Over the past four days of the conference, we experienced insightful research, a great dose of inspiration, and numerous case studies. Here are some parting thoughts from conference attendees:

It's been a great conference. I love the inspiring stories. My main take-away is the innovative thinking like I heard in KEEN and Method presentations. I love the questions that KEEN was founded on “Can a sandal protect the toe?"

~Cindy Jennings, Cohn Marketing

It's extremely inspiring hearing all the stories. The research data is extremely beneficial to understand the trends. I can now reflect on my own branding efforts. We've been branding to the green consumer for a few years and I can now do that more effectively. I see where we've been going astray and what the trends are moving forward.

~Crystal Wohle, Duraflame

It's hard to pick what I enjoyed most. I got as much from individual discussions as I did from presentations. There are bread crumbs I can pick up from the presentations that I can take back - as much from Dow Chemical and Clorox, perhaps surprisingly - as from the cool sustainable brands: New Belgium Brewery and Seventh Generation. Since I work within a corporation, I am particularly interested in how to translate sustainability into language that senior execs without an environmental background can relate to. I'm inspired to begin the spark of sustainability within my own company.

~Maryann Bell, Applied Biosystems

I was very impressed by the presentation by Method's founder Eric Ryan. It was a great story, and quite a few people at the conference have been talking about it. BBMG did a great job of presenting their research. They communicated on a level that newbies could understand as well as folks with a greater understanding.

One interesting thing was hearing from many companies that they've been involved in sustainability work for a while but haven't been bragging about it. Also, the focus on the environment and green as sustainability was sometimes surprising (seems a narrow perspective on sustainability), though some recognized that sustainability is a bigger issue. This seems new to many people, or something that companies are expanding their work into.

~Guinevere Griswold, CSRwire

The caliber of the speakers and the quality of the presentations was, for the most part, really first class. The insightful use of multimedia content helped deliver a more powerful message. We'd expect that from a branding conference!

Andrew Winston, Paul Herman, Jonathan Greenblatt, and also all of the speakers at the general sessions have been fantastic. I appreciated the selection of charismatic and engaging speakers. The ones who opened up and shared anecdotal and personal stories made for a much more thought-provoking and interesting presentation. I also liked the Natural Marketing Institute presentation and their research.

It was great to see a page in the program about how the organizers are greening the conference. Food “quality was excellent“ the sustainability could be higher (for example, farmed salmon at lunch today - might have shied away if they had done research). There is a duty to look at all aspects of the conference with room for improvement.

~Manager, California-based NGO

Excellent conference with an impressive roster of speakers, including interesting sustainability efforts of big brands (HP, Clorox) as well as smaller companies “ in fact, smaller companies are sometimes moving faster and have more impressive stories to tell (like New Belgium Brewery, Method, and California wineries). My favorite session was with IDEO “ insightful ideas on how to make sustainability desirable for customers.

In addition, there was a diverse and interesting set of attendees, from brands I've heard of to brands hadn't but I was interested to find more about, NGOs, even government agencies. What struck me the most during the many conversations was how much people came from a place of leadership and passion in their work in sustainability. And how open people were to share knowledge and practices. The challenge of sustainability has inspired a spirit of collaboration that I haven't seen at other conferences.

~Executive, media company

"Sustainability is a journey, and this conference has certainly been an energizing catalyst for continuing to innovate and create more sustainable solutions in business structures, product design, production, and other arenas that will allow us to continue to live and thrive on this planet. The excitement to take what we have learned at the conference and bring it back to our companies was evident in every conversation we had today."

~Bill Baren and Patrick Dominguez, GreenBusinessInnovators.com