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Why Social Intrapreneurs Must Engage Coworkers and Break Down Siloes
This post appeared in GreenBiz on February 7, 2012
by Nate Springer
Nathan Springer’s passion and profession is building better business through sustainability. He tweets on best practices as @nate_springer. He is a 2011 Erb Institute alum.
Editor’s Note: This is the fifth article in a seven-week series by Nathan Springer that will chronicle in-depth the lessons from a course at the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business on how to become a social intrapreneur — someone who makes change for good from within the enterprise.
Social intrapreneurship is not a leisure activity. The one theme among the people who make positive change within companies is not about the importance of CEO support, sophisticated strategy, or fancy tools. The tie that binds social intrapreneurs is that building momentum is hard and requires persistence, patience, and creativity.
A Flawed Global Warming Analysis in the Wall Street Journal
By Stephen Hamburg
This blog is cross posted by the Environmental Defense Fund
Last week, The Wall Street Journal published an opinion piece by a few scientists and engineers who believe man-made climate change will have less impact on the environment than the vast majority of the scientific community has concluded it will.
Debate is normal and necessary in science — it occurred even on such questions as whether smoking causes lung cancer — so this disagreement is part of the process. However, people considering this issue should not lose sight of the fact that thousands of scientists studying decades of data have established an extremely strong link between carbon dioxide emissions and rising global temperatures. The underlying physics is well understood. Continue reading
Posted in Guest OpEd
Tagged Climate Change, Environmental Defense Fund, Stephen Hamburg, Wall Street Journal
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The Importance of Mobilizing Allies for Social Intrapreneurs
This post appeared in GreenBiz on January 30, 2012
by Nate Springer
Nathan Springer’s passion and profession is building better business through sustainability. He tweets on best practices as @nate_springer. He is a 2011 Erb Institute alum.
Editor’s Note: This is the fourth article in a seven-week series by Nathan Springer that will chronicle in-depth the lessons from a course at the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business on how to become a social intrapreneur — someone who makes change for good from within the enterprise.
In the year after protestors toppled entire governments across the Middle East while others successfully occupied the global economic agenda for months, observers ask: have social media unlocked the door to widespread mobilization?
This is the fourth in a series following a class taught at the Stephen M. Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan on social intrapreneurs and it builds on last week’s article about navigating networks. Professor Jerry Davis and former student Chris White introduce students to tools and tactics that can mobilize allies in the most recent class. Continue reading
Advice for MBAs Aspiring to Be Sustainability Leaders
By Across a number of sectors, cutting-edge business leaders are integrating sustainability throughout their companies. As organizations strive to balance profit growth with the needs of our planet, it’s critical that they also invest in a pipeline of next-generation sustainability leaders who are capable of moving these advancements to new, unachieved levels.
MBAs are an important pool of talent for the workforce. Based on growing demand from companies, these students are increasingly looking towards sustainability-focused careers. To be competitive, they must possess the right combination of business savvy, hands-on experience and passion needed to grow company profits by leveraging sustainable strategies. Continue reading
USCAP Version 2.0
by Andy Hoffman
This blog is cross posted on the Sustainability Blog
The US Climate Action Partnership (USCAP), once the primary spokesman for the corporate sector on climate change in Washington, has gone dormant. Why? The reasons are multiple. Climate legislation is a nonstarter in Washington. The term itself has become toxic, that sharply divides the politicalleft and right. The collapse of Solyndra stands as a poster child for those who wish to see an end to the idea of the “green economy.” A deep recession has pushed environmental issues, and climate change in particular, down the list of priorities among Americans. Sustainability in general is seen as a luxury to be addressed at another time. Continue reading
How Social Intrapreneurs Can Navigate Networks and Power Structures
This post appeared in GreenBiz on January 26, 2012
by Nate Springer
Nathan Springer’s passion and profession is building better business through sustainability. He tweets on best practices as @nate_springer. He is a 2011 Erb Institute alum.
Editor’s Note: This is the third article in a seven-week series by Nathan Springer that will chronicle in-depth the lessons from a course at the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business on how to become a social intrapreneur — someone who makes change for good from within the enterprise.
In 2008, IBM sent its first group of 100 employees to perform month-long service projects around the world. Today, IBM’s Corporate Service Corps (CSC) is the model for similar programs spreading rapidly to other companies, but when the initial proposal was first presented to executives, they laughed. Continue reading
The How and Why of Creating Social Consensus on Climate Change: What’s next?
by Andy Hoffman, Director of the Erb Institute for Global Sustainable Enterprise at the University of Michigan.
My mind is still racing from a very exciting and ground-breaking conference that the Erb Institute co-hosted this past weekend with the Union of Concerned Scientists. So much so, that I want to share some of it with you. In doing so, my hope is that you will respond here with your ideas about how the Institute can leverage the ideas and connections formed at this workshop to create mission-relevant and high-impact outcomes.
Called “Increasing Public Understanding of Climate Risks and Choices: What We Can Learn from Social Science Research and Practice” we brought together 100 participants from the worlds of climate communication and the social sciences to discuss how we create a social consensus to match the scientific consensus that presently exists on climate change. In short, the question is – why don’t people believe the science? In short, the answer is – the messenger and the framing of the message is as important as the scientific message. There is certainly much more to this answer and, with the help of 12 Erb masters and PhD students who worked tirelessly to take notes of the conversation, we will be producing an in-depth white paper to summarize the workshop results. Continue reading
Are academic scholars “lost to the academy”? A call for more public intellectuals in the climate change debate
by Andy Hoffman, Director of the Erb Institute for Global Sustainable Enterprise at the University of Michigan
This blog was originally posted on the Network for Business Sustainability Blog
To a large degree, the public is scientifically illiterate. And that illiteracy is driving the social debate over climate change, much to the dismay of physical and social scientists around the world. Consider this interesting and disturbing pair of facts:
- A survey by the California Academy of Sciencesshows that the majority of the U.S. public is unable to pass even a basic scientific literacy test and the National Science Foundationreports that two-thirds of Americans do not clearly understand the scientific process.
- A survey by The Carsey Institute at UNH found that 83% of respondents reported a “great deal” or “moderate” understanding of climate change issues.
While Americans tend to have a strong confidence in their technical and scientific understanding of climate change, data proves otherwise. Continue reading
