For immediate release

Contact:           Dr. Kent Curtis
                         The Walden Woods Project
                         (781) 259-4721
                         education@walden.org                     

LINCOLN, MA; May 3, 2004 – On Thursday, May 13, 2004, at 7:00pm, Jeffrey Hollender, President and CEO of Seventh Generation, the nation’s leading environmentally friendly household products company, will present the third of this year’s Stewardship Lectures at the Walden Woods Project.  The lecture is free and open to the public, and is being co-sponsored by The Cheese Shop of Concord and Concord Provisions.

Hollender, who has been active in the realm of responsible capitalism since the 1980s, will be discussing the findings of his new book, What Matters Most: How a Small Group of Pioneers is Teaching Social Responsibility to Big Business, and Why Big Business is Listening, and offering up his experiences finding the balance between good corporate behavior and a strong bottom line.

“Who doesn’t recognize the Seventh Generation trademark?” Asked Kathi Anderson, Executive Director of the Walden Woods Project.  “Jeffrey Hollender’s work and insights are so unique because he doesn’t stand outside the business realm and suggest where it should go.  He has worked for almost two decades from the inside.  He’s built a nationally recognized environmentally friendly products company.  He’s led the way through the challenges of socially responsible investing.  He’s a real pioneer and trend-setter.  We’re so pleased to have him participate in this series.”

Hollender’s lecture is the third in a new six-part annual lecture series being launched by the Walden Woods Project entitled the Stewardship Lectures.  This series highlights and celebrates innovation and creativity in environmental stewardship in a forum designed to share ideas and inspire action.  The lectures have already featured Bob Durand, former Secretary of the Massachusetts Executive Office of Environmental Affairs, and Donald Worster, an award-winning environmental historian.  Future lectures will include other authors, policy-makers, scholars, and activists who have taken unique and effective approaches to identifying, understanding, and contributing solutions to today’s environmental problems.

Other speakers this year will include Jeffrey Cramer, curator of collections at the Walden Woods Project’s Thoreau Institute and editor of the forthcoming Walden: A Fully Annotated Edition (Yale, 2004), Allen Hershkowitz, senior scientist at the Natural Resources Defense Council and author of Bronx Ecology: Blueprint for a New Environmentalism, and Kathi Anderson and Anne Anderson discussing the challenges surrounding the Woburn hazardous waste cleanup.  Each event will take place at the Walden Woods Project’s Thoreau Institute in Lincoln, Massachusetts, beginning at 7 p.m., and will run approximately two hours.

“This series is a great opportunity for our organization to provide information about and strategies for undertaking sound environmental stewardship,” says Kent Curtis, the Walden Woods Project’s director of education.  “Good stewardship can take place in a variety of contexts and venues, ranging from the arena of politics to business practices to academic scholarship, as well as among environmentalists themselves.  Jeffrey Hollender adds the perspective good business practice to this discussion.”

Reservations for the May 13^th event can be made at (781) 259-4707 or by sending an email to education@walden.org.

About the Walden Woods Project

The Walden Woods Project is a national conservation, education, and research organization committed to preserving the land, literature and legacy of Henry David Thoreau. Founded in 1990 by recording artist Don Henley, the organization uses the land it has protected in Walden Woods to foster an ethic of environmental stewardship and social responsibility, both cornerstones of Thoreau's philosophy. In 14 years, the Project has protected nearly 140 acres in and around Walden Woods and provided educational programming for hundreds of teachers, students, and life long learners. The Walden Woods Project also administers The Thoreau Institute, a research center near Walden Pond that houses the world’s foremost collection of Thoreau-related materials.