UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA’S DARDEN SCHOOL OF BUSINESS
The Darden Report
FALL 2009
The Fast Track in China
INSIDE: Sustainability Goes Mainstream, Diversity’s Unexpected Benefits, Seismic Shifts in the TV Industry
Bundoran Farm
Taking Sustainability Mainstream
When it comes to environmental and
social responsibility, fundamental
change starts at the local level—in
our communities—and can even lead
to a winning Olympic bid.
by Angela Manese-Lee, Class of 2010
Bundoran Farm of Albemarle County is the
first residential development in Virginia
to receive Audubon International’s Gold
Signature Sanctuary designation.
A
s Joseph “Joe” Barnes (MBA ’93) drives through a landscape of lush, green pasture in
Albemarle County—winding past grazing cows and forests of pine, oak and hemlock trees—
U niversity
Jack Looney
he explains what he calls “a market-based solution to rural land preservation.”
Bundoran Farm is a new, 2,300-acre residential development 15 minutes south of
Charlottesville that combines land preservation with residential living. Eventually, Bundoran
Farm will include up to 108 single-family homes. As the project’s development director, Barnes
works to ensure that the real estate development “lays very lightly on the land.”
Projects like Bundoran Farm, which incorporate environmental and social responsibility
into financially feasible business models, have garnered increasing attention in recent years,
largely because they are proving that “sustainable business” can be competitive and profitable.
In the case of Canadian community Whistler, British Columbia, a commitment to sustainability
resulted in a winning bid for the 2010 Winter Olympic Games.
“It used to be people thought if you make something that’s environmentally responsible or
socially responsible, it’s going to cost more,” explains Darden Professor Andrea Larson. “That’s
an antiquated way of thinking. What we’re seeing in the marketplace is entrepreneurs putting
ventures out there that are very competitive.”
Larson, who has conducted leading-edge research and taught in the field of sustainable
innovation and entrepreneurship since the mid ’90s—long before the climate change debate
took the issue mainstream—is quick to cite many companies that are successfully engaged in
“clean commerce.” Among them, she mentions Method, which sells environmentally healthy
home care and personal care products such as hand soap and bathroom cleaner. Inc. magazine
recently listed Method as one of the fastest growing firms in the U.S.
“People are making money by doing things in smarter ways and thinking through how to
redesign products and processes and operations so you don’t create the same kind of pollution
problems we’ve been creating for years and years and years,” she says.
“It used to be people thought
if you make something that’s
environmentally responsible
or socially responsible, it’s
going to cost more. That’s an
antiquated way of thinking.”
—DARDEN PROFESSOR ANDREA LARSON
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Bundoran Farm
“We’re fortunate that our investment partners think
generationally, not quarterly.”
—JOE BARNES (MBA ’93), partner with Celebration Associates, which is
developing Bundoran Farm with Qroe Farm Preservation
Larson studies companies committed to sustainable business as
a strategic and market advantage. “Companies are under pressure,
and they have to think differently now,” she explains. She points
out, however, that fundamental change starts in communities—at
the local level.
Thinking Generationally, Not Quarterly
Barnes knows a thing or two about community development.
Having trained as an architect at the University of Virginia and
Princeton University, he is now a partner with Celebration
Associates, a developer and operator of master planned
communities. He has helped launched communities along
Virginia’s Chesapeake Bay and in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina,
near Charleston. Upon graduating from Darden, he joined the
Disney Development Company and served as the first town
architect for Celebration, Florida, a new town founded by The
Walt Disney Company.
To develop Bundoran Farm, Barnes and his partners with
Celebration Associates have teamed up with Qroe Farm
Preservation, and the group’s collective goal is to preserve the
area’s picturesque view. The developers will protect the land’s
bucolic character through a system of conservation easements and
protective covenants, low density building and leases that allow
local farmers to use much of the land for cattle grazing
and orchards.
When the Bundoran Farm development is complete, more
than 90 percent of the property will remain working farmland and
forest. Supporting this vision is a business model marketing twoto 100-acre homesites to people who want to enjoy an agrarian
lifestyle without having to maintain a farm. The lots sell from
several hundred thousand dollars to upward of $1 million.
“It allows for the best of both worlds,” Barnes says of the
business model. “Landowners get to maximize their land value,
and people can live in an environmentally protected environment.”
In recognition of its efforts to manage the natural resources
of the land, Bundoran Farm recently received the Gold Signature
Sanctuary Designation from Audubon International. The Audubon
Signature Program ensures that managers apply sustainable
resource management practices in the long-term stewardship of
the property.
Despite economic setbacks resulting from a struggling housing
market, 10 lots have sold, and construction is under way on
several residences. “We probably didn’t come into the market at
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the best time, but we feel fortunate people really understand and
appreciate the concept,” notes Barnes, adding, “We’re fortunate
that our investment partners think generationally, not quarterly.”
Sustainability Leads to a Winning Olympic Bid
High in the Pacific Ranges of the Coast Mountains of British
Columbia, Canada, is another community that has reaped the
benefits of sustainability.
