How donor-advised funds are becoming catalytic capital platforms
89
0
Why circular migration may offer a better path than mass repatriation
143
0
Financing historic cities for housing, livelihoods, and resilience
223
0
How Haverford’s student investing program pivoted toward more purpose-suited capital
659
0
Abrupt UK cuts threaten coastal resilience, food security, and community-led adaptation
929
0
At MIE 2026, investors reframed risk as a tool for scale, resilience, and courage
823
0
Built for a Better World: The Seventh Generation Story and the Future of Purpose-Driven Business
Few figures in the sustainability movement have earned their scars as visibly — and instructively — as Jeffrey Hollender. As co-founder and longtime CEO of Seventh Generation, Hollender didn't just build one of America's most recognizable natural products brands; he helped pioneer an entirely new paradigm for what a company could be: radically transparent, culturally intentional, employee-owned, and mission-driven to its core. Then the board fired him. And then Unilever bought the company. And the lessons embedded in that full arc — from scrappy Vermont startup to $700 million acquisition, from visionary founder to ousted CEO to vindicated board member — constitute one of the most candid and revealing case studies in the history of responsible business.
In this Luminarias fireside chat, Impact Entrepreneur's Laurie Lane-Zucker welcomes Jeffrey Hollender, whose new book, Built for a Better World: How Seventh Generation Pioneered a Movement That Changed the Purpose of Business, tells the full story for the first time. Drawing on four decades of impact entrepreneurship — and an unflinching willingness to examine his own failures alongside his achievements — Hollender offers our practitioner community a rare blend of operational wisdom, governance cautionary tales, and a provocative critique of where the sustainability movement has gone wrong.
Join us for a candid, deeply personal conversation with one of the architects of the responsible business movement — a dialogue that promises to be as instructive for the next generation of impact entrepreneurs as the forty-year journey that made it possible.
Jeffrey Hollender is the co-founder and former CEO of Seventh Generation, which he built into a leading natural products brand known for its authenticity, transparency, and progressive business practices. Seventh Generation was sold to Unilever in 2016; Hollender remains on the Board of Directors. He is also the founder and former CEO of Sustain Natural, which developed and marketed sustainable feminine care products. A former Board Chair of Greenpeace US and co-founder of the American Sustainable Business Network, Hollender currently serves as an Adjunct Professor of sustainability and social entrepreneurship and Executive in Residence at NYU's Stern Business School, and as a mentor through SKU and Unreasonable. He serves on the boards of Vermont Businesses for Social Responsibility, Aquavitea, Vermont Cheese Products, and the Sustainability Advisory Board at Morgan Stanley. He is the author of seven previous books, including The Responsibility Revolution and Planet Home. His latest, Built for a Better World (Fast Company Books), publishes March 26, 2026.
Laurie Lane-Zucker is Founder and CEO of Impact Entrepreneur, PBC, an impact economy business that hosts the Impact Entrepreneur Network — a large, global network of “systems-minded” entrepreneurs, investors, and scholars of social and environmental innovation — and editor and publisher of Impact Entrepreneur, a digital magazine covering the emerging Impact Economy. For over 30 years, Laurie has been a “pioneer” (Forbes) and recognized leader in sustainability, social enterprise, and impact investing. Laurie was the founding Executive Director of the international environmental organization, Orion Society, which publishes the celebrated Orion Magazine, as well as the founder of a global sustainability think-tank, the Triad Institute, and Hotfrog, a Founding B Corporation, GIIRS Pioneer Company, and the first company ever to complete an equity transaction on an impact investment exchange. Laurie is the bestselling and multiple award-winning publisher and editor of books and magazines on sustainability and social impact — having worked with such acclaimed authors as Wendell Berry, Barry Lopez, Terry Tempest Williams, and David James Duncan — and the author of numerous articles on entrepreneurship and impact investing. Laurie is contributing author to the academic textbook from World Scientific, Sustainability: Business and Investment Implications. His new book, The Impact Entrepreneur Breakthrough: A Field Manual for the Regenerative Economy, will be pubished by Berrett-Koehler in 2026, with global distribution by Penguin Random House.
Join our global community of systems-minded changemakers.
Subscribe to the Impact Entrepreneur newsletter for the latest insights, magazine features, and invitations to exclusive webinars, Deep Dives, and events.