(This is from Sue Barsom at the PSU Suustainability Institute)

Carol Sanford, author of “The Responsible Business” and “The Responsible Entrepreneur,” will be a featured speaker on April 18 during the Sustainability Institute’s inaugural Reinvention Fund Symposium.

Sanford has consulted with companies such as Seventh Generation, Intel, Dupont, and Colgate-Palmolive, and her work has also been used in a Google Innovation Lab. Sanford’s books are required reading at leading business schools including Harvard, Stanford, Haas Berkeley and MIT.

She holds undergraduate degrees from UC Berkeley in Economics and Public Law and a graduate degree from California State University, San Jose in Urban Planning.

Central to Sanford’s philosophy and approach is a fresh look at what makes an organization truly innovative and responsible. “It’s important to find out what differentiates a business from the crowd,” Sanford says, “and then thinking about how to innovate in business so that workers/suppliers, communities, societies, and ecology, investors — as a whole, are improved. These are not separate but interwoven pursuits. It’s completely doable, and a conversation worth having.”

Sanford’s April 18 keynote address “Catalyzing Innovation: Local Economies, Entrepreneurship and Education in a Living Systems Paradigm” will be held from 1:30 to 2:45 p.m. in Ballrooms CDE of the Nittany Lion Inn.

Sanford’s lecture is sponsored by Penn State’s Sustainability Institute and the Reinvention Fund. A question and answer session will follow. Visit sustainability.psu.edu for the Reinvention Fund Symposium full agenda. The symposium and Sanford’s keynote address are free and open to the public.

For more information about Carol Sanford, visit carolsanford.com or watch her talk from TedXBerkeley.

For more information about sustainability at Penn State visit www.sustainability.psu.edu.