A review on Jonathan Haidt’s The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religions (2012) by Eric Panicco, Business Analyst at Birdseye Renewable Energy. This is a powerful read, and while its central aim is not directly connected to sustainability, it provides insights that are valuable to sustainability professionals. Jonathan Haidt sets the scene…
In an earlier blog, I presented the CLIMATE model as a series of actions to mitigate climate change. This model continues to guide our exploration into how to get people to care and act. I also wrote two blogs (Blog 1 and Blog 2) on why people do not care and act. This commentary is about…
This is the second of two blogs about why people don’t care and why they don’t act. My view is that once we understand the “whys,” we can approach the “hows” of influencing people to take action on important environmental challenges. I’ll focus here on incentives, social biases, and information deficits. I believe that we do not…
Climate change label leads to climate science acceptance Study reveals that climate change could dramatically alter fragile mountain habitats Melting polar ice, rising sea levels not only climate change dangers What are we to make of these findings? Is climate change real? Important? Impactful? Turns out that the science of climate change is compelling, yet…
What if you owned property on the North Carolina coast and it will be completely underwater in 15 years! No insurance company will insure the property as their projections are that this occurrence is a near certainty. The index for air quality (AQI) is a number used by government agencies to communicate how polluted the…
Each year, the Wake Forest University faculty members choose an overarching theme to use as a lens on sustainability practices and course content. The theme’s focus creates a means to integrate material from different perspectives across our courses. This integration gives students, faculty members, and partner organizations a trans-disciplinary perspective on sustainability. These parts of…
I wonder what people are saying about America in the face of our politics and calls to dramatically repair America. This is a difficult time for America’s cultural identity calling for lots of examination of “making America great again.” The political mantra calls into question whether America needs dramatic work to increase or maintain…
An effective business strategy needs a competitive analysis. If an organization is going to position itself in a way that promotes sustainability as a competitive advantage it must ask at least these two questions: Who are the existing competitors and who else might enter the competitive field? How intense is this competition? It may not…
You can create a competitive advantage simply by offering a lower price, but differentiation advantage happens when a firm is able to obtain a price premium in the market that exceeds the cost of providing the differentiation. For example, consider paper companies. Many of them offer the same types of products. Differentiation can be challenging, since there…