In the case of the resort town Whistler, British Columbia,
fresh, “green” ideas led to a winning bid for the 2010 Winter
Olympic Games. Darden Professor Richard Brownlee—who, like
Larson, has studied unacknowledged “environmental liabilities”
for almost 20 years—joined forces with Darden Media, case writer
Amy Lemley and corporate sustainability experts Brian Nattrass
and Mary Altomare Nattrass to develop the award-winning
multimedia case “Whistler: Blazing the Trail for Sustainability”
(Darden Business Publishing). The Nattrasses are Batten Fellows,
thought leaders who partner with Darden’s Batten Institute to
create knowledge that illuminates the transformative power
of entrepreneurship and innovation. The case won a Wachovia
Award for Excellence in Course Materials.
The case’s CD-ROM set explores how the resort municipality of
Whistler used its commitment to a “triple bottom line—economy,
community and environment” to differentiate itself as a worldclass resort destination.
“Much of Whistler’s appeal was its thousands of acres of
pristine wilderness, with breathtaking mountains soaring to
glacial peaks,” states the case. “Applying triple-bottom-line
thinking to the development of such an area required a systems
approach that allowed the resort to protect natural habitats and
be environmentally intelligent without inconveniencing guests.”
But the resort went further, finding a way to turn potential
“inconvenience” into an asset. The pedestrian-only village, the
sighting of bears on the golf course, and the chance to ski through
natural glades became peak experiences for vacationers and points
of pride for residents.
The case is intended to show the business world that
sustainable elements can be a business advantage. “We aren’t
showing the true cost of what we are doing to the environment,”
Brownlee explains. “As we cost products and as we look at new
and different product designs, if we don’t do full life-cycle costing,
we’ll continue to make products that appear in the short term
to be profitable, but in the long term are not because we’ve
contaminated the land, the air or the water.”
An Environmentally Intelligent Focus
Professors Larson and Brownlee don’t accept the long-held belief
that high-performing products and socially and environmentally
responsible products are mutually exclusive. Whether it’s the way
our communities protect the natural resources of the land or the
products we use to wash our hands, the time has come to broaden
the market for sustainable practices and products. Sustainability
is not just for dedicated environmentalists; it’s for all people who
want the best product at a fair price.
“The new business model is to make an excellent product
that performs as well or better than environmentally unfriendly
products, and people will buy it,” says Larson. “It’s about making it
easy for people to buy your product.”
“This is sustainability in a business context,” adds Brownlee.
“If we’re going to be able to add value to society and improve our
standard of living in a way that the natural world can survive, then
we need to do it with an environmentally intelligent focus.”
In the case of Whistler, Brownlee said he hopes the high-profile
nature of the 2010 Winter Olympics will draw attention to the
community’s sustainability vision, spurring discussions worldwide
about how to design and deliver products and services in new,
innovative and environmentally intelligent ways.
With similar aims in mind, the developers of Bundoran
Farm have established The Baldwin Center for Preservation
Development, a nonprofit foundation devoted to highlighting
innovative practices in agricultural preservation and sustainable
growth.
“After the developers are gone, we want to have something to
keep the energy alive related to environmental stewardship,” says
Barnes, “and to promote intelligent discourse and discussion on
global rural land preservation.” ●
“Green” Glossary from
Whistler: Blazing the Trail for Sustainability
(DarDen Business puBlishing)
By E. Richard Brownlee II, Amy Lemley, Brian Nattrass
and Mary Altomare Nattrass
adaptive reuse: changing the purpose of an existing item,
structure or site rather than destroying it.
corporate social responsibility: companies being held
accountable for the effects their policies and practices have on
the communities they serve and the environments in which
they function.
environmental or ecological footprint: an impact assessment
that factors in the amount of nonrenewable natural resources
an entity uses per year and the amount of waste that entity
releases into the environment.
life cycle assessment: A full cost analysis, from the
manufacturer’s obtaining raw material through the end
user’s disposal of used product—including the effects on the
environment and the community.
renewable resource: a resource that replenishes itself at a
greater rate than that at which it is being used (e.g., oxygen,
which replaces itself faster than humans are using it); in
contrast to a nonrenewable resource—one that will be
exhausted once the existing supply is gone (e.g., fossil fuels,
which replace themselves more slowly than humans are
using them).
Ian Bradshaw
Much of Whistler’s appeal is its thousands of acres of pristine
wilderness, with breathtaking mountains soaring to glacial peaks.
The resort municipality’s commitment to a triple bottom line—economy,
community and environment—led to a winning bid for the 2010 Winter
Olympic Games.
Angela Manese-Lee (Class of 2010) holds a Darden Batten Media
Fellowship and is a former award-winning reporter for The Roanoke
Times. Her team won the 2007 Education Writers Association award
for its breaking news coverage of the Virginia Tech shootings.
Professor Richard Brownlee has studied unacknowledged “environmental
liabilities” for almost 20 years.
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