AngelPoints’ Introduces Product Based on Personal Sustainabity Practice

Posted: October 28th, 2009 | Author: Steve | Filed under: Business, Sustainability | Comments

AngelPoints, Inc. is a Sausalito, California-based software company whose mission it is to make it easier for large organizations to communicate, organize and measure their employee volunteer efforts. Their initial products, available since 2001, have mainly focused on corporate fundraising efforts, and are used by some of the world’s largest companies, like Toyota, eBay, Intuit and Hilton.

The company recently announced that it is launching a new product aimed at increasing employee participation in sustainability projects. The concept, called “PSP”, short for Personal Sustainability Practice, is an idea which was originally developed by Adam Werbach and his company Act Now Productions (now part of Saatchi & Saatchi S) for Wal-Mart, and has been wildly successful in that company’s efforts to green its operations and image. Saatchi and Saatchi S is consulting with AngelPoints on implementing this and other employee-focused sustainability products.

About a year ago, I, along with my Presidio colleague Olga Bolotina, assisted AngePoints’ management in their initial evaluation of a PSP offering. Our reports included a feasibility study of a PSP management software product, with a analysis of the beneits to the company’s clients and a financial analysis of the costs of implementation. We found the methodology created by Bob Willard, author of The Sustainability Advantage, particularly useful in calculating some of the harder to quantify benefits, such as employee retention and brand value.

As we outlined in our report, PSPs are wonderful tools for engaging employees in sustainability projects, and one of the main reasons is that there is almost no restriction on the type of project that can be taken on. The employee is encouraged to choose something that is very important to them, and either improves their personal sustainability, he sustainability of the company or the sustainability of the local community. Projects can be as small as in individual weight loss, or as big as a company-wide recycling effort.

According to Walmartstores.com, Wal-Mart had seen the following benefits from PSPs:

“As of September 2007, associates told us that they’ve recycled 675,538 pounds of aluminum, 282,476 pounds of glass, 5,953,357 pounds of paper and cardboard, and 3,177,851 pounds of plastic; walked, biked and swum more than 1,109,421 total miles; cooked 368,779 healthy meals; and lost a total combined weight of 184,315 pounds through PSP. In addition, 19,924 associates tell us they’ve quit or reduced smoking. Interestingly, Associates say they have shared the PSP program with 375,824 of their friends, family and community members outside of Wal-Mart.”

PSPs have 5 major advantages for corporations that can be measured in dollars and cents:

1. Reduced expenses at commercial sites
2. Higher productivity of employees
3. Higher retention of top talent
4. Increased revenue from attraction of green consumers
5. Higher Company Valuation

These and other advantages can also be achieved with many other types of corporate sustainability projects.

There are several unique attributes of AngelPoints’ PSP management software that should allow it to be very successful. The software uses a web 2.0 methodology, with a Facebook-like profile and features tailored to the corporate environment. This allows two-way interaction between employees and managers or employees and their co-workers. This enhances the “bottom-up” features of the PSP, which results in a higher level of engagement and ownership for project participants. It also allows for individuals and groups to share their progress with others, leading to much greater transparency and accountability and resulting in increased engagement, results and more.

From a management standpoint, the most useful feature is likely to be the ability of the AngelPoints’ software to track volunteer participation and statistics on a company-wide, department or individual level. This allows management to put specific, measurable and audit-able numbers to their sustainability efforts. Data like this is extremely important for companies who are publishing sustainability and CSR reports, and when making the business case for sustainability efforts.

I sincerely applaud AngelPoints and Saatchi & Saatchi S for bringing this idea to fruition. I am very happy to have played some small role in it. With AngelPoints’ huge installed customer base, this could have a very significant impact on sustainability efforts nationwide.