West Michigan Sustainable Business Forum will celebrate its work and honor local sustainable business leaders at The Third Annual Triple Bottom Line Bash next Wednesday, October 12 at Studio D2D.
One of the first organizations of its kind in the world, West Michigan Sustainable Business Forum has served as a support network for two generations of triple-bottom-line practitioners, playing a critical role in distinguishing West Michigan as the nation’s unofficial capital of sustainable business, helping to popularize green building, sustainable product design, beyond-compliance practices and savings-driven sustainability.
Each year, WMSBF honors the sustainable business practitioners that have made the greatest contribution to sustainable business in West Michigan over the course of their careers. This year’s class includes Guy Bazzani, President & CEO, Bazzani Associates, and founder of Local First of West Michigan; Deb Steketee, Professor of Sustainable Business at Aquinas College; and Gayle DeBruyn, Associate Professor & Chief Sustainability Officer at Kendall College of Art and Design. Read more

Remarks from Daniel Schoonmaker, Director of West Michigan Sustainable Business Forum, at Triple Bottom Line Bash on November 5.  
Part 1: State of WMSBF.
Part 2: Why WMSBF Exists (Below).
My first time speaking before this group, I had won an essay contest the forum sponsored several years ago. I was an environmental activist at the time and one of the things I mentioned was how I thought I was unique in working to protect the interests of future generations when I didn’t particularly like children. As many of you know, this past year I had a baby, and now I like at least one.
That has helped put the next 80 years into context. That’s the root of sustainability: making things better for future generations.
We don’t talk about that quite as much as we used to, but it’s an important distinction. We’re talking about an ROI that’s measured in generations.  Not an easy pitch to make to your boss.  Forget quarters, even years, we’re talking generations.
And it explains a bit why the forum exists. We might seem like a charity for a constituency (businesses) that doesn’t need charity.  But we don’t serve the business community, per se.
We serve a lonely element of the business community challenged to continuously to defend its existence in a way that no other practice is. And while it’s easy to think about sustainability in terms of grand ideas. Most people that work in sustainable business aren’t say, putting the rapids back in the Grand River.
Their accomplishments are more subtle…with exceptions, and those, of course, are the people we give awards.
Mostly, sustainable business is about saving gallons, kilowatts, trees and dollars, maybe some fingers or toes.  It’s finding new ways to do things a little better, and sometimes a lot better.  It’s slowly getting rid of the bad, the toxic, and making business better.
A better chair, better beer, better food, better vacuums, better working conditions, better soap, better buildings…and that gives us better homes, better air, better water, better communities, better lives…a better world for that next generation.
That’s Auggie.  Cliché I know.  I couldn’t resist.
Thank you for supporting sustainable business in West Michigan.

West Michigan Sustainable Business Forum will present a luncheon on social responsibility in the supply chain and other topics for its November membership meeting at Grand Rapids Public Museum on Monday, November 16 from 12 to 2 pm.
Presented by Feyen Zylstra.
Featured speakers are Sean Ansett, principal of At Stake Advisors, and Dale Robertson, President and CEO of the Grand Rapids Public Museum.
Robertson will discuss recent sustainability initiatives underway at the museum, including potential changes to its riverfront green infrastructure as part of the Grand River restoration project.
Sean is the founder of At Stake Advisors a sustainability consultancy based in Kalamazoo, MI, Chief Sustainability Officer at Fairphone, Acting Board Chair of Liberty&Justice Clothing, a fair trade garment factory in Monrovia, Liberia and Senior Associate and tutor at the University of Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership, Cambridge UK.
Sean will share his first hand experience working in over thirty countries and lessons of how to create value rather than destroying it. He will share deeply personal perspectives regarding the opportunities and challenges in implementing sustainability programs and the possibilities for charting a path forward.  He was the Executive Director of the Bangladesh Safety Accord covering over 170 global brands,1600 factories and 2 million workers, Director of Corporate Responsibility at Burberry in London and was the Director of Global Partnerships at Gap Inc. where he led Gap Inc.’s social responsibility and stakeholder engagement strategy. He was the chief architect behind Gap Inc.’s stakeholder engagement strategy and partnership initiatives.
Register online here.