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THE SUSTAINABILITY INITIATIVE

Greener, Cheaper

Many companies profess their determination to cut their greenhouse-gas emissions. But most draw the line where some of the biggest gains could be made: shipping. Companies can get there from here, and use a lot less energy than they do now. Businesses have to change internal practices and find the right partners. Read more »
In Sustainability Through Servicizing, see how suppliers can make their business both more sustainable and more profitable.

The MIT Sustainability Interview Series

The MIT Sustainability Interview features thought leaders from arenas as diverse as management, urban studies, history, energy science, civil engineering, and design. The conversations are wildly varied, but at root their goal is to help leading managers answer two crucial questions: “As sustainability—economic, environmental, social, and personal—becomes the defining business issue of our times, what decisions will I need to face, and what will I need to know when I face them?”

The Loop You Can’t Get Out Of

An interview with Jay Forrester

January 8, 2009

A few words from the father of system dynamics on organizational decision making, human frailty and the reasons that managers trying to solve problems so often just make them worse. | More »

Sustainability as Fabric — and Why Smart Managers Will Capitalize First

An interview with Richard M. Locke

January 14, 2009

A founder of MIT Sloan’s Laboratory for Sustainable Business says the best way to get people to take sustainability seriously is to frame it as it really is: not only a challenge that will affect every aspect of management but, for first movers, a source of enormous competitive advantage. |. Read more »

Making Sustainability the Real Thing

An interview with Jeff Seabright

January 21, 2009

Jeff Seabright, The Coca-Cola Company’s vice president of environment and water resources, explores how the beverage giant is moving to greater sustainability. | Read more »

A Sober Optimist’s Guide to Sustainability

An interview with John Sterman

January 29, 2009

The head of MIT Sloan’s System Dynamics Group, explores how to get people to think for real on sustainability, why the conventional wisdom about energy is just a myth, and how to live as if there’s just enough time left to save the world. | Read more »

Hundreds of Gallons of Water in Every Shirt

An interview with Rebecca Henderson

February 11, 2009

A founder of the MIT Sloan School of Management’s Sustainability Lab talks about how businesses and governments have to surmount social issues as well as economic ones if they are serious about sustainability. | Read more »

An Urban Planner’s Dream

An interview with Judy Layzer

April 9, 2009

MIT urban studies prof Judy Layzer is an expert on how sustainability pressures will drive change in the built environment of the city—and believes those pressures might make some “healthy changes and opportunities” more possible than ever. | Read more »

All Together Now (or, Can Collective Intelligence Save the Planet?)

An interview with Thomas Malone

April 23, 2009

MIT Sloan School professor Thomas Malone addresses the mental models that impede management progress, the role of collective intelligence in solving climate problems, and his view of how wrong people are about what business is for. | Read more »

Sustainability: Economy, then Environment

An interview with Yossi Sheffi

May 21, 2009

The director of MIT’s Engineering Systems Division and Center for Transportation and Logistics explores how the economic crisis pushes back matters of environmental sustainability—and how it doesn’t. | Read more »

Sustainability: Not What You Think It Is

An interview with Peter Senge

June 4, 2009

MIT Sloan’s Peter Senge, founder of the Society for Organizational Learning, shows how companies, right away, can stop adopting sustainability measures that do “less bad” and start doing “more good,” both for the business and the world around it. | Read more »

Flourishing Forever

An interview with John R. Ehrenfeld

July 14, 2009

The author of Sustainability by Design: A Subversive Strategy for Transforming Our Consumer Culture says the current craze for going green is all wrong. Ehrenfeld has been thinking about this since 1967; it should be no surprise that he takes a much longer view.| Read more »

The Sustainability Tradeoffs

An interview with David H. Marks

October 14, 2009

The director of MIT’s Laboratory for Energy and the Environment considers the decisions companies have to make if they want to be sustainable—and challenges some of the conventional wisdom.
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From The Magazine

Fall 2009

Special Report: Sustainability

8 Reasons That Sustainability Will Change Management

Michael S. Hopkins

Transparency, accidental innovation, trust, collaboration — as sustainability affects how the world works, so will it affect how business works in the world.

Intelligence: Management

Debunking Management Myths

Martha E. Mangelsdorf

In this interview, Henry Mintzberg questions some of the conventional wisdom about managerial work.