- Center for Entrepreneurial Studies
- Center for Global Business and the Economy
- Center for Leadership Development and Research
- Center for Social Innovation
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION: Helen K. Chang, 650-723-3358, Fax: 650-725-6750
Net Impact 2005: Doing Good Is Now Big Business
November 2005
STANFORD GRADUATE SCHOOL OF BUSINESS—Anyone who thinks the revolutionary spirit is dead in the United States—and that young people would much rather sip a latte than take a stand—hasn't been to a Net Impact conference lately. Today's progressives may look and talk a bit differently from their counterparts of yesteryear, but as the throng of 1,600 MBA students and young professionals at this year's 13th annual such happening attest, the will to make a difference is alive, well, and bolstered with business tools.
Indeed, with several keynote speeches and more than 50 panel discussions, the November 10-13 event at the Stanford Graduate School of Business served as a remarkably hopeful indicator that perhaps the world may pluck itself from the brink of ecological and social collapse after all. From the famous like Al Gore, the former vice president who now heads Generation Investment Management, to socially responsible business pioneers like Stonyfield Farm's Gary Hirshberg and Working Assets' Laura Scher, to entrepreneurial newbies like World of Good's Priya Haji and BUILD's Suzanne McKechnie Klahr, the message was clear: Business, government, and nonprofits are all serving as both independent and linked forces for positive social change.
It's a momentum that's been growing over the past two decades, noted Laura Scher in the packed Friday morning breakout session titled "The Next Social Leaders." "Twenty years ago, I had no models and no network," said Scher, founder and CEO of Working Assets, a company that donates a percentage of profits from activities such as phone services and credit card transactions to worthy causes. "Today people who want to become involved in social entrepreneurship and social enterprise have a wealth of resources, exemplars, and funding."
The rich array of panel discussions of topics such as business and the environment, business in the nonprofit sector, corporate social responsibility, international development, and socially responsible investing bore out Scher's words. Participants, who hailed from 80 schools around the world, were like kids in an organic candy shop—zipping from session to session to discuss green building, fair trade, ecotourism, clean energy, sustainable agriculture, and more. For those who could stand to break away from opportunities for substantive Q&A during breakouts, a career fair held simultaneously in the Arrillaga Alumni Center beckoned with the promise of values-driven jobs at enterprises ranging from traditional corporations such as GE and Hewlett-Packard to nonprofits such as Education Pioneers and the Human Rights Campaign Foundation, to smaller enterprises such as Earthbound Farm and GOOD Magazine.
The opportunities have never been greater, and neither have the challenges, noted Al Gore, who opened the conference, titled "Bridging the Gap: Leading Social Innovation Across Sectors." Values must be integrated in business, he told a standing-room-only crowd in Memorial Auditorium, because with the devastating impact humans have had on the Earth's ecosystem over the past 100 years, "it's not too extreme to say our survival depends on it."
Later that day, Gary Hirshberg, CE-Yo of Stonyfield Farm, provided numerous disturbing statistics illustrating how human beings pollute the Earth with toxins. He said he's proven with his own company and its worldwide reputation for organic yogurt that business can be responsible and profitable. Consumers are voting with their dollars for companies that are intent on leaving a lighter ecological footprint and supporting sustainable practices. "Four years ago we started outselling Breyers," he said.
Being gentler on the Earth was also very much on the minds of conference organizers, who provided only organic (and incredibly tasty) foods and encouraged participants to minimize their waste by taking advantage of strategically placed recycling and composting bins. Net Impact even partnered with DuPont, which agreed to retire 700 tons of its carbon emission credits to offset emissions created by conference activities and participant travel.
The Business School's Center for Social Innovation and its 35-year-old Public Management Program played an important role in organizing the 2005 conference. The Center supports research, coursework, and programs that bring together leaders from different sectors involved in social change.
The conference was just one of hundreds of events organized every year by the 100 local chapters of Net Impact, an organization started by business school students in 1993 under the name Students for Responsible Business. Headquartered in San Francisco, Net Impact today boasts 12,500 members. The organization was founded with the driving question: Can an MBA find a socially responsible job? Now, with so many opportunities for doing good and doing well—really well—readily available, the question might be: Why would an MBA want to do anything else?
—Marguerite Rigoglioso