Unnatural Habitats and Responsible Business

A note to the Seventh Generation community as we enter a new year. The fact that 80 percent of the world’s almond crop comes from one small part of the world, a 600,000-acre series of orchards in California’s Central Valley, is a metaphor for a world where we have...

The Wal-Mart CEO Sustainability Summit

Imagine 400 CEOs representing Walmart’s largest vendors all sitting in one room pondering the future of sustainability. Aside from representing trillions of dollars in market value, this group could change the course of history. As I observed from the third row of...

Can Anyone Live on $10,712 a Year?

Higher wages benefit business by increasing consumer purchasing power, reducing costly employee turnover, raising productivity, improving product quality, customer satisfaction and company reputation. Today’s minimum wage workers have less buying power than...

How Generous Is the Bill Gates Foundation?

I once heard George Soros explain or rather rationalize his investment in a company that produces land mines while his charitable organization worked to remove them from locations they had been planted and end their use. He explained that someone was going to reap the...

Back in the Belly of the Jolly Green Giant

Wal-Mart’s Sustainability Milestone Meeting It caught me off guard, even though I should have expected it. Seated in the front row of the Sam Walton auditorium, Lee Scott pacing in front of the room with a cordless microphone, dressed in grays and blacks, mock...

Reflections on Growing

Reflections on Growing to the Seventh Generation Community Sometimes I forget that my job is more about growing my self than growing others. It is – or at least seems easier to grow others than to grow me. I usually have a point of view about who you need to be or...

A Company of Owners

Last week the entire Seventh Generation staff headed to Trapp Family Lodge in Stowe Vermont for our annual two day retreat. (The Trapp family is the same one of Sound of Music fame.) The Lodge is a frequent destination for Seventh Gen meetings, it sits high upon a...

The Jolly Green Giant

On July 26th Fortune Magazine released a cover story on Wal-Mart  under the banner “Wal-Mart Saves the Planet, well not quite…” Something is going on here that I’m not quite sure we understand. Whether you believe Wal-Mart is the devil incarnate or are a cheerleader...