Marc Gunther

The two most influential companies in America, I'd argue, are GE and Wal-Mart. GE has clout because of the respect accorded its managers, even after a tough run under Jeff Immelt. Wal-Mart matters because of its scale, meaning that most everyone in the consumer products business wants to do business with Wal-Mart. Both have wrestled seriously the idea of sustainability in the last few years. I never tire of writing about either company.

You'll get lots of arguments about Wal-Mart, but I think the company has changed dramatically for the better under Lee Scott, who announced last month that he is stepping down as CEO. The company engaged with its critics, took a...

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While there's little to like right now about what's happening to the global economy, or about the government's never-ending rescue efforts -- did you really want to become an owner of Citigroup? -- there is this: The possibility that Americans will at long last rethink our habitual consumption. I stopped by my local mall (for a haircut) the other day, and it sure looked busy, but the statistics tell a different story. Consumer spending fell by 1 percent in October, the largest drop since the 2001 terrorist attacks, according to the Commerce Department. November is likely to be worse.

This is welcome news. While I'm mindful that a pullback on consumption will claim some victims --...

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I've long been a fan of IKEA and I became a bigger fan earlier this fall when the Swedish-based chain of home furnishing stores banned plastic bags in all of its U.S. outlets. So when I heard that Anders Dahlvig, IKEA's CEO, was speaking at this fall's conference of Business for Social Responsibility, I asked him to sit down with me to explain more fully the company's efforts to become a more sustainable business. I wasn't disappointed, and so IKEA is the topic of today's Sustainability column. There's also some video online of my conversation with Dahlvig.

Here's how the column begins:

You probably know IKEA as a seller of affordable, stylish furniture that comes in "flat...

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As the electric car is business gets more and more crowded, it feels like we are approaching a breakthrough. It could come from a U.S. automaker like GM with its Volt, from a European company like Renault (and its partner Nissan) which are committed to electric cars through an alliance with Better Place, from a Japanese firm like Toyota which has led the way with hybrid cars like the Prius, from a Chinese or Indian carmaker, or from one of the many startups—Tesla, Think, Fisker, ZENN—that are hurrying to market.

I'm fascinated by electric cars, so I went to a panel on "Bringing Electric Cars to the Mass Market" at the Net Impact conference at Wharton. They had...

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"This economic crisis doesn't represent a cycle. It represents a reset," Jeff Immelt, the CEO of General Electric, said today. "It's an emotional, social, economic reset."

And the biggest impact of this "reset" will be greater government involvement in the economy, and in the affairs of business, for better or worse.

"People who understand that will prosper," Immelt said. "Those who don't will be left behind."

Immelt spoke to the annual conference of Business for Social Responsibility, an association of about 250 companies that are looking for more sustainable ways to do business. About 1,200 people from companies, NGOs, consulting firms, PR shops and government...

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What an extraordinary night for America! Here's a brief dispatch from the streets of Washington, D.C., before getting to today's column: The U Street neighborhood was known as "Black Broadway" in the 1920s–Duke Ellington grew up nearby, jazz clubs thrived, theaters were built and a black-middle class grew there for years. It remained the cultural hub of black D.C. until 1968, when it was all but burned down after the assassination of Martin Luther King. After a period of blight, U Street was reborn as a vibrant neighborhoo in the 1990s, as restaurants, clubs and condos sprung up. Last night, it was the site of a spontaneous street party, with blacks and whites, mostly young...

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Can a company grow and shrink at the same time?

That's what The Coca-Cola Co. is trying to do. Like every big company, Coca-Cola wants to grow its revenues and profits. It also wants to reduce its environmental footprint. Is this possible?

The answer is probably not, at least not right now.

That's not because Coke isn't trying. Indeed, few companies take environmental issues more seriously than Coca-Cola. I'm an admirer of the company's chairman, Neville Isdell, and its sustainability guru, Jeff Seabright. (See Coke: The Green Thing at fortune.com and this blog post.) The trouble is that, at least for the moment, the more stuff that Coke sells, the more it is...

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One of the irritating cliches of the climate change conversation is that there is no silver bullet that will solve the problem, only silver buckshot. Like most cliches, though, it's true. Today's Sustainability column at fortune.com and cnnmoney.com is about one of those buckshot solutions -- hydrogen fuel cells, which have been in development for nearly half a century but only lately have become a real business.

There's been lots of work done for years around fuel cells -- for cars, buses and small-scale applications like cell phones -- but the fuel cells that are selling, to real customers, in real markets, are those used to generate power for buildings like supermarkets,...

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