CHIME

The most effective way to affect change in personal ownership is a combination of education and guilt.  Guilt (and a little positive encouragement) changes behavior. It is known that guilt can be a great motivator for environmentally responsible behavior.  The Green Guilt survey also showed that 29% of Americans admit to suffering from “green guilt,” defined as the knowledge that you could and should be doing more to help preserve the environment. The findings also show that Americans increasingly feel an obligation to recycle.

The right combination of knowledge, access and personal responsibility is the foundation needed to move from apathetic to active participant.

The most challenging hurdle is apathy. When consumers feel disconnected from the benefits of environmentally responsible behaviors—or from the dangers present in its absence—it is easy to just not care

rames are just one way to nudge people by using sophisticated messages, mined from decision-science research, that resonate with particular audiences or that take advantage of our cognitive biases (like informing us that an urgent operation has an 80 percent survival rate).

Nudges, more broadly, structure choices so that our natural cognitive shortcomings don’t make us err. Ideally, nudges direct us, gently, toward actions that are in our long-term interest, like an automated retirement savings plan that circumvents our typical inertia.

Whatever you design as the most cost-effective or technologically feasible solution might not be palatable to the end users or might encounter political oppositions,”

I heard once (Clayton Christensen, maybe?) that a leader needs to say things 7 times before the message is heard, understood and internalized.  Never assume that the message you shared once, 3 months ago, was heard in the first place, or that it’s still a driving motivation for people now.  Ask questions.  Share success stories.  Be hyper focused and, when in doubt, communicate it again.  Other people don’t live in your head.

“Universities live and die on their rankings,” he said. “If you’re a university, attracting the faculty and students you want may mean you need to be more green.” “If you’re an non-government organization (NGO), your donors are your drivers. If you have a green mission you need to demonstrate that in your own building.” Genzyme, a biotechnology company in Cambridge, Mass., built a LEED Platinum corporate headquarters and documented they had reduced staff turnover by 5 percent. “That value to them of not having to replace key staff on an annual basis was twice their energy cost,” said Yudelson. “In a place like Cambridge, you can change jobs easily if you’re a knowledge worker in certain industries.”

We are clear in telling everybody that we don’t have it figured out. It is a debate in progress.

However, research conducted concurrently by several different firms, including the Associated Press, suggests that while Harvard might have benefited well from its oil and gas investments in the past, the marketplace, with the world’s increased focus on climate issues, was changing. “Fossil fuel free” investments now stand to earn more

In 2005, in response to increasing pressure from student and human rights groups, the university announced it would be divesting from overseas companies like PetroChina and Sinopec that allegedly had ties with Sudan. However, two years later, the student-run paper, Harvard Crimson, reported that the university still maintained investments in those overseas companies.

What President Faust’s letter didn’t address was the relationship between investment and reputation. Harvard’s reputation is shaped by what it invests in, not just in what it teaches or promotes in research. So is its brand as an impartial, but forward-thinking institution that doesn’t want to be perceived as a “political actor.” But climate change is altering not only how we harness energy but how we view the political landscape. As a poet once told me, “everything is political.” It’s how we deal with that landscape and the choices we make that shapes how others view us.

“If you present people with a solution, they would come up with a thousand problems. If you present people with a problem, they would come up with a thousand solutions.”

Make the project part of core business strategy, involve all levels of your business and include a "cool" factor to make it memorable.

For instance, do you remember these phrases: "biodegradable plant acute hazardous waste absorption bins" or "cactus sinks?"

So capitalism, with all its faults, is the only game in town. The task confronting the present generation of leaders is to improve on it, to build on its strengths and eradicate its weaknesses.

It became all about "having more," instead of "living more."

Addressing the weaknesses of capitalism will require us, above all, to do two things: first, to take a long term perspective; and second, to re-set the priorities of business.