Celebrating the 5th Anniversary of the Sustainable Growth Coalition

This fall marks the 5th Anniversary of the Sustainable Growth Coalition, and we have so many exciting announcements and reasons to celebrate!

First, at the end of October we officially unveiled our new logo and branding. Because of the regional and global impact of our members, the Coalition adopted a charter change during our fall quarterly meeting. The charter includes a simple yet powerful name change. Dropping Minnesota from our name, we are now the Sustainable Growth Coalition. While our members call Minnesota home, the work extends far beyond our state’s borders. The logo represents the circular economy and the interconnectedness of all systems – including human systems and relationships. The movement of the rings represents how we are a dynamic organization thanks to our members collaborating to drive meaningful change, and the rings become more powerful when they overlap. We go further and faster together! 

Second, to highlight shared efforts to advance systems change and the circular economy particularly during challenging economic times, we are releasing our brand-new Circularity Toolkit in mid-November. The Circularity Toolkit provides guidance and examples from Sustainable Growth Coalition members for others to approach solutions through circular economy and systems change lenses. The Circularity Toolkit launch will feature case studies from Blue Cross Blue Shield Minnesota, Tennant Company and Uponor. Case studies will be added regularly as a demonstration of the Coalition’s commitment to sharing best practices, lessons learned, and role modeling to advance our individual goals and collective vision.  

Third, to learn more about the Circularity Toolkit, I encourage you to view our Build Your Business Case for Circularity and Systems Change webinar. Sustainability leaders from Blue Cross Blue Shield of Minnesota, Tennant Company, and HealthPartners share their case studies in the webinar.

Finally, the Coalition is celebrating and demonstrating our leadership around circularity, sustainability, and equity this fall is through participation in events and panels. I took part in several programs and panels in October, sharing our members’ leadership, visions, and work to build a circular economy. Many of our members also took part in these events, and it was wonderful to collaborate with them to talk about how the business community is leading to address and solve challenges from reducing carbon emissions to expanding our transmission grid.  

Recent events and panels that the Coalition took part in: 

• On October 12, members Aveda, Target and I spoke on a panel at MnSEIA’s “Gateway to Solar” conference.  
• On October 14, I joined Growth and Justice for the Minnesota Equity Blueprint Breakfast webinar to talk about moving toward a circular, zero-waste economy.   

• On October 16, member Great Plains Institute hosted the Southwest Minnesota Transmission Summit where I featured the Coalition’s Transmission Guiding Principles, moderated by Public Utilities Commissioner John Tuma.  
• On October 20, I moderated a Midwest Governor’s Association Mid-Grid Panel: Diving into the Corporate Buyer Perspectives. Leaders from Walmart, Google, and General Motors shared their insights, and this was a great event demonstrating our regional impact on transmission.  
• On October 23, Coalition Steering Committee Chair Shane Stennes has been serving on a Planning Committee for the Midwest Climate Summit where I was part of an idea sharing workshop on Building Cross-Sector Partnerships and Prioritizing Action.  
• On October 23, Coalition member Dan King from Xcel Energy and I joined the University of Minnesota for an event: Equity and Electrification of Transportation in Minnesota.  

There are so many reasons to be celebrating the Sustainable Growth Coalition and our 5th Anniversary. Thank you to our members and our collaborative work to build a thriving, circular economy.