Keeping It Real

This morning I had the privilege of speaking on a webinar with SunGard‘s Jennifer Sweet, Manager of Corporate Responsibility and Sustainability about how SunGard has built it’s sustainability initiative (and, of course, how Cisco WebEx has played a part in that).

While I spent my presentation on my usual soapboxes of how sustainability drives innovation and business improvement and the vital importance of accurate measurement, it was both refreshing and enlightening to hear Jennifer talk about how SunGard is making this happen, day-by-day throughout their business.

Jennifer discussed a range of different ways SunGard is reducing travel and GHG emissions from moving non-revenue-related meetings online to holding corporate all-hands and other events online to rethinking some of their business processes. Besides learning about all the different things SunGard has undertaken, one of the interesting things to me was how SunGard took the objective and grew their sustainability initiative step-by-step to become an ever-greener company.

But, of course, the thing she discussed that was most interesting was all of the business improvements SunGard is now realizing thanks to bringing sustainable thinking into the core of the business. And it’s not just cost-savings (though that is important in these challenging times!), its time saved (and not spent in transit),  and the improved customer and employee engagement and service.

We also discussed the importance of measurement, the traps you can fall into when you try to measure sustainability, and how SunGard is finding ways to measure - often and accurately.

I have the privilege to work with Cisco WebEx customers on their sustainability initiatives every day, from companies just starting out to those, like SunGard who are well down the path. And while I am lucky to be a part of the green steps many companies take, it isn’t until I hear someone like Jennifer tell the whole story at once that I realize just how far they’ve come, and how the simple, practical steps and decision made every day add up to a company that is more sustainable, more productive and more competitive.

Watch the recording of the webinar and see for yourself how green really happens every day in a real business.

Posted by Jeff Weinberger at 02:57PM PST

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Jeff Weinberger
WebEx Green Initiative
WebEx Corporate Social Responsibility
Cisco WebEx