This year, the International Sleep Products Association is offering a workshop before the ISPA Sustainability Conference to help attendees dive deeper into sustainability issues that pertain to their company. The preconference workshop is slated for 1-5 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 13.
Build Sustainability Into Your Business Strategy
This workshop will be led by Peter Cooke, co-founder of Ratio Institute based in Santa Cruz, California. He will explain how to build a sustainability plan into their business strategy. Preexisting sustainability strategies and achievements are not necessary to attend. Cooke will use models to facilitate a discussion where participants experience the nuts and bolts of establishing a plan to start where they are and how to plan for progress.
Cooke began his career as a rock climbing and whitewater instructor for Outward Bound in the Northwoods of Maine and from there became the pollution prevention manager for the state of Maine. At Maine’s Department of Environmental Protection Cooke developed sustainability programs for dozens of business sectors, including starting one of the nation’s first green hotel programs with more than 200 Maine businesses participating. The success of the model used for Maine’s hotels prompted Hannaford, New England’s largest grocery chain to adopt Cooke’s methodology.
After a successful implementation for Hannaford, Cooke co-founded Ratio Institute, a sustainability nonprofit to launch a national benchmarking program with more than 1,000 grocery stores from 15 chains participating.
He has facilitated the process of establishing sustainability strategies for organizations such as L.L. Bean, Bowdoin College, Sunday River and Easter Funding.
More information on the conference is available at ISPASustainability.com.
