Collaboration for sustainability: Nike is working with its competitors to develop a systems change programme to eliminate hazardous chemicals from supply chains.

As the Guardian’s Jo Confino wrote at the close of the Rio+20 Conference in June 2012, “the most often used phrases in the many meetings I attended [were] the need to create ‘coalitions of the willing’ and a recognition that ‘all issues are inter-connected’ and cannot be viewed in silos.”

Collaboration is widely acknowledged as vital if we are to address global challenges at the scale and speed we need, but the current rhetoric often fails to acknowledge how hard it is to …

“How might our businesses serve our humanity, and how might our humanity serve our businesses?” (Raphael Bemporad, BBMG speaking at Sustainable Brands, London)

Sustainable Brands finally came to London, in November, a long way from its most recent home in balmy San Diego. The organisers may not have brought us sunshine but the event did bring a strong call for more humanity, heart, purpose, bravery and honesty in brands and business….

Two decades ago, business and NGOs sat poles apart, wary of each other’s intent and aims. Twenty years on — and with the realization of the need for collective action on environmental and social issues that play out across geographical, political, market and ecosystem boundaries — we see a shifting landscape. But has this move towards a focus on partnerships and collaboration overshadowed …

Alicia Ayars and Frances Buckingham on the media's brainprint and its role in shaping the world of tomorrow.

SustainAbility’s Frances Buckingham sits down with Paul Gilding – an independent writer and advocate on climate change, and former CEO of Greenpeace International and other NGOs – to discuss his new book and his optimism for humanity’s ability to successfully navigate, and be better off on the other side of, the Great Disruption….

Signing up to a number of campaigns recently has led me to question whether Armchair Activism has any meaningful impact.

Leaders with courage and vision are needed to secure the popular support needed for decarbonisation.

Sustainability isn’t, like ‘beauty’, in the eye of the beholder.

For over two decades SustainAbility has been working on the evolving relationships between business and civil society – and in particular between business and NGOs. In 2003 we published The 21st Century NGO: In the Market for Change which explored questions around the relationships between NGOs AND businesses as well as questions around the operation of NGOs AS businesses. The report acknowledged that the organizations covered in the research were predominantly northern-based. In part this is because we believed that such models help describe how other parts of the world may develop. At the same time we realized that NGOs operating in emerging markets face very different opportunities and constraints….

An Interview with Caroline Chisholm of Earthwatch

A few years ago much of our time was spent convincing companies, or individuals within companies of the need to act.

There are some days it feels like we are tinkering around the edges of a world that has gone mad.

McDonald's is opening its farms to the public as part of a PR campaign in the run up to the London 2010 Olympics.