Welcome Event at Golden Road Brewery!

Join us for our first event that will take place on Sunday, September 21st from 12pm-3pm at Golden Road Brewery. This is a FREE event, so come out and have a drink and meet other Net Impacters, find out more about our chapter and our plans for this year, and how you can get involved! Shuttle service will be available from Claremont to LA and within LA. Additional details to follow.

For more information about Golden Road visit: http://www.goldenroad.la

RSVP required. (kerry.cramer@cgu.edu)

ICYMI – Business Development Opportunity with Dr. Hal Nelson

This past Monday professor Dr. Hal Nelson sat down with a group of students to discuss his new business venture creating a residential energy demand monitoring tool Res-Intel. Here is a quick rundown of the problem, software solution, and ways CGU students can get involved!

The problem:

• Efficiency program efforts rely on customers to opt-in which they often don’t or the one who do are “free riders” who wouldn’t invest without incentives.
• Utilities spend big bucks on mass mailings and advertising which target big consumers (ie. residences in hot climates) and by zip+4 demographics which doesn’t necessarily reach the optimal consumer.

Sustainable Business in the News

Welcome to our bi-weekly Newswire with current information on the global discussion of sustainable business. The below are select current articles on sustainable business models and issues that directly affect the question of sustainability as it relates to the triple bottom line. A brief summation of each can be found under the cut:

• Climate change: are companies prepared for the impact?,The Guardian
• The seven myths of sustainability, The Guardian
• Ethical investment: why it’s not principles over performance,The Guardian
• The benefits of Fairtrade: building future security,The Guardian
• Why the local, sustainable food movement is good business, GreenBiz.org

Drucker Net Impact Profiled in 2012 Edition of “Business as UNusual”

A profile of the Drucker School and our Net Impact chapter were included in Net Impact’s recently published 2012 edition of Business as UNusual: The Student Guide to Graduate Programs.

Business as UNusual examines MBA programs’ commitment to social and environmental themes in curriculum, extracurricular activities, career services, and more. This year’s guide is the most comprehensive to date, profiling more than 100 programs worldwide and 3,000 student responses.

Drucker Net Impact Issues First “Excellence in Sustainability” Award

Nicko Fusso, namesake and first recipient of the Fusso Award for Excellence in the field of Sustainability.

At our final meeting of the 2011-12 year, Drucker Net Impact announced the establishment of a new award tradition: the Nicko Fusso Award for Excellence in Sustainability. The Fusso Award will be given to a graduating Drucker Net Impact member who has championed sustainability in her or his work in management and leadership. The award is named in honor of our outgoing President, Nicko Fusso, who is also its first recipient.

“This has been an incredible year for Drucker Net Impact, and much of the credit should go to Nicko,” said Syd Peterson, incoming President and MBA ’14.  “Whether we were planning “Occupy Drucker?”, designing a panel to help students find internships, or navigating school politics, Nicko led our work in a strategic– yet also positive and warm– manner. Many of our projects stemmed from Nicko’s ideas, yet he supported and nurtured other members’ ideas with the same ferocity and creativity.”

A Sustainable Drucker

A system map of the Drucker School, and how it may embed sustainability into its core.

Over the last year, three Drucker MBA students evaluated whether or not the business school should implement a sustainability strategy. Their research, future vision, and policy proposals were presented to the school’s leadership in April 2012. Though a major step in embedding sustainability into the school’s core, there is still more work to be done.

Drucker Net Impact Competes in Hult Global Case Challenge

This past weekend, Drucker Net Impact members joined with graduate students from the CGU Economics Department to compete in the 2012 Hult Global Case Challenge semi-finals. The competition challenges teams to use their business skills to solve global social issues. The final round of the competition was judged by former President Clinton and Grameen Bank founder and micro-lending pioneer Muhammad Yunus. The winning ideas were awarded $1 million to help turn them into full-fledged plans. (See the Financial Times coverage of the competition here.)

This year, the challenge focused on three tracks: housing, education, and energy in poverty-stricken regions. The Drucker team spent two months researching housing issues and developing a plan to grow the impact of Habitat for Humanity International. The organization is currently on track to build 2 million homes in 10 years – Drucker students needed to propose a way to make that number 10 million.