As the rule of law in the United States comes under strain, many companies have chosen silence. In this episode, Mike Hower sits down with business ethicist and Higher Ground author Alison Taylor to examine what corporate courage actually looks like when legal norms, civil rights, and community safety are being tested. Together, they explore why companies retreat in moments of crisis, the limits of compliance-driven ethics, and the role sustainability and communications leaders can play when speaking up carries real risk. This is a candid conversation about silence, responsibility, and whether business is willing — or able — to stand for the rule of law when it matters most.
As the rule of law in the United States comes under strain, many companies have chosen silence. In this episode, Mike Hower sits down with business ethicist and Higher Ground author Alison Taylor to examine what corporate courage actually looks like when legal norms, civil rights, and community safety are being tested. Together, they explore why companies retreat in moments of crisis, the limits of compliance-driven ethics, and the role sustainability and communications leaders can play when speaking up carries real risk. This is a candid conversation about silence, responsibility, and whether business is willing — or able — to stand for the rule of law when it matters most.
Mike Hower: Hey everybody, welcome back—and thanks for your patience. It’s been a minute since the last episode. Life got pretty busy: I got married, finished my book, my consulting practice has been nonstop, and I’m also preparing for my baby girl to arrive in June. But I’m back now — and committed to bringing you new episodes at least once a month.
Lately, the idea of corporate courage—or the lack of it—has been on my mind. During what some are calling the “sustainability recession,” we’ve seen companies step back from climate goals, greenhush their commitments, or stay silent on the crises unfolding around them. In my first Substack piece of the year, I called for 2026 to be “The Year of Corporate Courage.” So far, it’s not off to a great start.
Across the country, communities in Minnesota and beyond are grappling with the impact of federal immigration enforcement operations that have escalated into violence and raised serious questions about the use of force against civilians — including U.S. citizens — under the banner of law enforcement.
And as headlines grow more urgent, one thing stands out to me: where is Corporate America in all of this? What is the role of business leaders and sustainability communicators when basic principles like the rule of law, civil rights, and community safety are being tested?
To explore this — and to ask what corporate courage might actually look like in a moment like this — I’m really glad to be talking with Alison Taylor — NYU professor, author of Higher Ground, and one of the sharpest, most thoughtful voices in business ethics. Honestly, when I grow up, I want to be Alison Taylor.
Today we dig into corporate retreat and silence, the power sustainability communicators may have — and what it might take to move companies from silence to action.
The rule of law in the United States is under attack. In a single year, the Trump Administration has bullied, lied, and even killed to impose its extreme right wing agenda. When will Corporate America speak up?
Hey everybody, and welcome back—thank you for your patience. I know it's been a while. Life got busy: I got married, finished my book, and my consulting business has been nonstop. But I'm back now with new episodes coming at least once a month.
The concept of corporate courage, or a lack thereof, has been weighing heavily on me over the past year. During this so-called “sustainability recession”, we’ve seen companies backtrack on sustainability goals while others greenhush. My first Substack piece of the year called for 2026 to be “The Year of Corporate Courage.” So far, it’s not off to a good start.
As the Trump Administration has essentially invaded Minnesota under the pretext of immigration enforcement, communities have been terrorized, and several people, including U.S. citizens have been murdered in broad daylight by federal agents. With companies being largely quiet, it has gotten me thinking about the role of the sustainability communicator, and how we might help influence the organizations we work for to speak up for something that’s material for all businesses: the rule of law.
To help us figure this out, I’m really glad to be talking to Alison Taylor—NYU professor, author of Higher Ground, and one of the sharpest voices on business ethics. I also just really admire her—when I grow up, I want to be Alison Taylor.
We get into the corporate retreat, the silence, and whether sustainability communicators might have more power right now than we realize.
Okay. So Alison, it’s fitting that the first person I interview for my podcast this year is also a published author since I just finished up writing Sustainability Storytelling. It’s coming out this May, and thanks again for weighing in on that. There’s one chapter where I have a Q&A with you where we talk a little bit about ethics and sustainability communication and the role of the communicator.
Just kind of curious. I’ve read your book and a lot of people have, but I’d love to hear why did you write Higher Ground? What was your experience like? I guess it’s been a little over a year now since it came out.
