Gil Friend – One of the 10 most influential sustainability voices in America

Gil Friend, systems ecologist and business strategist, is widely considered one of the founders of the sustainable business movement.

Gil is noted for inspiring, challenging and supporting business, policy and investment leaders to rethink business in the light of the climate change and sustainability challenges. 

His commitment is to build prosperity and strategic advantage by managing through the lens of deep purpose and the guidance of 3.8 billion years of open source R&D – not just quarterly returns.

Gil is a sought-after advisor, teacher and keynote speaker. 

Greenbiz.com chairman Joel Makower describes him as “one of the most thoughtful and creative thinkers I know in the area of sustainable business, who artfully bridges the scientific and technical sides of sustainability, the realities of the daily world of business and people, and the systems in which they operate.”

Gil is founder and CEO of Natural Logic Inc, a strategy boutique advising the world’s leading companies on building “massive value” through business-integrated sustainability strategies. Clients have included Avery-Dennison, Coca-Cola, eBay, General Mills, HP, Landsbankinn, Levis, Odwalla, Steelcase, Sunpower, and many others.

He is founder and CEO of Critical Path Capital, applying Natural Logic’s decades of experience to deploy capital in support of the world we want, accelerate the avalanches underway in energy, mobility and other sectors, and provide opportunities for more people to participate financially in these futures.

He has completed a secondment as the first Chief Sustainability Officer of the City of Palo Alto, California, where he led the development of the most aggressive municipal climate action plan, new mobility strategy, and the first carbon-neutral utility company in the US.

Gil is an inaugural member – along with Interface CEO Ray Anderson, energy guru Amory Lovins and Natural Step founder Karl-Henrik Robert – of the Sustainability Hall of Fame, and was named “one of the 10 most influential sustainability voices in America” by The Guardian and one of the Bay Area’s “top 25 movers and shakers” in cleantech. 

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