We have met the enemy and he is us. Pogo, comic strip character created by Walt Kelly

Have you picked wild berries? Eaten fresh fish or game at a family meal? Traipsed across undeveloped land? Growing up in South Georgia, I took all these for granted.

My parents were the first generation to avoid farming since my ancestors arrived before the American Revolution.  Their aspirations were aligned with the rest of the country. At the turn of the 20^th century, 40 percent of the U.S. population earned its living off the land.In 100 years plus, that figure has dropped to less than two percent. Today over the river and through the woods is unlikely to take you to grandmother’s house. Imagine trying to program those directions into your GPS!

If you have been following my writing for Fast Company, you know that I tend to highlight positive corporate involvement in sustainable measures that benefit planet and humanity. I use this platform to bring forward stories of companies--and the men and women who represent them--committed to positive change. Lately, that interest has expanded into the role of how a company (and the products and services it provides) is able to change not only it's own behavior, but that of a greater community of stakeholders. The many ways in which we citizens of the planet are called to evolve our behavior to meet the a growing list of environmental and social needs, it can become quite staggering. That is why I believe a company who actively contributes to such shifts in human behavior is one that acts in a more socially and environmentally responsible way.

There are hidden costs to "going green." While many companies are manufacturing products made from plant or corn-based polymers, others are quick to point out that the corn industry may use as much--if not more--petroleum in the process of growing, watering, harvesting, and shipping the corn as they would if petroleum-based plastics were used in the first place. There are other perceived hypocrisies, such as electric cars which run off a coal burning grid or Compact Florescent Light bulbs (CFL) and solar panels which are manufactured without environmental regulations in China or other countries on the other side of the planet.

A 2nd-grader at an elementary school in one of Atlanta’s low-income neighborhoods held up a strawberry and eyed it with intense suspicion.

He bit into it slowly, cautiously, and his judgmental taste buds went to work. Suddenly his young face bloomed and he popped the rest of the red berry into his mouth. When he finished chewing, he said, “I thought strawberry was that jelly stuff inside Pop-Tarts.”

It was his first real strawberry, harvested from a nearby farm for a Georgia Organics farm to school event.

Technically speaking, he has had real strawberry before. Kellogg’s Frosted Strawberry Pop-Tarts contain 10 percent real fruit.

The rest of the “strawberry-flavored goodness,” as Kellogg’s describes it, and the pastry that surrounds it is a mix of 43 other ingredients.

Some are as harmless and simple as sugar. Many others are unpronounceable, and three additives are on several lists of harmful ingredients that should be avoided.

Over the past few years, I have been watching the role of women increase at the global level. Corporate initiatives such as that of Cisco, Nike, and The Cola Cola Company have embraced the position of women not only within the corporation, but also within the communities they operate. Micro-lending is done predominantly to women with the knowledge that bringing women into the world economy is the predominant  ingredient in developing a community, if not a nation.   Muhammad Yunus, founder of Grameen Bank, said in 2005 -  “soon we saw that money going to women brought much more benefit to the family than money going to the men. So we changed our policy and gave a high priority to women. As a result, now 96% of our four million borrowers in Grameen Bank are women.”  Corporations such as Whole Foods Market have followed this model with the mission of the Whole Planet Foundation which provides micro-loans to women in global communities where they source products for their stores.  

As the dean of Atlanta’s environmentally conscientious business leaders, Ray Anderson has been a “pioneer, someone who defines tomorrow, someone who has vision.”

That’s how former Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin introduced Anderson, the recipient of the Upper Chattahoochee Riverkeeper’s 2010 River Guardian Award, at its annual Patron Appreciation Dinner on Sept. 24 at the Georgia Aquarium.

In recent months, I find my messages on sustainability to be shifting. That shift is really more of a focus as I have grown in my understanding of a greater issue we face today which makes conservation and environmentalism more relevant to the average American. And this shift is more than a trend or even a mega-trend. It is a movement. A conscious uncovering of a truth which corporations and businesses big and small are beginning to comprehend as a further retooling of all we make and all we do in the world today.

This response to my recent posting on Jack Welch and Conscious Capitalism deserves a post all unto itself.  The author is Scott Seydel.  He writes:

It's interesting that most of the Wal-Mart critics have said that the company's success has rested solely on it's badgering of supplier manufacturers and underpaying employees. I've been involved with the WMS Sustainable Value Network now for over half a decade and have found that and "cost" and "price" are contributive factors in serving the big box's customers, it's the inventory, brand names, greeters, convenience, and efficient service that differentiated Wal-Mart and Sam's stores from Sears and K-Mart.

In my last blog entry, I wrote about the 2009 Newsweek Green Corporate Rankings. Soon after this issue was published, I had the good fortune of spending some time with HP's Director of Environmental Sustainability, Bonnie Nixon, on a recent trip to Northern California. After seeing HP on the "Newsweek" list at number one, I was very interested to learn about the woman behind its corporate shift. What was confirmed to me is that behind every major corporate transformation story is a truly heroic man or woman. While I am sure HP has a team of hundreds who have contributed strongly to this position as number one on the "Newsweek" list, I was certain after spending more time with Nixon that she was an integral part of it.