Gregory Unruh

Sustainable Consumption

Sustainable consumption? Sounds like an oxymoron. But that’s what we’ll be discussing at next week’s World Economic Forum’s “Summer Davos” event

Value Cycle Leadership Matters

Business leaders have been talking about “closed loop, cradle to cradle” value cycling of materials for a long time. To achieve it, we need a new kind of leadership—value cycle leadership.

The “Climate is Gone”

Words of truth from Karl Rove as he interpreted the impact of Tuesday’s Republican victory for shale-gas executives: the “Climate is gone.” He meant climate legislation. In reality, however, the electoral victory merely sealed the already determined fate of climate policy in this country. With the rise of Tea Party thinking, “climate science skepticism” has become full-fledged “climate science hostility” and a litmus test for future Republican platforms.

I shouldn’t be surprised - my doctoral dissertation was entitled “Carbon Lock-in” - but it was hard to finally give up the hope that the U.S. might do something sensible about climate change. The Obama Administration will soldier on trying to regulate CO2 through the Environmental Protection Agency, but the EPA’s mandate stops at the U.S. border which is even more permeable to air than illegal immigrants. Climate is a global challenge and if the U.S. doesn’t lead, or at least follow, effective global action is implausible.

Doing Business with the Earth Incorporated

Green Jobs: Promise, Progress and Potential

I led a session at the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) last week entitled “Green Jobs: Preparing for the Green Economy” and can summarize the outcome in three areas: promise, progress and potential.

Scarcity, Fountain of Innovation

Monday morning, Tianjin, China and it’s the first session of the World Economic Forum’s “Summer Davos 2010” event. Ironically, after a filling breakfast in opulent surroundings, my panel colleagues and I are discussing scarcity. With concerns about peak oil, peak water, peak real estate, peak financial markets – and just about peak everything else – scarcity is on the minds of business and political leaders alike.

Sustainable Consumption Rising on the Business Agenda

Sustainable consumption? Sounds like an oxymoron. But that’s what we’ll be discussing at next week’s World Economic Forum’s “Summer Davos” event in Tianjin, China. In the session entitled “Redesigning the Supply Chain in an Era of Sustainability,” my WEF colleagues and I will ask CEOs and policy makers to rethink our dominant model of industrial production: the supply chain.

CSR: Who Knew Its Not New?

The Society of Human Resource Management recently took a look at the history of Corporate Social Responsibility. I argue that you can’t build for the future of CSR without knowing the history of the CSR movement, and how old it is. While the modern CSR movement can be roughly dated to 1995, its roots go well-back into the beginning of the 20th century. You can read the article below.

Q&A From My Harvard Business Review Webinar

A couple of weeks ago I did a webinar with Harvard Business Review sponsored by SAP and Hitachi Consulting. The topic: “Earth, Inc.: Using Nature’s Rules to Build Sustainable Profits.” We got a lot of great questions during the session and HBR has agreed to share the “podcast” of that back and forth. You can download the MP3 file here Feel free to ask any follow up questions you have.

Survival Instinct: Businesses Must Turn to Mother Nature