Simon Zadek

On February 24, the China Banking Regulatory Commission released its Green Credit Guidelines, securing China's global leadership in advancing environmental principles and rules across its banking sector.

Uniquely covering corporate as well as project finance, the guidelines are mandatory and establish the basis for oversight of the...

The sustainable business circle's golden rule is to keep one's chin up, point out the good news, and duck the hard questions by appealing to an unknowable future. Being a party pooper is considered impolite, except perhaps through the majesty of John Elkington's very English metaphors.

My...

Optimism in the face of repetitive failure is a sure sign of madness, I wrote in the article, "Time for Progressive Companies to Deal with the Climate Bad Guys," published two weeks ago in The Guardian. Progressive CEOs need to apply their corporate muscle effectively, and that means...

Business leaders who embrace sustainability should expose those ignoring the imperatives of climate change.

Optimism in the face of repetitive failure is a sure sign of madness. Even the most progressive chief executives who have dedicated their undying support for a global climate deal must be wondering if staff changes...

History may vindicate the view that the 2009 Copenhagen climate talks were the most successful failure of modern times.

Plan A was a top-down deal involving global institutions, massive cross-border public resource transfers and national commitments to which sovereign states could be held to account. The problem with...

The Financial Transactions Tax is surely dead. May it rest more peacefully in future. Surging objections to the European proposal, indeed ridicule, have come from almost every quarter, from leading lights representing the "responsible investment movement" to the IMF's former chief economist, Kenneth Rogoff. Beleaguered European Commission President...

The annual Chinese-hosted World Economic Forum Summer Davos, took place recently in a rainy Dalian, which is recovering from citizen demonstrations linked to toxic leaks from a centrally placed chemicals plant. The annual forum, the fourth I have attended in China, felt like another step in...

European Commission President, José Manuel Barroso, in supporting the financial transactions tax (that would take a small cut on every trade in the financial sector, and could reduce the short termism that undermines sustainable business), points out that tax payers have contributed more than €4,000bn in...