Calgary Round Table Session

November 30, 2011

The following were participants in the session:

 
Craig Stenhouse, Cenovus Energy

Stacey Schorr, Encana

Dani Deboice, First Calgary

Richard Roberts, The Praxis Group

Jeff Flood, Nexen Canada Ltd.

Sheila Curruthers, University of Calgary

By: Adine Mees and Rob Moore

When the CBSR team sets out to prepare the theme for our annual summit, we find ourselves having to assess the emerging corporate responsibility issues and predict what the hot topic will be months in advance. Every year we seem to strive to capture the prevailing mood and focus of those of us that seek to answer the evolving fundamental question: What is the role of Canadian corporations beyond returning profit to their shareholders? This year, for our 9^th Annual Summit, we seem to once again be gathering CSR business and thought leaders to discuss and consider a very timely topic – Canada’s responsibility and reputation in the rapidly developing global debate about the environmental and social role of corporations and governments.

In recent years there has been a lot of discussion about the value of life cycle analysis, or LCA, as a tool to advance sustainability practice. It is often touted as an important and robust way to ensure correct data is being incorporated into the decision-making process.

I don’t disagree with this, and I hope we continue to see increased uptake in LCA studies and growing interest in organizations with the expertise to conduct them.

But a lot of companies balk at LCA for a host of reasons. It’s too expensive, they say. It’s an overwhelming amount of data. It’s more for the product engineer folks, not the strategists. And on and on.

Enter the other LCA, where “A” is for “Approach”. Taking a life cycle approach is, in essence, applying the concept of life cycle thinking without necessarily conducting a formal LCA. Sometimes this means leveraging existing life cycle data and applying it to a different situation - fortunately, there are many LCA studies made available to the public. And sometimes, it just means using common sense - something that isn’t always present when well-intended marketers or strategists run with the sustainability agenda.