Business, civic and neighborhood leaders are rubbing shoulders at the City of Cleveland's fifth annual sustainability summit this week. Past summits have created new businesses and new city policies,
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View full sizeJenita McGowan, chief of sustainability for the City of Cleveland, welcomed more than 500 attending the city's fifth annual sustainability summit Thursday at Cleveland Public Auditorium. The summits are designed to give businesses, universities and civic and neighborhood groups a way to meet and develop new strategies. Many committees formed during previous summits have become either businesses or formal advocacy groups, she said. CLEVELAND--Environmentalism merged with people empowerment and corporate good Thursday at the City of Cleveland's fifth annual sustainability summit.
John Montgomery, a California-based author, lawyer and entrepreneur, told the more than 500 attending the opening day of the summit that some states now allow companies to incorporate as "benefit corporations."
Montgomery was the keynote speaker on a day when more than 500 corporate, civic and institutional leaders taking part in the summit, got a first look at the city's Climate Action Plan, a kind of handbook developed by more than 50 Cleveland groups to cut the carbon dioxide emissions of city businesses, industries and homes.
Under the guidance of CWRU's Weatherhead School of management professors David Cooperrider and Ron Fry, the hundreds of participants organized themselves into working groups with the task of figuring out how to put the climate plan into action over the next four decades - a challenge for a town that still contains heavy manufacturing.
Montgomery's tutorial on the creation of the benefit corporation appeared designed to show how corporations can play a role.
The way a business is incorporated can lower its impact on the environment, he said, and even contribute to a more civil society.
Sportswear maker Patagonia, Inc., is an example, said Montgomery. Patagonia has as its corporate goal not only to maximize profits but also to help improve people's lives and to limit the impact is operations have on the environment.
The board of directors in charge of a benefit corporation is legally charged with keeping profits up, said Montgomery, but also charged with reporting how the corporation's actions have benefited society and the extent of its impact on the environment.
Ordinary people can accelerate the development of benefit corporations, he said.
"Health and sustainability are the fastest growing (issues) in the country," he said. "We the people, as consumers, have an enormous amount of power and this power gives us leverage to help companies get with the sustainability program."
The Ohio State Bar Association is looking into the benefit corporations, Montgomery said in an interview.
Delaware, where thousands of companies are incorporated, has already established the legal structure to incorporate as a benefit corporation, he said.
There are now 340 benefit corporations in the nation, including 108 in California, Montgomery said.
A benefit corporation is actually the legal manifestation of the sustainability movement, he said.
And that movement is not only supported by the public. It also has captured the imagination of businesses, not only of small, forward-looking companies, but also of global corporations, he said.
Many of these companies have already adopted sustainable business practices, whether by reducing packaging or relying more on solar power and installing energy efficient lighting, or constructing energy efficient new buildings.
Mayor Frank Jackson opened this year's summit with an explanation of why in 2009 he launched Sustainable Cleveland 2019 and what the city itself has accomplished in the first five years.
"I founded Sustainable Cleveland because I saw an opportunity to prepare Cleveland for the future, an opportunity to build a sustainable economy," he said in opening remarks.
"A sustainable economy means meting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs," he said.
Jenita McGowan, the city's chief of sustainability, took the crowd through a bit of the city's environmental history, from the oil fire on the Cuyahoga River in 1968 to the present lakefront development to the goals the city hopes to meet by 2019.
The annual summits have brought business leaders, academics, and environmental advocates together - not only for the two days spent at Cleveland Public Auditorium, she said in an interview, but throughout the year in working groups that have been created during the summits.
As in previous years, there are many businesses participating. Eaton Corp., FirstEnergy Solutions, Parker Hannifin, Sherwin Williams, Key Bank, the Cleveland Clinic, University Hospitals, Lubrizol and Nordson Corp. were among the dozens of corporations who sent representatives.