Alex Steffen

World's Leading Green Futurist, creator of bestselling Worldchanging series

Thinking Like a Worldchanger, Sustainable Innovation, Bright Green Business, Carbon-Neutral Cities

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Writer Alex Steffen, known as one of the world's leading green futurists and a pioneering thinker on global sustainability, is also that rare kind of speaker who can lead his specialized field, yet explain his ideas to the rest of us in accessible, fun and inspiring ways.

Steffen's optimistic, solutions-focused talks have wowed hundreds of audiences around the world with their combination of practical thinking and visionary insight. From the stage of the TED Conference to boardrooms of leading corporations to lecture halls in some of the world's most prestigious universities, Steffen has shown a remarkable talent for helping audiences understand the role of worldchanging ideas and trends in their own lives and work.

From 2003-2010, Steffen built his track record as a visionary by leading the pioneering website Worldchanging.com. Under his guidance, the solutions-based magazine became the second-largest sustainability site on the planet. Its 12,000 articles won many of the Web's highest honors, including being a 2008 Webby Official Honoree and a winner of the Utne Independent Press Award.

Steffen's first Worldchanging book was an international best-seller, in which Al Gore remarks, in his introduction to the book, "Taken together, these solutions present a picture of a future that is not dark or catastrophic, but one that is full of hope and within our grasp." Steffen's Worldchanging 2.0, a monumental anthology focusing on cities and urban issues, garnered further critical acclaim. Earth Day founder Denis Hayes says it "might well be the most complete, compelling articulation of the possible look and feel and actual operation of a sustainable society ever written." Steffen has been named to numerous lists of leading innovators and has served as an adviser to more than 100 NGOs and businesses, exploring "bright green" strategies to help them thrive in a complex and turbulent future, and his forward-thinking approach opens a new world of sustainable possibilities to all who listen.

Alex Steffen Speech Topics

How to Think Like a Worldchanger

In these optimistic and customizable talks, Steffen shows us the worldchanging solutions and people who are meeting the planet's most pressing problems in innovative and creative ways -- and how we can all learn from their examples to think about our own futures. By understanding the outlook these pioneers, inventors and change leaders bring to the problems they face, we can all learn to think like worldchangers, and find new solutions to the problems around us in our own lives and workplaces. An extremely popular keynote for business and professional conferences and universities.

Bright Green Strategies for Thriving in Tough Times

There's a new green in town: one that shows that aggressively pursuing sustainability can actually deliver big competitive advantages, especially when times are tough. Many of the regions leading the global race for sustainable prosperity -- from the City of Vancouver to the nation of Denmark -- have formally adopted Steffen's "bright green" thinking. In this talk, Steffen showcases this new approach to saving the planet by seeking out competitive opportunities to address the scope, scale and speed of the changes we're called to make. Big changes, Steffen says, can mean big success for companies and cities. Regular people will find it inspiring. Business leaders will find it revealing and actionable. With authority, ingenuity, and hope, Steffen, in this talk, hits the epicenter of the next big trend: a bright (prosperous) and green (sustainable) future.

Carbon-Neutral Opportunities

Cities are the answer to climate change, energy challenges and resource scarcity. How we grow our cities, how we choose to get around in them, how we provide housing, how well we incorporate nature into the places we live -- these are the challenges that will largely determine our future... and the future of the planet. Steffen tackles the latest successful urban innovations and looks at how quality of life is actually improved in the process of retrofitting our cities for the seemingly impossible, yet surprisingly practical, goal of carbon neutrality.

The Future for Beginners

Having foresight and being able to think clearly about new trends and patterns aren't skills reserved just for those who call themselves "futurists." Many of the tools futurists use can be used in our own lives and businesses to help us understand the changes around us and make better decisions, today. In this light-hearted talk, Steffen offers a few simple, memorable guidelines to help audiences begin to look into the future themselves.

VIDEOS

LINKS

Worldchanging

BOOKS

Worldchanging: Revised and Updated Edition

Worldchanging: A User's Guide for the 21st Century

ARTICLES

"The Bright Green City" - The Sun Magazine

"The Business of Green" - The New York Times

"Building a Better Future" - GOOD Magazine

"The GOOD 100: Alex Steffen" - GOOD Magazine

"Cities: A Smart Alternative to Cars" - Newsweek

"Six Innovators in Ecotecture" - New York Times Magazine

All Speakers > Alex Steffen

GAYLE LEMMON at TEDxWOMEN

"If you're going to talk about jobs, then you have to talk about entrepreneurs," says Gayle Tzemach Lemmon. "And if you're talking about entrepreneurs in conflict and post-conflict settings, then you must talk about women." Lemmon is the author of the New York Times bestselling book The Dressmaker of Khair Khana and a Contributing Editor-at-Large for Newsweek and The Daily Beast. She has devoted her life to shedding light on the resiliency of female entrepreneurs, and their remarkable power to reshape local economies. By recognizing and investing in these female breadwinners, Lemmon says, we can help grow economies of all development levels around the world.