International Sustainability Expert Andy Savitz Visits Ross

The idea of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has been a well-known subject taught at the Ross School of Business. Aside from learning CSR in class, Ross students have the opportunity to actively attend speaker series sponsored by organizations such as the Erb Institute throughout the year. This past Wednesday, many business students gathered together to hear about the subject of Corporate Social Responsibly and the role that corporations play on Environmental Sustainability from an internationally known expert named Andy Savitz. The event was exclusively sponsored by the Erb Institute of Global Sustainable Enterprise and Net Impact Graduate and Undergraduate Chapters.

Andy Savitz is a creative business leader, advisor, author, and speaker, with over 20 years of experience in helping corporations to become leaders in environmental sustainability. Graduating Phi Beta Kappa from Johns Hopkins University, Mr. Savitzs went on to attend Oxford University as a Rhode Scholar and earned a degree in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics. Afterwards, Mr. Savitz came back to the States to attend Georgetown University Law School. During that time, Mr. Savitz was a staff member for the United States House of Representatives and the Commerce, Consumer, and Monetary Affairs subcommittee.

Professionally, Mr. Savitz first served as General Counsel in the Massachusetts Office of Environmental Affairs, where he directed all legal matters for the Commonwealth related to environmental affairs, environmental law, regulation, and policy. Mr. Savitz was instrumental on improving the environmental enforcement of criminal and civil law throughout the state of Massachusetts. Then, Mr. Savitz joined PriceWaterhouseCoopers (PwC) to create his own environmental advisory practice where he eventually became a partner in charge of PwC's Environmental Enforcement and Compliance Management services.

Currently Mr. Savitz works as a senior consultant at Sustainable Business Strategies, where he assists companies to assess, design, develop, and implement sustainable programs. In addition to his work experience, Mr. Savitz has authored two books: The Triple Bottom Line: How the Best Run Companies are Achieving Economic, and Social and Environmental Success - and How You Can Too.

At Ross, Mr. Savitz not only promoted his new book "The Triple Bottom Line", but lectured students for nearly two hours on the importance and evolution of CSR and environmental sustainability. Breaking his speech into three parts, Mr. Savitz first gave a historical overview of CSR. He then spoke about different cases where corporations found opportunities to become sustainable. Finally, Savitz lectured students on what they can do to jumpstart their contribution to CSR and Sustainability in their future careers.

Before diving into the historical overview of CSR, Mr. Savitz defined the term "sustainability" as a method of "turning responsibility into opportunity." He explains that businesses who find the intersection between their needs and the needs of the environment will be better off in the long run. This intersection, as Mr. Savitz calls "the sweet spot," is the ultimate objective of sustainability.

After defining "sustainability," Mr. Savitz cleverly gave a historical overview of corporations and their respective social responsibilities. Starting out with Charlie Wilson's famous 50's quote "What's good for General Motors is good for my country," Mr. Savtiz explained that corporations back then modeled off the selfish idea that what's best for their company is best for the country. And it was not until John F. Kennedy's famous "Ask not what you can do for your country" quote that corporations started to become aware of sustainability. Savitz then progressed into the famous poster of Earthrise, Ralph Nader's famous testimony in Congress, and finally Rachel Carson's Silent Spring.

The most entertaining part of Mr. Savitz's lecture was when he set out to give actual examples of corporations that turn their companies around to become socially responsible. In one example, Savitz explained that Volvo saw an opportunity to pursue the personal safety of driving cars as a marketing tactic during the period where Ralph Nader fought against American car companies on the same safety issue. Volvo was able turn this responsibility of safety into a tremendous marketing opportunity, and these safety features still stand today as Volvo's main competitive edge.

In another example, Savitz elaborated on how Johnson & Johnson recalled every bottle of Tylenol off the shelves of America in 1982 because some individual decided to put cyanide in one bottle of Tylenol at a Chicago drug store. Savitz explained that Johnson & Johnson, who has long standing commitment to corporate social responsibility, maintained significant consumer trust in their brand name by taking this responsible action. This recall, as Savitz explained, evaded a potential destruction of Johnson & Johnson's image.

On another note, Savitz also explained how companies who turn away from social responsibility can result in calamity. Savitz demonstrated this idea with the famous Nike child labor case. In 1996, when people found out that Nike was paying children in Asia 60 cents a day to manufacture its products, CEO Philip Knight spoke in defense of his company and said "this has nothing to do with Nike, we pay a Pakistani government to manufacturer our soccer balls, and we are an arm-length away." Savitz then explained that this is the wrong response because it took about 30 seconds for protesters all over the world to initiate an international outrage. This was a huge hit on Nike, and over the last 10 years, Nike has spent millions of dollars on CSR efforts to re-brand their image. Savitz said that this was the first time that people realized that companies are not only responsible for their own behavior but that of their supply chains as well.