[Editor's Note: When it comes to pioneering green businesses, few companies hold the standing that Seventh Generation has earned. For 20 years, the company has made green cleaning products a household item, and has done much for building a market -- and a supply chain -- for green goods. To help us kick off "The Power of 10," our celebration of 10 years of GreenBiz.com, we asked Seventh Generation's founder and Chief Inspired Protagonist, Jeffrey Hollender, to share some of the lessons he's learned after two decades in the trenches.]

1) The only real brand of responsibility is holistic and systemic -- not compartmentalized. Corporate responsibility only works when it is strategic, not programmatic and driven from both the top down and the bottom up. It balances concerns about justice and equity with efforts to enhance growth and profits; pulls these values into every corner of a company to impact every process and decision; and offers original sources of innovation and opportunities for new products and services that deliver a return on purpose as well as a return on investment.

2) Authentic companies must build a collective corporate consciousness and embed it into every molecule of their DNA. As our own experience at Seventh Generation has shown, this is a long-term process. It starts by achieving collective clarity about what matters and constructing a communal view of what the company should be. Once this self-awareness is established, it can be brought to bear on decision-making to ensure that a company walks its talk in every way.

3) Our mission is our primary product. At Seventh Generation, we've come to understand that our purpose and values are far more important than our products. In our view, strategy is synonymous with advocacy. In standing for something that truly matters, we're sharply distinguishing ourselves in the marketplace and instigating changes that couldn't be made if we played the same game as everyone else.

4) Businesses must create meaning at work and unleash people's potential. We're dedicated to offering opportunities for our employees to realize their deeper aspirations and providing work that fulfills higher goals in addition to traditional financial aims. We view our company as a community in which our employees are animated by a larger sense of purpose and as a result act more like the individual entrepreneurs our company needs them to be.

5) Radical transparency is required. Information technologies now let the public keep an eye on everything we do, and we invite this scrutiny. Publicly sharing all our activities preempts our critics, and more eyes on our behavior means more advocates and friends. Radical transparency also creates new partnerships and in this way becomes the first step towards overcoming the deficiencies that ultimately harm our profitability.