Sustainable Apparel Coalition wins CK Prahalad award

Neil Hawkins, Vice President of Sustainability and Environment, Health & Safety at The Dow Chemical Company, was honored for a long track record of exceptional sustainability leadership within and outside of his company.

His most recent standout achievement was forging breakthrough collaboration with The Nature Conservancy to help Dow and other companies recognize, value, and incorporate nature’s services into global business goals, decisions and strategies.

“Neil is one of the unsung heroes in the corporate sustainability profession and his peers tell us he is generous with his knowledge and experience,” said MR Rangaswami. “C.K. Prahalad literally defined what it means to ‘do well by doing good’ in business – inspiring me, and many others, to embed sustainability into core business strategies,” said Neil Hawkins, Dow’s Vice President of Sustainability and EH&S.

“I’m honored and humbled to be recognized with this award. At Dow, we are committed to driving innovations and collaborations that deliver value for business, society and the planet.”

The C.K. Prahalad Award was created to honor the vision and life’s work of the late Dr. C.K. Prahalad, one of the world’s most influential business strategists. Towards the end of his illustrious career, Prahalad focused his enormous talent on the link between sustainability and long-term business success.

In a 2009 Harvard Business Review cover story he co-authored with CEF founder MR Rangaswami, Prahalad argued that over the next decade “traditional approaches to business will collapse, and companies will have to develop innovative solutions.

That will only happen when executives recognize a simple truth: Sustainability equals Innovation.” Dr. Prahalad was a senior adviser to the Corporate Eco Forum before his untimely death in 2010.

The Prahalad Awards were presented at The Ritz Carlton Battery Park in New York City during the Gala Dinner of the 5th Anniversary Annual Meeting of the Corporate Eco Forum.

The CEF Annual Meeting is bringing together more than 200 senior executives from companies that represent 18 different industries and combined revenues of over $3 trillion to focus on defining “Breaking Barriers and Forging New Ground” in corporate sustainability during two days of discussions and working sessions.

The Corporate Eco Forum (CEF)