What does it take to launch a socially beneficial initiative inside a big company? EBay’s recent efforts suggest you don’t have to risk a lot.
Over the past few years, eBay has quietly grown three ventures: Green Team – more than 2,000 eBay employees in more than 23 countries, all supporting environmental causes in local communities; MicroPlace – a Web site enabling everyday people to invest in the world’s working poor; and Worldofgood.com by eBay – an online marketplace convening thousands of eco-conscious sellers and products.
Now eBay, which until a few years ago was largely ignored by the corporate responsibility tribe, is emerging as a formidable agent for change.
We recently spoke with eBay CEO John Donahoe to learn how would-be innovators might grow radically sustainable ventures inside their own companies:
Q: How do you grow a grass-roots effort like the Green Team without having it get bogged down in bureaucracy?
A: The first step is to always remember that the Green Team is a grass-roots initiative. It started with a few employees who met over lunch and came up with ways for us to be a more responsible citizen, like eliminating Styrofoam cups in our break rooms. They only came to me when they needed funding for bigger goals, like $2 million for eBay to go carbon neutral – an easy call.
It also made sense, in terms of our business model, to give eBay’s sellers a way to show that their item is sustainable and to give buyers a way to shop responsibly. But it’s true that as the Green Team gets larger, you want to organise it. On the other hand, if you formalise it, it does lose some of its authenticity. The trick is to let it grow organically. The Green Team knows I’m here and I care, but I don’t feel the need to shape it.
Q: What did you see in Worldofgood.com and MicroPlace that led you to give them the green light?
A: To be clear, (former eBay CEO) Meg Whitman said yes to both. But we could all see that each had a mix of passion and connection to our core.
Passionate entrepreneurs drive them; they reinforce an adjacent eBay business; and they’re scalable. Potentially, they will evolve into platforms that will enable hundreds of millions of users to engage in commerce that benefits society.
Q: Is that business’s true role in society – to provide a social good?
A: Most businesses do. In a world where nation-states are less effective and classic diplomacy gets harder all the time, business has proven itself extraordinarily capable of working across many different nationalities and cultures.
I have a global VP meeting next week with our top 120 people, and it’s like convening the UN. We can open up all kinds of communication channels and levels of understanding across the world. Business has been an under-leveraged resource in that regard, and that’s got to change.
(Jeffrey Hollender is the co-founder and executive chairman of Seventh Generation. He and Bill Breen, senior editor on the team that launched Fast Company, are the co-authors of "The Responsibility Revolution: How the Next Generation of Businesses Will Win.")
Distributed by The New York Times Syndicate
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