Publications and Press
Five Keys to Unlock Human Potential and Solve our Most Intractable Problems
By Jeana Wirtenberg, PhD, president and CEO of Transitioning to Green
- With talented business people squarely in the driver's seat, I believe we can create an inspiring, engaging path to solving our most intractable problems. As the corporate agenda moves from reducing harm to acknowledging the critically important role business plays in the well-being of society, the new agenda will be based on shared value for sustainable progress. First we need to unlock and unleash the incredibly talented people in organizations who want purpose, passion, challenge, and meaning in their work. Given the statistics on lack of engagement of workers worldwide, we are sitting on a remarkable, underutilized pool of talent that must be applied to designing businesses that actually increase prosperity for all.
Accelerating HR’s Role in CSR and Sustainability
- NEW YORK CITY—HR professionals need to be more involved in corporate social responsibility (CSR) and sustainability initiatives, but are often left out of the picture. People specializing in these fields should partner with HR to make the most of such programs, and HR should step up its game to get involved, speakers said at the Commit!Forum. The annual event attracts executives to discuss CSR.
“If the goal is to get every employee considering sustainability or corporate social responsibility across every business function, the HR function plays such a key role,”
How Big Business Can Help Small Business Become More Sustainable
A Virtuous Cycle with Benefits for All
By Jeana Wirtenberg
- In this guest blog by Jeana Wirtenberg, Ph.D., she discusses her latest book, and her role at the upcoming Verizon Sustainability Summit. She is the co-founder and senior adviser at the Institute for Sustainable Enterprise.
Why would giant global businesses like Verizon, Alcoa, Sanofi, and Wyndham Worldwide invest their valuable time and money to support small businesses in becoming more sustainable? I say, “Why wouldn’t they?”
Sustaining profits: Going green can improve the bottom line, even for small businesses
By Brett Johnson September 8, 2014
- Transitioning to Green CEO Jeana Wirtenberg: “95 percent of sustainable projects are either cost-neutral or positive.”
Small business owners have offered sustainability gurus every excuse in the book. Their plans for eco-friendly infrastructure reforms were shelved because they were a resource drain … their 200-page-long PowerPoint presentation about energy efficiency was disregarded because, well, it's 200 pages … they can't even think about going green because it takes too much green.
Building a Culture for Sustainability- A New Book
July 23,2014
By Greatgreeneditingadmin
By Alison Lueder
- From sustainability to employee engagement to profitability
Research shows that sustainable business initiatives create more engaged (happier) employees, which lead to more profitable companies. Specifically: Gallup research shows that companies with more engaged employees are more profitable. Research from Harvard Business School shows that “sustainability initiatives are highly appealing to employees.”
- Harness These Forces to Transform your Sustainability Practices
- By Jeana Wirtenberg Published July 16, 2014
Sustainability is no ordinary change-management challenge. An entire economic system is in transition. That’s why forces beyond the ordinary are so badly needed.Over the past two years, while doing research for my new book, "Building a Culture for Sustainability," and for my teaching, I have been struck by three fundamental forces
Three Transformative Business Sustainability TrendsBy Jeana Wirtenberg July 10,2014
Sustainability has come a long way in the last 30 years. Fewer and fewer business leaders are asking, “Why should my company take action?” and more and more are asking “How?”—how do they create impactful programs that will take root, deliver return on investment, and drive innovation across the business?
Companies That Do Sustainabililty Right Make it Mainstream, Not Niche
By Jeana Wirtenberg July 01,2014 - Twenty-five years ago, sustainability was not a part of standard business discourse. Today it is—and business schools helped make that happen. But we’re reaching the natural limits of what B-schools started. Only a wave of innovation in management education will help businesses get fast enough to meet customers’ needs in a hotter flatter, more crowded world.
Articles Written about Building a Culture for Sustainability People, Planet and Profits in a New Green Economy In Forbes July 30, 2014 Does Sustainability Mean Anything Anymore? Lessons from Pfizer, Alcoa, and Alcatel- Lucent
by Andrew Cave
- Starbucks degree program points to a wider shift in business values
Jeana Wirtenberg: the coffee chain's free degree program is just one of a number of corporate initiatives which recognize shareholder value comes from creating value for people
- Wirtenberg Examines How BASF, Alcoa, Pfizer and More Are Building a Culture for Sustainability
- Jeana Wirtenberg knows sustainability is about people. Her exhaustively researched but highly readable book, Building a Culture for Sustainability: People, Planet and Profits in a New Green Economy, gives readers a detailed framework to bridge the gap between what leaders say they want their companies to accomplish around sustainability and what actually gets done — by building a culture for sustainability.
