“Have the dynamics between your industry and environmental NGOs shifted?

"What are the hard trade-offs and challenges in forging partnerships between businesses and NGOs?”

These are some of the questions posed right now in a forum on the Harvard Business Review’s Green.org site. I was asked to be a featured contributor and so far the discussion has been very interesting.

Judith Samuelson of the Aspen Institute kicks off the conversation by chartering the changing development of the green stakeholder. 

She points out that in the past when corporations went to battles over environmental issues it was usually against activists or NGOs like NRDC. More recently, though, the pressure for corporations to account for environmental risk is also coming from big investors like pension funds, institutional investors, and bankers. 

So who are the corporations turning to for guidance? The NGOs they used to spar with. 

Check out the site to see how both environmental leaders and businesspeople view the opportunities -- and the limitations -- of these partnerships.