The Fowler Center for Sustainable Value at the Weatherhead School of Management at Case Western Reserve University has recently introduced a new form of sustainable consulting for small and medium-sized businesses.

In partnership with True Market Solutions, a San Francisco-based company, the Fowler Center introduced its Sustainability Circles initiative in October. The effort aims to help such businesses enhance their performance by fully integrating sustainable business practices into what they do.

The Fowler Center's Sustainability Circles include both peer-based learning and professional advising. The program brings up to nine organizations at a time into a peer learning community for one day a month for six months. Sustainable business practice topics range from the built environment to operational environments.

At the end of the process, Sustainability Circles participants walk away with specific outcomes that are intended to help them transition into more sustainable, effective businesses. Such results include a complete carbon footprint analysis, an initial project and a customized Sustainability Action Plan.

"This is about a whole new lens for business," says Beau Daane, Manager of the Fowler Center. "In a world with rising customer expectations and declining natural resources, businesses have to consider sustainable value or they'll be left in the dust. For us, this is where the scholarship meets the practice."

Source: Beau Daane
Writer: Lee Chilcote