Q&A with Joel Makower

For more than 20 years, Joel Makower has been a well-respected voice on business, the environment, and the bottom line. As a writer, speaker, and strategist on corporate environmental practices, clean technology, and green marketing, he has helped a wide range of companies align environmental responsibility with business success.

Here, Joel interviews various industry leaders who are contributing to sustainable business practices.

Interview with Aron Cramer (Launch Podcast)

Business for Social Responsibility was founded in 1993 by a group of 43 companies interested in promoting the idea that "business" and "social responsibility" weren't at odds - indeed, that they went hand in hand. Since then, BSR has grown to be a force in the business community, boasting among its membership many of the world's largest companies and brands. Its members focus on a wide range of issues, from environment and human rights to corporate governance and the impacts of globalization.

Aron Cramer, BSR's president and CEO, joined the organization in 1995 and became its leader in 2005. Previously, he was been based in Paris, where he launched BSR's Europe office in 2002. He also led the establishment of BSR's Hong Kong office and served as the founding director of its Business and Human Rights Program. In addition to working closely with dozens of BSR's member companies Cramer has provided support and counsel to the U.N. Global Compact, the Global Reporting Initiative, the World Bank, the U.S. Agency for International Development and other organizations.

Joel spoke with Aron about how corporate social responsibility has changed since BSR was founded, and where it is headed.

Interview with Janine Benyus (Launch Podcast)

For the past decade, Janine Benyus has been preaching the gospel of biomimicry, a discipline that marries biology and design to address key business challenges through Mother Nature's eyes. Harnessing biomimicry, says Benyus, allows designers to ask, "How would nature do that?" and to drink from the reservoir of solutions resulting from X billion years of natural systems "R&D." Her 1997 book, "Biomimicry: Innovation Inspired by Nature," has become the bible of those working in this field.

In recent years, biomimicry has emerged from the laboratory and into the marketplace, offering a small but impressive array of products harnessing nature's design principles. Benyus maintains that this trickle of products will over time turn into a flood, as forward-thinking companies recognize not just the ingenuity of biomimicry to solve pressing problems, but the reduced energy, resources, and toxic materials needed to manufacture goods designed as nature would have intended.

Benyus graduated from Rutgers University, New Jersey, with degrees in Natural Resource Management and English Literature/Writing. She heads two organizations: the for-profit Biomimicry Guild, a consultancy that has worked with GE, Herman Miller, Hewlett Packard, Interface, Nike, S.C. Johnson, and dozens of architect and engineering firms; and the nonprofit, Biomimicry Institute, whose mission is to transfer nature's ideas, designs, and strategies from biology to sustainable human systems design.

Interview with Peter Gleick (Launch Podcast)

Dr. Peter Gleick's work covers a lot of ground -- environment, economic development, and international security -- but his focus is on water, specifically the world's freshwater supply. As president of the Oakland, Calif.-based Pacific Institute, which he co-founded in 1987, Gleick has authored some of the most authoritative studies and analyses of the world's water challenges -- and what it will take to solve them. He is principal author of "The World's Water," published every two years, which provides both detailed analysis of the most significant trends and events and up-to-date data on water resources and their use.

Gleick has been well-recognized for his work in this area. In 2003, he was named a MacArthur Fellow (better known as a "Genius Award"), was dubbed a "visionary on the environment" by the British Broadcasting Corporation, and last year was elected to the National Academy of Sciences.

In recent years, Gleick's focus on water has broadened to cover not just its quality and availability, but its link to other global challenges, from climate change to terrorism to hunger. He makes clear that solving the world's growing thirst for potable water brings with it other opportunities: to create thriving villages and communities around the world, safe from hunger, disease, and terror, contributing to everyone's economic and social well-being.