The Associated Press has called him “the guru of green business practices”

As a writer and strategist on green business practices, Joel Makower has worked with some of the leading companies and brands, including Clorox, General Electric, General Motors, Hewlett Packard, Microsoft, Nike, and Stonyfield Farm. He is executive editor of GreenBiz.com, along with a constellation of other websites, newsletters, events, and research published by Greener World Media, Inc., of which he is co-founder and chairman. He is also senior strategist at GreenOrder, a sustainability strategy firm; and co-founder of Clean Edge, a clean-tech research and publishing firm. He also writes “Two Steps Forward” (readjoel.com), a popular blog on green business, clean technology, and green marketing.

“Green” has become mainstream, though not necessarily Main Street, fueled by a media frenzy about companies, products, politicians, and entire cities seeking to be seen as environmental leaders. Amid this chaotic and often confusing environment, Joel is a voice of pragmatic enthusiasm, helping companies sort through the noise and rhetoric in order to profit and prosper in the growing green economy.

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 core strategy and business success.

Joel is a talented communicator who can cut through the hype and haze to provide clarity and perspective on a range of business environmental issues. He brings to his speeches and clients a clear understanding of the opportunities and challenges facing mainstream companies as they try to address environmental issues in a way that drives bottom-line performance and top-line growth.

He serves as an advisor to VantagePoint Venture Partner’s clean-tech venture capital fund and in a board or advisory capacity for more than a dozen other for-profit and nonprofit organizations.

His balanced, realistic, and credible approach to green business and clean technology has helped senior managers in a variety of companies and sectors create strategic roadmaps, make the business case, articulate a vision internally, form meaningful partnerships, and communicate with a broad range of stakeholders.

A former nationally syndicated columnist, he is author of more than a dozen books, including Strategies for the Green Economy (McGraw-Hill, 2008); Beyond the Bottom Line: Putting Social Responsibility to Work for Your Business and the World (Simon & Schuster, 1994), The E-Factor: The Bottom-Line Approach to Environmentally Responsible Business (Random House, 1992), and The Green Consumer (Penguin Books, 1990).

In his latest book, Joel offers insights and inspiration gleaned from helping Fortune 50 companies and start-ups alike formulate strategies that align environmental and business goals. Strategies for the Green Economy tackles the central issues of greening a business, among them:

•    What does it take to be seen as an environmental leader?
•    What are the standards, implicit or explicit, that you must meet to be green?
•    How do you communicate what your business is doing right — and what it’s not?
•    How can you overcome consumer, media, and activist distrust?
•    How can your company be heard amid the “green noise” in the marketplace?
•    What are the new opportunities emerging for companies in the green economy?

Topics

Strategies for the Green Economy - Opportunities and Challenges in the New World of Business

Nearly every company is asking some version of the question, “What’s our green strategy,” though few understand what that means. For some firms, it’s a P.R. exercise, for others it amounts to “random acts of greening,” but for a handful of leaders it raises key questions: “How do we operate in a world in which energy, water, materials, toxicity, and carbon emissions are constraints to growth? What are the opportunities that affords?” Today, being green is no longer a matter of “doing less bad.” And it’s not simply a matter of “doing well by doing good,” or even improving the bottom line by being more efficient. It’s about growing the top line through innovation, new markets, increased productivity, enhanced customer loyalty, and increased ability to attract and retain talent. How are today’s leading companies integrating environmental thinking into their operations in a way that creates lasting business value? I offer context, success stories, and cautionary tales.

What you’ll learn:

    ▪    Why environmental issues have risen to the top in a growing number of companies
    ▪    Strategies leading companies use to harness green thinking to create business value
    ▪    The stories behind the environmental programs of leadership companies
    ▪    “How good is good enough?” when it comes to company environmental performance
    ▪    The challenges of communicating for environmental leaders
    ▪    How environmental concerns are leading companies to change their business models
    ▪    How a new breed of green innovators is transforming markets

Save the Buyosphere! - Selling Green in the Age of More, More, MORE

Green marketing is back, as companies ranging from GE to P&G are trying to cash in on the renewed interest in products that help consumers be greener and cleaner. How do you sell “green” in a world with a seemingly insatiable appetite for more, More, MORE? In a world in which Wal-Mart, GM, and BP are waving the green flag, how can marketers be heard—and believed? I offer real-world tales from the trenches, the latest market trends, and insight and inspiration to help marketers succeed in the growing green marketplace.

What you’ll learn:

    ▪    The latest market research on consumers’ green attitudes and shopping preferences
    ▪    What it really means when people say, “I’m concerned about the environment”
    ▪    The great, green chasm -- why consumers often say one thing and do another
    ▪    Unmarketing -- why it’s sometimes better to do more and say less
    ▪    Is green concern a passing fad or the way of the future?
    ▪    How today’s green heroes can become tomorrow’s targets
    ▪    Will consumers switch brands to be green?
    ▪    The ten biggest green marketing mistakes

Some of his clients include

Adobe, Aspen Energy Forum, Autodesk, Cisco, Clorox, Gap Inc., General Electric, General Motors, HP, IBM, Intel, Johnson & Johnson, Microsoft, New York University Management Institute, Nike, PHH Arval, Procter & Gamble, Sodexo, Stanford University, Steelcase, United Nations Environment Programme, University of California at Berkeley - Haas School of Business, US Department of Energy, US Environmental Protection Agency, Walt Disney Company, World Economic Forum to mention but a few.

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