The Triple Bottom Line - How Today's Best-Run Companies are Achieving Economic, Social and Environmental Success

A Big Picture Podcast with Andrew Savitz;  author, consultant, and former head of PricewaterhouseCooper's Sustainability Business Services practice

Andrew Savitz

"Perhaps you've already begun thinking differently about how your business intersects with society and are looking to find ways to improve your profitability while doing the right thing for your stakeholders. That's a great start. But becoming a sustainable enterprise isn't just a matter of placing an overlay on top of your conventional business thinking. It entails making a shift from an old way of thinking to a new one - a new mind-set that subtly or dramatically alters everything you see and do"... Andrew Savitz .

The Triple Bottom Line - How Today's Best-Run Companies are Achieving Economic, Social and Environmental Success - and How You Can Too (Jossey-Bass/Wiley, 2006) is a blueprint for executives and companies to find their way to a sustainable, profitable future in today's daunting era of environmental and social accountability. Be sure to read more for links and other good stuff you can't put in an XML feed.

Not since the Great Depression has American business been so vilified for financial scandal, environmental recklessness and general disregard for the public interest. The very names of the disgraced companies - from Enron to Worldcom and ImClone - conjure up images of shame. It is enough to make executives question whether it is even worth trying to please stakeholders not to mention earn a profit.

Their answer lies in the sweet spot.

That, Andy Savitz tells us in THE TRIPLE BOTTOM LINE, is the place where corporate and societal interests intersect. It is a new way to measure the bottom line - where profits go side-by-side with environmental and social performance - and an illuminating way to understand the often-fuzzy concept of sustainability. It is a spot that the best-run and most profitable companies have already found, and Savitz, former head of PricewaterhouseCooper's Sustainability Business Services practice, says is attainable for any business that knows where to look and is willing to change.

As a lead partner in PricewaterhouseCooper's global Sustainability Business Services practice, Savitz was PwC's liaison delegate to the World Business Council for Sustainable Development and represented the firm on environmental and sustainability related matters at the Conference Board. Andy authored PwC's widely cited 2002 Sustainability Survey- the first of its kind in the United States.

Now working as a senior consultant at Sustainable Business Strategies, Andy assists companies to assess, design, develop and implement sustainability programs from vision to reporting, including policies, procedures and programs related to human rights, supply chain management, HIV/AIDS, political contributions, environmental, health and safety management and compliance, community and investor relations, codes of conduct, and international and national standards and guidelines including the United Nations Global Compact, the Global Reporting Initiative, the CERES principles, the Dow Jones Sustainability Index, and the McBride principles. He is an expert in stakeholder analysis, mapping and engagement as well as an advisor on socially responsible capital expenditures and investment. .

Andy created the environmental advisory services practice at Coopers & Lybrand, building it to become the partner-in-charge of PwC's Environmental Enforcement and Compliance Management services. His practice assisted companies to develop and implement environmental compliance and performance management programs. Savitz also was a regional leader of PwC's Governance, Risk and Compliance services and the environmental due diligence and dispute analysis group.

Prior to PwC, Andy served as General Counsel in the Massachusetts Office of Environmental Affairs. He directed all legal matters for the Commonwealth related to environmental affairs, environmental law, regulations and policy. As the Commonwealth's first Assistant Secretary for Environmental Law Enforcement, he was instrumental in creating the Massachusetts Environmental Crime Strike Force which coordinated the environmental enforcement of criminal and civil laws throughout Massachusetts. Andy also worked on the regulatory and policy aspects of Environmental Impact Assessments under the Massachusetts Environmental Policy Act (MEPA), and on efforts to improve the Commonwealth's hazardous waste cleanup, air pollution control and coastal zone development laws.

While General Counsel, Andy worked closely with the Environmental Law Institute in Washington, D.C. where he taught courses on environmental law and regulations, compliance and enforcement, environment and the media, environmental ethics, and environmental negotiations. Working in conjunction with ELI and the Flashner Judicial Institute, he obtained a grant and created, organized, directed and helped teach the nation's first environmental training program for state court judges to approximately 75 judges in New England. He created and taught a two day communications training program for the Global Environmental Management Initiative (GEMI).

While attending Georgetown University Law Center at night, Savitz was a staff member for United States House of Representatives, Commerce, Consumer and Monetary Affairs Subcommittee. He conceived and organized hearings on regulatory policy related to finance and consumer protection. He drafted the Corporate Democracy Act, which was introduced to Congress in 1980 and presaged many of the corporate governance issues being debated today.

Savitz founded and currently chairs the Board of the Massachusetts League of Environmental Voters and serves on the Board of Directors of the Environmental League of Massachusetts and the Advisory Board of the Boston Zoos. Appointed by U.S. EPA Administrator Carol Browner to the National Environmental Educational Advisory Committee, Savitz now serves on the Steering Committee of the Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Environmental and Natural Resources Program.

Savitz was graduated from the Georgetown University Law Center, where he was an editor of the Georgetown University Law Review. He attended New College Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar, earning a degree in Philosophy, Politics and Economics. He was graduated, Phi Beta Kappa, from The Johns Hopkins University.
 

Resources
The Triple Bottom Line Web site
Global Reporting Initiative
Target Green Blog
Generation Investment Management

Tags: Andrew Savitz Big Picture Podcast The Triple Bottom Line Corporate Responsibility Sustainability Target Green

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