By Libby Bernick The environmental and social costs of global business water use add up to around $1.9 trillion per year, according to new research by Trucost for the TEEB for Business Coalition, Natural Capital at Risk: The Top 100 Externalities of Business . Some of these external water costs already are being internalized and hitting bottom lines: Just [...]

By Joel Makower Companies continue to rank low among global institutions when it comes to sustainability leadership, though a few companies — mostly the usual suspects — continue to rise above the others, according to an annual survey being released this week. If that sounds like damning with faint praise, it is. According to the 2013 Sustainability [...]

Presenters: David Struhs, Marc Gunther
Learn how Domtar transformed its sustainability initiatives from a resource-saving and cost-cutting exercise towards becoming a global leader in fiber innovation.

Patagonia’s founder and CEO, Yvon Chouinard, talks with Joel Makower at the 2013 GreenBiz Forum on authenticity and responsibility in building Patagonia, and how consumers can use the power of their wallets to change society.

By Kira Gould At our offices, there is a new refrain. “I’m recording everything,” says William McDonough — designer, advisor, thought leader and author — on any given day. In an effort to chronicle the sustainability movement through McDonough’s eyes, Stanford University Libraries has engaged in a unique experiment by creating the academic institution’s first “Living Archive.” Digital [...]

By Jonathan Bardelline The recycling rate in the U.S. has been stuck in a rut, slowly inching up year by year, a signal that any major increases will need to be spurred by major actions. Those on all sides of the issue may agree that changes need to be made to recycling systems, but a recent dustup over [...]

By Kristine A. Wong GreenBiz editor and reporter Kristine Wong spoke with Turner about how the company that created a way for individuals to rent out their residences to short-term visitors has become one of the fastest-growing startups around. At the same time, the sharing economy must take on regulatory challenges that may threaten its growth. Turner, Airbnb’s director [...]

By Josephine Fleming There’s a new kind of buyer’s remorse in the marketplace. It’s the environmentally aware purchaser who has been tricked into purchasing something or using a service that they thought was green but is not at all sustainable; more so a product of clever marketing. In the hopes of providing a future for our children, [...]

By Matt Polsky Editor’s note: This article is the third part of a three-part series “Do we need the “S-word?” Read the previous parts here: Part One , Part Two . An entirely separate article by Joel Makower, ” Why Aren’t There More Ray Andersons ,” is another great question, and received many fine comments, but is too important to leave siloed. Therefore, we can [...]

By Hannah Miller While helping to develop the climate change plan for Lawrence, Kan ., sustainability journalist Simran Sethi was having trouble getting her message across to the Chamber of Commerce. “The science is uncertain,” one banker argued. She was shocked. How could anyone still believe this? she wondered. Sethi, a journalism professor from “the green bubble of New [...]

By: Marc Gunther About three decades ago, Donn Tice was an MBA student at the University of Michigan, studying with the late C.K. Prahalad, who was developing his argument that companies can make money and do good by creating products and services for the world’s poorest people. It’s an exciting notion, popularized in Prahalad’s influential 2004 book, [...]

By Kristine A. Wong There’s a good chance you’ve seen some of Jonah Sachs’ work. After starting out as a graphic designer, Sachs co-founded Free Range Studios to utilize the power of viral videos, mobile apps and interactive websites to tell sustainability stories for clients that include 350.org, Autodesk, Pathfinder International , Natural Resources Defense Council and the Annie E. Casey Foundation . In [...]

By Sam Mountford Environmental concern among the global public is on the wane across a whole range of issues, GlobeScan’s most recent polling finds. But, with no sign that the problems facing the planet are any less severe – quite the reverse – how do we explain this increase in apathy? The trend is certainly stark. GlobeScan tracks [...]

By Alison Moodie The push to ban single-use plastic bags continues to gain momentum as more and more cities, counties and countries around the world adopt the trend. Alameda County in the San Francisco Bay Area is the latest to prohibit plastic bags throughout its 14 cities, covering some 2,000 establishments. And in March, Austin, Texas will follow [...]

By Todd Gartner Natural ecosystems provide essential services for our communities. Forests and wetlands, for example, filter the water we drink, protect neighborhoods from floods and droughts and shade aquatic habitat for fish populations. While nature provides this green infrastructure , water utilities and other decision-makers often attempt to replicate these services with concrete-and-steel gray infrastructure — usually at a much greater cost. [...]

By Joel Makower It’s been about two and a half years since the launch of the Cradle to Cradle Products Innovation Institute , the nonprofit chartered by architect and designer William McDonough and chemist Michael Braungart to “bring about a large-scale transformation in the way we make the things we make.” And it’s been just over a decade since the publication [...]

By Mike Belliveau Compostable cups. The PlantBottle. Polyethylene plastic from sugar cane. Bioplastics and other biobased chemicals – made from plants rather than petroleum – can slash a product’s carbon footprint. Brand owners are driving demand for bioproducts to help meet corporate sustainability goals. And biobased makes economic sense as a hedge against the high price of crude and [...]

By Dan Probst After an election year when energy and climate change policies were not central to the national discussion, it may seem interest in sustainability has flagged in the U.S. In fact, the public and private sectors, working together and separately, continue to progress on policies and strategies that support both ecological and economic goals. This [...]

By Kathrin Winkler I have an idea for 2013. Let’s collaborate to come up with a new definition for “corporate sustainability.” Would that I had a dollar for every panel discussion in which the moderator says something like “everyone has their own definition of ’sustainability’ and no two agree.” Never mind that the subject and verb don’t agree [...]