If business stopped externalizing its costs it would stop making money! I’m somewhat obsessed with the concept of “externalities” and its companion concept developed to capture them, “full cost accounting.” “Externalities” are the costs and negative impacts imposed by businesses onto society and the environment that are not paid for by those...

This is a guest blog post written by Nassy Avramidis, Junior Partner at Jeffrey Hollender Partners The other day, I threw a paper cup in the trash. There was no recycling bin in the vicinity and I was in a rush. Normally I am pretty conscious of the environment, but there are times when I slip up, and the guilt can be somewhat overwhelming. A lot of us,...

We’ve all seen the news: droughts in the south, fires ravaging our forests in the west, hurricanes on the east coast. North America has been affected by significantly more weather-related extreme events in recent decades, especially in the year 2012, than may other parts of the globe. A  publication by Munich Re, the worlds foremost reinsurance agency, titled...

In his inaugural address, President Obama finally acknowledged publicly that when it comes to climate change, it’s time to act.  Yes, it’s time for the government to act. We knew this already. But did anyone else feel like the President was asking us, the citizens, to act on climate change? We, the people. We, the people. Words he repeated over and over...

The Ethical Consumerism Report 2010 was produced by The Co-operative Group, which has tracked shopping trends in the United Kingdom for more than a decade, found that, “despite the economic downturn, sales of ethical goods and services have remained resilient, going up almost 9% last year from £43bn to £46.8bn. Acting as a barometer of green spending since...

For those in the sustainable products industry, it has been a long running and often elusive challenge to understand the role consumers play in creating a thriving “green” marketplace. During the holiday season when shopping reaches a fever pitch is perhaps the most interesting time to explore what underlies our purchasing decisions and how those decisions...