Alison Taylor: Coming up to two years, actually.
Mike: Oh, it’s already been two years?
Wow, okay. But yeah, I’d love to hear about it.
Alison: I think the short answer, I was trying to publish a book, I was pitching a different book around, and then I got, uh, approached by HBR saying, we're looking for a new ethics book. And then the immediate question, which I know we're gonna get into later is, well, is what do we even mean by ethics?
One of the points I make in the book is that when a lot of people think about ethics, they think about compliance and they think about the law. When you think about ethics, you probably think about sustainability and corporate responsibility and human rights, and then when, let’s say an HR person thinks about it, they might think about culture and employee voice and feeling included in incentives.
And so one of the things I try to do in the book is bring those conversations together. I ask and try to answer a question that on the face of it seems very naive. Like suppose you were a business leader trying to do the right thing in the 2020s. Where would you even start? How would you wade through all this bad advice?
What would you actually do? So I try to bring together threads in my career and threads in what I think is a very fragmented conversation. And then I was asked to be really practical. Like I think if left to my own devices I’d write meandering essays on topics I find interesting.
Which I’m now doing on my Substack. But this was supposed to be something with a lot of practicality that you could go away and implement. I wouldn’t say I enjoyed writing it. I enjoyed the sensation of having written it. I enjoyed the conversations I had about it. I enjoyed the relationships I built from it.
It's certainly changed my profile and been overall, a very, fulfilling experience. But I found the writing process pretty painful. I've gotta say
Mike: I can now that I've been through it. I can agree with you on that. And, uh, it's funny, I had a friend of mine yesterday who's he asked me for advice about, he wants to write a book too.
And it was like a year ago, I was in your shoes asking somebody the same questions and, and I was just like. You need to know what you're getting yourself into. This is like taking on, maybe not the same as like raising a child, but it feels like a child. And I'm about to have a child in a couple months, so I'm glad I did this before that.
But, as someone who loves writing, you love writing. I think I hated writing this book, but now that I wrote it, I'm glad I did it. And I like to say 2025 Mike suffered so that 2026 Mike could benefit from it if that's what it kind of feels like now. Exactly. Yeah.
So diving into the original reason I reached out to you to come on the pod, as you know, we were kind of going back and forth on LinkedIn about, you know, there's already, God, it hasn't even been one month into 2026, and feel like every day there's something happening in the world with this administration and what's going on.
And I wrote one of my first Substacks of the year about the sustainability recession, which everybody is already familiar with. But really what we’ve been seeing in the past year is just a complete corporate retreat on pretty much every front, not just sustainability, but also just standing up for any sense of having values.
And we’ve been
Alison: Absolutely.
Mike: Yeah. And, case in point happened, a couple weeks ago with, I, I made another post, on LinkedIn, about Hilton basically. Uh, immediately buckling to the administration after one of their, affiliated hotels stopped booking ice agents in Minnesota.
And, they basically just completely crumbled and, cut them loose. And then there was the murder of Nicole Goode, which also, sent a shock wave across the country. I, I feel, um, and you know, even now it's been a few weeks and we haven't heard anything from Hilton even on that.
I can't even imagine what's happening in their PR teams right now..
Alison: I think they had this employee of their portfolio hotel refusing bookings. They disciplined him. They were told it had been corrected.
Yeah. Then a right wing blogger showed up. Right. And then it blew up and then Good was murdered and then they cut the ties. Ah. So, uh, it was also I think a very panicky overcorrection. Yeah. And they were called out by the DHS and ICE on Twitter. Yeah. It was a panicky overcorrection to being targeted by the administration, which I think we've seen a ton of in the last year.
Yeah. But when you start to see, uh, the level and nature. Of the civil rights and human rights violations going on in Minneapolis at the moment, I think it raises a bunch of extremely difficult and high stakes questions for corporations.
Mike: Right. And I think, what we were kind of debating, I mean, I think we agree on most things, but I, I love that we disagree on some things, but we, talk about it in a very civil way is about like even ethics, right?
Ethics and sustainability. I'm a sustainability guy, so obviously, you're holding a hammer, everything's a nail. You know, actually in my book I have a chapter where I talk about the, the history of corporate sustainability and ethics was what came first and then sustainability kind of grew out of that and then kind of gobbled up ethics.
