Business & Society

Bill Shireman is a policy innovator, a mediator, a man who has spent his career at the intersection of commerce and conservation. He is the President of Solution Citizen and the Curator of the EarthX Congress of Conferences. His latest work is The EarthX Guide to a Circular Economy , and out of that vision comes Circle America—a collaborative group dedicated to transforming how we live and do busi...

Alan Lerchbacker has spent decades operating at the intersection of engineering, disciplined executive leadership and high-stakes growth. As the first CEO of a then-small US shipbuilding operation, he helped scale the company from a few dozen employees to over a thousand—work that placed him inside the complex realities of defense manufacturing, institutional partnerships and rapid organizational...

“I grew up in a pretty unstable time in the 1960s, in the United States. Right now, what's going on in the world is probably even more threatening because of whatever the normal stuff that happens in politics, you've got climate change kind of riding over the top of that. Young people, especially, I think, are very anxious about what the future looks like.” Today on Business and Society, Bruce Pia...

“Poetry is the prince of the literary arts to me. It's at the very top because it's language refined to its apex of memorability. I am interested in poetry as memorability and poetry as something you live by. These are the words you live by. These words stay in your brain and guide your life. That's what I am interested in. My memoir slash autofiction is called Borges and Me , and as you know, it'...

“In an age of seeming isolationism, where some countries tend to isolate, this is such a great way to bring people together. When you're doing music and the arts, all those barriers just fall away. People are just collaborating and having fun. It’s such a bridge-building endeavor. I don't mean that to sound cheesy either, because I just think it is really amazing. They end up being ambassadors who...

How can we meet the Paris Climate Accords through Environmental Credit Solutions? Bill Flederbach is the President & CEO of ClimeCo and is a respected leader in the global environmental commodities market. Following his favorite motto, “To make a difference each day and always do the next right thing,” Bill has created scalable Greenhouse Gas reduction efforts while creating a work culture at...

Gordon Lambert shares insights from his decades-long journey, addressing his roles, strategies, and contributions to environmental change and corporate evolution. Lambert has been engaged in business and sustainability in the energy sector for 40 years. In 2015, Lambert was appointed by the Premier and Cabinet to the five-person panel that designed the Alberta Climate Leadership Plan . In 2016, he...

How did a century-old power company become a leader in renewable energy? How can industrial giants adapt to cleaner power? What role are women leaders and community initiatives playing in the renewable energy transition? Julie Pierce stands as a beacon of innovation and foresight in the energy sector. As Vice President of Strategy and Planning for  Minnesota Power , a part of the Allete famil...

Gordon Lambert shares insights from his decades-long journey, addressing his roles, strategies, and contributions to environmental change and corporate evolution. Lambert has been engaged in business and sustainability in the energy sector for 40 years. In 2015, Lambert was appointed by the Premier and Cabinet to the five-person panel that designed the Alberta Climate Leadership Plan . In 2016, he...

How can cultivating curiosity within an organization transform it from a place of work into a community driven by passion and purpose? Why is wetland conservation crucial for combating climate change, and how can public-private partnerships make a difference? What are the keys to maintaining operational excellence and how can we pursue excellence in our personal and professional lives? Sam Smolik...

"What happens is that companies get complacent. Things go well for a long time. All publicly traded companies are under tremendous financial pressure. Everyone's looking at quarterly earnings and all that, and they take their eye off of safety and operational excellence. And you can't do that." Sam Smolik retired as Senior Vice President, Americas Manufacturing for LyondellBasell Industries in 201...

“Oil and gas companies, along with any company engaged in the production and burning of fossil fuels, must cease these activities if we are to have any hope of reaching net zero by 2050, which is only 26 years away. The pace of change needs to be extremely rapid. Currently, the world is emitting about 55 gigatons of CO₂ equivalent, with 70% of this coming from fossil fuels, which provide 80% of ou...

Jeff Olson is an American urban architect who dedicated his career to alternative  transportation, and became a founder of the largest bike share system in North America, New York City’s CitiBike. He is a co-founder of re:Charge-e and author of The 3rd Mode: Towards a Green Society. His major projects include the Grand Canyon Greenway, the Empire State Trail, the White House Millennium T...

