Joel Makower

Oakland

Chairman and Co-founder at Trellis

Chairman, co-founder @GreenBiz, award-winning journalist, bestselling author, global speaker and advisor on sustainable business, climate tech, blah blah blah

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Articles

‘Making more sustainable choices is a megatrend’

4 days ago | trellis.net | Joel Makower

The Two Steps Forward podcast is available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music and other platforms — and, of course, via Trellis. Episodes publish every other Tuesday. Financial services is high on the list of the most fascinating and challenging sectors for sustainability. Ellen Jackowski, Chief Sustainability Officer at Mastercard, is one of the sector’s leaders.
Mastercard CSO: ‘Making more sustainable choices is a megatrend’

4 days ago | ecotopical.com | Joel Makower

Welcome to EcoTopical Your daily eco-friendly green news aggregator. Leaf through planet Earths environmental headlines in one convenient place. Read, share and discover the latest on ecology, science and green living from the web's most popular sites.
Why we're thinking -- and talking -- about carbon all wrong

2 weeks ago | trellis.net | Joel Makower

The Two Steps Forward podcast is available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music and other platforms — and, of course, via Trellis. Episodes publish every other Tuesday. For more than 40 years, Paul Hawken has been an author, entrepreneur, activist and provocateur in sustainability. In this interview for the Two Steps Forward podcast, Hawken talks about his latest book, “Carbon: The Book of Life,” with my co-host, sustainability consultant Solitaire Townsend, and me.
GE’s Ecomagination at 20: Lessons for today’s sustainability leaders

3 weeks ago | trellis.net | Joel Makower

GE’s Ecomagination initiative, launched May 9, 2005, certainly turned heads. Here was the world’s ninth-largest company, a 113-year-old conglomerate founded by Thomas Edison, inventor of the first commercial light bulb, putting sustainability front and center of its new corporate strategy. It seems, 20 years later, paradoxically overhyped and underappreciated.
Google CSO Kate Brandt: ‘We need to expand how we're talking about this’

1 month ago | trellis.net | Joel Makower

The tech giant’s chief sustainability officer reflects on how she’ll make the most of this critical time, drawing upon the two decades she’s been working to advance sustainability, in the debut episode of Two Steps Forward, a biweekly podcast. Plus, we answer the question: Why are creative people more optimistic?
Rev. Lennox Yearwood Jr.: Let's turn 'cancer alley' into opportunity alley

1 month ago | trellis.net | Joel Makower

“I’m excited for this moment,” Rev. Lennox Yearwood Jr., president and CEO of the Hip Hop Caucus, an advocacy group that works for racial, economic and climate justice, told us right off the bat.
Introducing Trellis Impact 25 to usher in the next phase of sustainability

2 months ago | trellis.net | Joel Makower

The profession of sustainability is changing. It always has been, though this moment feels more fraught than any before it.
Sustainability leaders, do your best by 'holding back the darkness'

Feb 10, 2025 | trellis.net | Joel Makower

The following is adapted from my opening talk delivered today at GreenBiz 25. Eight years ago, at GreenBiz 17, three weeks after a U.S. presidential inauguration, I declared that “Donald Trump is sustainability’s stress test.” His election was a black swan event — low probability, high impact — that we didn’t see coming and weren’t prepared for. It was a moment of truth for us all. We muddled through. Yes, we lost precious time, there were regulatory setbacks and we exited the Paris Agreement.
The key to CSO success: become a 'corporate chameleon'

Feb 7, 2025 | businessgreen.com | Joel Makower

Nearly 90 per cent of CSOs are spending more time on regulatory compliance today than they did two years ago, according to a new report from the Weinreb Group Sustainability professionals, and chief sustainability officers in particular, have long been scrutinized. But this moment is different, with political, financial, regulatory, technological and other pressures...
be a 'chameleon'

Feb 6, 2025 | trellis.net | Joel Makower

Sustainability professionals, and chief sustainability officers in particular, have long been scrutinized. But this moment is different, with political, financial, regulatory, technological and other pressures giving new urgency — and uncertainty — to companies’ efforts to ensure a sustainable future. As a result, the past year has seen a profusion of reports, studies, surveys, report cards and other assessments.