State of Green Business 2011

Arun Majumdar, the director of Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy, lays out the audacious goals and the tough budgetary realities of the U.S. Department of Energy unit that's best known by its acronym ARPA-E. Read More

Eben Bayer, the co-founder and CEO of Ecovative Design, extols the natural processes and properties of grass and cows as a way of thinking about the design of environmentally responsible products. Read More

Despite the well-trod cliché that a journey to sustainability is a marathon and not a sprint, Nike, with its Considered design ethos, shows all the signs of being in it for the long haul. Read More

As head of the Carbon War Room, Jigar Shah has a gigaton-sized challenge ahead of him; and though he's plenty frustrated at the slow pace of progress to date, but sees some rays of light in getting business on board with major emissions-reduction efforts. Read More

A steady parade of innovators in large and small companies have tried to create more environmentally benign alternatives to plastic; after decades of slow progress, bioplastics are sprouting like weeds. Read More

From Starbucks to Walmart, companies have been taking major strides in giving what would normally be waste at least one more go-round on store shelves. Read More

Like many other areas of business, travel has its own set of systems; yet in most companies, sustainability has not been integrated into managed corporate travel programs. Here are some ideas on how to think differently about travel and how to better align your company's program with its sustainability goals. Read More

Until now, it's been a truism about sustainable business that there are too many standards and not enough metrics; but a number of organizations are stepping up to fill in the gaps. Read More

Lorrie Vogel, the head of Nike Considered, talked about the company's closed-loop ethos, why sustainability has to start from within, and how the company turned 13 million plastic bottles into World Cup jerseys. Read More

The term "green dentistry" can launch a raft of misperceptions, the most common being that it must be code for "Birkenstock-wearing-incense-burning-commie-pinko-leftist" dentistry. But that's beginning to change, says Ina Pockrass. With her husband, Fred, a dentist, she cofounded a green dental practice as well as the Eco Dentistry Association. Read More