In a blog posted in the fall of 2012 entitled, What’s the Big Idea, Chris Guenther and I explored the degree to which vision (a Big Idea) enables sustainability performance and leadership and vice versa. We concluded that it does to a very substantial degree, and that the current era is one suffering for lack of the kind of rhetoric that, when backed by appropriate strategy and operational excellence, paints a picture of the change required and provides inspiration that it can be realized….

SustainAbility’s recent paper – Signed, Sealed…Delivered? – provides thoughtful insight and constructive recommendations on ways to make large scale shifts to new models of production, which will result in more sustainable and socially beneficial conditions.

My work is centered on linking market demands with improved raw material production through complex commodity supply chains and business realities. I believe that we must account for the true cost of a sustainability or ethical system and maximize…

I don’t know about you, but the closest I ever got to a Rubik’s Cube, shortly after it was first launched in 1974, was to handle one in a toy store. For me, it seemed insoluble – and many assumed it was, until persistent cubers discovered not just one way to crack the puzzle, but many. And the cube came to mind as I thought recently about the astonishingly complex global security challenge we now face…

Imagine a company which always paid its workers a fair wage, only sourced materials from sustainable sources, created minimal environmental impact and operated a system of offsets so as to be 100% carbon neutral.

How would this company convince you as an ethical shopper to buy its products?

Appetite for Change discusses one of the most critical challenges of our time – Food Security. In other words, how do we feed a growing and prospering population without going beyond ecological limits and ensuring that farming communities thrive? This multi-faceted challenge is further complicated by the vagaries of nature, market speculation and agriculture’s interconnected to other inputs like energy.

The solutions currently being developed tend to focus on the market and consumers. This can be seen by the thousands of different standards and certification being developed – all with good intention but now in an unhealthy competition and creating confusion for consumers…

In just the last few weeks, one of the worst E. coli outbreaks in history has killed 37 people and made more than 2,600 ill, academics concluded that climate change will have more negative consequences for agriculture than expected, and the UN’s Rome-based Food and Agriculture Organization released a guide warning “world farming needs a ‘major shift’ to more sustainable practices as intensive crop production since the 1960s has degraded soils, depleted ground water and caused pest outbreaks.”

Industry and food system experts interviewed for SustainAbility’s latest report, Appetite for Change, read trends such as these and conclude that the food industry is failing…

At the end of last year, my colleagues and I wrote, debated, and then re-wrote a blog on ten sustainability trends from 2010. Now that 2011 is underway, here are five trends we’re watching closely. We hope you’ll join the discussion and share your thoughts on the key issues appearing (and not appearing) on this list.

400 scientists from 34 countries worked for two years on the Global Food and Farming Futures report commissioned from the UK government’s think tank Foresight, and gathered an impressive amount of evidence on the state of our food system and the challenges that need to be tackled in the years ahead. Conclusion: to ensure food security in a sustainable way, nothing less than a redesign of the whole food system is required, and the change is needed now.

Although I have a hard time calling this a bold statement in a world that is currently failing the nutritional needs of roughly one third of its population

Despite its importance, agriculture is financially underserved and currently not prioritized in many emerging economies.

Do Walmart's newest initiatives address the systemic change needed for a sustainable food system?

Energy and water are difficult issues in their own right, but they're on a collision course in places like China.

Jennifer Biringer recaps her panel at the SoCap Conference, and links to the broader state of biodiversity.

What’s next for the restaurant industry? As someone who has worked in the hospitality industry for over 10 years...

Reflecting on yesterday's CSV Forum 2010 in London, I confess that my expectations going into the event were low.

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

Gary Kendall explains why the 2°C threshold for dangerous climate change is so important.