Welcome to the Sustainability Forces – we have been waiting for you. This course has been put together by people, who believe in the power of business to create value for society and shareholders simultaneously – a strategy Michael Porter at Harvard Business School calls Shared Value. That you are here, shows that you are concerned about the equilibrium between business and society just as we are. It also shows that you are looking for help.

You might be dealing with an actual or potential crisis, you might be foreseeing something which puts a serious threat to your organization, or you might have ideas on how your company could gain new markets by pursuing more sustainable forms of business. This means that your organization needs you! It needs to know what you have to say, because it is serious and it is business.

There is a challenge, however. How to bring social and environmental issues to the attention of the most senior executives and board members, who in many cases are not used to discuss sustainability? This is why we put together this course for people like you – because we have been there before. We know how difficult it is to talk to members of the Board of Directors and how easy you might be labeled and dismissed as a “tree hugger”.

We consolidated our experience and those of many others in order to help you get a kick-start and be recognized by the Board for what you are: someone deeply concerned about the longevity and competitiveness of the company which is embedded in a society in which expectations about social and environmental performance raise every day.

Again – welcome to the Rebel Forces. Let us start with your training.