Just one question...

Lynelle Cameron, Autodesk

Sustainable Industries recently asked three sustainable business leaders "just one question" regarding the business and economics of sustainability. We had but one request: please make your answer succinct. Following are their respective questions and answers.

Lynelle Cameron
Director of Sustainability, Autodesk

Q: What’s the role of design in creating more sustainable products and places, and how do you maximize Autodesk’s impact in this?  

A: "The most important piece is making sustainable design easy and cost-effective for our customers. We have to make it easy for architects, engineers and designers to make better decisions about what they’re designing, instead of thinking about sustainable design as a niche or a specific expertise.

That’s core – embedding sustainable design and ecological intelligence into all of our software regardless of which industry it’s serving.

Once we have excellent tools and features built into our core product design set, then the focus is to drive adoption and to help customers use this new functionality to make better decisions."
 

Bill Maris
Managing Director, Google Ventures

Q: Google Ventures has invested in a range of startups, from peer-to-peer car sharing to biofuels to weather forecasting. Is there a common thread running through the firm’s portfolio?

A: "We look for really great teams working on really big problems with potential for impact on global issues, even the climate. And so we look for founders and entrepreneurs that are smart and hard working and where we have found a symbiosis between the folks on our team and what the startup is doing. Are there ways in which the resources at Google, be it people, computing resources or general corporate interest, can help advance companies in ways that are fundamentally different? That’s the commonality."
 

John Kitzhaber
Governor, Oregon

Q: How will you make the case for building up clean energy and low-carbon design to Oregonians when so many of them are out of work and struggling?

A: "I don’t view clean energy and low-carbon design as something that is difficult economically. I see it as a key commercial and industrial base for Oregon’s future. 

I am moving forward on an aggressive retrofit program to improve the energy efficiency of Oregon schools and see tremendous untapped potential for Oregon’s emerging biomass industry which creates new markets for agricultural and forest products. The jobs associated with these initiatives are family wage jobs all across Oregon for professionals like architects and engineers; skilled building trades like sheetmetal workers, electricians, and carpenters."