Sustainability: For Bleeding Hearts or Business Leaders?

A Leading Risk Managment Expert Has An Opinion. Interview with Ron Dembo founder of Øfootprint.

Kierstin De West of Ci: conscientious innovation, talks with business leader and financial risk management expert Ron Dembo, on sustainability and his new venture, Øfootprint. This is part one of a three-part interview.

Q: Could you briefly describe your background?

RD: This is my third career. The first was as a Professor of Computer Science and Operations Research at Yale University. My field of research was large-scale mathematical optimization algorithms. The second was as the founder, President and CEO of Algorithmics Incorporated, a Financial Risk Management Company. Algorithmics was grown organically from a one-person company in 1989 to the world’s leading enterprise financial risk management software company, with over 500 employees in 15 countries when it was sold in 2005.

Øfootprint is my latest venture and current full-time occupation, dedicated to creating a very large market for sustainable commerce.

Q: What is Øfootprint, what does it offer and how can businesses and individuals make use of it?

RD:
0footprint is an organization built around a common ground that unites
over 100 million people, many of whom control the vast majority of the
world’s commerce. We believe that there are over 100 million people who
would answer “yes” to the following question: “Do you believe we should
be reducing our ecological footprint?” We also believe that without the
involvement of industry on a large scale, the world will not be able to
solve its sustainability problems.

By uniting many millions of people of all persuasions and religions
under this banner, we believe we can create the world’s largest
organized market for green goods and services. This will create an
economic force for change and a significant impetus to sustainable
commerce.

Individuals and business can benefit by Øfootprint in many ways.  We offer free membership to 0footprint.  By logging on to www.0footprint.org
and becoming a member, you are you are able to access tools, resources
and goods & services, which can help you reduce your ecological
footprint and engage in sustainable commerce.

Q: Why you think sustainability is important and what are the implications for business leaders?

RD: It is well accepted that we are living in ways that the Earth
cannot support. This will only be exacerbated when large populations
such as in China and India become more affluent. Finding ways in which
we can operate our economy more ingeniously, doing more with less of an
ecological impact, will therefore become necessary. The implication for
business leaders is that there will be immense opportunities to profit
from the “greening” of commerce. I am sure that those that tend to
ignore this trend will suffer.

Q: Do you think sustainability is for bleeding hearts or business leaders?

RD: Sustainability is now becoming mainstream. We are in the early
adopter stage but what is clear is that, for whatever reason, green is
becoming cool now. It is also clear that there will be a very large
market around the greening of commerce in the future. The essence of
effective and sustainable change is when “doing things the green way”
will be the cheaper, better way. We will need to become more ingenious
about how we manufacture and use goods and how we restructure our
economic system so as to foster low footprint behavior. It is for
business leaders. The businesses that understand this will get a head
start on dominating future commerce.

Ø Footprint