Innovation in Sustainable Business Advocacy: Natural Step Network USA

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Regina Hauser, center, leads the Natural Step Network USA in Portland.

Ten years ago the proprietors of Hotlips Pizza in Portland had a strong vision of how they wanted their business to relate to the environment.

“We wanted to go beyond carbon-neutral or net-zero. We wanted, for lack of a better word, fecundity. We wanted to get out in the field and talk with the farmers. We wanted to be growth-positive. We wanted a lot of things, but we didn’t have the framework we needed to get it done,” said co-owner David Yudkin.

Enter The Natural Step Network USA, a Portland-based nonprofit that helps businesses create and execute a sustainability blueprint and serves as a network for social and environmental leaders.

The Natural Step Network was launched in Sweden in 1989 by Karl-Henrik Robert, who was deeply troubled by rapid human consumption of natural resources. A scientist, he dwelled on the laws of thermodynamics — energy is never destroyed, it just changes form.

Roberts developed a scientifically based — and therefore measurable — proposal for change. Robert sent the plan to 50 scientists to solicit improvements. The result is The Natural Step Network, which has been adopted by 70 communities in Sweden and about a dozen in North America.

Roberts recognized that sustainability can’t be achieved by science alone, but through the work of “islands of people with integrity,” he said.

The Portland law firm of Schwabe, Williamson & Wyatt is determined not to get voted off that island.

They turned to The Natural Step Network several years ago to help cut back its mileage program — miles of paper and miles spent traveling to meetings.

“They’re a big-picture people. They gave us a framework to move forward,” said Carmen Calzacorta, a Schwabe, Williamson & Wyatt attorney and shareholder.

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In that framework hangs the law firm’s latest environmental award, the Oregon State Bar’s 2011 Sustainable Law Office Leadership Award, which it obtained in part by demonstrating in that it was willing to leave no sustainability stone unturned. When an environmental audit of its waste cans turned up 123 Starbucks coffee cups, the firm set up an agreement with the local outlet to provide durable cups.

Justin Yuen, president of Portland-based social software collaboration company FMYI Inc. and president of the Natural Step Network’s board of directors, said the network helps businesses become more sustainable “without being prescriptive and telling people exactly what they need to do because every situation is different.”

The Natural Step Network has deep roots in Oregon but reaches well beyond the state’s borders, keeping Natural Step Network Director Regina Hauser very busy.

“We’re getting amazing interest and traction in places like Indianapolis, an industrial city I wouldn’t have thought of as being very interested in sustainability,” said Hauser.

The Portland office is the sole U.S. location of The Natural Step Network, which operates as part of the International Living Future Institute. Most of its clients still remain in Oregon, but an increasing number are located in other states, Hauser said.

“There is no city in the world that is anywhere close to being fully sustainable. There is a lot more work to be done everywhere. You’d be surprised. There are still plenty of businesses in Oregon that subscribe to the Milton Friedman theory of economics — that the sole purpose of a company is to make money,” said Hauser.

She believes the next frontier of sustainability is a push for policies that recognize and reward businesses that step up to the plate by “internalizing” the costs of repairing environmental damage they cause and to hold accountable the businesses that avoid those environmental consequences.

The Natural Step Network has the goal of doubling membership over the next two years and inspiring 10,000 more people through presentations.

Yudkin remains inspired by The Natural Step, but although his restaurants are widely praised for innovative environmental stewardship, he never did obtain his vision of sustainability.

“When we started out we said, ‘Well, we’re going to be a sustainable company.’ But there is no final point, or destination. Sustainability is a trial and error thing, and The Natural Step is a touchstone we reconnect with along the way,” he said.

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