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.
With energy costs on the rise and the U.S. government expected to push for reduced carbon emissions, environmental sustainability has become a market imperative for Hewlett-Packard. Speaking at Stanford for the 2007 Responsible Supply Chains Conference, HP's senior VP of personal systems, Tony Prophet, shares how his company is working to reduce its environmental footprint throughout the product life cycle.
In this audio lecture, Amory Lovins argues for a sound energy policy that rewards innovation, and for a serious commitment to implementing energy-efficient technological improvements. These combined efforts could subsequently result in saving half of our oil, half of our gas, and three-fourths of our electricity. They would also decrease our dependence on foreign resources and would indirectly alleviate some of the world's biggest problems.
Throughout the Energy Efficiency series, Amory Lovins, has diligently presented countless statistics and case studies to support the need for, and demonstrate the benefits of, improved energy services. In this audio lecture, he now identifies a significant number of formidable barriers to energy efficiency, and prescribes a variety of ways to overcome these barriers, including sexy marketing campaigns and a direct appeal to the bottom line.
Amory Lovins continues his discussion on environmental sustainability through a focus on energy efficiency in transportation. In this University podcast, he presents the business case for lighter, more slippery vehicles and criticizes automobile manufacturers for not fully embracing the radical changes necessary to transform the commercial transportation industry.
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.
