I’m enough of a capitalist to think that some of the anti-government regulation rhetoric flying around in political circles is not without foundation. Government bureaucracy and mandates can be pretty stifling for smaller businesses especially. I think it was Rick Perry…..er, no…..Michele Bachmann……..er, no…..wait minute….. Newt actually, who suggested we abolish the EPA (set up, [...]
I was delighted when someone sent me this Time Science piece on “The Coming US-China Solar War” because it finally lays bare the conflicting arithmetic confronting the US solar industry, arithmetic that typically gets lost in all the hype and rhetoric that afflicts commentary on the US renewable energy industry. What the article says, in [...]
Radical Resource Productivity is a term coined in the book “Natural Capitalism” by Paul Hawken, Amory Lovins and Hunter Lovins in the 1990s. It refers to the idea that we need to improve by orders of magnitude the amount of output we get from one unit of resource input (e.g. energy, water, an acre of land, [...]
I will be hosting a series of guest lectures on sustainability this semester as part of the CU Denver Business School’s MBA course MGMT6823: The Sustainable Business Opportunity. The Business School has decided to open these lectures to the public FREE OF CHARGE as part of its effort to strengthen relationships between the School and members [...]
CindyMoe is an Industrial Water Conservation Engineer with Denver Water. Her mission is to encourage both business and residential consumers to reduce their water consumption. She’s an expert in spotting opportunities for saving water and enjoys explaining how she can often tell how much water a toilet uses per flush by its color. “If you [...]
Subway’s Subwaste!
Dec 22
One of my MBA students recently cited an extraordinary example of unsustainable behavior at the Subway restaurant chain, an organization that prides itself on its nutritious fare, and its sustainability initiatives have been recognized in the restaurant industry (click here). He pointed out that every single sandwich served is delivered in a plastic bag. Given [...]
McKinsey’s long anticipated report on Sustainability & Resource Productivity is out. It’s a stunning report containing stunning numbers. It’s seriously sobering – yet in many ways exciting – reading. I recommend it to ANYONE. When the world’s pre-eminent consulting firm makes such an impassioned plea for what my colleague Erich Harris, Sustainability Coordinator for the [...]
A terrific article in The Economist of November 12 shows why sustainability is becoming a key driver of corporate strategy in large corporations - Why Companies Go Green. There are so many good points in this one-pager (what would you expect – this IS The Economist!!!), it’s hard to know where to begin highlighting them. However, the [...]
I attended EcoCycle’s Sustainability Summit yesterday. It was a well-organized and informative event with excellent presentations on many aspects of sustainable business. More than one presenter alluded to the extraordinary strides made by WalMart in the past 5 years on the sustainability front, notably in its efforts to develop a sustainability index for the products [...]
