Andrew Winston writes in the Harvard Business Review:   The NGO Ceres has gotten an impressive array of companies to sign onto the Climate Declaration, which states that climate change is both a threat and a major economic opportunity. But this year, a smaller Ceres group, BICEP, which is calling for more aggressive policies like a tax on carbon, added some very mainstream companies such as General Mills, Kellogg’s, and Nestle (perhaps not coincidentally, General Mills announced early this year that its earnings were reduced by extreme weather).

In the wonky, trendy vocabulary of working together, “collaboration” isn’t exciting enough without the now-hot modifier of “pre-competitive” (meaning: stuff fierce rivals can do collectively that doesn’t diminish their ability to compete). Walmart and Target demonstrated how this works by convening a Personal Care Products Sustainability Summit. All the major players in the personal care product value chain — the giants of consumer products, chemicals, and fragrances — were there (as was I). The general topic was how this group could reduce the physical and chemical impacts of all those gels and liquids we use on our bodies, and the group will continue to work together and convene to tackle thorny issues in the value chain.  Sustainability