Image: OiMax (Flickr)

We are reminded constantly that humanity faces unprecedented challenges: climate change, resource constraints, economic volatility, over and under nutrition, widening inequality, and political conflicts that are increasingly aggravated by these issues. Yet, even as awareness of the causes and potential solutions to these challenges has never been higher, overall progress remains frustratingly slow or non- existent. Understandably, many of us have looked to national and international leaders, multinational companies, universities and other large scale institutions to provide leadership but, while their efforts have been earnest and sometimes substantial, they have so far failed to make very much difference….

Uncertainty and anxiety are ubiquitous nowadays. The global economy remains fragile, and even where it does show some life, the continued volatility (and upward trajectory) of energy and other commodity prices is there to beat back any real sense of momentum.

Meanwhile, progress on grand challenges like climate change, food and water security, and sustainable consumption is either halting or nonexistent, and there is declining confidence that large institutions, including governments, multilateral organizations, companies and even large NGOs, will lead the way in addressing them.

That’s the general feeling at the global level, and across many countries. But look through the prism of cities…

I spent the week before last at the annual BSR conference, held in San Francisco, CA. It is among the year’s biggest confabs of corporate responsibility and sustainability experts, practitioners and aspirants. While I am not a serial or veteran attendee of the conference, I heard (and agree with) a consensus that it was better than others in recent memory. The crowd was generally upbeat and engaged, and that level of energy was both reflected and driven on by a series of lively keynotes, most notably the opening address by Al Gore, who took aim at the ‘insanity’ of short-term thinking, praised attendees for their efforts to advance sustainability, and…

I’m on my way to the Sustainable Brands conference in Monterey this week where my colleague Mark Lee will be delivering the opening keynote. While I’m looking forward to tapping into (and trying to help shape) the latest thinking on a variety of topics in this space, I’m probably like a lot of participants who are dying to see how the current mini-debate over the state of green marketing itself – touched off a few weeks ago by Joel Makower’s great provocation that green marketing is over and it’s time to move on – will play out at the conference. We briefly framed the debate in another post earlier today, which I aim to complement here with a few further thoughts and opinions.

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