About Us
The Forum is Michigan’s leading organization for beyond-compliance sustainability practitioners, with a membership program serving our region’s most recognizable brands, largest employers and most innovative entrepreneurs, advocates, and educators.
Principally located in the Greater Grand Rapids area, WMSBF is the flagship Michigan Sustainability Forum, with satellite programs in Southwest Michigan and on the Lakeshore, and sister programs across the state.
Now in its third decade, the forum strives to meet emerging needs while leveraging the efforts of an increasingly robust community of vendors and educational initiatives working toward similar goals.
We are a safe and impactful space for professional and organizational growth, the development of new relationships, and the cocreation of initiatives that enhance environmental stewardship, economic vitality, and social justice.
Strategic Goals
Michigan businesses and institutions increase their participation in the sustainability movement
Regional and statewide networks exist to facilitate collective leadership on resiliency and equity through a mutually beneficial flow of information, expertise, and resources
Sustainable business centers social and environmental justice, providing a mechanism for businesses and institutions to dismantle and support alternatives to white supremacy
Businesses and institutions collaborate to create a circular economy in their local communities and abroad
Michigan eliminates net greenhouse gas emissions through business leadership, contributing to a future where GHGs in the atmosphere are declining
Helpful Information
Our 2020 Strategic Plan is focused on these core objectives:
- Grow participation, programs and membership. Improve financial security of the organization.
- Lead commercial and industrial waste diversion and circular economy efforts in West Michigan.
- Help the West Michigan business community understand and respond to climate change.
- Emphasize the need for corporate investment in social responsibility and social equity.
Bylaws and Policies
WMSBF Scholarship and Discount Program
West Michigan Sustainable Business Forum recognizes that cost may be a barrier to entry for individuals and organizations to participate in our events and programs. Although fees and costs are necessary to ensure that our work is financially sustainable, we have created a means to ensure that our efforts are accessible and inclusive.
- Discount and trade membership: We will make discounted and trade memberships available to partner organizations with a financial need. We will also make trade memberships available to members of select association peers.
- Membership pricing: Our luncheons are priced at cost for members, whose support funds the planning and execution of events. Non-members are charged a higher price to account for the true cost of the program. By offering discounted and trade memberships, we are able to reduce the non-member cost and make participation affordable for all.
- Volunteer opportunities are available for every event and can provide individuals an option to attend at no cost.
- Non-member programs: Working groups and programs funded through grants are typically open to stakeholders regardless of membership status.
- Sponsored events: Sponsors and partners occasionally underwrite the cost of participation for their partners and members.
- Student memberships are free to students at member colleges and only $25 for students from non-member colleges.
We do not operate an application-based scholarship program or collect money for this purpose. If you are interested in volunteering or other opportunities please contact Rose Spickler, Membership & Campaigns Manager at rspickler@wmsbf.org.
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
As an influential network of businesses, governments, non-profits and academic leaders within a region that is home to many diverse communities, WMSBF affirms its commitment to promote and protect diversity, inclusion and equity within local businesses and institutions, and the community at large.
As part of our mission to promote sustainable business practices, we have a responsibility to work with vulnerable populations and communities of color to address historical disparate impacts affecting members of these communities resulting from the degradation of natural resources based on public policy or market-based actions. We advocate for sustainable development, environmental planning and economic development with the input and participation from diverse communities.
WMSBF will work to ensure that the practices we promote are aligned with principles of diversity, inclusion and social equity. This commitment is rooted in the unequivocal belief that a robust natural environment is incomplete when members of our human family face social and economic exclusion or inequities due to bias and discrimination.
We will promote acceptance, membership, employment, collaboration, equal decision-making and power-sharing in an inclusive and equitable manner with all individuals and groups. We pledge intentional inclusion of individuals and communities representing cultural, gender, ethnic, racial, sexual orientation, age, religious, disability, immigrant, family status, veteran, education level and socio-economic status diversity.
History
WMSBF originally launched in 1994 as a program of West Michigan Environmental Action Council. It became an independent 501(c) 3 nonprofit in 2009.
With the rise of the modern environmental movement in the second half of the last century, the nation began to take notice of the negative impacts of certain business practices on the natural environment and human health. Adjustments in practices, systems, and equipment to comply with new regulations, required large financial investments.
Aiming beyond compliance toward more sustainable business practices limited the risk of future regulations, and also provided economic value back to the organization.
In West Michigan, a select group was taking it further, experiencing personal revelations about the role of business in environmental and social concerns.
Emboldened by a culture that prioritizes natural resources and well-being of employees and community, a small group of businesses formed the charter membership of West Michigan Sustainable Business Forum.
There was no guidance for sustainable industry, and no best practices, so they created their own. They put competitive differences aside to pursue common goals. Informal knowledge sharing produced countless environmental and social benefits for the region, laying the foundation for local industries’ adoption of sustainability.
The Forum celebrated its 25th Anniversary in 2019 with a look ahead to the future of sustainable business in West and Southwest Michigan. The Forum has served as an introduction to sustainability for hundreds of organizations and thousands of professionals, hosting the most popular event program in the Midwest and a rotating portfolio of working groups focused on key issues. We now know that the work of our organization and its members will be judged by how we can impact the generational issues today defining our strategic objectives: climate change, racial and economic equity, and the need to develop a circular economy in our state.