Convince just 100 key companies to go sustainable, and WWF’s Jason Clay says global markets will shift to protect the planet our consumption has already outgrown. Hear how his extraordinary roundtables are getting big brand rivals to agree on green practices first—before their products duke it out on store shelves.

Jason Clay is a WWF vice-president who works with big corporations to transform the global markets they operate in, so we can produce more with less land, less water and less pollution.

Johan Rockstrom:  Let the environment guide our development

As UCSF kicks off Race to Certfication, you might be wondering, how can using less paper and energy at the office make a difference.  Human growth has strained the Earth’s resources, and Johan Rockstrom reminds us, our advances also give us the science to recognize this and change behavior. His research has found nine “planetary boundaries” that can guide us in protecting our planet’s many overlapping ecosystems.  Johan Rockström works to redefine sustainable development and provides a big picture perspective of what needs to happen.

Ray Anderson - At his carpet company, Ray Anderson has increased sales and doubled profits while turning the traditional “take / make / waste” industrial system on its head. In a gentle, understated way, he shares a powerful vision for sustainable commerce.  Ray Anderson founded the company that makes covetable Flor carpeting. But behind the fresh design is a decades-deep commitment to sustainable ways of doing business—culminating in the Mission Zero plan.




Waste Minimization

How to Use One Paper Towel

R. P. Joe Smith served as a District Attorney in Umatilla County and nearly won a race for Oregon Attorney General without taking a single contribution over $99.99. He is a former chair of the Oregon Democratic Party and is active with several local nonprofits.  In this lively TED talk, he demonstrates how to save paper and trees by drying your hands using only one paper towel.  Try it!  And remember to conserve water while washing your hands as well.

Paper or plastic or what? Leyla Acaroglu at TED2013

We all know sustainability is essential to our future, in vague terms. But what does that mean for the choices we make every day? In other words: paper or plastic? For one thing, design consultant Leyla Acaroglu wants you to think beyond choosing a material for your grocery tote. Instead, she encourages us to think about the entire life of a finished product, to think hard about the net impact a product has on the environment. This is life-cycle thinking, not just whether a product can be recycled, but all the parts of its existence: material extraction, manufacturing, packaging and transportation, product use, and end of life. Every step of the way, there’s a way to do something smart to make the most out of the product for net environmental gain.

Arthur Potts Dawson - If you’ve been in a restaurant kitchen, you’ve seen how much food, water and energy can be wasted there. Chef Arthur Potts-Dawson shares his very personal vision for drastically reducing restaurant, and supermarket, waste—creating recycling, composting, sustainable engines for good (and good food).  Arthur Potts Dawson wants us to take responsibility not just for the food we eat, but how we shop for and even dispose of it. And he’s showing the way—with impeccable taste.

Murray Wilson - ewaste and the social landfill - Murray’s concern with the problems presented by unwanted but usable old computers being discarded in landfills led him to an unexpected solution. He talks to TEDxCreativeCoast 2010 about the problems of e-waste, the digital divide, and how a local youth organization is tackling a small part of the problem by giving back to those most in need.

Are Mushrooms the New Plastic? at TEDglobal2010

Product designer Eben Bayer reveals his recipe for a new, fungus-based packaging material that protects fragile stuff like furniture, plasma screens—and the environment.  Bayer is co-inventor of MycoBond, an organic (really—it’s based on mycelium, a living, growing organism) adhesive that turns agriwaste into a foam-like material for packaging and insulation.

Energy and Renewables


David MacKay: A reality check on renewables

How much land mass would renewables need to power a nation like the UK? An entire country’s worth. In this pragmatic talk, David MacKay tours the basic mathematics that show worrying limitations on our sustainable energy options and explains why we should pursue them anyway.  As an information theorist and computer scientist, David MacKay uses hard math to assess our renewable energy options.

Alex Laskey:  How behavioral science can lower your energy bill

What’s a powerful way to help people use less power at home? Pit them against their neighbors. As founder and president of Opower, Alex Laskey helps utility companies show customers, right on their utility bills, where their own house sits on the spectrum of neighborhood energy wasters—and how to beat the game. It seems silly, but the large-scale reductions in energy usage are no joke.

Opower works with more than 80 utilities on three continents, and serves over 15 million customers. Since its launch in 2008, it has cumulatively saved utility customers more than $200 million and 2 terawatt hours (TWh) of energy—enough to power a city of more than a quarter million people. It’s all through a powerful combination of behavioral science, data analytics and good marketing.

James Hansen - Top climate scientist James Hansen tells the story of his involvement in the science of and debate over global climate change. In doing so he outlines the overwhelming evidence that change is happening and why that makes him deeply worried about the future.

Aex Steffen - Worldchanging.com founder Alex Steffen argues that reducing humanity’s ecological footprint is incredibly vital now, as the western consumer lifestyle spreads to developing countries.  Alex Steffen explores our planet’s future, telling powerful, inspiring stories about the hard choices facing humanity ... and our opportunity to create a much better tomorrow.

Al Gore - With the same humor and humanity he exuded in An Inconvenient Truth, Al Gore spells out 15 ways that individuals can address climate change immediately, from buying a hybrid to inventing a new, hotter “brand name” for global warming.  Once the US Vice President, then star of An Inconvenient Truth, now Nobel Peace Prize winner, Al Gore found a way to focus the world’s attention on climate change. In doing so, he has invented a new medium—the Keynote movie—and reinvented himself.