Oct. 11, 2006
Nonprofit Helps Top Corporations Defend the Environment
By Chantelle Wallace

Environmental and social stewardship is good for business, said Scott Walsh, project manager for Environmental Defense, in an Oct. 6 McCombs Business Ethics Speaker Series talk called “Strategies for Successful Corporate Social Responsibility.”

“We work with companies to address some of the key environmental issues that we’re concerned about in ways that actually helps their bottom line,” Walsh said. “Because if you do it that way, it’s a sustainable improvement since companies don’t want to throw an environmental innovation out the door if it’s good for business.”

Environmental Defense is responsible for the elimination of the Styrofoam clamshell McDonalds used to package its burgers. The 40-year-old non-profit created a plan for the fast food giant to increase packaging using recycled paper. This resulted in eliminating 150,000 tons of waste each year while saving McDonalds millions of dollars.

The work Environmental Defense did with a company as visible as McDonalds garnered enough attention that competitors took notice. “What we went in to do with one company, McDonalds, suddenly replicated throughout the fast food industry,” Walsh said. “We try to work with leaders in the industry because that’s who other companies are going to follow.”

For this very reason, Environmental Defense does not accept financial compensation from their clients and the results of their work can be made public. “If you’re going to create a model, you must make sure it’s something others can follow,” Walsh said.

After graduating with a BS in environmental geology from Yale, Walsh worked with companies on environmental strategies, but became frustrated when most chose to do little more than the bare minimum. “A lot of my clients thought environmental issues were just tangential to the business,” he said. To better understand the thinking in the executive suites, Walsh returned to school and earned an MBA from the University of Virginia.

“If you do corporate responsibility correctly, there are ways that it’s not just giving away money, it’s creating value and is generating more money for the company,” he said.

Because businesses have “an enormous impact on the world,” Walsh said some are much better than government or charities at changing the world. “Our client is the environment, and the companies are our partners,” he said.