But ethics is kind of its own thing and I know that's your jam. So, it's interesting to me, most of my audiences are people working in corporate sustainability roles and so, they do think about a lot about ethics. So what would be your message to them in this situation?
Who's responsible for ethics now is kind of my question, right? Like, if it's not sustainability, like, theoretically the CEO, but that's not happening right now. So who can help make corporations follow through ethically on these things now that there's nobody really responsible for it?
Alison: Yeah. So I mean, the first thing to say is I think we were having a pretty esoteric and wonky debate but, we could probably close that gap by just saying this is about responsibility.
What is business' responsibility to society? I think we probably agree on that.
Mike: Yeah.
Alison: There's a somewhat more complicated question you're asking, which is, whose job is this Right. Inside the corporation. I think we would also agree this is the job of the C-suite and the board, and you're supposed to consider risk appetite and you're supposed to consider governance and you're supposed to consider how you show up.
And I think one of the problems with the way that this entire discipline has been treated. Is that the C-suite and CEOs in particular tend to assume that both ethics and sustainability are something you can delegate and focus on something more important. Um, and so then what you end up with is a team typically called ethics and compliance, which is about not breaking the law and policies and procedures and whistle blowing and that kind of thing.
And we can say, I think with no difficulty, particularly in the current landscape, that ethics and the law are not the same thing. And then we've got sustainability, which is you, you know, your deep expertise. I mean, sustainability, as you've just said, covers dozens if not hundreds of topics. I think one of the reasons sustainability's in such trouble right now is it has tried to be all things to all people.
Alison: I would agree with you that this is fundamentally about values and responsibility, but I think the sustainability, corporate sustainability community at least has spent a lot of the last. Decade and particularly the last year saying this is all about value creation and this is all a win-win.
And this isn't about ethics and lecturing people about birds and bunnies and polar bears. And so that's a huge debate in itself, of course, is whether there's a business case for this stuff. But, perhaps one of the reasons that sustainability teams are in such trouble in general at the moment is that they have tried to be chameleon-like, and be all things to all people.
And, it's not their fault that many sustainability teams are getting sidelined now, but, to get really wonky and granular, what I'm seeing everywhere is that ESG reporting in general is moving, typically under the CFO or possibly to compliance. And that leaves very interesting questions about what the sustainability team is doing.
And then to layer on top of that, we got obsessed with what the sustainability team and the Chief Sustainability Officer is doing over the past few years. But I’m working with a lot of companies right now where there’s genuinely quite deep integration. There are sustainability specialists in sourcing and in R&D and in procurement.
And in strategy. And so if a company's followed all our recommendations and actually integrated this stuff, I think then the question of what the sustainability team is doing becomes even more pressing. And I think this gets into your book and why I think your book is quite good timing.
Something I am seeing is a reconvergence between corporate affairs and sustainability.
Mike: Mm-hmm.
Alison: Partly because, and again, I think your book will address this. The complexity of the narrative, the difficulty of getting your point across when there's so much noise and misinformation and politicization, and these topics are inherently complicated, that has kind of come back to the forefront again.
Mike: And that, yeah, thanks, thanks for plugging my book by the way. That's one of the things I do talk about the book is how do you how do you align your, your internal teams to actually, have the same narrative? So, you know, the, the three core teams that would be involved would be, legal, communication, sustainability, and each of those teams kind of has.
Their own focus area, right? Communications wants to make sure the story is inspiring and, people wanna listen to it or hear it. Um, sustainability wants to make sure things are accurate. And then legal wants to make sure that it's compliant. So I came up with this, this framework called the four Cs framework.
The four Cs of effective sustainability storytelling, compelling, compliant, it also added contextuals. because you have to understand the context of where you're communicating as well. Like literally the culture that you're communicating across the globe, you know, industry reputation and so forth.
But it is fascinating to kinda see, even with the Hilton example, the la the last Trump, or I'll just say Trump 1.0, they had an issued, a public statement saying that they weren't gonna let ICE use their hotels to, imprison, migrant children, which was a good thing.
