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Network for Business Innovation & Sustainability 

Description

Network for Business Innovation & Sustainability (NBIS) programs bridge industries and sectors to engage business leaders in addressing crucial regional and global issues through innovative business practices. NBIS provides professional development, networking, coaching and regional engagement programs to help businesses and professionals maximize their triple bottom line (people, planet, profit) while becoming catalysts for sustainable business practices. Programs address the needs of professionals for training and technical resources for implementing sustainable business practices and a community of praxis for sharing best practices and strategies for success.

Mission Statement
The Network for Business Innovation & Sustainability (NBIS) is the Northwest non-profit dedicated to enabling professionals and businesses in accelerating and implementing sustainable business practices in their companies and organizations.
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Network for Business Innovation & Sustainability
314 1st Avenue S 
Seattle 
WA
98104 
206-408-7194 

Mary Rose / Karl Ostrom 
Executive Directors 

Programs

Network for Business Innovation & Sustainability Programs

NBIS’ key programs and services include:
  • Services for professionals: NBIS’ Grassroots Leadership program, GreenBag Lunches and monthly Eco-Hours provide opportunities to gain inspiration and tools for advancing sustainability and to meet like-minded individuals across industries.
  • Services for Businesses: leadership development, strategic and technical assistance and tools for performance metrics, corporate responsibility reporting, carbon and water footprinting and team development. Visibility and recognition for achievements.
  • Regional Programs: Innovative programs that engage businesses with new strategies through collaboration and management of impacts: By-Product Synergy NW – turning waste into profit and a new website for materials exchange and best practices knowledge base.

Recent Successes and Current Challenges

By-Product Synergy NW is entering its 5th year of operation building sustainable business leadership in innovative approaches to materials and waste. The program is closing loops, diverting waste from landfill and supporting new business opportunities and cost savings. We are launching an innovative website www.nbis.org/byproductsynergy that offers both a regional marketplace for buying, selling and trading materials, and a growing knowledge base of best practices and innovative solutions to reusing and repusposing materials with case studies and a searchable data base.                

NBIS welcomes new grant and giving support for our programs. We also offer meaningful leadership opportunities and internshipsl.

Evaluation


Network for Business Innovation and Sustainability (NBIS) has an eight-year track record of advancing regional sustainability through innovative, collaborative programs that help businesses understand and implement sustainable business practices. While many nonprofits engage business through philanthropy, NBIS is distinctive in recognizing the powerful capacity of business to act as a change agent to benefit people and the planet while generating profit.

Best Practices
NBIS programs equip business leaders with leading edge implementation strategies, compelling business cases and a community of practice for mentoring and learning across industries to maximize the “triple bottom line” (people, planet, profit). Their programs focus on providing strategic and technical training for leadership in sustainability at all levels of management: planning, environmental management, employee education, product development, purchasing, stakeholder engagement, metrics, reporting and marketing; stimulating value-adding market-based solutions to environmental, economic and social challenges; and teaching and developing opportunities for collaboration and sharing of best practices among businesses, government agencies, nonprofit organizations and academic institutions.

Collaboration
From the outset, NBIS has been a multi-discipline organization that brings the talent, knowledge and resources of academia, government, industry and other nonprofit organizations to the table to support and assist businesses on the journey to sustainability. They are constantly working with these varied sectors to advance their work. Specific partnerships are built around their various program areas, including the By-Product Synergy NW project and their work with urban property owners to incorporate Salmon Safe principles.

Leadership
NBIS Directors Karl Ostrom and Mary Rose serve on several academic advisory boards and are lecturers and occasional adjunct faculty at UW, Seattle University, Bellevue College, Antioch University and Argosy University. They work to educate on sustainable business and to get sustainability integrated into business curriculum.

Grant History with The Seattle Foundation:

Grants Awarded through The Seattle Foundation Grantmaking Program:

DateAmountPurpose
There are no recent grants awarded to this organization.

Financials

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