It is the wild west of sustainability consulting right now – awareness is high, but comprehension is low. There are sustainability practitioners (knowledgeable and qualified), subject-matter experts (knowledgeable in one or two areas that fall under the sustainability umbrella) and gunslingers (armed with the lingo but not the knowledge). The article provides clarity and guidance to companies trying to assess which of these characters to engage.

The outpouring for Ray has been so warm and fitting for all that he did and so many that he touched. I hadn't really thought about how many "overlaps" we had until I got numerous requests from groups all over the world for comments to post on Ray. In addition to being on the Interface board for almost fifteen years, Ray and I were on the Second Nature board together as well as The Natural Step-US and the PCAP (Presidential Climate Action Project). We were on the US delegation during one year's CSD at the UN, as well as for UNGASS in 1997. We were at Tallberg together in '09 for Tomorrow's Company and several times at GLOBE in Vancouver. Of course it all started with the PCSD (President's Council on Sustainable Development) under President Clinton. There are too many other events and conferences to count, from USGBC, to IQLA at the UN, from CHEP to the Upper Chattahoochee River Keepers or last year when Ray became the first man to receive the WNSF "Businesswoman" of the Year award-that's right WOMAN!. He REALLY changed my life, which is exactly what he said he intended to do when he asked me to join the Interface board. When he was the keynote speaker for the National Council on Science and the Environment a few years back, he said we have to shake up the status quo on education...Ray always knew when it was time to shake things up!

If we are looking for ways to chip away at the budget deficit, to keep America competitive and to use market-based mechanisms to build a clean energy economy, then subsidy reform should be near the top of the list.

The Federal Reserve’s second round of Quantitative Easing or QE2 is set to launch next week.  Ask yourself and a half a dozen of your friends if you really know what that means.  Most of us don’t.