US BCSD joined friends from Yale, Marian Chertow, and the Devens Enterprise Center, Peter Lowitt, a the American Planning Association's national meeting in Minneapolis. The focus was ecoindustrial developments. 

http://www.planning.org/nationalconference/

The World BCSD members met in Montreux, Switzerland the week of March 16 and shared information and activities on ecosystem services, energy and climate change, the business role in sustainable development, why sustainability will help companies accellerate out of the current downturn and many other subjects. 

More to come soon. 

Executive Director Andy Mangan met with the Dean of the Moore School of Business at the University of South Carolina along with several professors and members of the Net Impact student organization.  The discussion centered on projects, internship opportunities and the school’s new commitment to sustainable development.  For several years, the Moore School has been recognized as a top international business school. 

While in Columbia, Andy was a featured speaker at the Green is Good for Business Conference, sponsored by the Chamber of Commerce, the City of Columbia and several regional businesses.  A sustainability strategy for the region is in development and follow up meetings are scheduled in December. 

The World Business Council for Sustainable Development’s Cement Sustainability Initiative met in Houston last week. Highlights included a presentation on cement production in China, which equals 48% of the world’s total, and the hurdles to addressing the enormous climate change implications. McKinsey & Company mapped the world’s climate change reduction strategies as a “Climate Change Cost Curve.”

Ethisphere Magazine has ranked the 20 most sustainable cities in the world, and included some pretty good references to Chicago, a city out in front on many levels, where the US BCSD has had the opportunity to work closely with the city's environmental staff and leadership. Check out the details: http://ethisphere.com/2020-global-sustainability-centers/ 

US BCSD and Industrial Synergies Limited have joined forces to pursue industrial and community synergies together across the Atlantic. Peter Laybourn and I met in Aberdeen, Scotland in 1999 and we've both worked hard to implement the collaborative synergy approach in the years since. And we've both come up with a variety of successful techniques, tools and successful synergies that can be brought together to establish a great joint effort.

ISL is working hard in Europe to help other countries there achieve the multiple benefits of the approach. And here in the US, US BCSD has been getting more interest in the process from coast to coast. 

Both groups are working in China and expect that to expand in the coming year. Both are also working with financial and company interests to design elements required to make the synergy process a viable voluntary emission reduction strategy. More to come; things are heating up.  

A professor at Harvard Business School is working with US BCSD member Cook Composites and Polymers on a case study of CCP's experiences in by-product synergy.  Deishin Lee, associate professor of business administration at Harvard, writes that "Optimization of a by-product synergy operation requires the firm to shift from a "product and waste" mentality to a "product and product" mentality, and thereby actively manage the quantities of both products to maximize profit."

The World BCSD is preparing a case study on the US BCSD's by-product synergy process as a part of an energy efficiency package to be sent to the International Energy Agency and the G8 Gleneagles Process on Climate Change, Clean Energy and SD.

I will post the case when it is completed.

And Wiley Press is publishing a book in 2008 on industrial sustainability programs that will include a 30-page chapter on our by-product synergy process that addresses the process, results, partners and potential for significant future climate change and energy efficiency reductions.

The Biscuit and Cracker Manufacturers Association's technical meeting this year in Niagra Falls (September) included a session on by-product synergy. Highlights and insights:

• Sustainable development is climbing on the priority lists of bakers and food companies thanks to Wal-Mart's declaration to pursue the idea and to help its vendors pursue the idea. Climate change and energy costs are big contributors as well, helping management pay more attention.
• Projects like by-product synergy allow smaller companies to pool material streams for a critical mass allowing recyclers to establish pick-up runs that are worthwhile to all.
  
• Bringing companies from various sectors together to work on material reuse helps encourage recyclers to be more customer friendly -- like taking materials when prices drop or taking all materials even those they may not want to deal with. In a synergy project, if they don't want it, somebody else likely will. Competition works wonders.
  

The results of the Ohio Waste to Profit (W2P) symposium that was held in Columbus on April 12 are now available at the following site:

http://www.resilience.osu.edu/W2P.html

Included are downloadable copies of the presentations, a brief report on the meeting results, and a news story that appeared in Business First describing the meeting.

We are proceeding to develop a regional byproduct synergy initiative as a partner of the Center for Resilience at Ohio State University.

Thanks to Joseph Fiksel, co-director of the Center for Resilience at Ohio State University, for arranging for the meeting and partnering with the US BCSD on development of the project.

UCLA Anderson Forecast invited US BCSD to submit suggestions for implementing sustainable development in the City of Los Angeles.

The US BCSD submission, which was published by UCLA in April following a community meeting presided over by the Mayor, focused on two inclusive collaborative programs developed by the US BCSD. One is our by-product synergy process, which is helping companies and cities cut emissions and energy use, reduce hazardous and other wastes, and create new revenues. The other is our Green Brownfields process that offers a way of resurrecting disused industrial sites as ecological uplift zones. Find the full report at the following link.

 http://uclaforecast.com/solutions/