We are honored to announce that John Ehrenfeld as our next guest at BASG on Tuesday, April 3. Please read on about this special guest.

Dr. Ehrenfeld retired in June 2009 as Founding Executive Director of the International Society for Industrial Ecology.His continues to study and write about sustainability and culture change. He is the author of Sustainability by Design: A Subversive Strategy for Transforming our Consumer Culture. He retired in 2000 as the Director of the MIT Program on Technology, Business, and Environment. In June 2009, the International Society for Industrial Ecology awarded him its Society Prize. In October 1999, the World Resources Institute honored him with a lifetime achievement award. He received the Founders Award for Distinguished Service from the Academy of Management’s Organization and Natural Environment Division in August 2000. He holds a B. S. and Sc. D. in Chemical Engineering from MIT, and is author or co-author of over 200 papers, and other publications.

John will talk about "Getting Sustainability Right!"

Sustainability has become a slogan, and has lost its meaning in the process. Well-meaning businesses and other institutions are pursuing short-term solutions to the wrong problems. Unsustainability, the presence of environmental and human damages, has its roots deep in our consumerist, technologically based culture. Rather than struggling to reduce unsustainability using the old tired ways, these same institutions need to adopt a new vision of sustainability as the guide toward a flourishing future for Planet Earth. We will examine both the roots causes of our present concerns and an contrasting new set of cultural beliefs and norms aligned with sustainability.

We will meet at our usual venue of the House of Blues Foundation Room, directly behind Fenway Park's historic Green Monster on Lansdowne Street, at 6:00 p.m..  Space is limited so be sure to register soon.

After a break for the holidays, we are happy to announce our next BASG meeting on Tuesday, February 21 at 6:00 p.m., with our honored guest, Eric McNulty, who takes on a provocative topic, highlighted below:

Has Sustainability Peaked?
Public policy on climate change tiptoes forward at best. Four out of five U.S. consumers can't name a sustainable product and nine out of 10 can't name a sustainable company. According to Gallup, American now greatly favor economic growth over environmental protection. Despite all of the efforts in recent years to improve environmental performance of products and companies, sustainability remains a niche issue and may even have peaked. Eric McNulty has studied these long term issues and, despite this evidence, finds a ray of hope.

Eric J. McNulty is Senior Fellow at the RoseMont Institute for Transformational Leadership and holds an appointment at the National Preparedness Leadership Initiative at the Harvard School of Public Health. He is a seasoned writer and speaker on leadership and management issues with particular expertise on sustainability, social enterprise, innovation, and leadership/talent development.

He currently  and contributes regularly to BecomeALeader — a leadership portal. He is the co-author of Renegotiating Health Care: Resolving Conflict to Build Collaboration (Jossey-Bass, 2011), a book examining challenges for leaders in the fast evolving field of health care.He has written for Harvard Business Review, Harvard Management Update, Marketwatch, Strategy and Innovation, and the Boston Business Journal, and other journals. He is a frequent speaker at business events and has been a guest lecturer at MIT and Bentley College. He is also Nomad-in-Chief at Executive Nomad. Learn more about Eric at Richer Earth.

Join us at our usual venue, the House of Blues, right across from Fenway Park on Lansdowne Street in their private Foudnation Room. Register for the event as space is limited and we always have a waiting list.

Come join us for our last event in 2011. We have an amazing Double Header of talent, right behind the Green Monster of Fenway at the House of Blues private Foundation Room.

We are very lucky to get the very in-demand Bob Pojasek as our featured speaker. Dr. Pojasek is a thought leader in the area of practical sustainability and corporate responsibility. He keeps his edge by teaching two sustainability courses at Harvard University. His fall course takes a global perspective of a corporate sustainability program, and his spring course examines a local business operating sustainably at the nexus with the local government and the people in the community. Both courses have more than 100 students from 20+ countries. In 2008, Bob was awarded the Petra T. Shattuck Excellence in Teaching award from Harvard. This wealth of information is deployed to industry through his new position at the Shaw Group. Bob is an amazing speaker, and a great person. We are very honored to have him join us.

Kickstarting our great evening will be Vera Struck and Joanna Ouellette from TerraBluTeams.org. We will be among the first to hear about their new sustainability-focused non-profit venture. TerraBluTeams takes a unique approach to building sustainability-focused communities and workplaces through Human Capital Engagement. TerraBluTeams focuses on creating frameworks that nurture sustainability on a personal, community and worplace level, and this promises to be a great learning experience.

Vera is a seasoned finance and operations executive. As a trained CPA, Ms. Struck began her public career at BDO Seidman, and became an expert in investor relations, asset and risk management. As CFO of Parker-Barton family equity firm she developed investment strategies with phenomenal ROI's. For 18 years, as a serial entrepreneur, she successfully built wholesale Highpoint distribution firms she sold in 2007. Decades of advocating the quadruple bottom line, Environment, Social, Financial and Economic brought her to a full time career in Sustainability.

Joanna Ouellette spent 15 years in the British and US hospitality industry, in hotels, clubs and restaurants where she has combined her operational experience, strategic approach and creative abilities as a successful multichannel marketer. In Greater Boston, she is working with such organizations as Longwood Events, The Catered Affair at the Boston Public Library, Rolling Ridge Group and Peabody Hotel Group.v

As BASG kicks off our THIRD YEAR, we have a special guest as our speaker: Mitch Tyson. Mitch Tyson is an all-star in many ways. Not only was he named a Mass High Tech All Star for his leadership in clean energy, but he has served as everything from a legislative assistant to the CEO of a major corporation. This event promises to have a full house (and for those of you who may drive in, the Sox are NOT in town that night) since we have such a special guest. So come join us for our usual mix of learning keen insights from today's sustainability leaders, great networking, all in a cool venue and totally free.

