Supply Chain Sustainability and Marketing Challenges of Bay Area Business

Jeff Weinberger, founder of DS3 Consulting, spoke to students at the SF State Downtown Campus on March 7 about how sustainability provides strategic benefits to businesses. DS3 specializes in advising clients, from large companies like Cisco to new startups, in disruptive change.

Jeff Weinberger, founder of DS3 Consulting, spoke to students at the SF State Downtown Campus on March 7 about how sustainability provides strategic benefits to businesses. DS3 specializes in advising clients, from large companies like Cisco to new startups, in disruptive change.

Jeff began his talk by pointing out that of all the companies that were part of the Fortune 100 fifty years ago, only four today are still Fortune 100 companies. This was testament to his point that change is inevitable in the world of business, and the degree of change has only accelerated with the advent of globalization, the internet, and social media.

Attending students were familiar with the triple bottom line definition of a sustainable business: a business doing right by people, planet, and profit. Jeff additionally challenged them to think about a sustainable business in terms of helping its own customers lead more sustainable lives and operations. This ensures that sustainability isn’t just an internal practice within a company, but a larger process that touches all of its suppliers and customers as well.

Thus, sustainability is not just about cutting back on resource usage or reducing waste. It involves taking the time and money saved from implementing those cutbacks to strive for even bigger changes in the world. To this end, all champions of sustainability need to be salesmen and marketers both within their own organizations, and to the outside world.

Read more about DS3 Consulting at its website

Learn more about SF State's Center for Ethical and Sustainable Business