[This is a longer version of a response I'm posting on Huffington Post to a fairly ridiculous column about how evil former Sierra Club president Adam Werbach is for working with Wal-Mart (as featured in Fast Company this week). See the debate here ]

It's far more likely Mr. Schechter is living in Wonderland than Adam Werbach. I wish the world were as black and white as he makes it out to be, but it's much more complicated than that. Equating big business, and Wal-Mart, with evil — and labeling anyone who chooses to try and make the world's largest company more socially responsible as bad news — is too easy and incredibly misguided. Does Wal-Mart have some serious issues? Certainly. The company has big problems on the social side of the sustainability ledger, and its core business model, dependent entirely on low prices, is not sustainable for people or planet (an opinion I've shared with some of Wal-Mart's management). But just throwing up our hands and refusing to work with big business is not just illogical, it actually dooms us.

What's the alternative here? Should we only buy from and work for and with sustainable companies? Well, that would be nice, and I pray that in the future, the options are there, but for now, that would leave us with exactly zero companies. I can assure you after years of research for my book Green to Gold, there's no such thing as a sustainable company yet. Some are on their way, like Interface, Patagonia, and IKEA. But we can't afford to wait for the big companies doing business the old way to just wither and die. We must change the way the world produces goods, eats, shops, works, consumes, and lives and we'll only get there in partnership with some of the biggest organizations out there (in part by making the very defendable case that it's good for business to be green), and with some fundamental shifts in our market economy (such as...the prices of goods need to reflect their real impact on the world -- $20/gallon gas anyone?).

Companies are, like it or not, the most effective means we have for making things to wear, eat, and live with and matching them with people's needs (how much we consume is a big part of the discussion of course, but we all have some footprint no matter how green our lifestyle). Like it or not, when the history of green business is written (which I hope will come in the form of a digital or low-impact book available to the billions of people living a high-quality life and not scratched on a few palm fronds by the few remaining inhabitants of a climate-change flooded Waterworld), that history will be in large part about Wal-Mart. The company's environmental actions are very real — just ask the thousands of suppliers, large and small that have been "asked" to reduce packaging, use less fossil fuel, and change the way they make things.

Environmentalists (and I wear both hats -- business and environment -- comfortably) have to support the good things happening, even if they are coming from a seemingly unlikely place. The biggest companies in the world are taking environmental issues seriously, and the largest environmental NGOs are all working with industry closely. These relationships are a good thing. If we don't change the big guys, we won't make it.

[New post on Harvard Business.org here]

The green movement may be at risk of slowing down, especially within the business community. Many business people hold on to an outdated view of green: the misconception that environmental practices always cost a lot of money. So logically, in this economy they're asking, "Is this really the time for green? Can we really afford it now?"

At same time, most of the global discussion about getting the economy on track focuses on the macro picture — large stimulus packages at the national and industry level. But how can the economy as a whole get on its feet if individual companies don't as well?

I believe that these two questions — can we still go green and how do we revive the economy — are heavily intertwined. In this time of austerity, sustainability is perhaps even more relevant and will provide a path out of this mess. One of the core pillars of going green is doing more with less — saving physical and financial resources. So while the instinct may be to pull back from green initiatives in hard times, that would be shortsighted and a huge mistake.

Not only should companies not put their green efforts on hold, they should accelerate them in targeted ways to save money quickly and prepare for the future. Those who navigate these tricky waters the best will emerge from the downturn in better shape than their competitors.

See the rest...

The day after the climate bill failed in the U.S. Senate, the New York Times' conservative columnist Ross Douthat gave his take on "The Right and Climate" in a piece that on the surface sounded reasonable. Maybe it was best that the bill didn't pass, he says. While he displays some bravery in calling out the climate change deniers, who remain almost entirely on the right, for "making a spectacle of their ignorance," he nevertheless himself betrays a much greater ignorance about what climate change means for us and our economy. Douthat espouses the dangerous idea that doing nothing to combat climate change is the best course for business and for the world.

In doing so he relies on a set of arguments against the pursuit of a clean economy that have little basis in fact and mainly defend the untenable status quo. The overall pitch has two main parts: (a) promoting a clean economy through the use of market mechanisms like cap-and-trade is a perversion of free markets, since the renewable energy industry shouldn't need tax subsidies if it's a real business; (b) going green will cost jobs and hurt the economy. Let's look at both ideas.

First, the notion that fossil fuels do not rely on subsidies is absurd. A new analysis from Bloomberg New Energy Finance compares the roughly $45 billion of global government subsidies for renewable energy (mostly tax breaks) to the $557 billion of subsidies for fossil fuels in 2008 alone. That 12-to-1 ratio of dirty-to-clean subsidies is surely understated. Let's just say that the International Energy Agency, which calculated that larger number, is not a liberal think tank, and it is measuring only the most literal subsidies. In reality, the market for energy is not currently "free" at all. So if putting a price on carbon helps us support new industries of the future, drive innovation and, say, preserve the ability of the planet to support our species, it seems like a good deal.

