2014 C.K. Prahalad Award Winners Announced

On June 17, CEF presented 2014 C.K. Prahalad Awards to Robert B. Carter from FedEx, Global Water Challenge, and Tamara "TJ" DiCaprio from Microsoft. The awards ceremony was held during CEF's 7th Annual Retreat, which was attended by 150 senior executives representing CEF member companies with combined revenues of over $3 trillion.The winners were announced by world-renowned ecologist Dr. Thomas E. Lovejoy, polar explorer Sir Robert Swan and corporate strategist Ernest von Simson. Robert B. Carter, Executive Vice President, Information Services/CIO, FedEx Corporation

Robert B. Carter was recognized for guiding the digital transformation of FedEx through technologies that improve data management operational efficiency, helping the company lower costs and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.Carter's accolades include leading his team—in concert with the FedEx Marketing team—in the development and international rollout of SenseAware®, a service that combines sensors and a web platform to track the conditions of shipments around the world, enhancing efficiency. With his leadership, FedEx has spearheaded groundbreaking efforts to reduce energy use and emissions from IT operations. These include a LEED Certified Enterprise Datacenter in Colorado Springs that is among the most energy-efficient in the United States, and systems that help FedEx operations improve routing efficiencies for package pickup and delivery. Carter also pushed FedEx to use Bloom solid-oxide energy cells to power a hub in Oakland, California. Along with a large solar array, the Oakland hub is nearly "grid neutral" for electricity consumption.

GWC, a coalition of leading companies and civil society partners with a presence in over 200 countries, was honored for its progress in inspiring companies and other donors to protect water resources, deliver clean water access, and provide sanitation while sparking social and economic development in areas that need it most.As a result of GWC's efforts, 418,000 people and nearly 500,000 children have school-based water and sanitation programs in Kenya, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Tanzania, and Mexico; while an additional 32,000 now have safe sanitation. GWC identifies and supports scalable programs that employ innovative financing models to achieve sustainable water and sanitation services in the communities they serve.

TJ DiCaprio was recognized for being the chief architect and driving force behind Microsoft's internal carbon fee program. The program charges business units for their carbon emissions from travel and electricity use, then reinvests the proceeds in energy efficiency, clean energy, and carbon offset projects.With a price on carbon, managers are seeing emissions reflected in their budgets for the first time, creating incentives to become even more efficient. To date, the program has funded 20 offset projects across the globe in places like Mongolia, Peru and Turkey; and has also helped fund a 20-year power purchase agreement for 110 megawatts of wind energy in Texas. The program has enabled Microsoft achieve carbon neutrality in fiscal year 2013 and become the second largest user of renewable energy in the United States. DiCaprio has since written the "Carbon Fee Playbook," a five-step guide for other companies to implement their own internal carbon fee programs.

C.K. PrahaladAwardforGlobalSustainabilityLeadership

The C.K. Prahalad Award, created in 2010 to honor founding CEF Advisory Board member C.K. Prahalad, recognizesexceptional, globally significant private-sector action that exemplifies the fundamental connection between sustainability, innovation and long-term business success in a globalizing world. The Prahalad Award seeks to honor globally significant action(s) bycompanies, individuals, and/or collaborationsin any or all of the following areas:

• Groundbreaking private sector sustainability innovation
• Catalytic industry or value chain sustainability leadership
• Extraordinary contributions to reducing business environmental footprints and/or solving environmental problems

The Sustainable Apparel Coalition

The Sustainable Apparel Coalitionwas honored for its pioneering efforts to unite the world's apparel and footwear companies around a shared vision to reduce environmental harm and have a positive impact on communities. The Coalition is developing an Index to measure the environmental and social performance of apparel and footwear products across the value chain. Since its 2011 launch, the Coalition has grown to include companies representing over one third of the world's apparel and footwear industry.Watch video of Jason Pearson acceptance speech on behalf of the Coalition.

Unilever and CEO Paul Polman

Unilever and Paul Polman were recognized for matching a bold vision of "long-term capitalism" with equally impressive action. The company's Sustainable Living Plan sets out ambitious goals for 2020 that build on a long history of commitment and action on corporate sustainability issues including: halving the company's overall environmental imprint, helping over one billion people take action to improve their health and well-being, and sourcing 100% of its agricultural raw materials sustainably.Watch video of CEO Paul Polman's acceptance speech.

About C.K. Prahalad

C.K. Prahaladwas the Paul and Ruth McCracken Distinguished University Professor at the Ross School of Business, University of Michigan specializing in corporate strategy. After decades of interaction with Global 500 CEOs as one of the world's most well-respected management strategists,C.K.'s passingbrought an abrupt end to what would surely have been a successful mission to innovatively expand sustainability agendas in boardrooms and executive suites across the globe.C.K. was also a founding member of the CEF Advisory Board and an active participant in the CEF Annual Meetings. With Ram Nidumolu and M.R. Rangaswami, C.K. authored a 2009 Harvard Business Review cover story, "Why Sustainability is Now the Key Driver of Innovation."C.K. authored or co-authored many best-selling business books, including Multinational Mission: Balancing Local Demands and Global Vision (1987), Competing for the Future (1994), The Future of Competition: Co-Creating Unique Value with Customers (2004), and The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid: Eradicating Poverty through Profit (2004).A prominent world-class figure, C.K. was named number one in the Thinkers50 (the most influential thinkers in management alive today) poll conducted by Suntop media and the Times of London. He was consulted by the top management of many of the world's foremost companies. C.K. served on the Board of Directors of Pearson Plc, Teradata Corporation, Hindustan Unilever Limited, TVS Capital and the World Resources Institute.

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Taxonomy

• Innovation
• Research
• Sustainability