Sustainable Brands Announces Full Conference Program for SB’18 Vancouver

Target, P&G, REI, Danone and Google among companies confirmed to showcase how brands are redesigning products and services for The Good Life

 Sustainable Brands recently announced full program details for SB’18 Vancouver, running June 4-7 at the Vancouver Convention Centre in Vancouver, British Columbia. The conference will convene more than 3,000 senior executives, top brand strategists and leading sustainability practitioners to discover how brands can update their products and services to prepare for a changing economy.

More than 300 influential leaders and cutting-edge practitioners of environmental and social innovation will host interactive discussions, breakout sessions, plenary presentations, deep-dive workshops and networking activities.

• Marc Pritchard, Chief Brand Officer at Procter & Gamble, reveals new insight into how P&G is working to leverage their brands to enable responsible and sustainable consumption practices amongst their consumer base.
• Emmanuelle Wargon, SVP, Corporate Affairs and Business Sustainability Integration at Danone, describes Danone’s transformation to bringing shared value and the Good Life principles into the core of their brand and the business benefits they’re seeing from this move.
• Dimitar Vlahov, Director of Content Development at Sustainable Brands, and Kevin Hagen, VP Environment, Social & Governance (ESG) Strategy at Iron Mountain, release the new Sustainable Brands Maturity Roadmap, a framework that defines core aspects of a sustainable brand, and a pathway by which brands can navigate their journey to become one, regardless of their industry sector.
• Catherine Blades, Chief Brand and Communications Officer at Aflac, shares the award-winning story of My Special Aflac Duck, a social robot designed to comfort children undergoing cancer treatment.
• Sadhu Johnston, City Manager of the City of Vancouver, discusses how Vancouver is building their brand aspiration to be the greenest city in the world by 2020 by maintaining the smallest carbon footprint of any North American city.
• Matt Thurston, Director of Sustainability at REI, and Greg Gausewitz, Product Sustainability Manager at REI Co-Op, divulge REI’s tactic of partnering with wholesale brands to meet their brand promise as it relates to product sustainability standards.
• Patsy Doerr, Global Head of Corporate Responsibility and Inclusion at Thomson Reuters, Diana Rosenberger, Global Sourcing Manager at Shaw Industries, and Rodrigo Arias, Global Leadership Fellow – Content Lead, Technology, Media and Digital Industries at World Economic Forum share case studies from prominent brands working to align their corporate strategy with the UN SDGs.
• Tristan Harris, Founder of the Center for Humane Technology, Raphael Bemporad, Founding Partner at BBMG Holdings, LLC. and Jonathan Atwood, VP, Sustainable Business & Communications at Unilever, explore the challenges and opportunities for brand communications and leadership in the dynamic age of social media.
• The US Farmers & Ranchers Alliance (USFRA) hosts a lunch session on the marketing impacts of labeling on food & farming, diving into the interconnectivity of sourcing decisions, food label claims, misinformation and US farmers and ranchers.
• David Katz, CEO of Plastic Bank, Anna Cummins, Co-Founder and Global Strategy Director of The 5 Gyres Institute, and Matt Prindiville, Executive Director of Upstream, strategize on ways to curb plastic pollution through design change and circularity.
• Marisa Guber, Stakeholder Engagement Manager at Cradle to Cradle Products Innovation Institute, leads a deep-dive workshop into re-designing for The Good Life and through Cradle to Cradle design process.
• LG hosts a lunch session on their Life is Good: Experience Happiness initiative, sharing insights on how to learn, teach and practice happiness compiled in collaboration with the Greater Good Science Center at UC Berkeley.
• Shauna Sadowski, Sustainability Lead at Annie’s., Inc, and Marci Zaroff, Founder and CEO of Metawear highlight leading-edge methodologies for improving the value of supply chains through climate-friendly transformative farming.
• Alison DaSilva, EVP at Cone Communications, moderates a panel discussion with brand executives as they share their successes and challenges of embedding purpose into their brands.

“After a year of validating a mainstreaming shift in how consumers are defining what the Good Life of tomorrow means to them, we look forward to sharing examples of brands that are already implementing innovation that aligns with these new social aspirations,” states KoAnn Vikoren Skrzyniarz, Founder of Sustainable Brands. ”But even more important will be the conversations these case studies spark as part of the co-creative dialogue taking place among our industry stakeholders. We’re excited to see brands think about taking steps forward, individually and together, to building the Good Life of the future.”