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Video: Sustainable or economical? Ecolab CEO refuses to choose
Friday, March 12th, 2010
Companies don’t need to sacrifice profitability to help the environment, Ecolab Chairman, President and CEO Douglas Baker Jr. said Feb. 23 at Thunderbird. “There is a load of great ideas that bring environmental advantage and economic advantage,” Baker said. “Until the world is out of those ideas, the ability to go and get people to invest in expensive green technology is limited.” He said companies that want to go green and help the bottom line at the same time need to integrate sustainability into their core values and strategies. “You have to go after this,” he said, “making sure it’s built in, that’s it not a hobby.” Ecolab, a Fortune 500 sanitation supply company, appears on Ethisphere magazine’s list of the World’s Most Ethical Companies. | Video: Douglas Baker on Sustainability (1:52)
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By Gregory Unruh, Thunderbird Professor
Arizona-based First Solar grew rapidly into the world’s largest manufacturer of thin film solar modules by finding balance in six key areas, Executive Chairman Michael Ahearn told an audience of about 100 faculty, staff and students Feb. 4 at Thunderbird School of Global Management. First Solar, which formed in 1999 and launched production of commercial products in 2002, operates today with more than 5,000 employees in 10 countries. | 
Corporations that cut corners to maximize the bottom line need to stop and rethink their priorities, Thunderbird President Ángel Cabrera, Ph.D., said Jan. 30 at the World Economic Fourm’s annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland. “Corporations exist to serve people, to serve society,” Cabrera said during an interview with CNBC. ”To create value and money is a vehicle to achieve that purpose — not the other way around. We have got it backward.” Cabrera has been a leading voice on the topic of business ethics since before the global economic crisis. In 2004 he helped establish Thunderbird as the world’s first business school to incorporate a professional oath of honor. More recently, he took a leading role in the development of the Young Global Leaders “Global Business Oath.” | 
By Thunderbird Professor Gary Gibbons
Thunderbird graduate Ryan Schuchard, Manager of Research & Innovation at BSR, is in Copenhagen this week at the COP15 climate treaty negotiations. During his stay, he will participate in panel discussions for the International Emissions Trading Association and the China Climate Registry. He also will send postcards to 
Global companies worried about climate change and energy consumption need to consider a third challenge in their sustainability plans, the leader of a Colorado-based engineering firm said Oct. 29 at Thunderbird. “We have a global water crisis,” said Lee McIntire, president and CEO of 
The best time to think about recycling and disposal of an old product is during the research and development phase before construction begins, environmental engineer Jerry L. Frieling said Sept. 15 at Thunderbird. “Think about how you’re going to take down a building before you build it,” he said during a Global Issues Forum co-sponsored by the ThunderGreen club. “You need to look at everything through the lens of sustainability.” Frieling is chairman of New York-based 
The troubled world of global business needs an updated version of capitalism that bridges the gap between fiscal and social responsibility, recently retired Coca-Cola chairman and CEO Neville Isdell told Thunderbird graduates May 1 during commencement exercises in Glendale, Ariz. “We need leaders who will help update capitalism for the challenges the world faces today,” said Isdell, who received an honorary doctor of international law during the ceremony. | 