Sustainability Forum looks to private sector for future
Organization has Monte Sereno base
By Leigh Ann Maze
Jessica Fullmer is the Pied Piper of CEOs. She uses her skill to get CEOs from big-name companies like General Motors, Dow Chemical and Hewlett Packard into the same room together to help their bottom line and public image, and ultimately the environment's bottom line.
Aware of environmental problems such as the loss of species and the huge amounts of energy and resources used and often wasted by business, Fullmer put her start-up business on the back-burner and put all her energy into founding the Sustainable Business Forum in 1994. The SBF, which became a nonprofit in December 1995, brings CEOs together to share and learn about each others sustainable business practices, so that they can "cross-pollinate" ideas, as Fullmer calls it, and integrate sustainability into the manufacture of their product.
Sustainability is defined as the ability to meet today's global, economic, environmental and social needs without compromising those opportunities for future generations. SBF is founded on the idea that a business can improve its bottom line by improving its sustainable practices.
"Many CEOs don't even know what sustainability means yet," Fullmer said, something she and SBF hope to change. "When a business plan is envisioned, it can create a sustainable business that creates a lighter footprint on the earth and more profit because of it," Fullmer said.
Fullmer, 50, runs the SBF from her Monte Sereno home. A crew of about 40 part-time volunteers plus several student interns come in and out of her house, helping out with SBF.
SBF has organized three forums since 1997, bringing CEOs from the private sector together in the name of creating more sustainable business practices. One of the keys to SBF's success is that it only works with the private sector, not government or environmental groups.
"One CEO's choice can make such a difference. Grassroots efforts do work to a certain extent, but for the really important issues, top management has to buy into the idea of sustainability," Fullmer said.
SBF's most recent forum was held March 28, 2000, at the Marriott Hotel in San Mateo. Speakers included the CEOs of Dow Chemical, Patagonia, STMicroelectronics Inc., Interface Corporation and EPRI. Also speaking were top brass from the Dow Jones Index, The Prince of Wales Business Leaders Forum, Hewlett Packard and General Motors, among many others.
In all, 150 companies from around the world were represented at the 2000 forum. Local students are also included in the SBF forums and projects as the world's future young business leaders.
In 1999, Fullmer coproduced a television special for PBS-NTU called "Sustainable Business." It was downlinked to 51 colleges, universities and business schools.
Fullmer is now at work creating a one-hour television special on sustainability with Walter Cronkite, which will be aired this fall. Cronkite was a speaker at the 1999 SBF forum.
Fullmer's goals for SBF this year are to bring more women CEOs and small business to the forum, and to get 20,000 CEOs on the "journey" to sustainability. Fullmer and SBF now are hard at work booking keynote speakers from around the world for the next SBF forum in March 2001.
Fullmer is slowly seeing her goals become a reality. "Sustainability is in that stage where it's being defined. Right now it's hard to measure and everyone has their own interpretation of it," Fullmer said. "But in the next five to 10 years it's going to be more and more just how we do business."
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