People in the developing world expend more than a quarter of their potential earnings on energy. Economic development, environmental health, and global stability all hinge on wise management of global energy resources. In this audio lecture, David Goldwyn and David Dollar paint a positive picture of what developing countries and governments in the West can do to improve energy use abroad and at home.
A popular Mexico City program for cutting air pollution from vehicles doesn’t work; in fact sales of new cars, used cars, and gasoline have climbed since the program's launch in 1989.
Now that global warming is recognized as a real and serious problem, discussion is turning to practical challenges of reducing emissions in the long term. Host of the Center for Social Innovation, Rick Duke, discusses a new report by McKinsey & Company that considers how to address the problem affordably. In this audio lecture, Duke outlines some of the emerging technologies and public policy changes that will be needed to support such a process.
In parts of Nicaragua, nearly 80 percent of the population goes without electricity, leaving them cut off from critical opportunities for betterment and development. In this audio interview, Kriss Deiglmeier, the Center for Social Innovation executive director, converses with Mathias Craig who created blueEnergy to bring electricity to marginalized communities in this region of the world.
With crude oil over $100 a barrel and continuing to rise, concerns about increased prices at the pump and at home—intensified by political unrest in other parts of the world—have put energy issues into heightened focus for the American public. In this audio interveiw, Jim Lehrer conducts "A Conversation About Oil" with Chevron's Peter J. Robertson.
The era of corporations integrating sustainable practices is being surpassed by a new age of corporations actively transforming the market to make it more sustainable. Open access to this article is made possible by The Regents of the University of Michigan on behalf of the Erb Institute.
Long hailed as a major piece of the climate solution, sustainable business practices have not only fallen short: They even enable the continued dominance of fossil fuel.
If humanity is to survive the climate crisis, we must manage a just and orderly transition away from fossil fuels. The correct models for this resolution are triage, euthanasia, and hospice.
Open-access to this article made possible by University of Michigan.
Executives from 10 major corporations discuss the innovative ways that they are putting societal issues at the core of their companies’ strategy and operations.
Unless clean tech follows well-established rules of innovation and commercialization, the industry’s promise to provide sustainable sources of energy will fail.
