Category Archives: Sustainability

Good Profile – Chelsea Katz (Kellogg Net Impact / Fresh Takes Kitchen)

Good Profiles feature members of our Good Generation who are either out there in the field doing interesting work or still in the trenches of schools and institutions waiting to make their mark on the world. Have your own story to tell? Know someone who would be great to be profiled? Please sign-up or leave a note here!

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What are you up to these days?

I am wrapping up my final quarter at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University and will complete my MBA in less than two months!  While at Kellogg, I’ve focused on Social Enterprise (SEEK) and Entrepreneurship academic concentrations and have taken several great experiential or project-based courses including Sustainability Lab, Innovate for Impact, and Impact Investing (taught by David Chen of Equilibrium Capital Partners). I’ve also been heavily involved in the Net Impact Community.  This year I served as the VP of Careers for the Net Impact Club and chaired the Innovating Social Change Conference.  In my first year I led the Social Impact Career Trek to the Bay Area and the Global Health Initiative HIV/AIDS diagnostics market research trip to Kenya. 

What did you do prior to school?

I spent three years in Accenture’s Talent & Organization Performance practice where I provided consulting services to a variety of cross-industry clients with a focus on change management, organization design, and talent strategy. While at Accenture, I also provided extensive pro-bono consulting services to a number of nonprofit organizations including Accenture Development Partnerships, i.c.stars, and Junior Achievement.  I was also very involved in Corporate Citizenship efforts and developed a collaborative internal network of social impact enthusiasts dubbed the “Accenture Network for Social Impact” and managed Accenture’s sponsorship of the national Net Impact conference.  After a year as a pro-bono consultant, I transitioned to a full-time strategic project manager role with i.c.stars – an innovative Chicago nonprofit organization that uses project-based learning and full immersion teaching to provide opportunities for change-driven, inner-city community leaders to develop skills in business and technology. At i.c.stars I managed a portfolio of social enterprise consulting projects, fundraising events, and strategic initiatives, and led a cycle of interns through the first project in the training program.

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Good & Gasp #4 – Scaling Social Enterprises, iPhone Guilt, Ethical Rankings, Philanthropy Limits

Good & Gasp #4

Scaling Social Enterprises, iPhone Guilt, Ethical Rankings, Philanthropy Time Limits

Themes that caught my attention, interest or made my eyes roll while roaming the web world of doing good:

  • Scaling Social Enterprises – how can social enterprises scale post seed-investment stage?
  • iPhone Guilt – is Apple or its loyal consumers (you) to be blamed for the Foxconn debacle?
  • Philanthropy Limits – should foundations consider spending their money quicker and winding down (dying) earlier?
  • Ethical Rankings – if weapons companies make the list of most ethical firms, what exactly do we mean by “ethical”?

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Good & Gasp #3 – Social Enterprise in Chinese, EcoMind, Common Wealth, Muppetgate, Human Engineering

Good & Gasp #3

Social Enterprise in Chinese, EcoMind, Common Wealth, Muppetgate, Human Engineering

Themes that caught my attention, interest or made my eyes roll while roaming the web world of doing good:

  • Social Enterprise in Chinese – 3 definitions of “social enterprise” in the same (huge) country?
  • EcoMind & Mental Myths – do the “end of growth” pessimists have it all wrong?
  • Common Resource Use Charges – should companies pay for polluting (and should we get some of the proceeds of such “common wealth” charges)?
  • Goldman Sachs’ Muppetgate – why do GS’ “muppet” clients keep coming back for more?
  • Human vs. Climate Engineering – should we consider genetically “making” humans more environmentally friendly?

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Book Review – “The End of Growth”

Recently read:

The End of Growth: Adapting to Our New Economic Reality (Richard Heinberg)

My grade (1 to 5): 5 – thorough account of our dire ecological and economic predicament with convincing arguments that things will likely get worse before they get better, and that radical shifting in our way of life is likely in the books no matter how much we deny or accept this view of the future

Key Ideas:

  • A sobering and well-researched story on why economic growth, and our contemporary thought and market system based on this assumption, is fundamentally going to end, leading us to a world where we have to make do with a more “steady-state” economy (and smaller world population).
  • The reason why economic growth will end is because we will likely reach within our lifetime the limits of environmental resources that have to-date never been properly accounted for – even ignored – by the disciplines of economics, accounting and finance; in other words, we will reach a state of “peak everything”, most critical of course will be the depletion of oil and water resources as pillars of our global economy and well-being.

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The Lorax Test: How to Judge Multi-Partner CSR Effectiveness?

How many of you (non-Americans) know of Dr. Seuss’ “The Lorax,” the loveable, furry orange, ultimate tree-hugging champion?

How many of you went to see the new movie in the past few weeks?

