2011 AWARDS

The 2011 Redefining Value conference will feature a short presentation of awards for the 2011 Social Innovation Awards. While this year’s award categories are different than the 2010 awards, many remain the same. The short list for the 3rd Annual Social Innovation Awards, created by Justmeans, was announced today. The international awards program, considered one of the top honors in the field of sustainability, recognizes companies implementing groundbreaking strategies and programs that drive social and environmental innovation. Over 50% of the Fortune 100 have now participated in the program. Shortlisted applications to the 2011 program include:

• » J.P. Morgan
  
• » Better World Books
• » Pricewaterhouse Coopers
• » Vodafone Egypt - Qariarty Project

• » PricewaterhouseCoopers
• » ITT
• » The Westpac Group
• » Baxter International

• » Ethical Bean Coffee
• » SC Johnson
• » Thomson Reuters

• » SAP
• » Cisco
• » ITT Corporation
• » HJ Heinz Company
• » Lavola
• » Coca-Cola Enterprises
• » Hormel Foods

• » Manpower Inc
• » Blue Planet Network
• » SC Johnson

• » The North Face
• » Ecolab
• » SC Johnson – GreenList
• » Citizens Financial Group
• » ArcelorMittal
• » The Coca Cola Companies

• » Nature's Path Foods
• » Oracle Corporation
• » Nokia
• » Barclays PLC

In two of our categories, one specific company so greatly outperformed other applications, it made sense to skip a shortlist. We congratulate the following two companies:

• Winner: Novo Nordisk

• Winner: Herman Miller

2010 AWARDS

• Most Innovative Nonprofit: LIFE/LanX Local Investment Project, a social venture to establish a local stock exchange for U.S. companies too small for national listing. The goal: to make more equity finance available to local communities across America and help them build out of the current recession.
• Most Innovative Small For-Profit: Vestergaard Frandsen, a Danish company that, for 40 years, made uniforms for hotel workers and retailers. Now it makes textile-based, life-saving products, including ZeroFly, a durable plastic sheeting for sheltering refugees that also kills disease-spreading insects, and LifeStraw, a water filtration tool the size of paper-towel cylinder that helps thousands who are deprived of clean drinking water, helping them to turn polluted water into drinkable supplies.
• Most Innovative Large For-Profit: Goldman Sachs' 10,000 Women initiative, a five-year investment by the Wall Street firm to provide 10,000 under-served women around the world with business and management education.
• Best New Green Product: Tesla Motors, a Silicon Valley-based company that engineers and manufactures electric cars. The Tesla Roadster, the company's first vehicle, can get 200 miles on a single charge, can accelerate from 0-60 mph in 2.9 seconds, and is roughly twice as energy-efficient as the Toyota Prius. The company produced its 1,000th Roaster in January of this year.
• Best Social Investment Strategy: Sparkseed, an incubator for social innovation startups conceived by young risk-takers and college students, encouraging them to apply business principles to address the world's toughest problems. The program works with young social entrepreneurs for six months, giving them coaching and seed resources to help them succeed.
• Most Influential Supply Chain Management Strategy: Dispensary of Hope, a nonprofit social venture that crowd-sources medication to uninsured populations. The program is a partnership with three leading pharmaceutical companies, including Merck; the dispensary, founded in 2003, has so far filled more than 200,000 prescriptions for patients who otherwise couldn't afford them.
• Best Base of Pyramid Strategy: Thomson-Reuters, for its "market lite" short-messaging news and information service that tells BOP farmers in India the latest market and weather information, helping them to offset risk and plant/sell their crops more successfully.
• Best Employee Engagement Strategy: eBay, for its Green Team, a grassroots effort started by a small group of eBay employees to make eBay a green place to work. The Green Team has since has grown into a group of more than 2,000 eBay employees, all supporting environmental causes in local communities and promoting sustainable business practices within the company. A year ago, eBay invited its community of buyers and sellers to join the Green Team; after just six weeks, the team had more than 100,000 members.
• Best Stakeholder Engagement: Cisco Networking Academy. Since 1997, the networking academy has grown from a small-scale program designed to help schools get the most out of Cisco's networking equipment to Cisco's largest CSR program, with courses taught at more than 9,000 academies in 165 countries. More than 800,000 students develop ICT skills through the program each year.
• Best Internal Sustainability: Con-way, a $4.3 billion freight transportation and logistics services company based in San Mateo, Calif., for its aggressive internal sustainability program to cut waste, reduce fuel consumption, recycle equipment and supplies, and procure goods and services from companies that have clearly stated sustainability goals and values.
• Most Strategic Philanthropy Program: Gap Inc. and Brighter Planet (a tie); Gap for its P.A.C.E. program, and Brighter Planet for its crowd-powered micro-grant program, called the Brighter Planet Project Fund, to help communities create low-carbon initiatives.