Joel Makower

Joel Makower is the executive editor of Greener World Media. For 20 years, Joel has been a well-respected voice on business, the environment, and the bottom line.

For 20 years, Joel Makower (www.makower.com) has been a well-respected voice on business, the environment, and the bottom line. He is executive editor of the acclaimed website GreenBiz.com and its sister sites, conferences, and research, all produced by Greener World Media, of which he is co-founder and chairman; he also serves as a senior strategies for GreenOrder, a sustainability management consultancy. Joel is author of more than a dozen book; his newest, Strategies for the Green Economy, has just been published by McGraw-Hill. He also writes “Two Steps Forward” (www.readjoel.com), a popular blog on green business, clean technology, and green marketing. The Associated Press has called him “The guru of green business practices.”

5,000 Days
By Joel Makower, March 24, 2009
Joel Makower looks at the need to accelerate efforts to create a greener economy. With only gradually improvements in energy and water efficiency, reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and addressing...
Calculating the Gross National Trash
By Joel Makower, March 20, 2009
Can the figures -- such as they are -- on the trash produced by U.S. industry be believed, or are they rubbish? Joel Makower takes on the issue and writes about why a hard look at solid waste is...
Looking for Green Product Innovators to Present at 'Greener by Design'
By Joel Makower, March 17, 2009
Greener World Media is accepting inquiries for innovators from both small and large companies to do lightning-fast (6-8 minute) presentations at Greener by Design, May 19-20 in San Francisco. ...
AT&T's Driving Ambition
By Joel Makower, March 11, 2009
Today, AT&T made a major announcement: It will invest more than a half-billion dollars over the next decade to purchase more than 15,000 alternative-fueled vehicles -- 8,000 vans powered by...
Clean Energy Trends 2009
By Joel Makower, March 10, 2009
How is clean energy technology faring amid the countervailing forces of Obama stimulus and economic meltdown? Joel Makower with Ron Pernick and Clint Wilder, his colleagues at Clean Edge, have...
The State of Green Business 2009: Green Marketing Suffers a Failure to Communicate
By Joel Makower, February 25, 2009
With the new players and products entering and marketing in the new green economy has come a new wave of claims about greenwashing, or at least public frustration that companies aren't doing...
Green Consumers' Irrational Exuberance
By Joel Makower, February 22, 2009
What is it with pollsters and green consumers? Why do nearly all of the surveys seem so gushingly optimistic, even during pessimistic times? That's a question that's been nagging me the past few...
State of Green Business 2009: Universities Take Class Actions
By Joel Makower, February 18, 2009
With undergrads and MBA students alike demand more sustainability in their education -- and a slew of new guides and rating systems looking at greening higher ed, schools are taking sustainability...
State of Green Business 2009: Product Stewardship Creates a Material Change
By Joel Makower, February 15, 2009
Suddenly, solid waste is back -- literally and figuratively. The combination of lean times and growing concerns about hazardous and nondegradable waste have made it more necessary, and more...
The State of Green Business 2009: Green Moves Up, and Down, the Chain of Command
By Joel Makower, February 11, 2009
In the past year we've seen not just growth in "CEO Buy-In" -- getting the big boss on board with green plans -- but also companies having success engaging employees at every level to...

How the Stimulus Will Help Green Jobs and Green Businesses
By Joel Makower, April 12, 2009
Nancy Sutley, the head of the White House Council on Environmental Quality -- and Van Jones' new boss -- talks to Joel Makower about how the federal stimulus package will be a boon for the...
State of Green Business 2009: Greener Design Comes Out of the Lab GreenerDesign.com
By Joel Makower, February 08, 2009
Along with the growth of concern about toxics in everyday products has come a growing number of solutions, a small but promising toolkit of chemical alternatives and design strategies aimed at...
State of Green Business 2009: Building Energy Efficiency Rises Again
By Joel Makower, February 04, 2009
The move to improve the efficiency of existing commercial and industrial buildings revved up in 2008, a combination of rising energy prices, improved technologies, and the recognition that even...
State of Green Business 2009: Carbon Becomes a Business Imperative ClimateBiz.com
By Joel Makower, February 04, 2009
The year 2008 will likely be looked back upon as a time when carbon emissions became core to mainstream business. Of course, companies had been warming to the realities of climate change for years...
The State of Green Business 2009: Information Technology Plugs Into Green
By Joel Makower, February 03, 2009
Information technology has been both a hindrance and help to the environment -- on the one hand, dematerializing commerce and increasing efficiencies; on the other, becoming a voracious consumer...
The State of Green Business 2009: Water Becomes the New Carbon
By Joel Makower, February 02, 2009
As the effects of climate change materialize with greater frequency, companies from California to Calcutta are taking a deeper dive into water efficiency, measuring and managing its use and...
The State of Green Business 2009: The Green Economy Gains Currency
By Joel Makower, February 02, 2009
In the first of a series of excerpts from our just-released State of Green Business 2009 report, Joel Makower and the editors of GreenBiz.com look at how 2008 impacted the growth of the green...
A Closer Look at IBM's "Smarter Planet" Campaign
By Joel Makower, December 30, 2008
In December 2008, GreenBiz.com Executive Editor Joel Makower talked with IBM Corporation's Rich Lechner, Vice President of Energy & Environment, and John Kennedy, Vice President of Integrated...
Taboo Talk in Green Business: Buy Less Stuff
By Joel Makower, December 21, 2008
Buying greener products is just one small step toward solving the planet's environmental ills; but how do you convince companies to promote the idea of buying less? ...
The Four Simple Steps to Pitch-Perfect Green Marketing
By Joel Makower, November 23, 2008
Promoting your green efforts can be a precarious high-wire act, but following these guidelines can take the guesswork out of your communications strategy. (Hint: it doesn't involve Kermit the Frog...

