A major challenge in sustainable business is that many of the good things we want simply can’t be seen. The electronics equipment you are considering may have be made by people being paid a decent wage, or it may not have been. You don’t really know the difference from just looking at the product. Gregory…
Category: Innovation
Marketing Is An Essential Part Of Positive Change
To change the way commerce works requires good business practice — in all senses of the word good. Marketing is an essential part of positive change. It isn’t good enough to want to do good things for the world with your company, you also need to be a good marketer. To make a positive change…
Change Brands
Chris Baker has a great book, called Obsolete, which focuses on Change Brands. The book discusses how these innovative small brands can help drive towards a more sustainable society. Change Brands The idea of a change brands is similar to a challenger brand but with added purpose. The change brand is a small player attempting…
Environmental Strategy And Competitive Advantage
Daniel Esty and Andrew Winston’s Green To Gold is a detailed look at the link between environmental strategy and competitive advantage. It is an ambitious book, seeking to reframe green issues as a way for businesses to drive success. This contrasts with green choices being things that are done out of a sense of duty….
Are We Making Any Progress On Sustainability?
I recently discussed Christopher Marquis’s HBR article “In Defense of Degrowth”, see here. As seems to happen in work from a degrowth perspective, Marquis’ article spent some time implying that we aren’t making any progress on sustainability. It was pretty depressing stuff. The idea seems to be that to motivate radical change we need to…
An Ineffective Defense Of Degrowth
One of the most interesting divides in the sustainability field is around degrowth. The idea of degrowth is hard for many business people to embrace. I must confess, as you will see, I find that the logic of the degrowth people often eludes me. As such, I was interested to see what Christopher Marquis had…
Environmental Impact Equation
Ray Anderson is a bit of a legend in sustainable business circles. He was from Georgia and even played American football for Georgia Tech to which he later bequeathed a Center in Sustainable Business. Today I’ll look at his book — Mid-Course Correction, and highlight the way he saw the role of technology in an…
GMOs Forget The Science
Scientists including biologists, medical doctors, and geneticists have many wonderful qualities. Yet, if the public policy response to Covid-19 taught us anything it was that some people who are great in their scientific fields have communication problems. This isn’t just a shame. It often undermines everything that they are trying to do. I see a…
Planning For Sustainability
Bill Gates has a really useful book about what we might call planning for sustainability. It is a practical approach on what we can hope to achieve. The book has a lot of critical information conveyed in a relatively easy-to-understand form. I’d certainly recommend it. Before we start it is worth noting that some people…
The Limits Of Math Models
The Limits To Growth is a fascinating piece of scientific history. It was a 1972 report by the Club Of Rome. Yes, they did seem to actively want to fuel conspiracy theorists’ fantasies with their enigmatic name. (They still exist by the way and seemed to have moved to Switzerland, which seems a little odd…