What kind of strategic, collaborative and critical thinking skills will we need to adapt to climate change and biodiversity loss? How can we learn to cooperate and avoid the conflicts that arise from competition for resources? Robin Phillips, a retired US Army officer with a distinguished career in National Security, has extensive experience in Asia, Europe, Latin America, and the Middle East. She...

What is conscious capitalism? How can we create businesses that are more holistic and connected to the communities they serve? Dr. Larry Clay Jr. teaches business modeling. His focus is on business management research, sustainable development analytics and leadership development to create sustainable value for enterprises, communities, and cities. https://marymount.edu/academics/college-of-busines...

How can we turn hope into real-world solutions to tackle the biggest challenges facing our world today? How can we bridge the gender divide and create a more fair and sustainable future for all? What steps can we take to educate and empower the next generation of leaders and change-makers? Nina Luzzatto Gardner is the director of Strategy International, a corporate sustainability advisory firm she...

You’re listening to Wealth & Climate Competitiveness: The New Narrative with Bruce Piasecki and guests. This program was recorded in January 2024 at Caffe Lena. What does Robin Hood tell us about climate competitiveness? Using this 700- year-old narrative, Piasecki reminds his readers that business in society reading has been a classic concern, from Dante’s Inferno to Tom Wolfe’s Bonfire of Va...

Leah Thomas is an intersectional environmental activist and eco-communicator based in Southern California. She’s passionate about advocating for and exploring the relationship between social justice and environmentalism and was the first to define the term “Intersectional Environmentalism.” She is the founder of @greengirlleah and The Intersectional Environmentalist platform. Her ar...

Bruce Piasecki is a NYTimes bestselling author, and organizational innovator. As founder of AHC Group, Inc. a global management consulting firm advising major corporations on social response capitalism, sustainability, and innovation, he has worked for over a third of the Fortune 500 in change management, including BP, Merck, and Toyota. Piasecki has been an agent of climate solutions for over 40...

The time to start looking into tomorrow is now. Scott Tew is the leader of the Center for Energy Efficiency & Sustainability at Trane Technologies (CEES) and is responsible for forward-looking sustainability initiatives aimed at transitioning to more efficient and climate-friendly solutions and minimizing resource use within company facilities. Trane’s smart solutions support many of the chall...

As President of Scott Meredith Literary Agency, Arthur Klebanoff has represented J.D. Salinger, Arthur C. Clark, several U.S. Presidents, Michael Bloomberg, Bill Bradley, Paul Krugman, among others, and has handled books with over $1 billion in sales. In 2001, Klebanoff founded RosettaBooks, an independent eBook publisher which for twe nty years disrupted the publishing business. Klebanoff has pub...

Professor Lisa Jackson Pulver is a proud Aboriginal woman with connections to communities in southwestern New South Wales, South Australia, and beyond. She is the Deputy Vice-Chancellor of Indigenous Strategy and Services for the University of Sydney and leads the institution's strategy to advance Indigenous participation, engagement, education, and research, including the...

Josh Kampel is the CEO of Clarim Media where he oversees the overall strategic direction of the organization as well as works closely with the management teams of the individual portfolio companies to build scalable products and services.  Prior to Clarim, Josh served as CEO of Techonomy Media, which was sold to Clarim Holdings in 2018. At Techonomy, Josh spent 8 years driving sustainable bus...

Join New York Times bestselling author Bruce Piasecki at Caffè Lena for an afternoon of stories, memories and interactive conversation. He will also dive into personal narratives about book tours of Australia, his personal conversations with Tom Wolfe, his admiration for Bob Dylan and other master storytellers, artists, and sustainability leaders, and read from his latest book, A New Way to Wealth...

“Each day you wake up you make decisions that shape your own fate, your ascent, position, your own creativity. I like to think of it as fate is a personal construct. When I was at Cornell they had me teach an Emerson essay called “Freedom and Fate” where he said that fate was so overwhelming in some traditions that it’s as though we were each involved in a shipwreck and we were each thrown off the...