Several years after Lee Scott’s departure as CEO, something has gone seriously wrong with Walmart’s sustainability progress.

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Jeffrey Hollender’s talk on Tuesday at NYU wasn’t probably listed on Time Out NY, but nevertheless it was one of the best shows the city provided that night. Hollender, an almost impossible combination of a CEO and a rebel, is never boring no matter how many times you get to hear him. Combining gloomy economic and social observations with funny anecdotes, he managed to charm the dozens of students that packed the room, sending them home afterwards with his innovative ideas (some would say ‘European’) on how to get the U.S. economy back on the track towards a sustainable future.

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Last week, following the release of the ‘consumer futures 2020’ report, an interesting group of people gathered in New York do discuss the multi-billion dollar question – can brands and marketing deliver a sustainable future? The event, organized by Forum for the Future and Guardian Sustainable Business provided an opportunity to hear insights on this [...]

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All unhappy people are alike in that they negatively affect a business’ financial bottom line. Several years ago, Gallup estimated that Americans who are actively disengaged with their work – almost 30% of all employees – are responsible for a staggering $300 billion in lost productivity annually. This is in addition to what they receive [...]

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At Sustainable Brands ’11, there’s much talk about, well, brands. But what powers those brands? Employees. People. In the pursuit of innovation, competitive edge and profits, many companies lose sight of the real force behind their brands. Similarly, companies striving for sustainability often focus on their environmental impacts to the neglect of the social side. [...]

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Jeffrey Hollender took the stage at Sustainable Brands yesterday and he didn’t need a powepoint for the message he was going to deliver. It was time to come clean about his departure from Seventh Generation and he was not going to mince words: “I was fired 6 months ago after 23 years and I was [...]

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Recently, I interviewed Jeffrey Hollender, co-founder and former CEO of Seventh Generation about his departure from the company, his new book, and what was next for him. Mr. Hollender is a humble hero of the green economy and a man whose work I’ve admired for years. So it was with great pleasure that I dove [...]

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I recently had the opportunity to interview Jeffrey Hollender, co-founder and former CEO of Seventh Generation for our ongoing small business sustainability strategy series on GreenBusinessOwner.com. Mr. Hollender’s trademark transparency and candid style offer a viewpoint on social entrepreneurship, the trials and tribulations of founding a mission-driven company (including ceding control to a Board of [...]

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It says something about our current state of affairs in business and government when someone in a position of responsibility makes news for telling the truth, but there you have it. But then Seventh Generation’s Jeffrey Hollender doesn’t just tell ordinary truths either. Jeffrey, the company’s Chief Inspired Protagonist (they don’t have a CEO) is the kind of guy who makes you realize that we will never run out of frontier, because as long as there are pioneers like him, there will always be new frontiers.

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By Vale Jokisch Over the past two years we have heard countless mentions of the enormous bailouts for Wall Street and the concurrent ongoing woes on Main Street.  Just last week President Obama sent a proposal to Congress to create a $30 billion fund for small and medium banks in order to encourage lending to [...]

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Corporate Social Responsibly is more than just about selling sustainable products, issuing annual reports, and reducing carbon and water footprints: it’s also about how businesses treat employees and the corporate culture that’s promoted within company walls. Jeffrey Hollender, Seventh Generation’s Co-Founder, Chairman and Chief Inspired Protagonist, spoke about this holistic approach to CSR during his visit to the Presidio Graduate School earlier today.

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Yesterday, Jen Boynton published a review of Jeffrey Hollender and Bill Breen’s new book, The Responsibility Revolution. Be sure to check out the review and grab a copy when you can–it really is as good as Jen says. The only thing more captivating than reading Hollender’s latest writing is talking to him personally, which I [...]

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In my line of work, I read a lot of books about sustainable business. First there was the required reading for my MBA in Sustainable Management, then there are the books that publishers send, which I lap up like a kid in a candy store. I love this topic and I’m a bookworm anyway. Which [...]

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The Economist’s Corporate Citizenship Conference “Doing Well by Doing Good” wrapped up earlier last week and provided a variety of perspectives on what exactly needs to be done, how and by whom to restore our economy, corporate ethics and public trust. It was no surprise that the bleak economic situation was a recurring theme echoed [...]

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