Gil Friend is founder, president & CEO of Natural Logic Inc, providing advisory services in strategy, design, operations and information systems that help clients build economic advantage through exceptional environmental performance.
Clients have included Arizona Public Service, Auberge Resorts, Agilent Technologies, the California Department of General Services, Coca Cola, Dean Foods, Ex’pression Center for New Media, Equal Exchange, General Mills, Gilead Sciences, Granite Construction, Green Mountain Energy, Hewlett Packard, Levi Straus & Co, Nike, Odwalla, Pacific Gas & Electric, Sun Microsystems, the US General Services Administration and many others.
A systems ecologist and business strategist with nearly 40 years experience in business, communications, and environmental innovation, Friend combines broad business experience with unique content experience spanning strategy, systems ecology, economic development, management cybernetics, and public policy. Tomorrow magazine called him “One of the country’s leading environmental management consultants—a real expert who combines theoretical sophistication with hands-on, in-the-trenches know-how.”
He is a founding board member of the Sustainable Business Alliance, Sustainable Berkeley, and the California Sustainable Business Council and serves on the executive board of OpenEco.org and the advisory boards of CleanFish, WattBot, Green World Campaign; he was a member of San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom’s Clean Tech Advisory Council, and was recently named one of the Bay Area’s top 25 movers and shakers in CleanTech”. Friend served in the California Governor’s Office, developing early sustainability policies and programs. He was a founding board member of Internet pioneer Institute for Global Communications, founder and Executive Director of Foundation for the Arts of Peace, and cofounder and codirector of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, a leading urban ecology and economic development “think-and-do tank,” where he pioneered the current “green roof” trend more than 35 years ago.
Friend is Adjunct Faculty at Presidio Graduate School. He lectures widely on business strategy and sustainability issues and writes The New Bottom Line, offering strategic perspectives on business and environment. He is the author of The Truth About Green Business (FT Press) and the forthcoming Profit on Purpose: Risk, Fiduciary Duty and the Laws of Nature; was coauthor of Biofuels Development and Soil Productivity (1982); and has contributed chapters to several books, including Worldchanging: A User’s Guide to the 21st Century, Sustainable Enterprise Report, Sustainable Enterprise Fieldbook, Sustainable Food Systems, and Stepping Stones.
He holds an M.S. degree in systems ecology from Antioch University, has a black belt in Aikido, and is a seasoned practitioner of “The Natural Step” environmental management system.
A top 3 green business book!
The Truth About Green Business http://natlogic.com/truth
