklane.com), described by the Wall Street Journal as a “socially responsible investment bank” specializing in turning values into valuation. He is also the President of CSRwire.com, (www.csrwire.com), the social responsibility newswire service that distributes corporate social responsibility news to journalists, analysts, investors, activists and thought leaders. Through MLBC, Joe has worked with a number of Socially Responsible Companies and has been widely recognized for his work in attempting to take Ben & Jerry’s Homemade Ice Cream private, while successfully preserving many of the founders' social initiatives, and advancing the connection between good corporate citizenship and increased share value. Throughout his career, Joe has purchased and sold nineteen of his own companies. He was previously the Founder and President of Marty’s Juice Creations, which designed and developed proprietary fruit beverage technologies to dispense fruit beverages at food service locations. The creation of these technologies resulted in the elimination of bottles, cans, packaging and refrigeration, and in 1994 alone, saved 50,880 trees, 20,966,400 gallons of water, 9,974 cubic yards of landfill space, 12,579,840 kilowatt-hours (kWh) of energy and 179,712 pounds of effluents from polluting the air.

Joe also founded the Gasoline Alley Foundation (www.gasolinealley.org), a 501(c)3 corporation that has incubated forty-three small businesses since 1985 and teaches inner-city and/or underprivileged persons to be successful entrepreneurs using socially responsible/sustainable business practices while revitalizing inner city neighborhoods. Joe is the husband of Claire Sullivan and father of three daughters: Kristen, Kendra and Kayla. The Sibilia family lives in Western Massachusetts with their dog.

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Mark Lee, CEO, SustainAbility

Mark LeeMark joined SustainAbility as a Director of the US business in 2004 to help grow the organization’s profile in North America and was appointed CEO in late 2005. He is responsible for creating a culture and providing the resources required for SustainAbility’s team to achieve its ambitious change agenda. He works directly with key clients and partners, especially in the area of strategy development where he has shaped approaches for a wide range of global companies in a variety of industries. Mark is responsible for SustainAbility’s thought leadership and represents the organization in a wide variety of sustainable development fora.

Previously, Mark was a Vice President at Business for Social Responsibility (BSR) in San Francisco. Mark joined BSR in 1998 as Director, Governance and Accountability, then became BSR’s Vice President, Member Services in 1999, in which role he oversaw business development, consulting, membership and the BSR Annual Conference while maintaining the Governance portfolio.

Mark began his career at Vancity Savings, a Canadian financial institution known for sustainability leadership. He co-produced their first social and environmental report in 1997 (the first sustainability report published in Canada), managed the company’s community engagement and micro-credit programs and oversaw the national Ethics in Action Awards.

Mark has served on multiple boards and committees within the sustainability and development fields for organizations including: Canadian Business for Social Responsibility; The Global Reporting Initiative; AccountAbility; The Canadian Council for International Cooperation, and The Applied Research Centre in Human Security's Roundtable on Sustainable Enterprise at Coventry University. He regularly contributes articles and inputs informed by SustainAbility’s consulting and research work to media.

Mark graduated from the University of British Columbia (Political Science, English), before undertaking graduate studies in Community Economic Development at Simon Fraser University. He is an alumni of various professional development programs including the Business Development Program at Haas Berkeley and The University of Cambridge’s Prince of Wales’ Business and the Environment Programme, and Mark was named by Ethisphere Magazine as one of the Most Influential People in Business Ethics for 2007.

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Michael Sadowski, SustainAbility

Michael SadowskiMichael Sadowski is a Director of Client Services at SustainAbility, specializing in corporate sustainability strategy, business case development, life cycle assessment and process improvement. He focuses primarily on financial services companies as part of SustainAbility’s finance team, and has worked extensively with companies in the ICT, energy, food, retail and apparel sectors. Michael was previously a Senior Consultant in PricewaterhouseCoopers' Sustainable Business Solutions practice, helping companies improve their environmental, compliance and ethics performance.

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Raphael Bemporad, Principal and Co-Founder, BBMG

Raphael BemporadAs co-founder and principal at BBMG, Raphael Bemporad is a passionate champion for a new approach to branding that puts values behind every marketing initiative and image campaign. “Our philosophy is simple: who you are is what you do,” he says. “And our process is designed to align our clients’ values with their actions to create deep, meaningful communications programs. When you do that, you get great results and move people to do great things.”

An expert in brand strategy, cause marketing and public affairs, Raphael has launched national media campaigns, drafted public policy, created consumer and nonprofit brands on aggressive timelines and budgets and managed communications for local, state and federal elected officials.

