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Creating a Game Plan for Transition to a Sustainable Economy

Jeffrey Hollender: November 17, 2009; Running Time: 0:58:56

About the Lecture

About the Lecture

The “chief inspired protagonist” of one of the nation’s oldest and most successful green manufacturers apologizes for delivering a talk “more depressing than expected.” While discussing the challenges facing businesses attempting to transition to a more just and sustainable economy, Jeffrey Hollender enumerates the many reasons he’s feeling bleak these days.

While some pundits claim the recession is over, Hollender sees continued deep problems, with almost one in five Americans under- or unemployed. The stock market has recovered only because of the “belief that the total financial system won’t collapse in the short term,” he says. Corporations have learned to improve quarterly earnings by quickly “getting rid of a disposable asset -- their people,” and Hollender’s worried this behavior “will lead to a downward spiral.” But his greater concern involves the underlying structure of our economic system, which makes it especially difficult for people to acknowledge and then work together to address such global problems as climate change.

Hollender finds several aspects of our economic system particularly distressing: the negative and disruptive influence money has in politics (he calls out the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and its opposition to the climate change legislation); the paradox of living in a society “where good things cost more than bad things;” and financial markets where “it’s entirely legal to make money without creating value for anybody other than yourself.” He also notes that organizations devoted to sustainability, including his own, may have become complacent or settled for too little. “It’s important that we not confuse the absence of bad with good,” says Hollender.

While Hollender thinks nothing less than “revolutionary change” is required to achieve a sustainable society, he does recommend some constructive steps toward that goal, such as reforming a tax structure that’s beneficial to the wealthiest people; demanding “radical transparency” from businesses, and salary caps for top executives. He also notes that companies exert “incredible leverage” through their supply chains, and points approvingly at Walmart’s moves to reduce packaging waste. Hollender believes corporate pressure in some cases has achieved more than governmental regulation: “These large companies, often the source of evil, can be incredible sources of positive change.” His greatest hopes, though, lie with the next generation: children who are educated to “see how everything’s connected,” and older students like those in his MIT audience, who he hopes will take the lead in generating social and economic change.

Lecture Details

Location: Wong Auditorium

“It takes 20 liters of water to make 1 liter of soda.”

Jeffrey Hollender

About the Speaker

Jeffrey Hollender

Chief Inspired Protagonist, Co-founder, and Executive Chairperson, Seventh Generation

Jeffrey Hollender is a leader in the socially and environmentally responsible communities. He is a member and former director of the Social Venture Network, a consortium of socially aware business executives. His first ventures involved not-for-profit organizations in adult education. He co-founded and directed Community Capital Bank, which invested in affordable housing and community development in New York. After serving as president of Warner Audio Publishing, Hollender acquired a mail order catalog business selling energy conservation products. This became Seventh Generation, which is now the leading and fastest-growing brand of natural products for the home.

Hollender also acted as president of the Rainforest Foundation USA from 1992-1996. He currently serves on the Board of Directors of the Greenpeace Fund; the Environmental Health Fund; Verite; and the Advisory Board of Healthy Child Healthy World.

Jeffrey Hollender

Hollender's Seventh Generation profile

Hollender's blog

About the Host

About the Host

MIT Sloan School of Management

The MIT Sloan School of Management, based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, is one of the world’s leading business schools — conducting cutting-edge research and providing management education to top students from more than 60 countries. The School is part of MIT’s rich intellectual tradition of education and research.

MIT Sloan began in 1914 as engineering administration curriculum in the MIT Department of Economics and Statistics. The scope and depth of this educational focus have grown steadily in response to advances in the theory and practice of management to today’s broad-based management school.

A program offering a master’s degree in management was established in 1925. The world’s first university-based executive education program — the MIT Sloan Fellows — was created in 1931 under the sponsorship of Alfred P. Sloan, Jr., an 1895 MIT graduate who was then chairman of General Motors. A MIT Sloan Foundation grant established the MIT School of Industrial Management in 1952 with a charge of educating the “ideal manager.”