Paul Hawken

Environmentalist, entrepreneur, journalist, and author Paul Hawken has dedicated his life since the age of 20 to sustainability, and changing the relationship between business and the environment. In the 1960’s, he founded Erewhon, a natural-foods wholesaler and one of the first in the US that relied solely on sustainable agricultural methods, and in the late 1970’s, he co-founded Smith & Hawken, a garden supply company. He went on to author several books including Growing a Business , The Ecology of Commerce, Blessed Unrest and Natural Capitalism, and has been extremely influential in motivating the business community to adopt more sustainable practices.

Paul Hawken speaks regularly on the impact of commerce on the environment and he consults with governments and corporations throughout the world on economic development, industrial ecology, and environmental policy.

In 2011, I went to a lecture he gave, and I remember being so inspired by it. One of things he said in particular still resonates with me today: “In order for us to survive and thrive, we need to work together. We are all connected and need to be allies in helping each other.”

Paul Hawken is currently editing the book Drawdown, which will describe how 100 solutions, when deployed at scale, can lead us to climate drawdown, the point at which greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere begin to decline on a year-to-year basis. I’m looking forward to it’s release in 2017!

Watch the speech he presented at the 2012 National Bioneers Conference in San Rafael, CA.