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Brown is even-tempered about the often slow pace of corporate evolution. But ask him where all this is going, and he'll betray a flash of impatient ambition, a drive to speed along what he sees as tectonic shifts in how companies should think about sustainability.

"The cutting edge, the thing that is getting more traction, is the effort to sell services rather than products," Brown says. It's a shift in perspective that can transform a business. It's IBM selling you computing services--server space, processing capacity--rather than actual computers. A company selling computers wants to sell as many servers as possible, without much regard for the power they consume or cooling they require; a company that sells computer services wants the most efficient, cool-running servers it can make. Companies that are able to turn their business inside out this way find that addressing sustainability issues can change from a burden or cost to an opportunity for efficiency and profit.

"The cutting edge is the effort to sell services rather than products."

Says Brown: "If you're a chemical company, you sell the service the chemical provides rather than the chemical itself"--disinfection rather than chlorine. "Suddenly, you want to conserve the chemicals, to find ways to recover and reuse them." Indeed, imagine what Nike might be like if it sold "shoe services" by subscription--the way Netflix rents movies--instead of shoes.

"Michael is fantastic at offering assistance on day-to-day decision making," says Aveda's Conseil. "But what I appreciated was that by showing me the complete picture, he allowed me to dream, to create an agenda for myself and for Aveda for the next five years and the next 10 years. I needed that."