The travails of a family farmer
Last week, I traveled to Chattanooga, Tennessee, for the annual conference of the Society of Environmental Journalists, which is always a stimulating event. One tour offered by the SEJ took us to a...
View ArticleThe NFL and brain injury: That’s entertainment?
Are you ready for some brain damage? Fifteen years ago, with my friend and co-author Bill Carter, I wrote a book about the TV show Monday Night Football, which helped build the phenomenal popularity of...
View ArticleMushrooms: They’re good for more than eating
It looks like Styrofoam but it’s made from mushrooms One of the more exciting themes coursing through the world of sustainable business is the circular economy–the idea that we can eliminate waste, and...
View ArticleA libertarian joins The Nature Conservancy
Lynn Scarlett Can conservatives be brought back into the conservation movement? That’s the question facing Lynn Scarlett, the new director of public policy at The Nature Conservancy, who joined the...
View ArticleChip Bergh: Vegan, triathlete, Levi’s CEO
Levi’s Wellthread You’ve heard about slow food. You may have heard about slow money. Now it’s time for slow fashion. Last night, Levi Strauss & Co. unveiled a new collection of sustainable mens...
View ArticleNovelis: Towards a circular economy
As regular readers of this blog know, I find the circular economy to be one of the most exciting ideas in corporate sustainability. This is the idea, sometimes called closing the loop, that when we are...
View ArticleA bank that’s about more than money
Kat Taylor is a piece of work. Last month at the Net Impact conference in San Jose, she began her prepared “remarks” by belting out a jingle for One PacificCoast Bank, the community thrift she founded...
View ArticleAn antidote to Black Friday: Things that last
Black Friday shoppers Ah yes, ’tis the happiest time of year, the period between Thanksgiving and Christmas when people buy things they don’t need, with money they don’t have, to create impressions...
View ArticleDo you want (GMO) fries with that?
It’s a business cliche–the customer is always right–but unlike most cliches, this one is untrue. I realized that years ago when I was talking with a top executive at Southwest Airlines. Southwest...
View ArticlePeak meat: Can Al Gore, Jay Z, Oprah and Rick Warren all be wrong?
Hungry? Does this photo make you eager for dinner? Not me. I almost never cook red meat at home anymore, and I don’t miss it. I feel mildly unAmerican, having given up red meat and the NFL, but so...
View ArticleWalmart and Target, chemical cops
Health care activists say some cosmetics made by Revlon contain cancer-causing chemicals Cops of the global village. That was the headline on a FORTUNE story about globalization that I wrote in 2005. I...
View ArticleA socially-responsible energy bar
Until I met Danny Grossman, I didn’t think America needed another energy bar. You may not have noticed but this great land of ours has entered what might be described as a golden age of energy bars....
View ArticleSustainable business: What’s ahead in 2014?
So the answer to the question above is, honestly, it’s anybody’s guess. As a reporter, I’ve always resisted the idea of what editors like to call “forward looking” stories. Predictions are fun, but...
View ArticleThe future
The bet between the biologist Paul Ehrlich and the economist Julian Simon, which was described as ”the scholarly wager of the decade” by the Chronicle of Higher Education, was settled without drama–or...
View ArticleMy sustainability mood swings
Two steps forward, one step back. The other day, Guardian Sustainable Business published my story about SolarCity, a remarkable success story in the world of sustainable business. Solar City, which...
View ArticleInvesting in Bangladesh factories–for a profit
Oliver Niedermaier is selling a “capitalist solution to one of capitalism’s worst problems” — the unsafe, exploitative, polluting factories in the global south. That’s the topic of my latest story for...
View ArticleIntel: Taking a stand on “conflict minerals”
Last week, I attended my first International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. It’s a big deal: 1.8 million square feet of noisy exhibition space inside a gigantic convention center, 3,200...
View ArticleChocolate, and the Congo
Joe Whinney, in the DRC I met Joe Whinney, the chief executive and founder of Theo Chocolate, last month here in Washington, and liked him right away–he’s an unpretentious high school dropout, with a...
View ArticleCostco, Trader Joe’s, QuikTrip and the “good jobs strategy”
As the issue of income inequality takes center stage in Washington, creating risks to the reputations of some of America’s biggest employers, such as Walmart and McDonald’s, Zeynep Ton’s new book, The...
View ArticleMy radical plan for McDonald’s
So I like McDonald’s. Really, I do. The fries. The coffee. Even the (850 calorie for a large!) strawberry McCafe Shake. The clean bathrooms, too. It’s my default place to stop when driving more than a...
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