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Sustainability at the Bottom Line
For developing nations that are rich in natural resources, sustainability is a core issue that has too long taken a backseat to short-term concerns. As Secretary of Planning and Economic Development in the Brazilian state of Amazonas, Denis Minev, WG’03, is trying to balance the environmental and economic future of a
state, more than twice as large as Texas, that also happens to
be blessed with some of the most pristine rain forests in South
America. Minev aims to preserve them.
Since he’s taken over as secretary, the annual deforestation
rate in Amazonas has been cut in half, and now stands at just
0.05%. At the same time, annual economic growth in the state
has reached 9%.
Minev says he’s accomplished this through a variety of
new programs and initiatives that encourage new growth in
green industries. After state environmental preserves were established throughout the forest, Amazonas then staffed those
with local residents, helping bolster local economies while
also preserving virgin forest. Increased investment in science
and technology is aimed at turning up new ways to tap into
the wealth of the forest without cutting it down. Meanwhile,
guaranteed pricing on sustainable forest goods — including
rubber and oil products — has encouraged new growth in
green business sectors. The state also built 28 new ports to
help these new businesses succeed.
“Our main challenge is to make the forest worth more standing up than lying down,” Minev says. “And our policies are focused on such an equation being true.”
The truth is that no business can afford not to care about
sustainability.
 Steve Weinberg, WG’82, has been thinking about sustainable business practice since the early 1980s, long before it was
trendy, and long before it was accepted as common sense. So
it’s no surprise that, today, Weinberg runs his own company,
Philadelphia-based National Foundry Products, a sales agency representing global foundries and forging plants, as sustainably and responsibly as he can.
“When it comes to my own backyard, is that I do what I
can do,” says Weinberg, whose firm is also one of the founders
of B Corporation, a Berwyn, PA-based group that promotes
businesses capable of creating benefit for all stakeholders,
not just shareholders. “At my office we telecommute. We do
carbon offsets. I work out of my home office, so I offset my
home office. We contribute to things to help businesses be
more sustainable.”
Weinberg is also a board member for Sun Farm Networks,
a New Jersey-based solar energy firm, founder of Sustainable
Mount Airy, an organization in Philadelphia’s Mount Airy
neighborhood that aims to foster “an inclusive, democratic approach to creating a just and sustainable community,” and cochair of the Philadelphia Sustainable Business Network. He’s
the real-world embodiment of what Robertson envisions the Institute for Social Impact’s environmental role to eventually
be: Identifying problems, finding solutions, contributing to the
greater environmental effort, acting responsibly.
Of course, as Weinberg and others admit, there are limits. His company grew from sales of $3 million to $30 million over 20 years of hard work, Weinberg says, and more growth
remains the ultimate goal.
“Being a sales organization, there’s only so much leverage I
have,” Weinberg says. “I mean, they’re my clients. I work for
them. In the metals business, there’s tremendous pressure for
savings. Just trying to stay in business is the biggest concern
for a lot of the people I work with. I understand you have to
guard your bottom line. Besides, you don’t do anyone favors if
you don’t stay in business.”
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