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News Release

March 16, 2007

Hammond Lecture to Focus on Business Sustainability

Teaching business to turn a profit by thinking green is the topic of the University of Guelph’s seventh annual Kenneth Hammond Lecture on Environment, Energy and Resources.

Titled “The Business Case for Sustainability,” the free public lecture will be given by corporate sustainability expert and author Bob Willard March 22 at 7 p.m. at the River Run Centre.

Willard spent 34 years at IBM, including 20 years in management. Since taking early retirement in 2000, he has worked full time helping businesses to avoid risks and pursue opportunities in sustainability.

“Executives do not have to be transformed into tree-hugging environmental activists to reap the benefits of sustainability,” says promotional material for his 2000 book, The Sustainability Advantage, which discusses cases for corporate sustainability strategies. “Good environmental and social programs make good business sense.”

Willard isalso the author of The Next Sustainability Wave: Building Boardroom Buy-in published in 2005, which discusses how to persuade executives and board members to adopt sustainable business strategies.

This year’s Hammond lecture is sponsored by the new Guelph Institute for the Environment (GIE), which is part of the Faculty of Environmental Sciences at the University of Guelph. The GIE is intended to connect scientists, policy-makers and community partners to improve environmental policy.

The annual Hammond lecture series began in 2000 and is named for Kenneth Hammond, a former member of U of G’s Board of Governors and an advocate for environmental and resource issues and environmental education.