This is the second of three posts on the Executive Council’s “Value-Based Sustainability” event last week (read the first post here). As official sponsor of the event, CleanTechies raffled off five free tickets to our Facebook fans, Twitter followers (@CleanTechies) and Newsletter subscribers. The author of this article was one of the lucky winners. Fan us and follow us to learn about upcoming raffles like this!

The Executive Council’s Value-Based Sustainability Forum in San Jose, CA on January 26th was one of a few “road shows” taken around the country.  Focusing on strategy in making the business case of sustainability, resonating themes of the forum included transparency; measurement; and communication or engagement internally with employees, and externally to customers and clients.

An exuberating opening keynote by Adam Werbach, CEO of Saatchi & Saatchi S, started the day.  Werbach defined sustainability as social, economic, ecological and cultural streams which flow into an integrated one.  Transparency, engagement and networking are enablers of sustainability that are to be exercised internally and externally for maximum value.  To connect the core of a business with a social issue is to create a “North Star goal” which, according to Werbach, will ignite passion within the organization, engaging employees.  For example, P&G’s North Star goal: “Sell $50 billion worth of sustainability innovation products by 2012.”

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While the slumping economy has delivered a gut shot to the CleanTech sector, many optimists are confident that a new wave of investment is coming. Even so, one must wade through a torrent of sobering news to arrive at such a conclusion.

A quick peak at recent headlines tell the story. Cleantech.com reported that venture investment in the CleanTech sector dropped 41 percent in 1Q09 compared to the last quarter. And Biofuels Digest has run a series of articles about highly regarded biofuel startups succumbing to market forces (here and here).

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Green businesses in the San Francisco Bay Area abound, and green professionals are fortunate enough to be offered an array of green events they can choose from at any time. As editor of green media outlet CleanTechies, I particularly like one event that is taking place tomorrow. The Green Chamber of Commerce and law firm Wendel Rosen are co-sponsoring a panel on “Practical & Legal Considerations for Communicating Your Message” – an event that no green communicator would want to miss (at least in my opinion). Personally, I think it’s a fabulous idea to get green media leaders together, and I trust William Acevedo from Wendel Rosen will do a great job moderating the panel, which includes the following leading local green media experts:

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