Lee Stevens and Daryl DeJean participated in the two day Corporate and Product Sustainability Conference hosted by Duke University  and the Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions. The event took place  in Durham, NC on 1/26 -1/27/2011.

The conference brought government and industry leaders to present and share firm and product sustainability programs and regulations.

Initiatives from product design, supply chain measurement and reporting standards, public financial disclosures needs, product eco labeling to communicating sustainability were shared. among participants. The need to identify key regulatory and market drivers, develop achievable timelines, and collaboration between academia and  sustainability leaders in private and public sectors was identified.

There were two foci: harmonize sustainability initiatives to minimize duplication, costs, contradiction and unintended consequences.

The second focus was to review the need for a central repository of information on sustainability products that will allow the community at large to “receive, compute, harvest, and benchmark much of this information,” according to Dr Jay Golden, Director, The Duke Center for Sustainability & Commerce at the Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions. Please refer to the following link for more information on the Institute and its research work.

Sustainability researchers from Duke University, Yale University, Cornell University, the University of California and RTI (a research firm based in the Research Triangle Park) are collaborating to create The National Center for Sustainability to speed up  and scientifically validate six types of sustainability initiatives on a national basis rather than regionally.

The Center will support firms  and organizations regardless of size, location, industry, private or government.    

Speakers and participants in the conference were: the universities mentioned above, SAP, Dell, Nike, Price Waterhouse, and REI. Prominent non-profit organizations actively contributing research such as the Sustainability Consortium were contributors as well.

The need to build scientifically based metrics for the Sustainable Supply Chain was highlighted by several speakers who discussed their own initiatives and potential examples of starting points.

The US EPA Office of Research and Development and several GSA Administrators shared their agency-wide Carbon Initiative.

The financial profession also shared the disclosure market drivers coming out of the Securities & Exchanges Commission.

The FDA shared one life cycle assessment example that the Agency hopes to make available publicly.