Author name: Scott Cooney

Scott Cooney (twitter: scottcooney) is an adjunct professor of Sustainability in the MBA program at the University of Hawai'i, green business startup coach, author of Build a Green Small Business: Profitable Ways to Become an Ecopreneur (McGraw-Hill), and developer of the sustainability board game GBO Hawai'i. Scott has started, grown and sold two mission-driven businesses, failed miserably at a third, and is currently in his fourth. Scott's current company has three divisions: a sustainability blog network that includes the world's biggest clean energy website and reached over 5 million readers in December 2013 alone; Pono Home, a turnkey and franchiseable green home consulting service that won entrance into the clean tech incubator known as Energy Excelerator; and Cost of Solar, a solar lead generation service to connect interested homeowners and solar contractors. In his spare time, Scott surfs, plays ultimate frisbee and enjoys a good, long bike ride.

Inspired Economist: Joseph Stiglitz

Economists we respect. Joseph E. Stiglitz, winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics, is the bestselling author of Globalization and its Discontents, Making Globalization Work, and, with Linda Bilmes, The Three Trillion Dollar War. Most recently, Stiglitz authored Freefall, a book about America, free markets, and the sinking of the world economy. Stiglitz is a …

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Is it Trump’s millions that is attracting Romney?

Presumptive Republican nominee for the 2012 Presidential election, Mitt Romney, made some headlines this week for cozying up to Donald “You’re fired” Trump, or “the Donald” as some call him. Trump is perhaps the last holdout in the birther controversy. While even the most hardened anti-Obama-ites have conceded defeat on from their theory that President …

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How much is an extra week and a half of vacation worth to you?

The first time many Americans travel abroad, they often meet Europeans taking luxurious 6 week holidays. It’s a mindboggling concept for Americans, who are lucky if we get 2 weeks of vacation per year for the first few years we work for a company. European working rules differ from those in the U.S., making six …

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Viewing the world as a system will help us establish sustainability

Paul Hawken was the keynote speaker at the Sustainable Industries Economic Forum in San Francisco on Thursday. He had some inspiring talking points (the forum’s goal was to ‘reinspire the inspired’), but one of the key takeaways was in how we should be viewing sustainability.  He started by saying that sustainability should be viewed as …

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Interview of Margot Fraser, Founder of Birkenstock USA

Deborah Nelson, Executive Director of the Social Venture Network, interviewed Margot Fraser, founder and former CEO of Birkenstock USA, as part of the Green America Green Business Conference about the latter’s success in business, and her new book, Dealing with the Tough Stuff. Nelson’s first question was a great one, and right to the point …

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What Non-Profit Donation Would Be the Most Effective In Combatting Environmental Calamity?

We all give to environmental non-profits for different reasons.  Sometimes, with local groups, it’s to fight a certain development or to protest a local company’s toxic emissions.  With national groups, it’s usually to fight policies we don’t agree with that come from governments or multinational companies.  Sometimes we win, sometimes we don’t.  And even when …

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