Sustainable Brands Goes LIVE in San Diego

After 18 months of navigating the most prestigious brand-driven sustainability association in the world by Zoom and Microsoft Teams, Sustainable Brands finally was able to go live again. They did it with a splash at one of the conference’s favorite locations, San Diego’s Mission Bay, with a hybrid event that focused on the next phase in sustainable practices — regeneration.

One of the keynote speakers, Net Positive author Andrew Winston (who was interviewed in our sister publication, InnoTech Today, in Fall 2014), said of our current position on sustainability, “We are now at the end of the beginning.” Added Patagonia conservationist Rick Ridgeway in a wonderful speech, “Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”

Regeneration is a hot new term for something that the planet does quite naturally when given a chance: continually regenerating itself. We saw this in droves during the time the world was shut down in 2020. Carbon emissions plunged. Fish and animals returned to habitats they’d long since vacated due to human action. People in Delhi, India saw the distant Himalayas for the first time in 30 years, due to the notoriously polluted air cleaning out. Nestle CEO Aude Gandon coined a term for the times we’re in: “Generation Regeneration”. “Nature doesn’t just bounce back,” she said, “it bounces forward.”

Throughout the week, experts and innovators across industries seemed to agree on three key drivers necessary for the regenerative leadership our world needs: authenticity, purpose and egalitarianism — in work, as well as society.

Below are some highlights from the four-day event, which brought together hundreds of organizations, entrepreneurs and thought leaders, with thousands more joining in virtually:

It Takes All of Us

Not only are we in the pandemic and shifting of the global economy together, but we need to find solutions together. This was the central message after Biomimicry 3.8 co-founder Janine Benyus cited an Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report that stated humanity is in Code Red. It’s time to move much more aggressively and quickly to arrive at better solutions, which also was the spirit of many nations at COP26 a couple weeks later in Scotland. “We don’t have time for everyone to figure it out on their own,” Benyus said in a plenary session.

Storytelling Makes a Difference

Throughout the conference, plenary participants and speakers kept returning to a favorite long-term theme of Sustainable Brands — the importance of storytelling. Driving sustainable policies and practices with clear, concrete stories that illustrate the before and after of particular issues always lands well; we are wired to tell and listen to stories. Heidi Hackemer, the Executive Creative Director at Oatly, put it this way: “It’s about putting out a vibe that people actually want to interact with.” Oatly is coming off a Super Bowl commercial campaign that resulted in people talking about plant-based products for days after one of the most meat-and-potatoes sports events in the world — all due to effective storytelling.

Embedding Sustainability Strategies Within Businesses

One of the big highlights of SB ’21 was the outstanding question-and-answer conversation on the keynote stage with Katie Decker, Global President of Essential Health and Sustainability at Johnson & Johnson Consumer Health, and Nancy Mahon, SVP of Global Corporate Citizenship and Sustainability at The Estee Lauder Companies. Decker was also at the conference to discuss J&J’s 10-year, $800 million Healthy Lives Mission pledge to improve the sustainability and impact of its products and brands.

Among their remarks that impressed us during our virtual drop-in:

Katie Decker: “Johnson & Johnson has been running as a business for over 130 years and had environmental goals for more than 40 years. We asked: ‘What do we need to do to remain relevant and drive this change across our organization so we can start operating differently? What is it that unites all Johnson & Johnson people?’ The answer is a passion for health. Everything we do is in service of positively changing the trajectory of health for humanity… Social impact and environmental sustainability have clear and proven connections to human health, which has helped focus our priorities and give extra meaning to our work in enhancing the sustainability of our products and practices. You can’t have healthy people without a healthy planet for them to live, work and thrive.”

Nancy Mahon: “In order for me to integrate into the business, I have to have enormous empathy and understanding for the people in each piece of the value chain. The secret to getting stuff done is to focus on empathy, on understanding, and on where you can drive value. Consider how you show up and how you drive value, which will be very different for the HR department versus R&D. So, partner, empathize, and then really understand the levers of change in your organization. For our organization, we are very strategy-focused. So, we needed to have a very clear strategy that everybody accepts. And lastly, you need to focus and prioritize.”

It was a festive and productive week in San Diego as SB’21 went live again.

Biomimickry was one of the major topics of discussion at SB’21 San Diego, forwarded by an illustrious group of presenters including (L-R) Aude Gandon of Nestle, who coined the term “Regeneration Generation”; biomimickry expert Nicole Miller; and Heidi Hackemer of Oatly.

Generation Regeneration

Welcome to Generation Regeneration — the next step in sustainability. As we work to regenerate our resources, grass and farmlands, forests and waterways, we’re also working to embed more natural processes into daily business practices. Noted Sustainable Brands founder and CEO Koann Skrzyniarz in her welcoming speech, “there can’t be a return to the pre-pandemic ‘normal.’” She also urged attendees to forge new paths ahead for a better future for businesses, individuals and the planet.

Of the various regeneration strategies discussed at SB ’21, the one receiving the most attention is already growing in its application — biomimicry. The object of biomimicry is to imitate natural processes, patterns and flows as much as possible when manufacturing, building, and growing. The world is already sprouting up with impressive buildings that use plants and grasses to beautify and insulate, with a big benefit: those plants and grasses are also pulling carbon dioxide from congested cities. More and more homes are either being built in natural settings, or featuring nature within their construction, making some houses look like they can be dropped into a rainforest and being right at… well, home.

Biomimicry 3.8 Managing Director Nicole Miller spoke about her team’s efforts to build modern design inspired by nature, building the next generation of sustainable structures and infrastructure. The examples she cited were surprising in that they are located in areas not typically associated with strong sustainable practices: the new Ford EV plant in Tennessee, a water filtration system in urban Atlanta, and a popular bat refuge bridge in Austin, TX. The latter example points to another aspect of biomimicry — protecting native species. “We want to build what it looks like to move beyond zero,” Miller said. ■