You might think that the powerful green wave changing business will subside in a recession. True, some investments might wait a bit, but most companies I talk to are pushing ahead with the sustainability agenda. One important example is Wal-Mart, which doesn't seem to be slowing down.

I recently attended...

Everybody wants to reduce their carbon footprint these days. But many companies have looked to the quick fix of buying carbon offsets. While this practice may slow down as the recession continues, the debate will continue to rage about what makes a quality offset, and there's the rub.

Ideally,...

Everybody in the world should read a new Fortune article about Matt Simmons, the oil analyst turned peak-oil prophet. As a lifelong Republican, Bush campaign and energy policy contributor, and Houston-based oil guy, he's an unusual leader of the peak oil theorists. Simmons has become convinced that Saudi Arabia and...

As we all know, energy prices have skyrocketed. Organizations of all kinds are trying new ways of doing business to cut costs. Some ideas, like Wal-Mart putting doors on refrigerated cases and cutting energy use 70% in that aisle, are head-slappingly obvious. Even seemingly wacky ideas can seem downright wise...

For many years, environmental strategy - if you could even call it that - was about complying with environmental regulations. All you had to do was make sure your facilities didn't spew too much pollution into the air or water, or your products didn't contain any banned substances, and you...

Recently I wrote about the rise of "conflicted consumers" who want greener options but don't want to go too far out of their way to get it. Is this fairly passive commitment to greener buying going to drive enough change to tackle problems as large as climate change? Some...

I don't mean to pile onto a disaster in the making, but the demise of the "Big Three" automakers is hard to turn away from (like, yes, a car wreck). It also perfectly demonstrates the dangers, and opportunities, stemming from the green wave sweeping the business world. While Japanese companies...

This post first appeared at Harvard Business Online.

Home Depot announced last week that it will collect and recycle compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFLs) in nearly 2,000 of its stores. This is great news since it eases the transition to low-energy bulbs by solving a big customer problem: what...

This post first appeared at Harvard Business Online.

How green are consumers in the U.S.? On one level, we haven't really changed all that much. Many pundits argue persuasively that without the rapid rise in energy prices, people wouldn't be buying smaller cars. And outside of some specific product...

The U.S. Senate's latest attempt at tackling climate change, the Warner-Lieberman bill, went down this month...again. The complaints of the opponents ranged from fear of higher energy prices to concerns about how the government will use the money collected when permits to emit carbon are sold. But the biggest concern...

This post first appeared at Harvard Business Online.

There's a big shift happening around what business schools are teaching students and, more importantly, what those future business leaders want from their employers. According to a recent article in Newsweek, B-schools are greening their curricula. Students are learning how to...

Recently the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in D.C. upheld a ruling that our currency violates the law - it will need to change to accommodate the blind (unlike most currencies, the size of each U.S. denomination is the same so you can't tell by touch how much you're holding)....

It's pretty clear that the business world is facing dramatic change driven by environmental concerns. Over the coming years and decades, we're going to change the entire energy system and find new ways to design, make, ship, sell, and consume things. While it's uncertain if quality of life will suffer...

Another Earth Day is here. It's probably trite to say, "Hey, every day is Earth Day", but I'll give it a go. Yes, we need to worry about Earth stuff every day, but not just because the planet is in peril - which is a pretty good reason. Think of...

I wrote a few weeks ago about Virgin Airline's biofuel test flight. While it was a bit of a publicity stunt, it was also a good thing — we need experimentation to find ways to reduce carbon emissions in all industries. But another news item HuffPo linked to this...

On Sunday, Virgin Airlines flew a jumbo jet from London to Amsterdam powered in part by coconuts ("a biofuel mixture of coconut and babassu oil" to be more precise). Some would say the applicable part of that sentence is "nuts." Is this another wacky Richard Branson moment, or something legitimate...