Right? It's just amazing that I could not imagine Hilton putting out any kind of press release now. Challenging the administration in any way. Why do you think even thinking bigger than sustainability? Like I understand, you know, from the sustainability perspective, everyone's trying to keep their head down.
'cause they're like, oh, if we stay quiet we can keep doing the work. Which I have a lot of thoughts against that. But you're talking to a lot of CEOs, around, the globe.. Are they just hoping if they keep their head down for the next three years, they'll get through it and then they can get back to normal.
But even though we're in a time where it doesn't seem like normal's ever gonna be a thing again.
Alison: I think they were hoping that. I'm wondering if the first few weeks of 2026 might have made them think again.
Mike: Mm-hmm.
Alison: I think part of this is the problem seems so big and overwhelming, and I kind of make the same point about AI.
Actually. It's sort of hard to know where to start. I hear that all the time. We just don't wanna target on our backs. We gotta keep beneath the radar. A friend of mine is in, uh, leads sustainability in a financial services firm. She says the legal team has quadrupled in size in the past two years, and she spends her entire time in meetings with lawyers.
There’s a lawyer for DEI, there’s a lawyer for the Middle East, there’s a lawyer for climate.
Mike: it's a good time to be a lawyer right now. That's for sure.
Alison: I don't know if it's fun, but probably lucrative. Yeah, so I think that is the pervasive, sense right now. You made an interesting comment about how you don't necessarily agree with the fact that the work's still going on behind the scenes.
And I would agree with that. I am allergic to all this kind of PR nonsense. As, anyone that knows me will know. But there is something about, here's our direction, here's our ambition. I had a speaker from a big corporation in class last year who said, you know, the benefit of having a clear.
Strategy around climate is that while I'm still going out there arguing with other departments about how to do this, I'm not constantly debating whether we're gonna do this.
Mike: Mm-hmm.
Alison: And so if you've lost that kind of narrative art and you've lost that statement of intent, which is not the same thing as treating this just purely as PR, I do think life gets a lot harder inside the organization.
I think that’s where we are at the moment. I’m seeing a lot of pushback on, sustainability teams. I'm seeing a lot of job anxiety. I'm seeing a lot of all sorts of things.. To counter those rather negative points. Like I think if you are manufacturing or have any sort of supply chain, which everybody does, or sourcing food, you don't think climate change is woke.
You think it's real. So there's something still real going on. That's not about the narrative and the positioning. And I think any company that's actually exposed to physical reality, which still exists, by the way, is taking this seriously. But we're in a very disruptive time and a disrupted time.
And, um, you know, life has got harder for most of the people in our community that I know.
Mike: Oh yeah.. And, and to your other point about, the work continuing, like. I, I hear this argument from sustainability friends that they're saying, well, it's better for us to, not say anything so we can keep doing our work.
But I talk about this in the book, that communicating what you're doing is a critical part of making sure the strategy actually gets implemented effectively. Again, it's not about PR. You don't have to necessarily put out press releases about all the great stuff you're doing or not doing, but you need to be communicating internally and actually have. Increasingly more clients are coming to me asking for how can we.
You know, we don't wanna talk externally yet, but like, we wanna make sure that we're still communicating across our stakeholders internally. So that's still happening with some companies. And I think it just depends on the industry too. Like, I know the companies that are very heavily regulated where the administration can.
Cause the most pain. They're, obviously more afraid.. And then others that actually private companies. I've been hearing this from a few, uh, former clients and also just people I know who work with private companies is that the administration's not as concerned with them because they're more worried about publicly traded companies.
And that's been most of the, even the anti ESG movement. They were mostly targeting, public money which is fascinating, but it's very interesting. So kind of moving it back to the role of a sustainability communicator since that's the name of this podcast, if I'm a sustainability communicator in house.
And I see, you know, let’s say I’m working for a company like Hilton or any other company that's doing business with ICE or maybe going against what our stated values are. I'm a communicator. I don't have that much power to change business strategy, but what do you think a communicator could do to try to help at least nudge it the right direction?
Alison: Well, I think, I've got a piece about to come out, uh, on this and probably by the time this podcast goes live You'll see it. But I think one of the things we can do is to cut through the complexity and really make a lot more effort to get rid of the jargon. I think there is an overwhelming amount of insider jargon in this field, and that's because issues like climate change, nature, et cetera, are inherently very complicated.
