Boldly Sustainable got a nice mention in Wednesday's issue of Inside Higher Ed. In "Getting to Green," the sustainability blog for IHE, G. Rendell writes that my co-author Andrea Putman and I "not only describe how colleges and universities can save money by reducing their environmental footprints, they explain how a profound commitment to sustainability is the basis for defining higher ed's 21st century market sector."



It's always a happy moment when a reader grasps the larger implications of one's work.  As I've written in this space previously, sustainability is a strategic imperative for colleges and universities. In the words of Cornell President David Skorton, "sustainability is no longer an elective." (See New York Times, June 13, 2007). Those leaders who understand this new reality and act on it will be the ones whose institutions are most likely to survive the current upheaval in higher education.

Why do I say this? Some recent data, which came out after the book went to press, underscores the extent to which corporations that have made a deep commitment to sustainability are financially better off than those that have not. In a report released this past February, "Green Winners: The Performance of Sustainability," A.T. Kearney noted that in 16 out of 18 industries, companies with a strong sustainability commitment were “the clear leaders in the financial markets" and they outperformed industry averages by 15% in the second half of 2008. Among the common characteristics of these leading companies were the following:

• Focus on long-term strategy, not just short-term gains
• Strong corporate governance
• Sound risk-management practices
• History of investment in innovations

An even more recent study by the Aberdeen Group found that sustainability initiatives cut overall costs in over 200 companies by 6 to 10%; at the same time, customer retention rates increased 16%.

These are by any measure impressive results and deserve close consideration. Higher education, and the economy in general, are not just experiencing a conventional downturn right now; they are undergoing a major paradigm shift in which the old rules will no longer apply and the new way of doing business will have to take into account the previously overlooked value of ecoservices that are under unprecedented stress.

As Jhana Senxian and Cindy Jutras, the authors of the Aberdeen Group's "The ROI of Sustainability," contend, "far from being a philanthropic 'nice to have,’" sustainability is a "'must have' strategy for long-term, business viability and success."