Second, this general notion that green will hurt the economy is simply the easiest defense of doing nothing. This concept — that that there's some tradeoff between economic development and what he calls a "growth-slowing regulatory regime" — is the heart of Douthat's argument. This idea is so very dangerous since it keeps us tied to the past, and abdicates leadership to other countries that are pursuing the real growth and prosperity agenda.

The most thorough studies — such as the well-regarded Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change — tell us that the cost of ignoring climate change (including the possible devastation to our species) will be far higher than addressing it. Using less energy and material, or switching to electric vehicles and renewable energy, will help everyone from homeowners to businesses save money. As one CEO said to me, "I don't know about climate change, but it seems pretty clear that producing less carbon is better than producing more."

And the flashy side of this "kill the economy" argument remains the odd notion that a green agenda will kill jobs. Of course it will destroy some old-school jobs, but clearly the move to a clean economy will create jobs as well — millions of them. Installing insulation and solar panels, building wind turbines, and managing buildings for energy efficiency are just some of the obvious ones. Every industry that makes components for these new sectors will also have new markets and customers.

So what part of the economy is actually hurt by the race to clean economy? Which companies will lose jobs? In essence, only one sector, oil and gas, will truly get hit. If everyone uses less in general, and switches from fossil fuels overall, then of course those companies that only provide fossil fuels will shrink-unless they decide to play a role in the new energy economy).

But the big mistake is that protecting these particular jobs, and keeping us pinned to the status quo, does not represent a path to growth. Consider this: at the macro level, the world produces roughly 85 million barrels of oil per day. Nobody reputable seems to think that the number will rise much if at all; in fact, "peak oil" theories have gone quickly from fringe to mainstream (even Kuwaiti scientists recently predicted a global peak in the next five years).

My point is that even with optimistic numbers, fossil fuels are not a growth industry, and not a job creator. Relying on that sector is not a path to prosperity for the world or for the United States. Creating new technologies and products, building greener buildings and businesses, and just plain using less energy to do it all: those actions will make almost all companies more profitable — just not the ones providing only fossil fuels.

Our current path, and commitment to doing nothing, is in effect protecting one sector at the expense of all the others...and risking our planet and economy as well.

(This post first appeared at Harvard Business Online.)

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I just learned that one of my personal heroes, Ray Anderson, died on Monday at the age of 77 after battling cancer for that last 2 years.

Ray was known best for his inspirational role in the world of sustainability (so many of the leaders of the movement count Ray as a role model). And when I say inspirational, I mean it very personally. When I was searching for my mission in life over a decade ago, and was trying to find out how you could marry the strategies and tools of business with environmental concern, someone suggested I check out Ray's book, Mid-Course Correction. It was literally the first step in my own transformation.

After I had gone about my sustainability journey -- my mid-course correction -- for a number of years, I had the incredible fortune of sharing the stage with Ray at a conference a couple of years ago. Watching Ray the engineer lay out the irrefutable logic for a different way of doing business was like seeing the Beatles perform their greatest hits -- it was all familiar, and we knew the tune, but it was still amazing to see it all live. I didn't know Ray well, and I'm poorer for not spending more time with him. But I am glad I had the chance to tell him how important his work was to me.

Ray's books, including last year's much more personal tale, Confessions of a Radical Industrialist, tell the amazing story of a deeply transformational experience, Ray's own personal road to Damascus conversion. His journey began with a book as well, the remarkable and inspirational The Ecology of Commerce by Paul Hawken, which hit Ray like "a spear in the chest." He had discovered what the rest of world is still figuring out...the business ecosystem that we had relied on, for all the success and wealth it created, was fundamentally broken. It treated the planet's resources, the balance sheet of the world, as limitless and of no inherent value.

As founder and Chairman of Interface (a flooring company), Ray had never really thought about where all the materials in his petroleum-based products came from, or where they went after he sold a carpet tile (or millions of them). He had built a successful business of scale, employing many people, but now found himself wondering where he had gone wrong.

Ray set Interface on a course to climb what he called "Mount Sustainability" and build a truly sustainable business...even one that replenishes the world instead of drawing down its resources. Over the last 17 years, Interface has discovered how hard a job that really is, but has arguably come further than any enterprise on the planet.

Historians will report that in the late 20th century the world and its business giants began a slow, sometimes painful, pivot away from traditional industrial capitalism to something different...something healthier, more passion-driven, and, yes, more profitable. When they write about this period, a few names and moments will be pivotal. Ray's conversion and evangelism will be at the center of that history.

Instead of easing into retirement, Ray made it his mission to tell the world about his journey and wake business people up to the risks and opportunities in sustainability. He spoke to many thousands of people, giving an astonishing 1500 speeches. His books reached many thousands more. He fundamentally changed the careers and lives of many people looking for a deep connection to their work and their world. Count me among the converted.

Thank you Ray for all that you did.