On Wednesday, April 2^nd, Duke Net Impact and The Center for the Advancement
of Social Entrepreneurship [CASE] will be hosting an exciting conference at the Fuqua School of Business. Footprints Conference 2008, themed Market-Based Solutions to Global Challenges, includes an all-star line-up of social entrepreneurs, microfinance practitioners, asset managers, and corporate social responsibility professionals. Here’s a brief sound bite from the website:

Footprints 2008 will examine the ways we can harness market forces to achieve positive, sustainable change and will expose the dilemmas inherent when new players enter spaces once inhabited primarily by NGOs and nonprofits. We will explore the ramifications of a dynamic landscape where institutional investors can make significant returns on green investments, global financial institutions recognize opportunities among the world’s poor, and multinational corporations market their “causes” to achieve competitive differentiation.

Although the conference is not new, this is my first opportunity to be involved in the production. I am a panel organizer for the Business and Environment track. As a panel organizer, I was given the freedom to choose my topic and my speakers. I’m particularly interested in the integration of financial and environmental returns, so I chose to develop an investment-themed panel – “Investing for a Green Tomorrow.” Our speakers will include a CEO, Director of Social Research, and senior portfolio manager at asset management companies. We’ll be exploring opportunities to make sustainability profitable and trying to answer the questions:

-          What are the opportunities and trade-offs that surround environmentally-conscious investing?

-          Can the profit motive advance environmental solutions more efficiently than any other alternatives?

Special guest stars at the conference include Mark Albion, author, founder of Net Impact, and the man Business Week calls “the savior of business school souls.” Gary Hirshberg, CEO of Stonyfield Farm (the yogurt guy) will deliver the closing keynote address.

If you are in the Triangle area, I highly encourage you to attend! Conference registration is now open and is free for students and $20 for professionals.

See you April 2^nd!