Fluent in Italian and conversant in Spanish, his experience is international in scope and diverse in terms of issues and industries. He has directed recent initiatives for clients such as Luna Bar, ShoreBank, UNICEF, Ocean Conservancy, Social Venture Network, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Center for a New American Dream. Raphael also oversees the firm’s unique pro bono initiative – the BBMG It’s How We Live Grant – which recently launched the Pure Prevention campaign to raise awareness of the environmental causes of breast cancer.

Prior to co-founding BBMG, Raphael served as communications director at Do Something, where he oversaw marketing, media relations and cause-related partnerships with Levi Strauss & Co., SEARS, Kenneth Cole and Rolling Stone magazine.

Raphael also has an extensive background in political communications, getting his start as a press aide to Texas Governor Ann W. Richards. He also served as communications director for the Texas Democratic Party, as communications director for Texas State Senator Rodney Ellis (D-Houston) and as press secretary for U.S. Congressman Lloyd Doggett (D-Texas).

He received his BA in Philosophy with honors from the University of Texas at Austin.

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Mitch Baranowski, Principal and Co-Founder, BBMG

Mitch BaranowskiA seasoned writer, producer and strategic communications consultant, Mitch Baranowski co-founded BBMG with longtime friend Raphael Bemporad in January 2003 to help clients reach and inspire the conscious consumer. He has overall responsibility for the branding firm’s creative direction and its New York and San Francisco operations.

Mitch has helped dozens of start-ups develop brands, spearheaded multinational consumer campaigns, directed viral marketing programs and advised numerous Fortune 500 companies on how best to package their values-driven initiatives. His experience spans many industries including aerospace, arts/entertainment, engineering, environmental, financial services, healthcare and technology.

“In today’s increasingly cluttered and hyper-connected marketplace, it’s important to recognize that companies no longer own their brands. They are co-owned by the consumer,” he says. “The best brands will stay true to their values but invite consumers to participate in new and unprecedented ways.”

Recently Mitch has led branding strategies for ABN AMRO, Appalachian Trail Conservancy, Brooklyn Public Library, Ceres, National Academy of Engineering, Plenty Magazine and Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government.

Prior to launching BBMG, Mitch served as managing director of public affairs for Burson-Marsteller, where his clients included Orbitz and American Airlines. He also served as vice president of corporate affairs in the New York office of Edelman Public Relations Worldwide, where his clients included Bombardier Aerospace, Johnson & Johnson Vision Care and Juno Online Services.

Earlier in his career, Mitch was a director of corporate communications for AMR Corp./American Airlines, where he managed a broad range of strategic activities, including internal communications, marketing public relations and crisis communications.

Fluent in French, Mitch has worked on assignments in more than a dozen countries. He got his start in communications working as a stringer for Texas State Radio Network and as a reporter for KUT-FM, Austin’s National Public Radio affiliate. He received his MA in Radio-TV-Film and Bachelor of Journalism with honors from the University of Texas at Austin.

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Moderator

Jurriaan Kamp, Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Ode Magazine

Jurriaan KampJurriaan Kamp founded Ode Magazine in The Netherlands in 1995 with his wife, Helene de Puy. The magazine continues to thrive there and in 2007, Ode Magazine’s U.S. offices opened in the Bay Area.

Ode’s mission is to publish stories about the people and ideas that are making a difference. The magazine for “intelligent optimists,” Ode reports on positive news in the areas of health, science, spirit, life, energy and business. Odemagazine.com is a vibrant community that connects readers from around the globe.

Before founding Ode, Kamp was an editor, correspondent in South Asia and Chief Economics Editor at the Dutch daily newspaper NRC Handelsblad. He is the author of Small Change: How Fifty Dollars Changes the World and Because People Matter. Ode Magazine in the Netherlands recently published its 100th issue.

He lives in Mill Valley, California with his partner and spouse Helene de Puy and their four children.

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About the Presenters

BBMG is a leading branding and marketing agency dedicated to helping socially responsible organizations harness the power of branding to improve society and grow the bottom line. bbmg.com

SustainAbility advises clients on the risks and opportunities associated with corporate responsibility and sustainable development. Working at the intersection of market forces and societal expectations, SustainAbility seeks solutions to social and environmental challenges that deliver long-term value. SustainAbility.com

Ode Magazine is a print and online publication about positive news, about the people and ideas that are changing our world for the better. OdeMagazine.com

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Date and time
Monday, October 20, 2008
9:00 am to 12 noon

Location
Puck Building
295 Lafayette St
New York, NY 10012

Register

 

Ode Magazine CSRwire BBMG SustainAbility