So I think the goal of a sustainability communicator is to take all this complexity. Get clear about what the company is and isn't doing, and then frame this in a way that ordinary people can understand that is plain, that is clear. And to really try and kind of navigate through. There was a interesting piece in Axios recently describing companies' problems as narrative contradictions.
And so I think it is about kind of strategically making sure you're not being a hypocrite, you're not greenwashing, you're not green hushing and trying to. Get a complex topic to be simple and clear without oversimplifying it, which seems very, very, very difficult to me,
Mike: which is why I wrote a book about how to do it.
Alison: There you
Mike: go. Um, and it's interesting too, Trellis put out, I don't know if you saw it yesterday. It was a GlobeScan survey that was showing that most consumers are losing trust in companies that are greenwashing, which is, seems like a no brainer, but at least there's some data now showing that they're seeing less sustainability communication from companies and they're also trusting them less because of that.
I dunno if it's causal, but maybe it's,
Alison Taylor: that's interesting. What I hear in the classroom, and I spend time with young, lots of time with young people. One that the problem, previous problem was everyone making the same kind of claims, so it's very hard to tell who's serious and who isn't.
The other thing I hear, which I think is super interesting and I don't hear that many people talk about, is that what I hear from my students is like, at least you know where you are with Chick-fil-A. What they hate is the flip flopping and the hypocrisy. And you said this a few years ago, and now you're saying, mm.
That mm-hmm. I hear performative every class or authentic every class. So I think there's this kind of real, skepticism, borderline cynicism among young people who grew up on social media and are very good at parsing these claims. And then a feeling that having the wrong opinion is better than changing your opinion every five minutes.
Mike: So you're saying that to actually have principles, you have to stand by them when they're not popular.
Alison: There you go.
Mike: There you go. Yeah. Some examples that I brought into my book too, like the Budweiser example a couple years ago, where they flip flopped,
Alison: yeah, yeah,
Mike: yeah. The result
Alison: is everyone's action.
Mike: Right. And it's
Alison: just kind of where Target is right now to come back to Minneapolis.
There's an interesting piece in Bloomberg about it. The article quotes Beth Scott, who I like very much saying that Target overcorrected, which I think was also Hilton's problem, you know, Target's, target's.
Interesting because hasn't done anything different from Walmart, but we paid far more attention to it because it led with diversity starting for a decade ago and made a calculated decision to make that part of its brand. So people are watching it, you know, it couldn't have predicted where we are today.
But once you’ve done that, I’m not saying it’s easy, but I kind of think you've gotta steer into the skid, right. Complicating this further though is it's a retail operation. There's a lot of guns in this country. There's now a lot of ice agents in, Minnesota. So there's also a kind of prime need to, to protect your frontline employees.
And so the most disappointing thing is not what Target is and isn't saying, but that it didn't make more to stop what happened, in Minneapolis from happening . It needs to have a legal defense fund needs to not let these people in without a warrant needs to do things.
And you made a point about kind of internal communications to show its people that it's standing behind them,
Mike: Right. I think that brings up a good point about, I mean, this was happening pre-Trump, pre-Trump 2.0 about, companies were between a rock and a hard place, right? If they put out a statement about anything related to social, environmental, anything, they either face criticism on the left for not going far enough or on the right for overstepping.
And you know, I've worked with companies where they actually had good intentions, but they still pissed off everybody no matter what. Yeah. And so then a lot of them said, "Okay, well why do we even try? Which I could understand at an individual level if that's how it was happening to me.
But at a corporation level, if it's actually tied to your business strategy, it shouldn't matter. Right. And I think that's part of the problem is that it's often not, they like to say our business strategy is sustainability, but is it really at the end of the day?
Alison: Yeah.
Mike: What I'd love to hear from you too is. How can companies navigate this? There's obviously risk of, getting sued for greenwashing.
What would you say, a company should do right now? Let's say you have a CEO that actually generally believes in this stuff, but says, man, if we get called out by the administration or there's this whole right wing propaganda apparatus now that just brainwashes half the consumer base, what do you do?