Then surely, some of you must have heard about the somewhat odd controversy surrounding this movie’s marketing campaigns by various corporate sponsors. It’s funny to begin with of course, that a movie character defined by his resistance to corporations’ greed and their historical disregard for the environment’s health, should be endorsed by a long list of corporations at the same time! Smells like greenwashing?

Not so fast. Experienced sustainability pundits like Marc Gunther have noted appropriately in articles about the issue that the judgment of a “sell-out” can seldom be made in a black and white manner. More precisely, given that we had a big set of corporations sponsoring this movie, some with better CSR/sustainability records than others, the question seems if it is possible to call the Lorax a sell-out or an earnest effort at corporate responsibility in general. Also, how can we test the effectiveness of so many companies involved in such a veritable “CSR smorgsabord”?

I guess you could call this the “Lorax Test.” What does it measure, you ask?

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Good Archives #1 – Law vs. Justice, Respecting the Poor, Sustainable Entrepreneurship, Do Good Career Choices

If it’s true that the blogosphere is really skin-deep and that we tend to stay only on the first page of any blog, then perhaps there is some value in the ancient respected work of excavation and restoration.

To that end, I thought it might be useful to periodically dig up some previous posts and put them on a little list. Since most of the themes and questions on GG tend to be not time-dependent anyway, no dusting required! Also, some recently joined folks may find interest in them but would never in a million years bother to click through the history of this blog.

Topics in Archive #1:

  • Justice – Law vs. Justice in the Occupy Wall Street Movement
  • Poverty – Pity vs. Compassion when thinking about “The Poor”
  • Sustainability – The Right to Entrepreneurship vs. Sustainability
  • Careers – An Approach for Choosing a Do-Good Job
  • Reflections – Defining our Personal Boundaries for “Doing Good”

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On Justice

Law does not mean Justice (d’oh!) – Occupy Wall Street’s Core Challenge

  • What is the viability of the Occupy Wall Street Movement? In today’s society, is it possible to ask for justice (right or wrong) in a system where legality (rules and laws) is the official decision-making factor of a country’s rulers?

On Poverty

Respecting the Poor – What You Should and Should Not Expect from “Doing Good” Unto Others

  • How should we think about “The Poor”? What is the importance of periodically re-humanizing those we call “poor” people and what is the critical difference between “pity” and “compassion”? What’s at stake if we keep referring to those we seek to help as “the poor” without thinking about what that actually means to them (and what it would mean to us if we were in their shoes)?

On Sustainability

The Dilemma of Sustainability – Should Entrepreneurship be our Natural Right?

  • If we are serious about sustainability, should we start managing or impose stricter standards on the way every day in the world new companies get started that just add to the burden of resource depletion and emissions? Should the right to economic self-actualization overrule the need for environmental stewardship? How should we manage this unbridled activity especially in developing markets where people tend to be less educated or interested in sustainability?

On Careers

4 Steps to Choosing a “Good Career” (Part 1) – Scaling of Impact

  • How should we think about choosing careers in the so-called “do-good” jobs of social entrepreneurship, NGOs, philanthropy, impact investing, etc.? How can we make the decision as individually relevant as possible to our own desires and varying needs for ambitious results? Should we care more about how much impact we are having or how we feel about what we do?

On Reflections

Weekly Ponder #1 – Defining our Do-Good Boundaries: Will my Effort ever be Enough?

  • How can we define how much we should get engaged in the business of doing good or changing the world? Should we volunteer, work part time, work full time for our cause? How much of our effort is “enough” to achieve those goals? How much is “enough” for our personal satisfaction? What does this depend on?
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Pascal’s Wager And The Path To Sustainability – Optimism vs. Fear (which motivates best?)

Key Questions in this Post:

  • Do we need more optimism to overcome the sustainability challenge of our planet?
  • Or do we need more fear and crisis to change our ways more radically?

This week I watched two talks from TED 2012 from two very different men painting two very different pictures of the future.

First was a talk called “The Earth is full” by Paul Gilding, a writer, activist and advisor on sustainability. As the title would suggest, it deals with how we are running out of resources, that we are overcrowding the planet, and that we are making too much stuff. In short, Gilding’s message is that we can’t keep up our economic growth and count on the resources to be there to support it – and us – way into the future. More likely, we will start feeling the pain perhaps already in our lifetime as we reach these limits. Two words you could probably use to accurately describe this talk would be “alarmist” and “pessimistic”.

Second was a talk called “Abundance is our future” by Peter Diamandis, Chairman of Singularity University and leader of the X Prize Foundation (cash prize for great inventions). His was the exact opposite of Gilding’s. Literally. Diamandis argues that we should be optimistic because human ingenuity, technology and a true abundance of resources will help us overcome all obstacles no matter what. He argues that we are really exaggerating the issue of resource consumption and that just like with Moore’s Law, we will be amazed by what our technology will allow us to do, like harvesting the sun’s energy and making undrinkable water drinkable. And healthcare? No problem, using cell phones we will soon be able to have point of care diagnostics that will allow emerging country people to alarm the CDC of coming pandemics. Two words to describe this talk would be “heady” and “optimistic”.

