Hunter Lovins at Brainstorm Green
CEOs like Alan Mulally of Ford and Lew Hay of Next Era made headlines at FORTUNE’s Brainstorm Green last week, but some of the most interesting ideas came from the NGOs, academics, writers and sustainability consultants at the conference.
One of my favorites is L. Hunter Lovins, a Colorado cowgirl (with medals to prove it) who’s been a leader of the sustainability movement for decades. Hunter is the co-author (with Paul Hawken and her ex-husband Amory Lovins) of Natural Capitalism: Creating the Next Industrial Revolution, a groundbreaking and influential book, maybe the most important ever written about “green” business. More recently, she wrote (with Boyd Cohen) an excellent book called Climate Capitalism that has been given a new title, which sounds more like Hunter, for the upcoming paperback: The Way Out: Kickstarting Capitalism to Save Our Economic Ass.
Nick Aster of Triple Pundit interviewed Hunter at Brainstorm Green, and she talked about how the sustainability movement is doing (not bad, but it’s mostly been about incremental movement) and why more radical change is needed companies (to save ecosystems that are required for life, to stop from overheating the planet). “All of the good work that’s being talked about at this conference isn’t enough,” she says. Companies need to rediscover their purpose to thrive, she argues. It’s worth taking 10 minutes to hear what she has to say about Unilever, Puma, the importance of bees and a new group of business advocates and advisers called The Blue Earth Network:
What's sleek and red and faster than a Ferrari? Ferrari president Montezemolo introduced his newest business venture, mass transit, on Friday.
