SXSWeco 2012

BusinessEarth has had an exciting week at the SXSWeco Conference here in our home city of Austin, Texas.  Thousands of individuals from businesses, NGOs, governments, and more have interacted and discussed some of the biggest problems and opportunities that lie in sustainability.

There is far too much to cover in one post, but over the next few weeks and beyond, we’ll share all sorts of ideas and insights that we’ve come across at the conference.  So keep a look out for some really interesting stuff!

These are some of the main standout topics we look forward to sharing with you this month:

• How to drive corporate sustainability intrapreneurship using internal incubators, etc.;
• What it takes to get consumers and employees to make sustainable behavioral changes;
• New tools that will allow companies and individuals to better manage their energy use;
• Social media strategies for sustainable business;
• How sustainable architecture and design can take cues from nature;
• How to use “big data” to drive energy efficiency;
• Why sustainability is still poised to be the most profitable business opportunity of our time;
• And much more.

Follow us on Twitter and subscribe to our RSS feed to stay up on these topics and others, as we share more of what we learned at SXSWeco 2012.

Engage Like a Game Designer

Employee engagement. It’s one of the most critical elements of any sustainability or CSR program, but it’s also one of the most perplexing.  The reason it’s so difficult is that most of us aren’t professional “engagers.” But game designers are.

Seth Priebatsch, founder of SCVNGR, believes the engaging foundations of game thinking is ready to break out of your game console and into all facets of personal and professional life.

Welcome to the Game Layer

In a keynote address at South by Southwest, Seth explained how the past decade built a “Social Layer” on top of the world. This social layer, created with tools like Facebook and Twitter, is all about forging connections between individuals. With this social layer, you can now connect and visualize your relationships in a whole new way. Read more >>

Don’t Recreate the CSR Wheel – Learn from Others’ Mistakes

Why recreate the CSR wheel when the path has already been charted by others? As a follow-up to our post, Does Your Company Really Need a Corporate Social Responsibility Program?, here are three ways you can learn from others to launch your sustainability initiative early and effectively.

3 Steps to a Strategy that Works for You:

Step1: Read Relevant CSR Reports

It wasn’t very long ago that launching CSR initiatives meant that you had to blaze fresh trails with unknown risks and benefits. Today, we have the benefit of hindsight, as hundreds of people have made thousands of mistakes experimenting with CSR initiatives in every industry imaginable.  Take a minute to read other companies’ CSR reports at the Global Reporting Initiative and you’ll be able to better define your own CSR goals and generate ideas from other programs that worked. Read more >>