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BILL K. SHIREMAN
President and CEO of the Future 500, "Master of Environmental Entrepreneurism"
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Meet Bill Shireman
Called a “master of environmental entrepreneurism,” William Shireman has over 20 years of experience developing and implementing programs that align the interests of major corporations and their stakeholders. Bill Shireman develops profitable business strategies that drive pollution down and profits up. As President and CEO of the Future 500, Bill Shireman helps the world’s largest companies and most impassioned activists – from Coca-Cola, General Motors, Nike, Mitsubishi, and Weyerhaeuser, to Greenpeace, Rainforest Action Network, and the Sierra Club – work together to improve the profits and performance of business.
Advocating technology as a driver of green growth, Bill Shireman has led the development and deployment of these and other tools, at diverse companies in Asia, Europe, and throughout North America. While CEO of the largest state recycling lobby in the U.S., he wrote California’s bottle bill recycling law, shown by EPA and academic studies to be the world’s most cost-effective. He advocates market-based environmental policies – contending they can be more effective than many command-and-control laws.
Most recently, with former Mitsubishi CEO Tachi Kiuchi, Bill Shireman wrote the popular book, What We Learned In The Rainforest – Business Lessons from Nature, featured in the Harvard Business Review, which declares the business-as-machine era over, and shows how companies can become as innovative as the rainforest, leveraging feedback to grow more profitable and sustainable than ever.
A frequent speaker, Bill Shireman has keynoted numerous conferences and venues, including the State of the World Forum, World Future Society, The Commonwealth Club, EcoTech, The Conference Board, and corporate and environmental events.
Bill Shireman builds alliances between companies like Coca-Cola, General Motors, Weyerhaeuser, and Mitsubishi, and activists like the Sierra Club, Greenpeace, World Wildlife Fund, and Global Exchange. He forged a coalition with brewer Bill Coors to design and pass California’s “bottle bill” recycling law – responsible for recycling over 100 billion cans and bottles. Bill Shireman also structured a deal between Mitsubishi and Rainforest Action Network – now adopted by over 400 companies – that saved millions of acres and led to what environmentalists call “the biggest step forward in North American forest protection in decades.”
Bill Shireman and his team developed a global corporate citizenship program deployed globally by The Coca-Cola Company and is now being deployed throughout their 300-company network. He developed a “360” process for measuring corporate sustainability now used by leading electronics, energy, auto, management consulting, and financial services companies.
Advocating technology as a driver of green growth, Bill Shireman has led the development and deployment of these and other tools, at diverse companies in Asia, Europe, and throughout North America. While CEO of the largest state recycling lobby in the U.S., he wrote California’s bottle bill recycling law, shown by EPA and academic studies to be the world’s most cost-effective. He advocates market-based environmental policies – contending they can be more effective than many command-and-control laws.
Most recently, with former Mitsubishi CEO Tachi Kiuchi, Bill Shireman wrote the popular book, What We Learned In The Rainforest – Business Lessons from Nature, featured in the Harvard Business Review, which declares the business-as-machine era over, and shows how companies can become as innovative as the rainforest, leveraging feedback to grow more profitable and sustainable than ever.
A frequent speaker, Bill Shireman has keynoted numerous conferences and venues, including the State of the World Forum, World Future Society, The Commonwealth Club, EcoTech, The Conference Board, and corporate and environmental events.
Bill Shireman builds alliances between companies like Coca-Cola, General Motors, Weyerhaeuser, and Mitsubishi, and activists like the Sierra Club, Greenpeace, World Wildlife Fund, and Global Exchange. He forged a coalition with brewer Bill Coors to design and pass California’s “bottle bill” recycling law – responsible for recycling over 100 billion cans and bottles. Bill Shireman also structured a deal between Mitsubishi and Rainforest Action Network – now adopted by over 400 companies – that saved millions of acres and led to what environmentalists call “the biggest step forward in North American forest protection in decades.”
Bill Shireman and his team developed a global corporate citizenship program deployed globally by The Coca-Cola Company and is now being deployed throughout their 300-company network. He developed a “360” process for measuring corporate sustainability now used by leading electronics, energy, auto, management consulting, and financial services companies.
