Sustainability 101: Greening Your Business for Advantage

The Apeiron Institute for Sustainable Living, the Rhode Island Small Business Development Center at Johnson & Wales University, and New Directions Collaborative will jointly present “Sustainability 101: Greening Your Business for Advantage” on Wednesday November 4, 2009 at 17 Gordon Avenue Providence RI 02905 8:00 AM - 5:00 PM. Admission is FREE, but space is limited call to register.

The program is supported in part by a grant from the City of Providence and the Greater Providence Chamber of Commerce as part of the Chamber’s Knowledge Based Economy Initiative. The intellectual property for these programs was developed by, and is being shared by, Sustainable Step New England.

Environmental and sustainability trends present risks and opportunities for businesses. Many approaches and tools are available to adopt environmental changes for business advantage, such as green buildings, energy efficiency projects, reducing waste, and redesigning products to promote green attributes. This workshop offers business leaders a practical overview of sustainability so you can identify the opportunities to take action in your business. You'll also learn new ways to engage all employees in your green initiatives, tap their best ideas, and create the organizational context for lasting change.

In this workshop you will learn:

- How to use The Natural Step framework, a set of sustainability principles, to facilitate internal teams in finding innovative actions such as product redesign, energy efficiency, and green purchasing

- How to ask Strategic Questions that challenge assumptions, stimulate creative thinking, and help negotiate around common barriers to change

- Experience the unique Search for Insight™ process, where you'll see the power of focusing hundreds of years of business experience on a real-world challenge

- Gain new connections to and ideas from your peers who are implementing environmental innovations in their businesses

The workshop will be facilitated by Beth Tener of New Directions Collaborative. She has trained hundreds of businesses in the principles of sustainability and worked as a management consultant to help businesses in many industries develop environmental strategies and management systems to implement them. She was previously the Executive Director of Sustainable Step New England.

For further information call Tomas Avila 401.228.7930 X20 or Doug Jobbling 401-598-2722