Waste Hater: Net Impact
Waste Hater is a monthly series where we interview friends in the industry doing interesting and awesome work to reduce all kinds of waste, food or otherwise. This August, we spoke with Peter Lupoff, the CEO of Net Impact.
Tackling a global crisis requires an army, one that’s skilled, agile and resilient in the face of obstacles and repudiation. When it comes to combating climate change and securing the future of our planet, Net Impact builds and directs such a militia.
Established in 1993 as a college initiative, the now international nonprofit organization aims to create a world where business and community are not separate constructs, but mutually beneficial partners. It counters ideology that working in the corporate world cannot align with social responsibility.
From Net Impact’s perspective, doing good intersects with profit.
“The organization launched with the idea that students shouldn’t sacrifice values for a paycheck,” CEO Peter Lupoff tells Replate. “Businesses should be a force for good.”
From a few college campuses to 445 chapters worldwide, Net Impact includes undergraduate, graduate, and professional programs, with 160,000 current members and over a million and counting since its inception. As Lupoff points out, the organization influenced the modern corporate sustainability movement, and many of its former members now head sustainability initiatives at Fortune 500 companies.
This year, at a time when more people are taking heed of the climate crisis, Net Impact has the opportunity to amplify its mission exponentially.
“We’ve really been working to take this iconic brand and make sure that we’re market-sensing because there is a palpable hastening of change occurring,” Lupoff observes. “It’s very dynamic, and exciting. Our goal has always been to inspire, equip and activate emerging leaders for a just and sustainable world. Now, we have the good fortune of this confluence where people are hastening and compelling businesses to consider being a force for good, and similarly businesses being a force for good are activating people.”
Specifically, Lupoff looks to consumer interest and demand for products and companies that demonstrate social responsibility. A recent survey found that 71 percent of U.S. consumers and 80 percent of international consumers believe corporations have an obligation to prioritize their employees, the environment, and community as much as shareholder returns; 46 percent pay attention to a brand’s social responsibility efforts when they buy a product.
Incorporating sustainability measures into company culture can also boost recruiting efforts.
“In this moment, it’s extremely difficult to hire,” Lupoff points out. “Companies are competing to hire a community that is wired to think about asserting their purpose in the workplace. Businesses must increasingly demonstrate that they’re achieving their sustainability goals. There is an urgency that’s different from apathy. Businesses and corporations are building purpose into their work and seeking to achieve ESG goals because it’s good business to do so. Their current and future employees demand it. Their community demands it.”
He adds, “All things being equal, even if you believe in investing for returns only, markets are recognizing that investing through an ESG lens, you’ll avoid massive problems.”
Look no further than Exxon Mobile. In May, the oil behemoth upseated two board members when investors determined the company’s leadership team didn’t adequately address the risk of climate change in its business strategy.
“The allyship of capital markets and companies is moving in the right direction,” Lupoff observes.
Lupoff describes four “actors” hastening the change in today’s economy: people, business, capital markets and lawmakers. While he admits lawmakers are lagging, the alliance of people and businesses, and tangentially the markets, creates a wave of forward motion.
“People can assert their purpose in the workplace, as a consumer, as an investor,” Lupoff says. “And the beauty is that we all can live this more harmonious life if we reconcile the work we do and the way we consume, and the way we invest with our personal objectives and purpose.”
To meet demand, Net Impact trains and educates young leaders and professionals in the gamut of corporate responsibility, from circular economics and impact investing to diversity & inclusion and food policy. Programs challenge participants to conceive of solutions to pressing social and environmental problems, and develop plans to execute their ideas.
Most importantly, Net Impact lights an ignition for revolution.
“We strive to inspire and equip emerging leaders, now it’s time to activate and get the exponential change we need to make a difference,” Lupoff stresses. “Incremental change is a way of just feeling relatively good about leaving a future world that sucks for a future generation. We need to deal with it in real time now. The urgency is now.”
For more information on Net Impact, visit the website.
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