Question #1: which talk do you think I liked better? Put differently: which one did I hate (infinitely) more?

Question #2 (prize question): what is more powerful to get us to act towards a more sustainable future – fear and despair from the first video, or inspiration and hope from the second video?

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Good & Gasp #2 – Social Impact Bonds, Enviro-investing, Prediction Markets

Good & Gasp #2

Social Impact Bonds, Enviro-investing, Microfinance Failures

Themes that caught my attention, interest or made my eyes roll while roaming the web world of doing good:

  • Social Impact Bonds – what’s the next step in this innovative financial instrument for social enterprises?
  • Environmental Impact Investing – how is environmental entrepreneurship different from “social” for the sake of impact investing?
  • Microfinance Failures – what can we learn from ex-SKS Microfinance’s CEO Vikram Akula’s admission of failure?
  • Social Value vs. Social Change – is it better to talk of social “change” or “value” and what is the important difference?
  • Sustainability by 2050 – 81% of companies apparently claim they already incorporated sustainability in their organizations… are we screwed, then?
  • Prediction Markets for Randomized Control Trials – how can we use prediction markets to help make better decisions on randomized control trials?

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Weekly Poll #3 – Achieving Sustainability: How Much Do You Really Care?

Weekly Poll #3:

Achieving Sustainability: How Much Do You Really Care?

To round out this week’s orientation on the blog around sustainability, capitalism, and what it all ultimately means, I was curious about how some of us rationalize or privately deal with the challenges that an increasingly less sustainable world poses. Personally, I ended this week’s post on the subject of zero-growth with an assertion that unless we somehow “overthrow ourselves” and change our assumption that more “stuff equals better lives” – instead of just blaming today’s corporations – we are inevitably heading towards a bad, bad place.

The practical reality of this appeal, as expected, is that it is of course significantly easier to articulate a problem and call to action than to actually, well, act on it. Assuming you buy into the idea of “overthrowing ourselves,” how would you propose we do this? How are you doing this already? If actions measure the degree of our “caring”, … how much do you really care, at the end of the day, that our way of life is guaranteed to be unsustainable, which will force either us or our children in our lifetime to make drastic, likely painful changes to what some of us consider necessary conditions for comfort and happiness?

But this week’s poll is not about understanding your recycling habits or asking for the number of organic tea labels in your pantry. More specifically, I am first interested if you agree with my assertion that the core problem of sustainability is based on our explicit demand for more goods, and if a change in this demand would have a greater impact than all corporate sustainability efforts combined. If you agree, then I am curious if you would be willing to change your habits even if nobody around you would. No judgment here, but I personally suspect this route is tough at best, if we look at it honestly.

As always, please do feel free to share any suggestions for future polls you may find interesting to learn more about your fellow Good Generation comrades and their views on various topics. I’d be happy to pick up on some of these ideas in the future.

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Weekly Poll #3 – Achieving Sustainability: How Much Do You Really Care?

Weekly Poll #3:

Achieving Sustainability: How Much Do You Really Care?

To round out this week’s orientation on the blog around sustainability, capitalism, and what it all ultimately means, I was curious about how some of us rationalize or privately deal with the challenges that an increasingly less sustainable world poses. Personally, I ended this week’s post on the subject of zero-growth with an assertion that unless we somehow “overthrow ourselves” and change our assumption that more “stuff equals better lives” – instead of just blaming today’s corporations – we are inevitably heading towards a bad, bad place.

The practical reality of this appeal, as expected, is that it is of course significantly easier to articulate a problem and call to action than to actually, well, act on it. Assuming you buy into the idea of “overthrowing ourselves,” how would you propose we do this? How are you doing this already? If actions measure the degree of our “caring”, … how much do you really care, at the end of the day, that our way of life is guaranteed to be unsustainable, which will force either us or our children in our lifetime to make drastic, likely painful changes to what some of us consider necessary conditions for comfort and happiness?

But this week’s poll is not about understanding your recycling habits or asking for the number of organic tea labels in your pantry. More specifically, I am first interested if you agree with my assertion that the core problem of sustainability is based on our explicit demand for more goods, and if a change in this demand would have a greater impact than all corporate sustainability efforts combined. If you agree, then I am curious if you would be willing to change your habits even if nobody around you would. No judgment here, but I personally suspect this route is tough at best, if we look at it honestly.

As always, please do feel free to share any suggestions for future polls you may find interesting to learn more about your fellow Good Generation comrades and their views on various topics. I’d be happy to pick up on some of these ideas in the future.

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