Hart

Leaders from NASA and from Boeing, Alcoa, SC Johnson and other high-profile companies are among those taking part in a unique conference at Cornell University with the theme "Sustainable Technology Development and New Market Creation." Also attending are prominent international business school faculty and members of the public and nonprofit sectors interested in business growth through sustainable development.

The gathering is the 11th Annual BELL (business, environment, learning, leadership) Conference. Starting the evening of Wednesday, July 20, and running through Friday, July 22, the conference will be preceded by a special Financing Innovation Summit Wednesday afternoon. Most events take place at the Johnson Graduate School of Management in Sage Hall. The sponsors are the Johnson School, the Center for Sustainable Global Enterprise at Cornell and the World Resources Institute (WRI). For fees, other information and to register, see: http://www.Johnson.cornell.edu/sge/bellconference.html.

"The idea behind the conference and all of our efforts is to guide companies toward the opportunities of tomorrow by focusing on clean technology and the needs of those billions of people who have been ignored or even damaged by the globalization process so far," said Stuart Hart, the S.C. Johnson Professor of Sustainable Global Enterprise and director of the Center for Sustainable Global Enterprise at the Johnson School.

WRI business director Mark Milstein, a postdoctoral fellow with the center, said, "Our agenda is not to focus on environmental management techniques or corporate social responsibility but, rather, strategic, entrepreneurial and innovation strategies that firms can pursue to grow in new ways over the coming decade given today's marketplace realities."

This year's conference sessions will help participants develop a better understanding of how any company might become more competitive by viewing social and environmental challenges as unmet market needs that can provide business-growth opportunities through innovation, entrepreneurship and organizational change.

The sessions will feature progressive research, pedagogical techniques, cutting-edge practices and the unique experiences of small and large firms committed to sustainability in the United States and abroad. Discussions will include: building a service economy; developing business strategies for conquering disease in countries at the base of the world's economic pyramid; advancing cutting-edge social and environmental technologies; building a technology network for a sustainable future; unleashing entrepreneurship in clean technology and biodiversity; pursuing and commercializing new technologies in the multinational firm; creating new markets in finance; identifying new business opportunities from the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment; seeking renewable energy markets; understanding the structure of poverty; researching protocols for low-income markets; and recognizing sustainable directions in materials science and chemistry.

The Financing Innovation Summit that precedes the conference will present an overview of the trends and innovations taking place in the financial markets in response to an increased interest in sustainability issues. New-market creation and sustainable technology development will be addressed from a venture capital perspective, focusing on financing early-stage ventures that develop and deploy sustainable technologies and the challenges of obtaining capital while breaking ground in new markets.