The State of Green Business 2009
By Joel Makower, February 02, 2009
The release of our second annual State of Green Business report comes at an auspicious time for taking a measure of corporate environmental performance -- although the data don't always match up...
Obama and the Vision Thing
By Joel Makower, January 10, 2009
The biggest problem in the green world is this: No one has created a vision of what happens if we get things right -- we know what business as usual looks like, but what about if we get things...
The State of Green ... and Clean
By Joel Makower, January 07, 2009
Two upcoming events, The Clean-Tech Investor Summit and the State of Green Business Forum, will present the state of the art of their respective topics. ...
Behind IBM's Quest for a 'Smarter Planet'
By Joel Makower, January 03, 2009
IBM's recent campaign goes well beyond mere image -- and beyond green -- to envision a "smarter" world in which problems as wide-ranging as health care costs, energy and resource shortages,...
Pondering the Sustainable Consumption Conundrum
By Joel Makower, December 28, 2008
A week before a recessionary Christmas, a new report urges companies to move beyond simply greening their products and services to making it a core of their operations. It's a tall order -- and is...
Are Environmental Journalists an Endangered Species?
By Joel Makower, December 15, 2008
Despite all the media reports about a surge in "green jobs," a slew of recent layoffs and buyouts of seasoned environmental reporters means we aren't likely to see those green jobs in the media...
Sustainable Business Circa 2018: Will It Be Nasty or NICE?
By Joel Makower, December 03, 2008
What will the world of sustainability look like a decade from now? It's anyone's guess, of course, but most companies seem to be operating as if that world will look substantially like the one we...
AskNature.org: A Peek Into Mother Nature's R&D Lab
By Joel Makower, November 24, 2008
A valuable new tool has hit the Web, and it promises to make a wealth of Mother Nature's wisdom available to architects, designers, engineers, and others involved in the creation of products,...
The Environmental Impacts of Green Buildings GreenerBuildings.com
By Joel Makower, November 19, 2008
There's no question that green buildings represent one of the genuine success stories of green business -- but just how big of an impact have they had? Our newest report looks in-depth at the real...
Hire Education: Do Greener Employees Make Greener Companies?
By Joel Makower, November 09, 2008
Who's greener, your employees or your company? ...

FEATURED

Searching for Greenwash at Greenbuild
By Joel Makower, November 16, 2009
I had expected the conference to be a showcase of how, when green goes mainstream, good intentions and high standards give way to the lowest common denominator of the mass market. Happily, I was...
Green Consumers and the Recession: Is It Really Different This Time?
By Joel Makower, November 09, 2009
Is a green shopping ethic alive and well, or has "saving the earth" taken a backseat to "saving the day?" ...
Introducing ... the Green Confidence Index
By Joel Makower, October 27, 2009
Today marks the launch of the first comprehensive monthly poll aimed at tracking Americans' attitudes about and confidence in their leaders and institutions, nationally and locally, on the subject...

Green Confidence Index

A monthly snapshot of Americans’ attitudes about and confidence in their leaders and institutions, nationally and locally, as well as in their own understanding of issues and their willingness to make green purchasing choices.

Sample Issue

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Featured Resources

Greening Existing Buildings
This concise and fact-filled guide, the latest book by Jerry Yudelson, provides a roadmap...
Clean Energy and Climate Policy for U.S. Growth and Job Creation
This study finds that a robust climate bill could boost the U.S. economy by about $111...
The USGBC's 2009 Green Jobs Report
This study, conducted by the U.S. Green Building Council and Booz Allen Hamilton,...
BD+C's Green Buildings and Water Performance Report
This report is seventh in an annual series looking at impacts in the green buildings...
The Green Building Market and Impact Report 2009
This second annual report, by Rob Watson and the GreenBiz.com editorial team, explores...
Citizen Engineer: A Handbook for Socially Responsible Engineering
Citizen Engineer is a fusion of ideas, information, advice, and opinions to provide you...