In 2008, the Mass High Tech Journal named Mitch a Mass High Tech All-Star for his leadership in and commitment to the clean energy sector. Mitch also launched the Energy Leaders Forum, a cleantech blog on the Mass High Tech Journal and New England Clean Energy Council websites.  He has a BS in Physics, a MS in Nuclear Engineering, and a second MS in Political Science, all from the Massachusetts Institute of Technologyv

Join us at the House of Blues on June 15th at 6:00 p.m. for our next event.  This time we are lucky to hear from Susan Hunt Stevens. Susan is the Founder/CEO of Practically Green, an online service that motivates people to make healthy green changes in their lives using the power of social networks and gaming techniques to drive real-life behavior change.  Previously, Stevens spent nine years at The New York Times Company, most recently as senior vice president, digital for Boston Globe Media, where she ran Boston.com, one of the largest news and information sites on the web.  She has previous start-up experience as co-founder and president of Abridge, which specialized in datamining email for patterns and trends.  Stevens began her career as a management consultant. She also serves on the boards of the Center for Women & Enterprise and Xconomy.com. 

Susan will talk about how social media and networks can drive behavior change when it comes to driving a sustainable agenda and it promises to be a great event. 

As usual, the BASG mixes learning with networking and a great venue - all for free. We look forward to seeing you on the 15th. 

--Rich Goode and Glenn Grant

Please join us at the next BASG Event at our usual venue, the House of Blues in Boston, right behind the Green Monster in Boston's Fenway. Our guest speaker this time is Jim Nail from Speaking Sustainability.  Jim will tackle the topic of Green Marketing and how to avoid the dreaded "Greenwashing" and bring a genuine nature to your messaging.

Rich Goode and Glenn Grant, co-founders of the Boston Area Sustainability Group, invite you to a fun evening of learning, networking and advancing the cause of sustainability.

Our guest speaker this time in Amy Scarlino, President of Catchpole Corporation, an executive visibility and speaker placement firm. In this tough economy many people are finding that getting that dream job is more difficult than ever. In addition to experience, education and networking, one thing you should not overlook is building your own personal brand. Amy will go over some steps you can take to begin the process of becoming known as the "go-to" person in whatever field you are pursuing. While building a brand sounds daunting, its an important step to getting your dream job as well as building your depth and credibility once your've gotten there.

This will be our last event of 2010 and will be sure to fill up fast, so book early. As always, our meetings are totally free and a great opportunity to meet new people and learn from industry experts in a great venue.

Hi all,

Glenn and I wanted to thank our three great speakers for joining us at our event last night, as well as the over 30 attendees. Our speakers were great and there was great networking after - we pretty much closed the place. Thanks again to all for helping to make the Boston area Sustainability Group the premiere Green group in Boston!   --Rich Goode

Hi all,

I just wanted to send along a note that EnerNOC, the poster-child for energy management and sustainability in Boston, is hiring. There are a ton of jobs in Energy Marketing, Demand Management, etc. They are really growing!  I just wanted to put this out there as a friend of mine who works there sent me a list of jobs they are looking to fill. Check it out at http://www.enernoc.com/about/join-our-team.php

We've added a third speaker....

K.C. Donovan

Founder of Clean Journey, whose focus is on helping people navigate into Clean Energy and Sustainable business careers by providing Talent Community and Career Investment tools for visitors and business partners.

We're happy to announce the details of our May Networking Event. It will be held at the House of Blues Boston int he Foundation Room.

If you wish to attend please register here.

We're looking forward to seeing you all there!

We have the following guest speakers lined up for your enjoyment:

Barbra Batshalom is a social entrepreneur and the founder and Executive Director of The Green Roundtable, (GRT).

Rick Gilles has spent years as a sustainability consultant and serial entrepreneur.

(Continue on for full speaker bios by clicking "Read More below.")

Recieved this newsflash from the folks over at MassRecycle:

Urgent Action Alert
The Updated the Bottle Bill is in danger of not seeing the light of day for the 12th year running. 

What’s happening: The Updated Bottle Bill is being held up in the Joint Telecommunications, Utilities and Energy (TUE) Committee.  The committee has had the bill since last fall and has not voted on it.  If the committee doesn’t “report the bill out” soon, the full Legislature won’t get the opportunity to vote on this important legislation.  The bill will be dead.

What needs to happen: The chairmen of the TUE Committee need to call for a vote on the bill.  Please call committee members (see list below) by Friday, March 26, to make sure that vote takes place.  

Founder of the GreenLightDistrikt.com and BASG member Chris Williams gives a shout out to the BASG in the blog at www.renewableenergyworld.com.

Here is what Chris had to say about the BASG.

"One of the best, but least known about groups in Boston. Boston Sustainability Group could be considered underground. We meet at The House of Blues for a couple hours, every couple of months. There's always great speakers and the attendants are normally the whose who of the Boston CSR industry."

Thanks Chris! We hope to keep the underground vibe alive as we grow.

You can read the entire story here.
Or view the entire blog at http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/blog/all

Welcome to the new home of the Boston Area Sustainability Group. Here you will find information on upcoming events and our guest speakers. We will also be posting information on sustainable happenings in the Boston area and around the world.

Over the next few weeks we will be rolling out additional features including event registration, a local event calendar, and expanded blog features.