Speaking Topics
LEADERSHIP IN CORPORATE SUSTAINABILITY: A Primer for Executives and Board Members
It is no longer enough for a company to be profitable. Today many people expect companies to be “sustainable” and “socially responsible,” to be good “corporate citizens” who maximize the “triple bottom line.” But what do these terms mean? Can companies really act on the sweeping agendas beneath them? Can sustainability be profitable? It can be. Coca-Cola, Dow, GE, HP, Mitsubishi and Nestle help drive profits by aligning sustainability with core business objectives. Learn how top companies embrace a vision that inspires all their stakeholders, and then pursue a practical roadmap with goals and benchmarks that benefit their shareholders and stakeholders.
INNOVATION AND CLIMATE CHANGE: Leadership Opportunities for Executives
Climate change can be a business driver. Regardless of whether predictions of global environmental consequences prove true or not, business executives need to steer their companies through the complex political and marketplace landscape created by the issue. Innovation offers a potential win-win path for climate change leadership. By focusing on innovation, corporate leaders can shift the debate from costly and sometimes extreme regulatory controls, toward the use of innovative ideas and technologies to modernize industry, drive down costs, and establish new profit centers. This is true even in every market and sector: GE’s Ecomagination helps build the company’s portfolio of “clean technologies.” Coca-Cola’s Global Water Partnership builds its brands and serves its stakeholders. Toyota may make more money on bioplastics that it does with the Prius. ABM-AMRO’s water projects cut greenhouse gases and create tradable credits. 3M and Dow earn well over 100% ROI on green and clean innovations – plus carbon credit revenues. Learn how innovation can make sustainability a profit center.
WHAT WE LEARNED IN THE RAINFOREST: Innovation and Sustainability in Nature and Business
Innovation is at the root of all gain – in nature and in business. Innovation is what ultimately fuels our cars, runs our bodies, generates our thoughts, and delivers our profits. It isn’t just something high tech companies do. We all do it. In fact, nature is the world’s greatest innovator, evolving from simplicity to complexity, from consumption to creation, from the lifeless to the living to the conscious and self-aware. Learn how nature creates value, and how companies in every sector – Coke, Dow, Google, Lowes, Modius, Toyota and more – are emulating its principles.
It is no longer enough for a company to be profitable. Today many people expect companies to be “sustainable” and “socially responsible,” to be good “corporate citizens” who maximize the “triple bottom line.” But what do these terms mean? Can companies really act on the sweeping agendas beneath them? Can sustainability be profitable? It can be. Coca-Cola, Dow, GE, HP, Mitsubishi and Nestle help drive profits by aligning sustainability with core business objectives. Learn how top companies embrace a vision that inspires all their stakeholders, and then pursue a practical roadmap with goals and benchmarks that benefit their shareholders and stakeholders.
INNOVATION AND CLIMATE CHANGE: Leadership Opportunities for Executives
Climate change can be a business driver. Regardless of whether predictions of global environmental consequences prove true or not, business executives need to steer their companies through the complex political and marketplace landscape created by the issue. Innovation offers a potential win-win path for climate change leadership. By focusing on innovation, corporate leaders can shift the debate from costly and sometimes extreme regulatory controls, toward the use of innovative ideas and technologies to modernize industry, drive down costs, and establish new profit centers. This is true even in every market and sector: GE’s Ecomagination helps build the company’s portfolio of “clean technologies.” Coca-Cola’s Global Water Partnership builds its brands and serves its stakeholders. Toyota may make more money on bioplastics that it does with the Prius. ABM-AMRO’s water projects cut greenhouse gases and create tradable credits. 3M and Dow earn well over 100% ROI on green and clean innovations – plus carbon credit revenues. Learn how innovation can make sustainability a profit center.
WHAT WE LEARNED IN THE RAINFOREST: Innovation and Sustainability in Nature and Business
Innovation is at the root of all gain – in nature and in business. Innovation is what ultimately fuels our cars, runs our bodies, generates our thoughts, and delivers our profits. It isn’t just something high tech companies do. We all do it. In fact, nature is the world’s greatest innovator, evolving from simplicity to complexity, from consumption to creation, from the lifeless to the living to the conscious and self-aware. Learn how nature creates value, and how companies in every sector – Coke, Dow, Google, Lowes, Modius, Toyota and more – are emulating its principles.
