Eric Lowitt is the Managing Director of Nexus Global Advisors and the author of The Future of Value, a guide that provides a model for companies to connect sustainability with future growth. His newest book, The Collaboration Economy, which was published on Earth Day 2013, aims to answer the question “How do you affect change quickly?” by examining how various CEOs, company presidents and boards of directors work together to be sustainable and profitable.

“The only way you can make great change happen quickly is get public, private and civil sector collaboration at  massive scale with shared investment and shared benefits,” Lowitt reveals. “That’s the genesis and the core secret within The Collaboration Economy.”

Sadhu Johnston, Deputy City Manger at the City of Vancouver, shares the beautiful British Columbia city’s ambitious plan to be the world’s top green city by 2020. The city, which has grown by 26% since 1990, has managed to actually reduce its current per-person carbon output to below that year’s levels — an astoundingly green accomplishment. In four of the past five years, Vancouver has been named as having the highest quality of life of any city in the entire world.

“Vancouver is demonstrating that you can be green, and people want to be a part of it,” Johnston explains. “Our current mayor and council wanted to build off of that track record, so they adopted the Greenest City Action Plan 2020.  This sets a path forward for [Vancouver] to be the greenest city in the world by 2020.”

Jihad Rizkallah is the Vice President for Responsible Retailing at Stop & Shop, a Northeast chain of 750+ markets. The role that supermarkets play in carbon output, and conversely, climate change, is a major concern moving forward, and it is something Rizkallah and his team work tirelessly studying and improving upon. The chain is committed to reducing its carbon footprint by 20% by 2015.

“We have committed to being a ‘better neighbor,’” Rizkallah says. “We are part of the community — that’s where our associates come from, and that’s where our customers come from. We want to be a good community member — it is the right thing to do.”