Danielle Nierenberg, co-founder of Food Tank, has had the unique experience of traveling to more than 35 countries in sub-Saharan Africa, Asia and Latin America to discover the agricultural needs of these regions. Food Tank is concerned with alleviating hunger in these areas by taking the proper steps to ensure long-term environmental sustainability.

“If you think about the developing world in general, you tend to think of these places as very hopeless,” Nierenberg admits. “You don’t think about what is going on in these areas that is really working to help people lift themselves out of poverty and to make sure that they are producing nutritious food and increasing their income.”

Russ Gaskin is the Chief Business Officer at Green America, a nonprofit membership organization whose mission is “to harness economic power — the strength of consumers, investors, businesses, and the marketplace — to create a socially just and environmentally sustainable society.” Gaskin’s job is to work with small businesses to identify what they need in terms of an economic action plan to grow in an environmentally responsible way.

“Green consumers are different than mainstream consumers,” Gaskin explains. “Any business that wants to be selling to that segment needs to do their research. It’s not just about price, quality, etc. — [green customers] tend to integrate social concern. Businesses need to understand the shift that’s happening; customers want more integrated value in the stuff that they are buying.”

Tony Schifano‘s path to starting Antos Environmental began in the 1980s, when social and environmental concerns met at a crossroads, sparking a very serious medical-waste disposal debate. Antos helps hospitals, healthcare systems and other organizations elevate their organizational performance by reducing their carbon footprint.

“What drives me to do this is my passion for the environment,” Schifano says. “If you think about how many landfills we have across the United States, it’s an overwhelming thought. When I was born, there were 2 billion people on the planet. Today there are 7 billion. What are we going to do? We have to stop throwing things away.”

John Tuccillo is the Vice President of Global Industry and Environmental Alliances at Schneider Electric and the Chairman of the Green Grid. In both of these positions, Tuccillo must take a good look at how IT operations and data centers have changed the sustainable outlook across the world. Today, both first-world countries and developing nations are looking to harness metrics, methods, tools and best practices to host data efficiently.

“The entire IT ecosystem has come together under the Green Grid globally to be able to work together to essentially leapfrog ourselves as an industry,” Tuccillo explains. “How is it that we can be stronger and more innovative together than apart? That’s really what the Green Grid was founded to do.”