U.S. President Obama's State of the Union yesterday included a more muscular approach to climate change than he has taken in prior such speeches. This, combined with his inaugural address, provides some reason for hope that we will see change in his second term.

Three aspects of the...

Four years ago, Barack Obama assumed the presidency amidst expectations that, in retrospect, were clearly unrealistic in light of the historic economic problems engulfing the world's economy. Looking back, it is unsurprising -- though highly problematic -- that Washington failed to act decisively to address climate change.

But now the...

In February, I will speak at The Economist's "World Oceans Summit," a valiant -- and valuable -- effort to increase awareness and commitment to preserving the oceans. The world's oceans cover three-fourths of the Earth's territory, but they occupy far less than that in terms of mindshare regarding sustainability. This...

I just finished a week in China, including three days at the World Economic Forum's "Summer Davos" in Dalian. The WEF established this event with three key ideas in mind: the shift of economic and political power to the south and east, the rise of "new champion" companies from emerging...

We introduced Huffington Post readers to HERproject last year as an example of business successfully working with women. HERproject, a factory-based women's health education program, continues to empower female workers to address reproductive and other health issues and prevent health risks in more than 80 factories...

A generation ago, the modern corporate responsibility movement emerged just as globalization took hold of the world's economy and captured our imagination. With the significant exception of the 2008-09 recession, we've since experienced a period of relative prosperity in the Western economies and fast-growing economies in much of the rest...

I spoke yesterday at the morning plenary of GBC Health (formerly the Global Business Coalition on HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria), along with business leaders like Anglo American CEO Cynthia Carroll, Conservation International founder Peter Seligman, and Sarah Brown, health care activist and wife of former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown....

I arrived in Japan for a week of meetings to find Tokyo more deserted than ever before. Maybe the economy really had collapsed in the wake of the triple whammy of the earthquake, tsunami, and ongoing nuclear accident at Fukushima-Daiichi.

A week's visits with BSR's member companies, however, showed a...

Almost 20 years ago, the journalist William Greider wrote Who Will Tell the People, his account of dysfunctional decision-making in Washington. Greider's thesis was that Washington officials were preoccupied with perpetuating their own power, with scant regard for the interests of the people they were supposed to represent.

On...

The earthquake and tsunami in Japan have been a stunning disaster and a terrible human tragedy. We don't yet know precisely how many lives will be lost or shattered, but the numbers will be immense. My thoughts, like those of people around the world, are with Japan and its people.

The recent developments in Egypt have provided increasing hope for all of us who believe in democracy, human rights and the rule of law. The events have also provided ample new material for the "cyber-optimists" versus "cyber-skeptics" debate.

In the former camp are those who believe that new communications technologies...

In Davos this past week, there was much talk of the "G-Zero" world, which the Eurasia Group's Ian Bremmer coined as reflecting the lack of strong leadership from any of the G-20 (or other) nations. This stands in stark contrast to last year's event, when all the talk was about...

My time at Davos began on an early morning panel at the launch of Edelman's 2011 Trust Barometer, an event that's become a staple at Davos.

Unlike recent years, when the crisis led to steep falls in trust for nearly all sectors, this year's results are more mixed:...

At last week's Summit on the Global Agenda, convened in Dubai by the World Economic Forum (WEF), risk was high on the agenda. In fact, risk has been center stage from the very first Summit, held in the late fall of 2008.

This year's Summit was the WEF's third,...

The economy continues to limp along, and from the debate in this U.S. election season, it seems as though the path to restoring economic vitality is terra incognita. Over the past generation, economic advances have been jump started by fundamental changes: first, globalization, and then the rise of the internet...

In New York City last week, government, civil society, and business leaders converged to assess progress on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and raise additional funds at the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) to meet them. Despite a still sluggish economy, CGI managed to generate an impressive $2.5 billion in pledges...

I just finished participating in a debate over CSR, prompted by the (in)famous Wall Street Journal piece by University of Michigan business school professor Aneel Karnani, "The Case Against Corporate Social Responsibility." .

The 90-minute debate was spirited, and probably could have gone on much longer. With more than 800...

Now that oil has stopped flowing into the Gulf of Mexico, it is time to consider the lessons that can be drawn from the Deepwater Horizon spill.

Most of our collective attention has focused on what went wrong on the rig. We've also spent a lot of time wondering why...

In a year when all eyes have been on the oil spill in the Gulf, automobile recalls, and the ongoing debate over behavior in the banking system, the Wall Street Journal -- inexplicably -- weighed in today by publishing a piece titled "The Case Against Corporate Social Responsibility."...

Leaving Heathrow in mid-July, I picked up two novels for my summer vacation reading. One, Ian McEwan's Solar, was an obvious choice. What could be better than seeing one of my favorite authors, anointed by many as the reigning champion of English-language fiction, take on the topic of renewable energy?...