Blog posts by Jeffrey Hollender,
featuring posts about sustainability,
social responsibility, entrepreneurship,
and more.
Recent Posts
Can Humanity Solve Current Global Environmental & Social Crises?
So here’s the good news: we absolutely have the ability to solve our current global environmental, social and economic crises. The not-so-good news: Do we have the will to do it? From my perspective, the challenge is not about technology, but rather about...
The Wrong Kind of ‘Reputation’ Insurance
The Associated Press recently carried an announcement from the once-bankrupt insurance company AIG. The headline read, “AIG unit offers companies 'reputation' insurance.” The coverage, in the form of a new kind of insurance product, would help companies protect their...
CEOs Need a New Set of Beliefs
The Harvard Business Review hosts an excellent Online Forum titled The CEO's Role in Fixing the System. A recent post by Raymond V. Gilmartin caught my attention. Gilmartin is the former chairman, president, and CEO of Merck and is currently an adjunct professor at...
The Essential Guide to Successful Social Entrepreneurship
First, 7 things to remind yourself of every day: Your passion: Only do what you’re deeply passionate about. There will not only be bumps in the road, but trenches that look like they have no bottom. If you’re not doing what you love, there will be too many...
Wear Your Dollars
Thomas Freidman recently passed along an excellent suggestion that he found on a blog: “U.S. congressmen should have to dress like NASCAR drivers and wear the logos of all the banks, investment banks, insurance companies and real estate firms that they’re taking money...
Mondragon Comes to America
Last week, my recently launched consulting firms –Jeffrey Hollender Partners and CommonWise – hosted the senior leadership team of the Mondragon Cooperative Cooperation for a discussion about the role cooperatives can play in addressing the social and economic...
Doomed to Lose? How America Continues to Trail China
The implications of the US government annually investing 90% less than the Chinese have in developing and manufacturing alternative energy technology has doomed America to lose the battle for the energy future. While we bemoan the loss of a $527 million federal loan...
A Roadmap to Job Creation 2.0
John Fullerton, a friend and the founder of The Capital Institute, celebrated Labor Day with some thoughtful ways to create more jobs – now. Here’s the challenge we face as defined by Fullerton: “To create 7 to 10 million net new jobs in the United States over the...
Building Apartments, Not Prisons, To Build a Better Future
The Dorothy Day Apartments on Riverside Drive in West Harlem are shockingly beautiful. The building is one of six in the neighborhood run by Broadway Housing Communities. Charles Blow, an excellent new addition to The New York Times Op-Ed pages, went to visit. His...
Of the 99%, By the 99%, For the 99%
With every piece of legislation, every political decision, every empty campaign promise, we have moved further and further away from a democracy benefitting all Americans and closer to an oligarchy serving very few Americans – the 1%. It’s a dangerous development that...
Global climate change is already costing us a lot of money and it’s just the beginning
More than a decade ago, The Ecologist cited the insurance industry as the single most significant force addressing the challenges of global climate change. Large European insurance firms were pressuring the boards of global companies to develop strategies to mitigate...
Can the Middle Class Be Saved?
In September, Don Peck, writing in The Atlantic, provided an exceptionally thoughtful and detailed analysis of the fate of the middle class. What has contributed to its emergence as the economic and political foundation of American life? What has transpired to put its...
Jerusalem: To Get the Best Answer, Start With the Right Question
Rarely does everyone in the audience have a question – a question that resonates with the essence of the challenges we face. “So what role should not-for-profits play?” “What you’re describing sounds like socialism, how are these ideas possible within the capitalist...
Birthdays Are Big – So is Poverty
Contrast this. This August, financier Leon D. Black celebrated his 60th with a blowout at his oceanfront estate in Southampton. After a buffet dinner featuring a seared foie gras station, some 200 guests took in a show by Elton John, who was paid at least $1 million...
Forget the Minimum Wage
Any business that considers itself responsible and sustainable must pay its employees a living wage. Not a minimum wage – a living wage. In many American communities, families working in low-wage jobs make insufficient income to live locally given the local cost of...
Why the Whole World Should Sign Up for Project Green Challenge
A guest blog post by Erin Schrode of Teens Turning Green, host of the Project Green Challenge. Have you ever felt as if you wanted to ‘do something,’ but didn’t know where to start? Project Green Challenge is that chance, your entry point into action and...
If You’re Happy With Your Work, You’ll Create Much Greater Value
All unhappy people are alike – in that they negatively affect a business’ financial bottom line. Several years ago, Gallup estimated that the cost of Americans who are actively disengaged with their work – almost 30% of all employees – are responsible for a staggering...
The Unintended Consequences of Unemployment are Killing Us
Unemployment shatters families, communities, self-respect and the belief in a positive future. We have failed – or at least are failing – to provide an opportunity that is so basic to human dignity and well-being. An opportunity to participate in what is called “the...
The Great Disruption
“You really do have to wonder whether a few years from now we’ll look back at the first decade of the 21st century — when food prices spiked, energy prices soared, world population surged, tornados plowed through cities, floods and droughts set records, populations...
The Coming Food Crisis – And Yes, Global Climate Change is Largely to Blame
The rapid growth in farm output and productivity that we came to expect in the latter half of the twentieth century is now failing to keep up with the demand for food. Population increases, rising affluence in once-poor countries and changing weather patterns are to...
Calling all Capitalists, $100 Billion in Search of a More Sustainable Future
I’ve never met Jeremy Grantham, but if you read what he writes there’s some big money that believes the time has come for transformational change. Grantham is the co-founder of an investment firm named GMO that was launched in 1977. Grantham began his investment...