I do a lot of public speaking on sustainability, but my very first speech after The Triple Bottom Line appeared in print over a year ago is still the most memorable--not for the speech itself, but because of what happened afterwards.

I was running late for the airport and my cab was waiting in front of the hotel. Before I could sit back, the cabdriver asked: "How was your speech?" I looked up and saw, looking at me in his rear view mirror, an older cabbie with a scraggly goatee and a cloth cap.

I asked him how he knew I had been giving a speech, and he told me that the hotel concierge had told...

In this post, I want to deviate from my usual discussion about sustainability, corporations, and profits.

I want to discuss something that rarely gets discussed in the sustainability world but which I think is going to be a subject of increasing attention. It's the fact that sustainability is really a two-sided coin. On the one side is sustainable production, which is what all of us in business like to talk about--how companies can get leaner and greener. But on the other side is sustainable consumption, which is something that we don't talk about much.

I want to frame this issues by talking about globalization--not in economic terms, but in environmental and social terms.

One of the most interesting and important aspects of climate change is that it...

Time flies when you're having fun, which I guess explains how two and a half weeks have elapsed since we last posted here: Christmas, New Year's Day, college bowl games, a wild and unpredictable presidential primary season, and an exhausting schedule of personal activities seem to have conspired to keep us away from our keyboard for an unconscionable period.

Our apologies. One day we will share with you some of our adventures during the past few weeks, including sitting in on twelve focus groups in four different cities across the United States to learn about the social and political attitudes of the Millennial Generation (under-30 Americans). Biggest takeaway: For the Millennials, the culture wars are over. It doesn't matter whether they are atheists from California or...

 Perhaps you saw this week's story in The Wall Street Journal about how protesters are gearing up for the Olympic Games and what sponsoring companies are doing about it. Short version: Most companies are focusing on "going green":

Coke is playing up its water-conservation efforts on the Yangtze River and putting natural-refrigerant coolers and vending machines at all Olympic sites. Since March, Volkswagen has been planting thousands of trees in Inner Mongolia. GE is touting its role selling ecofriendly products such as solar-power and water-filtration systems for the Olympic venues.

By concentrating on the environment, companies can show they are...

In the aftermath of a conference on sustainable packaging, a group of us were presented with this question:

While Wal-Mart stil obviously lurks as a key driver of many sustainability goals, I'm wondering whether companies have progressed beyond Wal-Mart's directives. In other words, if Wal-Mart were to abandon its Scorecard tomorrow, would brand owners and packaging suppliers continue to move forward with their sustainability goals or would they jump off that bandwagon?

One of my fellow observers commented:

If Wal-Mart were to abandon its Scorecard tomorrow (which it won't), it would have little impact on the sustainability movement overall because manufacturers--large and...

The bar is getting set higherand higher when it comes to triple bottom line performance. Whetherindustries are seeking to avoid onerous regulation or just trying tobeat the competition, the drive towards sustainabilty will surelyincrease.

One strategy that is indicated here is to get intopartnership with government. Almost every federal and state regulatorybody now invites companies to work with them on a voluntary basis tofind better ways to do business. There is no better way to "stay in theloop" when it comes to the likely course of future regulation than toestablish strong personal and business connections with the regulatorsin your industry. It also might put you in the catbird seat when itcomes to influencing the course of new requirements.

Partnering...

This is starting to get annoying. Two years ago, when the book came out and I set up my mini-consulting firm, my genius computer guy Dan suggested I use the e-mail address andy@getsustainable.net. I thought that was kind of cute, so I said okay.

For about a year and a half, no one except people in my circle remarked on this address.

But about three months ago, something weird started happening. I was on the phone with Expedia trying to reserve a flight for the next day when the Expedia representative on the phone asked me for my email address. I said...

I had the opportunity to speak last week about the relationship of sustainability to public policy in Washington's chandeliered, blue-carpeted Senate Caucus Room where, I was informed, John Fitzgerald Kennedy announced his candidacy for President of the United States 48 years ago.

That was only one of the day’s many humbling moments. Another was that I was addressing an awesome group of CEOs from Massachusetts who have formed the Progressive Business Leaders Network, dedicated to creating sustainable companies and pushing for public policy that will advance sustainable business development.

(Sometimes, despite the weather, the traffic, and the persistent but badly outdated attitude that Boston is the "Hub of the...

This week, I hosted a panel at the Ceres Conference at which Jeff Swartz, the CEO of Timberland, the boot company, and Gary Hirshberg, the CEO of Stonyfield Farms, the organic yogurt company, answered questions about the role of business in society. Prior to the panel, I spoke with them about sustainable consumption.

I was very pleasantly surprised.

Rather than the usual canned answers one often gets from CEOs at these events, both these Red Sox fans proved to be deeply committed, not to selling less shoes or yogurt, but to sustainable consumption and...