23rd Sustainable Business Forum
Change Stories: Voices from the SME sector
Price: $30.00 payable at the door.
Forum Program
6:00pm Forum doors open, and refreshments are served.
6.30pm Presentations combined with round table workshops to explore more deeply the implications for business, as both provider and consumer, of green products and services; the ‘where to from here’ and the ‘how’ of sustainability in the organisational context.
8.10pm Drinks and nibbles
8.30pm Forum closes
NOTES FROM THE SPEAKERS
Meg Bishop and Graeme Gibson, Real Options
Real Options is a small, successful consultancy based in Huskisson at Jervis Bay on the South Coast of New South Wales. The company was established in 1997 by principals Meg Bishop and Graeme Gibson. Most of our work is in informal community education and uses principles of adult education, community development and action research. Our values are trust, respect, sharing, celebrating difference and an ethical approach. Our work is in a diverse range of subject areas - we are presently working with projects in historical, environmental and community cultural relations.
Meg has experience and qualifications in education, training and social research. She has been a teacher, a farmer and an environmental educator and has a strong interest in listening to and telling stories as learning tools.
Kevin Wagner, WAGEN
Kevin is the owner of a small business that used to do light metal manufacturing in house. He then outsourced manufacturing to local manufacturers. Due to the massive influx of cheap competition products from China it then became necessary to buy supply from China. He is now investigating building a factory in Vietnam. This raises a number of issues for Kevin concerning how to ensure sustainable methods of production, as an SME operating offshore, and the impact this has on his local suppliers. To cut it short, manufacturing locally has caused a 44% drop in sales revenue over the past 12 months, which equates to a lot of money.
Victoria Coleman, Australian Documentaries
Australian Documentaries has established its position in the documentary marketplace with a reputation for producing informative and engaging documentaries promoting sustainability and social change. In meeting its core objective of engaging with audiences to affect positive change, Australian Documentaries has worked effectively with a diversity of public and private clients. Its focus however has been to create multimedia tools for non-profit organisations and it has rapidly become the firm of choice for organisations such as the Red Cross, WWF, and Barnardos.
Victoria Coleman is a sustainability communicator at Australian Documentaries. Victoria’s background is in sustainability education and communication, and she has a range of experience working in State and Local government, as well as an academic/lecturer at both Macquarie University and the University of Cambridge, UK. She has worked with a range of stakeholders from children, to students, community residents, business executives and community leaders.
Rodney Wade, Finsbury Green
Rodney Wade is the National Environmental and Technical Manager for Finsbury Green, Australia’s first carbon neutral printing company. A qualified letterpress and lithographic printer, Rodney has held various positions in Production and Operations Management over the past 20 years, and has worked in the printing, graphic design and multimedia industries for over 36 years.
An avid interest in the environment prompted Rodney to investigate ways organisations and individuals, particularly in Europe, address eco-issues. This led him to Finsbury Printing and the development of Finsbury Green, which is now clearly positioned as Australia’s leading environmental solutions company. Since turning green in 2002, Finsbury Green has won a staggering 350 international, national and regional print awards, along with seven environment awards. Throughout this time, the organisation has also more than tripled its revenue.
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