Myth: It is not profitable for a business to be environmentally friendly.

Fact: Social issues affecting the environment make headline news every day. The field is rampant with partisanship, interest groups, and environmentalists all fighting it out on the field of eco-friendly vs. good business. The Ashoka Fellows you will meet in these pages start with a different premise. They look for the widely-accepted truisms that hold back solutions and challenge those stereotypes. For example, Ritu Primlani believes that what is good for the earth should be good for business. So she went out and found a retail industry where little changes could do a lot of good – both for the bottom line and for the environment. Dune Lankard never believed that exploiting natural resources was the only way for his native Alaskan people to prosper. He has taken this argument all the way to the Supreme Court and back to his people and he is changing the way natural resources are creating wealth for the Eyak people.

US Fellows in Environment

• Mathias Craig - blueEnergy
• Dune Lankard - Cultural Conservation Initiative
• Andy Lipkis - Tree People/Functioning Community Forests
• Amory Lovins - Rocky Mountain Institute
• Billy Parish - Energy Action Coalition/The Dream Reborn
• Ritu Primlani - Thimmakka's Resources for Environmental Education