Recently I had the pleasure of exchanging ideas with a great group of people at an event hosted by Smart Design. As a design firm, SMART Design has helped clients see the value of developing responsible products, while drawing on a deep understanding of consumer behaviors and a simple, intuitive approach. At their Smart Salon, I focused on how transparency, authenticity and sustainability are driving a new design imperative in this age of responsibility.

Authentic corporate sustainability is about a lot more than simply "going green," but how many employees at the typical company really understand this point? The short answer is not many. In fact, whenever the Sustainability Institute poses the question to organizations that have made a commitment to do better, most say only 10% or less of their staffs understand the systems. And these are companies that are trying to implement the concepts that are at the heart of sustainability, along with their strategic and operational importance.

Do you know how many substances in your household products are potentially dangerous?

There is no question that the Gulf of Mexico is Exhibit A in the business case for corporate responsibility (CR). If BP executives had chosen to build a strong ethic of authentic CR inside the oil company, the disaster would have likely been prevented by employees who would have demanded doing the right thing and blown the whistle on anyone who wasn’t.

A new study on sustainability by Accenture and the UN Global Compact reveals that "86% of CEOs believe that companies should invest in enhanced training of managers to integrate sustainability into strategy and operations." Many of the 766 CEOs who responded also believe that "business that is both sustainable and profitable requires efforts by people at all levels of the corporation; thus engaging employees in the sustainability agenda is vital to success.

Our diets have seen a lot of changes in the last one hundred years, some good, some not-so, but none as unsettling as the introduction of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) into our food supply in the mid-1990s. That's when geneticists figured out how to manipulate DNA and insert characteristics from one species into another.

Thomas Friedman wrote several weeks ago about our interconnected yet uncertain future.

We live in an endlessly interconnected world but every day all too many of us don't consider the impact of our decisions on the next seven generations yet alone the next six, five, four, three, two, or even one. Historians will write about ours as the generation of great unconsciousness. How despite all the warning signs and red flags waving violently in front of our eyes, we failed to see the writing on the wall.

The Harvard Business Review has consistently tackled the many issues related to business and sustainability, and done it from a more deeply strategic perspective than most others. David A. Lubin and Daniel C.

Here's a retailing truth: You can't be in the business of selling consumer products without thinking about Walmart. The merchandising behemoth sells so much of what so many North Americans buy -- from groceries to tires -- that to not seek it as a customer is like trying to grow a garden without water.