Saudi Arabia will seek investors interested in a $109 billion plan to generate power from solar energy. The ambitious plan calls for a long term goal of generating an entire third of the nation’s electricity from solar power by the year 2032.

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Companies are increasingly using social media as a tactic for corporate social responsibility and sustainability communications.

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As part of the Bard MBA Sustainable Business Series, I am holding a “Conversation with Hunter Lovins” next Monday night (March 5th) in New York City, and I’d love to know what you would ask Hunter if you had the chance to sit down with her.

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Paul Polman, CEO of Unilever talked last week at the KPMG’s Global Summit, addressing business sustainable challenges towards Rio+20 and showing again why he is right now the true leader of the green business movement.

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Forget the triple bottom line: the folks at Clif Bar manage for five separate objectives. Find out how they manage it.

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Despite UPS headquarters being 20 years old, the company just announced that it has become the first in the package delivery and logistics industry to gain LEED Gold Certification from the US Green Building Council. UPS submitted the building for review in May 2011 (shortly after the appointment of Chief Sustainability Officer Scott Wicker) and [...]

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A start-up called re:char has a new take on an ancient idea that’s designed to enhance crop yields in the developing world by making  biochar accessible and affordable. Biochar is made by a process known as pyrolysis, which heats organic matter such as waste farm produce, without oxygen. Instead of releasing carbon dioxide into the [...]

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3p is proud to partner with the Presidio Graduate School’s Managerial Marketing course on a blogging series about “sustainable marketing.” This post is part of that series. To follow along, please click here. By Griff Foxley In part 1 of this post, I explored some of the forces at play today that are creating a [...]

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Crowdfunding sites like Kickstarter and IndieGoGo give social entrepreneurs a way to test product and service ideas, reach new audiences and generate marketing buzz with minimal risk and upfront investment.

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3p is proud to partner with the Presidio Graduate School’s Managerial Marketing course on a blogging series about “sustainable marketing.” This post is part of that series. To follow along, please click here. By Griff Foxley On October 26th, a beautiful video was posted on Vimeo of a murmuration of starlings. It was a rare [...]

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The following post is part of the course work for “Live Exchange” the foundational course on communication for The MBA Design Strategy Program at California College of the Arts. The rest of the posts are presented here. By Corine Prothero Effective sustainability conversations need to be heard everywhere. Select students, communities, grassroots movements, businesses, and [...]

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Why is Walmart such a polarizing force? Perhaps it is because of its sheer scale, its immense presence or the absolute need it represents to so many people in the world as an access point of food, clothing and basic living items for an affordable price.

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A strong case can be made for grubbing on bugs, but in the United States and Europe there’s a prevalent cultural bias against insects as a source of edible protein. Find out why entomophagy—the practice of eating insects—has recently started gaining traction as a viable alternative.

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This post explores America’s neglect of recycling while highlighting the exciting opportunity that still exists.

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This post outlines key considerations for property owners to evaluate when leasing their land for renewable energy development. There are pros and cons to leasing your property to a renewable energy developer and/or owner to earn revenue. It is important to understand how to navigate the complexities of benefits and risks when dealing with newly emerging renewable energy development land leases.

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Adam Capital Clean Energy Finance, a private investment firm, has agreed to lend $1 million to finance rooftop solar panels for 85 low-income homes in New Orleans. The loan is with Sustainable Environmental Enterprises of Louisiana, a community-development organization engaged in financing solar projects for disadvantaged communities. A joint press release from Adam Capital and [...]

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Green energy credits are renewable energy certificates (RECs) that provde electricity was generated with a renewable energy resource such as solar or wind power.

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Instead of marketing “green-ness”, sustainable companies should focus their efforts on innovative design, and a clear message that is relevant to their customers’ experience. The fact is, for the truly successful sustainable companies, it’s not about being “green;” it’s about a superior product and a smarter message.

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This article outlines the 3 stages of recycling and argues for a closed-loop recycling system that protects the environment and promotes a greener economy.

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Deciding to operate in sustainable and socially responsible manner is one thing, but for many companies, knowing how to achieve that goal is quite another. That’s why the OECD’s “Sustainable Manufacturing Toolkit” is a useful place for businesses that are serious about implementing sustainability measures to start. It helps answer the age-old question: What do [...]

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Jeffrey Hollender co-founded Seventh Generation Inc., the country’s largest distributor of non-toxic, all natural cleaning, paper and personal care products. Seventh Generation pioneered a new category of cleaning products, growing exponentially as it’s primary retail partner, Whole Foods, ascended. He served as CEO and Executive Chair until his abrupt departure last year. Hollender is also [...]

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Neil McPhail, board member, Alliance to Save Energy and senior vice president, new business customer solutions group at Best Buy discusses how power companies and consumer technology retailers are coming together to establish working relationships and best practices that will work toward creating better, more efficient and most importantly, greener products from store shelf to in-home outlet. Best Buy, a consistent leader in sustainability, is hosting its 3rd Annual Energy Summit and Neil shares with readers some of his key insights and takeaways from the discussions leading up to summit.

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This post examines the shortcomings of the organic food movement, such as making it more accessible and fun, and compares it to the challenges faced by sustainability advocates.

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by David Jaber Benchmarking doesn’t require site assessments, as the Orchard Hotel and Xanterra examples in Part 1 show.  We just need the data. For example, a state in the Western US wanted to look at the comparative environmental performance of five plants in one of its most prominent industry sectors.  They already had data [...]

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The 2011 Pipeline Fund Fellowship Pitch Summit had eleven woman-owned, for-profit, socially responsible businesses presenting their business plans, hoping to raise money from a group of ten women learning to become angel investors.   During a break in the pitches, Nithya Das, an associate at the law firm Goodwin Procter presented the keynote.  She represents and [...]

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Pennies from heaven don’t mean very much anymore, especially considering their costs to the environment and the expense of mining and minting them. With apologies to Abe Lincoln, Mike’s Bikes, a company with nine locations in California, has taken a solid stand against continued use of the venerable coin. The company recently announced it is [...]

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Congratulations on being ahead of the business curve by having a sustainably themed business!  There are still too many old-school businesses that haven’t seen the light.  But, being environmentally or socially responsible doesn’t mean you can ignore the bottom-line.  You need to have profits to support your mission.   I can’t even begin to count the [...]

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This post is part of a blogging series by economics students at the Presidio Graduate School’s MBA program. You can follow along here. By Joey Christiano Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE) financing is a mechanism that allows renewable energy, water conservation, and energy efficiency projects to be financed at reasonable rates. PACE works by attaching [...]

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Though on the one hand the bicycle is perhaps the most basic form of transportation, on the other, it’s possible to spend several thousands of dollars on a bike made from the lightest, most high performance composite aerospace materials available. Manufacturers of high performance bikes have sought frame materials for lightness, strength, and comfort that [...]

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This post is part of a blogging series by marketing students at the Presidio Graduate School’s MBA program. You can follow along here. By John Lehnert What does the future hold for the EPA? From what I’ve observed, it’s trying to build sustainability into its foundations—and to reflect that shift in its branding.  As I [...]

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