Brian Dumaine is going to be the keynote speaker at our conference this year in Nashville. He’s the global editor of FORTUNE magazine but also directs FORTUNE’s green technology and environmental policy stories. So we’re in for a thought-provoking talk. In fact, I heard Brian speak earlier this year at FORTUNE’s Brainstorm Green, where he moderated a session on maintaining green business in challenging economic times. I found that his views on how to simultaneously do the right thing for the environment and business were very enlightening. He is also the author of the newly published The Plot to Save the Planet: How Visionary Entrepreneurs and Corporate Titans Are Creating Real Solutions To Global Warming. Recently, I had the chance to ask him about his views on the green economy and his thinking on breakthrough green technologies and how it relates to sustainable forestry.

Click on the play button below to listen to our discussion.

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We were excited to receive support from two different groups in April— TerraChoice Environmental Marketing and the Boy Scouts of America. TerraChoice included the SFI label as a credible eco-label in its Greenwashing Report 2009, saying that our program meets three key criteria – third party certified, publicly available standard and transparent standard development process received. SFI is one of just 14 labels that the group recognizes as “legitimate.” TerraChoice’s press release, with the provocative subhead “Study Finds New Greenwashing Sin: ‘Worshiping False Labels’” is posted here. You can find SFI’s release here.

Also in April, Boys’ Life, a monthly magazine published by the Boy Scouts of America, announced that it is being printed on SFI chain of custody certified paper. “From the forest to BSA headquarters to the pressroom to the mailboxes of more than 1 million subscribers each month, Boys’ Life adheres to a strict policy of environmental responsibility,” says the group in its April 23 press release. “At its heart, Boys’ Life is about the outdoors and about teaching our young readers to be good stewards of the outdoors,” says Mike Goldman, managing editor of Boys’ Life. We are pleased that the Scouts chose SFI to help achieve that important educational mission.

It’s been incredible here at Fortune’s Brainstorm Green conference – and educational. Meeting and talking to so many concerned and influential folks interested in climate change, environmental practices and the business of sustainability has been really encouraging. I also appreciated the opportunity to participate in the panel called Traceability: How Well Do You Know Your Supply Chain? This took place on Tuesday and it was a fascinating discussion moderated by one of Fortune’s contributing editors, Marc Gunther. Other panelists included Jill Dumain of Patagonia and Michael Kowalski, CEO of Tiffany & Co. My video post below details the panel discussion a bit more.

Kathy Abusow, President & CEO at SFI

During the traceability panel we also heard from Arlin Wasserman, Vice President of Corporate Citizenship at Sodexo. Sodexo employs 350,000 people worldwide and serves some 50 million people a day in 85 different countries. They provide facilities management, energy management and food service to corporations, hospitals, schools and government buildings. Sodexo is in a unique position to influence environmental practices and they stressed the importance of transparency, traceability and certification. And Arlin has a unique perspective on it – as you can see in our interview with him below.

Arlin Wasserman, Vice President of Corporate Citizenship at Sodexo

We were also able to spend some time with Rich Lechner, Vice President of Energy and Environment at IBM. IBM has had a corporate sustainability agenda since 1971. You’ll find a few similarities between some of IBM’s best practices and the requirement we have for independent third party auditors (it has to do with management, measurement, monitoring and transparency through third party verification). In our conversation, we talked about how sustainability fits into IBM’s corporate and business objectives, how IBM supports sustainable forestry and lessons learned re: sustainability. The highlights of this conversation are in the video below

Rich Lechner, Vice President of Energy and Environment at IBM

Kathy Abusow, President & CEO at SFI

I recently had the opportunity to work with well-known research and consulting firm Info Trends on a webinar about sustainability and it is now available on their web site. For those that aren’t aware, Info Trends is a leading worldwide market research and strategic consulting firm for the digital imaging and document solutions industry. Like virtually all market research firms, Info Trends has clearly seen that their customers are incorporating sustainability into their business considerations, but see that they are also thirsty for reliable information. Enter SFI…

The firm recently released a study on sustainability that, among other things, revealed that social responsibility and customer demand are two primary motivation factors for printers’ adoption of green policies, though marketing and public relations benefits do factor in as well. Soon after the report was released, SFI was approached with an opportunity to chime in on some of the findings and provide the printing sector with more information about forest certification and the role of SFI. We recorded the webinar before Christmas and I am now thrilled to let you know it is available on Info Trend’s website. The presentation is available in three parts – click below and follow the “Flash Media Video and Animation” link at the bottom of the page to stream the presentation online.

Green Printing and Sustainability, Part 1: Forest Certification and an Overview on SFI

Green Printing and Sustainability, Part 2: SFI for the Paper and Printing Industries

Green Printing and Sustainability, Part 3: Marketplace Trends

We are more than happy to prepare these types of webinars for our members and certificate holders – email Karen[dot]brandt[at]sfiprogram.org for more information.