Books & Writing

Joel is a prolific writer, including books, reports, and more than 2,000 articles on business and sustainability (many, but not all, on GreenBiz.com). He is author or co-author of more than a dozen books, beginning in 1981 with the publication of a book on the health effects of modern office environments. Among them are some of the earliest books on the green marketplace (The Green Consumer, 1990), corporate environmental responsibility (The E-Factor: The Bottom-Line Approach to Environmentally Responsible Business, 1992); and corporate social responsibility (Beyond the Bottom Line: Putting Social Responsibility to Work for Your Business and the World, 1994). His acclaimed 2009 book was Strategies for the Green Economy.

His most recent book, The New Grand Strategy, published in 2016 by St. Martin’s Press, describes a business plan for America, born at the Pentagon, that embeds sustainability as a strategic national imperative. (More here.)

Joel has been a nationally syndicated columnist; his weekly column, “The Green Consumer,” appeared in nearly 100 newspapers during the 1990s. From 1991-2005 he was editor of The Green Business Letter, a monthly newsletter on corporate environmental practices. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, the Washington Post, USA Today, Harvard Business Review, the Journal of Industrial Ecology, CNN.com, the Huffington Post, and dozens of other publications.