For more than 20 years, Joel Makower has been a well-respected voice on business, the environment, and the bottom line. As a writer, speaker, and entrepreneur on corporate sustainability practices, he has helped a wide range of companies align environmental goals with business strategy.
Joel is chairman and executive editor of GreenBiz Group, Inc., creator of GreenBiz.com research and events on sustainable business and clean technology. He hosts GreenBiz.com’s annual GreenBiz Forums as well as the VERGE conferences produced around the world by his company, and is author of the annual “State of Green Business” report.
In 2012, he was awarded the Hutchens Medal by the American Society for Quality, which cited “his ability to tell compelling stories that both inform and inspire business leaders toward profitable action.”
Joel also is co-founder of Clean Edge Inc., a research and consulting firm focusing on clean technologies, and formerly served as a senior strategist at GreenOrder, which consults with leading companies on strategic sustainability issues. From 1991 to 2005 he was editor of “The Green Business Letter,” an award-winning monthly newsletter on corporate environmental strategy and practices.
Joel regularly keynotes corporate events, business associations, and regional business and economic development events, and is frequently quoted in major news media, including Fortune, Forbes, the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, USA Today, Time, and public radio’s “Marketplace.”
A former nationally syndicated columnist, Joel is author of more than a dozen books, including his latest, Strategies for the Green Economy (2008). Previous books include “Beyond the Bottom Line: Putting Social Responsibility to Work for Your Business and the World,” about the profit and potential of socially responsible business practices; “The E-Factor: The Bottom-Line Approach to Environmentally Responsible Business,” on how companies are responding to environmental challenges in positive and profitable ways, and “The Green Consumer,” a best-selling guide to the environmental marketplace
The Associated Press has called him “The guru of green business practices.”
Makower advises several green business and cleantech startups and sits on the board of the nonprofits Climate Counts, the Biomimicry Institute, and United Roots.
In an era of climate change, economic uncertainty and global turmoil, business as usual is giving way to bold, audacious thinking: How can America’s private sector realign its interests in a way that builds resilience and well-being while strengthening its economy and environment? It’s a trillion-dollar business opportunity that affects every sector, and the inspiring subject of my book (published by St. Martin’s PRess in 2016), about a new “grand strategy” for America, born at the Pentagon, that embeds sustainability as a strategic national imperative.
