Joel Makower

For nearly 20 years, Joel Makower has been a well-respected voice on business, the environment, and the bottom line. As a writer and consultant on corporate sustainability practices, he has helped a wide range of companies align environmental goals with business strategy.

Joel is founder of GreenBiz.com, ClimateBiz.com, GreenerBuildings.com, and other popular web sites on business and the environment. He also is co-founder of Clean Edge Inc., a research and consulting firm focusing on building markets for clean energy technologies, and a senior consultant at GreenOrder, which consults with leading companies on strategic sustainability issues. From 1991 to 2005 he was editor of "The Green Business Letter," a monthly newsletter on corporate environmental strategy. Makower has consulted to a wide range of companies on corporate sustainability topics, including Gap, GE, General Motors, Hewlett Packard, and Nike.

The Associated Press has called him "The guru of green business practices."

Makower is a Batten Fellow at the Darden School of Business at the University of Virginia, where he is editing a book of case studies on sustainable business practices, to be published in 2007. Makower sits on numerous advisory and editorial boards, including the Climate Trust, the California Sustainable Business Council, the Green Guide Institute, and the Journal of Industrial Ecology. He also sits on the clean-tech advisory council of VantagePoint Venture Partners.

A former nationally syndicated columnist, Makower is author or co-author of more than a dozen books, including Beyond the Bottom Line: Putting Social Responsibility to Work for Your Business and the World, about the profit and potential of socially responsible business practices; The E-Factor: The Bottom-Line Approach to Environmentally Responsible Business, on how companies are responding to environmental challenges in positive and profitable ways, and The Green Consumer, a best-selling guide to the environmental marketplace. Makower has been a featured commentator on environmental topics for "Marketplace," a nightly national business program on public radio, and appears frequently in both broadcast and print media. He lectures regularly to companies, industry groups, and business schools throughout North America, as well as in Europe, Asia, and South America.

Email Joel at joel@makower.com