An unseasonably warm, rainy morning a few weeks ago, I met Laura Flanagan, director of the Chicago Sustainable Business Alliance, and Peter Nicholson, director of Foresight Design Initiative, at an independent coffee shop near their N. Damen Avenue office to talk about the recent birth and impressive growth of the CSBA, and about the future of sustainable business in Chicago.
The Chicago Sustainable Business Alliance officially launched last September. Like most green ideas, it seems to have arisen pretty organically. Peter says that the seed of the CSBA came from students in Foresight's Urban Sustainable Design Studio program. The students worked on a series of "eco-office assesments" but realized that to really implement and maintain recommended changes, there was going to have to be some kind of network in place to sustain things. That idea got left on the back burner as effort was put into the birth of Sustain Chicago (now Local First Chicago) and the ongoing growth of Chicago Green Drinks. The network that formed around Green Drinks led to the creation of the Chicago Smart Business Hour (now Green Drinks - Business Edition) which started bringing businesspeople interested in sustainability together to talk and network.
The launch of the CSBA was not an earthshaking event. It started very small, with only three members at the very beginning, and a steering committee of "four or five" people. It is a much larger organization now.
One of the exciting things about the CSBA is the diversity of the membership. Membership has grown from all sectors of the Chicago economy, including finance, green building, government and nonprofit; a sort of "Noah's Ark" with a few from every sector joining together to help float a new sustainable idea along the shore of Lake Michigan. In one week, after they ran a full-page ad in Conscious Choice, membership more-than doubled from 22 to 45 members. Though not surprised to see that companies are 'getting it,' Laura and Peter said that they did not completely expect the level of engagement of the member companies in the Alliance, especially among some of the companies that aren't actively and visibly promoting a green agenda in their business. One surprise was a company that told them that the CSBA was "not for us" and sent in a membership check the next week. The majority of members are small- to medium-sized businesses, but the concerns and issues that have brought these members to the Alliance are common issues across all business sizes. Convincing prospective members to join the CSBA is really "just a matter of priority and time" for the companies. Areas that Laura and Peter see as places where they expect to see further expansion are in commercial building managers and in manufacturing, as companies in these areas become more receptive to sustainable business ideas.
The leadership in their member organizations comes from the places that you would expect in such a diverse organization; a mix of traditional businesspeople who saw the green light, 'activist-turned-enterpreneur' types, and a few 'green MBAs.' Laura and Peter say that it really isn't about the individual leaders, though, but rather about the peer-based learning network that has developed. While the Alliance strives to provide a number of programs to benefit their members (including networking, exposure, some joint advertising and connecting members to existing resources), and while businesses may join to help build their business and to increase access to customers, the biggest priority for everyone is learning from each other and helping to foster and support great green business in Chicago.
Peter Nicholson says that to reach a green business Tipping Point in Chicago, "It will take a cultural shift. If there is a market, the businesses will come. 2007 will be an interesting year to see if Chicago can develop the sustainable mindset you see in cities like Portland, San Francisco, Seattle and Vancouver."
Laura Flanigan adds, "It's also about giving businesses the tools that they need [to achieve sustainability]. They need to recognize that it doesn't even have to look green if it is a superior product. It doesn't always need that 'green stamp.' Green doesn't always work as a primary purchase motivator, but it's good as a secondary motivator to choose between two comparable products."
The CSBA and Foresight Design have a lot of plans coming up for 2007. Foresight is designing the City of Chicago's pavilion for the April 21-22 Green Festival which is coming to Chicago for the first time. The CSBA will continue to hold monthly networking breakfasts, participate in a number of workshops and the Co-Op America Green Business Conference, and will hopefully continue to grow and adapt as new opportunities arise.
