About the Sustainability Institute

According to a September, 2009 study from MIT Sloan Management Review and Boston Consulting Group, a vast majority of corporate executives believe that sustainability-related issues are having or will soon have an impact on their businesses.  These business leaders are recognizing the tangible benefits of adopting a sustainability agenda for their organization. 

Kaplan EduNeering and Seventh Generation have combined forces to launch the Kaplan EduNeering/Seventh Generation Sustainability Institute to assist organizations that are seeking to advance their own sustainability agendas, including the development of a common framework for understanding sustainability; identifying how to integrate sustainability into your business; and the complexity of the supply chain. 

Supporting Your Organization’s Stakeholders

The Institute provides business and governmental managers, employees, subcontractors and supply chain partners with best practices and specialized training in the development and implementation of sustainability initiatives.  Key elements in The Kaplan EduNeering/Seventh Generation Sustainability Institute include:

  • An online library of courses, including Sustainability 101, Sustainable Supply Chain and Greenhouse Gas Management.  Kaplan EduNeering is a pioneer in online learning and has developed more than 4,000 custom courses and learning exercises for its clients and a library of 550 standardized compliance and regulatory courses.
  • Ten video modules for ongoing sustainability learning, with topics ranging from “Developing a Sustainability Mindset” to “Be Transparent.”  The video series includes five modules centered on sustainable business practices.  Each of these modules addresses one of the essential business practices in an effective sustainability program.  The videos feature Jeffrey Hollender, Seventh Generation’s co-founder and current Executive Chairman.  As the company’s Inspired Protagonist, Jeffrey has advised Fortune 500 companies and authored best-selling books including How to Make the World a Better Place: A Guide for Doing Good and What Matters Most - How a small group of pioneers are teaching social responsibility to big business - and why big business is listening.  Jeffrey’s newest book, The Responsibility Revolution, is scheduled for publication in March 2010.
  • An online toolkit called the Sustainability Communication CenterSM (SCC), which includes articles, brochures, mini-training modules, case studies and other resources to develop and sustain an ongoing, enterprise-wide sustainability communications program. The SCC is modeled after Kaplan EduNeering’s widely used Ethics Communication CoachSM, which now includes 2,000 tools and celebrates its ten-year anniversary in 2009.
  • Optional services, including sustainability consulting and an exam prep package for the LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Green Associate certificate awarded by the Green Building Council can be provided by Kaplan AE Education.  In partnership with an established consulting firm Seventh Generation offers consulting services on a variety of corporate responsibility & sustainability topics. Some areas for consulting support include the creation of a sustainability report, critique and review of competitors CSR reports, developing strategy to engage NGO groups and designing a carbon management program.
  • Sustainability Consulting Services:
    •    Organizational Development
    •    Mission and Vision
    •    Stakeholder Engagement
    •    Creating a Culture of Sustainability
    •    Mission Aligned Human Resource Policies
    •    Operational Efficiencies
    •    Footprinting/Benchmarking
    •    Material Flows Analysis
    •    Disclosure/Reporting
    •    Understanding the options
    •    Reporting
    •    Transparency
    •    Stakeholder Review
    •    Marketing Communications
    •    Overview of Sustainability Marketing Communications
    •    Green Marketing Claims
    •    Crisis Management
    •    Supply Chain
    •    Supplier Engagement
    •    Program Assessment
    •    Supply Chain Segmentation
    •    Strategic Visioning
    Click Here to view our Sustainability Consulting Services Datasheet (pdf).