Last year, Jack Ma said in an interview with Charlie Rose that the biggest business opportunities (in China) would be those that fix China’s problems, and if you have been following IBM in china they are clearly showing an interest. going back 3 years ago, IBM began working with the city of Shenyang to monitor [...]

If the goal is to solve (or avert) the problems of business as usual, then it is going to take more than band aids to do it. That is a simple lesson that I teach my students every semester, and one that requires them to go through a series of exercises to identify the root [...]

Are you a reader who is Linkedin, Tweeting, or would like to be notified when a new video or presentation are uploaded? Then take a few minutes to integrate the various Collective Responsibility social mediums into your accounts… and if you are not sure about which mediums are worth your time (social media can get [...]

The other day, while making my way home I caught a glimpse of Toray’s desalination advertisement. It was one of those moments that at first I was not sure what I was looking, or the greater meaning, until the very end where the advert cuts out with the ocean in the background and makes reference [...]

One of the more popular topics in China these days is the impact of social media. It’s popular (in my eyes) for two reasons. The first is that firms in China see the potential in the platform as a way to reach consumers, and develop loyalty. The other is the fact that social media has [...]

The morning while havinga  coffee with the CSR manager of a large retailer, he mentioned the fact that on a semi-frequent basis he would find himself going around the office shutting off computers.  After working hours. That while his firm, in his opinion, had done a good job of developing and communicating a framework for [...]

One of the things about corporate responsibility and sustainability initiatives is that the best programs are those that are part of the core operations of the firm, align to the greater goals, and do not require a constant champion.  It is simply embedded into the economics and actions of the firm, and while the firm [...]

Last month while being interviewed for the New York Times piece China’s City of the Future Rises on a Wasteland, I was asked about the importance of China’s eco-city planning… What should be the goal of an eco-city and why are they important to China? To me, this was perhaps one of the more important [...]

There was a time where China could legitimately stand up and say that they were “cleaner” than everyone else, and use a per capita statistic to back that information up. Over the years though, it has grown tougher because the audience (1) began adjusting for the fact that China had hundreds of millions of farmers [...]

With the conversations around systems and sustainability still largely a moving a target that bounces between emotional polar bears and destructive weather systems, I honestly cannot think of a better time for a focus on understanding the systems that exist in our economy, the impact of our economy on our environmental systems, and taking steps [...]