Gil Friend, CEO of Natural Logic, Inc. to be Closing Speaker

Gil Friend is founder, president & CEO of Natural Logic Inc, providing advisory services in strategy, design, operations and information systems that help clients build economic advantage through exceptional environmental performance – Sustainable performance you can take to the bank™  

Clients have included APS, Auberge Resorts, Agilent Technologies, Dean Foods, Ex’pression Center for New Media, General Mills, Gilead Sciences, Granite Construction, Green Mountain Energy, Hewlett Packard, Levi Straus & Co, Nike, Odwalla, Pacific Gas & Electric, Sun Microsystems, the US General Services Administration and many others. 

A systems ecologist and business strategist with 36 years experience in business, communications and environmental innovation, Friend combines broad business experience with unique content experience spanning strategy, systems ecology, economic development, management cybernetics, and public policy. Tomorrow Magazine called him “One of the country’s leading environmental management consultants — a real expert who combines theoretical sophistication with hands-on, in-the-trenches know-how.” 

He is a founding board member of the Sustainable Business Alliance, Sustainable Berkeley, and the California Sustainable Business Council, and serves on the executive board of OpenEco.org and the advisory boards of CleanFish, WattBot, Green World Campaign and (past) San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom's Clean Tech Advisory Council. He was a founding board member of internet pioneer Institute for Global Communications, and was Co-founder and Co-Director of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, one of the nation's leading urban ecology and economic development “think-and-do tanks,” where he pioneered the current “green roof” trend more than 35 years ago. 

Friend lectures widely on business strategy and environmental policy, and currently writes "The New Bottom Line" (http://www.natlogic.com/new-bottom-line) offering strategic perspectives on business and environment, and an irregular weblog on strategic sustainability and other matters of interest at (http://blogs.natlogic.com/friend). He wrote the "Ask the Experts" feature at GreenBiz.com, and a "Sustainability Sundays" column for WorldChanging.com. He has contributed chapters to several books, including Worldchanging: A Users Guide to the 21st Century, Sustainable Enterprise Report, Sustainable Enterprise Fieldbook, and is the author of the forthcoming books: The Truth About Green Business (FT Press) and Risk, Fiduciary Responsibility and the Laws of Nature. 

He holds an MS in Systems Ecology from Antioch University, a black belt in Aikido, and is a seasoned practitioner of "The Natural Step" environmental management system.

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