Be sure to take a look at this recent article and video published by the Mc Kinsey Quarterly: "When Sustainability Means More than ‘Green’." The article is adapted from Adam Werback’s new book, Strategy for Sustainability: A Business Manifesto, in which he urges businesses to turn to sustainability in order to gain long-term profitability and transparency. Werback, of course, is the former president of the Sierra Club and current corporate consultant helping to guide Wal-Mart's wide-ranging sustainability initiative.

"To endure in a changeable world with more limits on resources and less credit," writes Werbach, "companies must develop and execute a strategy for sustainability." This is very similar to the argument that my co-author Andrea Putman and I make in our new book Boldly Sustainable: Hope and Opportunity for Higher Education in the Age of Climate Change regarding colleges and universities. In our case, we contend that the institutions that successfully implement sustainability measures across their campuses will make the necessary organizational and pedagogical changes that will allow them not only to survive but thrive in the 21st century.

In Werbach's words, "Every crisis is an opportunity. The crisis we face now is our chance—your chance—to build a strategy for sustainability into the core of your company and your life. Such a strategy is a necessity, not an idealistic illusion." Read his article and watch the interview with him here.