Jeana Wirtenberg: How 9 leaders are building sustainable cultureBy Eban Goodstein, May 20, 2014In this Bard MBA conversation, author and HR veteran Wirtenberg explains how to steer corporate culture toward sustainability.
Triple Bottom Line: Creating 3.0 Leaders for the 21st Century An article in "Leadership Excellence" by Dr. Jeana Wirtenberg
- Sustainability and the green economy present great challenges and opportunities—and sustainable leadership is what will turn the tide. We must bring about sustainable business models that enable companies, people, and our planet to flourish and thrive now and in the future. How do we do this?
- Triple Pundit: People, Planet, Profit ⋅ Andrea Newell
Dr. Jeana Wirtenberg, PhD, CEO, Transitioning to Green, talks about her career, inspiration and recent accomplishments in our Women in CSR series.
- Wirtenberg, J., Abrams, L., & Ott, C."Assessing the Field of Organization Development,"Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, Vol. 40, Number 4, December 2004, pp. 465-479. Cited in David L. Bradford and W. Warner Burke’s book "Reinventing Organization Development as "the hope of Organization Development."Harmon, J & Seeger, J. (2004).
- Wirtenberg, J., Lipsky, D., Abrams, L., Conway, M., Slepian, J:"The Future of Organization Development: Enabling Sustainable Business Performance Through People," Organization Development Journal, Summer 2007 (Volume 25 No. 2), pp. 11-22.
- Wirtenberg, J., Backer, T., Chang, W., Lannan, T., Applegate, B., Conway, M., Abrams, L., Slepian, J., "The Future of Organization Development in the Nonprofit Sector," Organization Development Journal, Winter 2007 (Volume 25 No. 4), pp. 179-195.
- "HR's Role in Building a Sustainable Enterprise: Insights from Some of the World's Best Companies, "Wirtenberg, J.,Harmon, J, Russell, W., Fairfield, K., Human Resource Planning, Volume 30, No.1, 2007, pp.10-20.
Aydinliyim, L. & Wirtenberg, J., 2017. “Reimagining the Twenty-First-Century Employment Relationship: Aligning Human Resources and Corporate Social Responsibility Through Employment Policies and Practices.” Chapter 40 in The Talent Management Handbook: Making Culture a Competitive Advantage by Acquiring, Identifying, Developing, and Promoting the Best People, Third edition. New York: McGraw Hill, 456-470.
Wirtenberg, J., 2011. Unleashing Talent in Service of a Sustainable Future. Chapter 37 in The Talent Management Handbook. New York: McGraw Hill, 374-384.
- Wirtenberg, J., 2011. Sustainable Enterprise for the 21st Century. Chapter 4, Volume I (of 3 Volumes), S.G. McNall, J.C.Hershauer and G.Basile, (Editors), The Business of Sustainability: Trends, Policies, Practices and Stories of Success, Santa Barbara, Ca: ABC-CLIO, 67-88.
- November, 2010. “PR Can — and Should — Help Companies Make Their Transition to ‘Green’” by Jeana Wirtenberg and RoseAnn Alspektor, PR News’: Guide to Best Practices in Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) & Green PR, Volume 4.
Journal: 2010 Special Issue of People & Strategy “Transitioning to the Green Economy." HRPS.org
- Wirtenberg, J., 2016. The Living Organization: Designing a New Landscape for OD. Chapter 9. W. J. Rothwell, J. M. Stavros, R. L. Sullivan, and J. D. Vogelsang (Editors), Organization Development in Practice, San Francisco, CA: Organization Development Network, 150-167.
- Vickers, M., J. Wirtenberg, J. Harmon, A. Lindberg,, J. M. Lee, and D. J. Dennis (2007).
http://transitioningtogreen.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/ama-webcast-report.pdf
New York: American Management Association.
Harmon, J, Bucy, F., Nickbarg, S., Rao, G. & Wirtenberg, J. "The ABC's of formulating and implementing sustainability strategy." PR News Guide to Best Practices in Corporate Social Responsibility & Green PR, Vol. 3, pp.21-24.
2008. Wirtenberg, J. & Cox, T. P. "The evolving Sustainability Paradigm: How Practices and Trends impact PR." PR News Guide to Best Practices in Corporate Social Responsibility, volume 2, pp. 3-6.