Alison: I mean, I don't wanna kind of come back with do this and it'll all be okay because I think it's extremely complicated. Yeah. I think if I were running a business right now, I would focus on affordability, basic dignity and respect, worker rights, fairness. I think that's one of the few issues other than antipathy to AI that's genuinely bipartisan.
So I would go heavy on the S and not just, you know, thinking about worker rights and fairness and framing it that way. I think the other thing, that we can kind of see very clearly in retrospect was that there was overpromising maybe for well-intentioned reasons, with companies suggesting that they can, or implying, uh, maybe not, deliberately that they can solve problems.
They cannot in fact solve on their own. I've been saying a lot in the last year about legitimacy and leverage. An example being Pepsi, has dialed back its climate and plastics goals has doubled down on regenerative agriculture, where it's got more direct influence to actually, move the needle on what's going on.
So I think that's really important. And then, I mean, you know, the obvious thing that was easy enough in the late 2010s that I think is missing is more collective action. Republicans have got behind all this kind of antitrust stuff on ESG, but actually, I think you can see with how law firms and universities have responded so far.
They would've got a lot further if they'd stood together and had the same principles. I think it, you know, I think the business community still matters. We can see in the last few days that when the markets tank, Trump pays attention. So I think a collective front, would be really, really good.
It was, it was easy enough after January the sixth. It was easy enough after Trump pulled out of Paris in 2017, so why not do it now? I would hope, and I expect, that more of that will be going on this year.
Mike: I wrote about that on Earth Day last year, about how business must stand up for the rule of law in the US.
And I think one of the things I was thinking about is like, this is a prisoner's dilemma, right? Where um, you see this with companies like Apple and other companies that kind of have an in with Trump. Like they know he's very transactional. So if they give him what he wants, they can kind of benefit.
But even though that might be collectively destroying the free society we live in that allows them to have a free market. Right. It really does create that challenge of how do you, create these coalitions where you know, that even your competitors are gonna work with you on this and you're gonna need them to, but I guess that's capitalism, maybe eating itself.
I don't know.
Alison: Yeah. I mean, you know, it's, it's super hard. Yeah, you can be transactional and benefit, but it's kind of not clear that you do. He changes his mind all the time. I mean, we saw a good example, I have, you know, at the top of my tip of my tongue is Columbia, who mm-hmm.
Were threatened by Trump folded immediately and he didn't back off. The law firms folded and then he came back asking for even more pro bono work. So it's not, it's more.
Mike: Right, it's mob boss mentality.
Alison: Totally, so that does require you getting together and kind of thinking a bit more strategically about this.
And I think that everyone's kind of crouched their head down.. People like Jamie Dimon I think are doing a bit more than you might. These big titans of industry that have enough money that they feel they can stand up to him, and that's about the most hopeful thing I'm seeing, which is pretty remarkable in itself.
Mike: Right. Well, to end on a more positive note, there's a lot of pessimism in corporate sustainability right now. I know a lot of people aren't feeling great. What's something that you're feeling optimistic about in 2026?
Alison: Oh, I mean, I always feel optimistic. Even if my students are anxious and depressed, spending time with my students because I feel the world will be better.
So I would advise people to, um, spend time with young people, see if you can spend time in the classroom. I think, the government's unpopular. I hope that the tide will start to turn this year. I think it's becoming clearer that this isn't sustainable. I mean, things seem very, very scary.
On a personal note, I’ve had a very tough tough couple of years, and I am, going into a much better time, feeling very generative, very creative, lots of ideas, So yeah, I'm excited about the work I've got on. And I think one thing you can do when you feel overwhelmed by the state of the world is focus on your local influence.
So I can focus on my students, I can focus on the projects I'm doing with companies. I can focus on what I'm writing. We've both got a certain level of influence and I get quite a lot of private notes saying Be careful. I don't feel like being careful, Mike. I mean, it's not like I can protect myself anyway.
I've got an online profile which shows clearly what my opinions are and I see no reason not to continue saying what I think, despite everybody warning me that I should be careful.
Mike: It’s funny you say that. My aunt used to live in the Philippines when she was younger and she lived through—I forget the name of the dictator that was there—but she was there when he rose to power and she saw what happened and she said, “Mike, be careful.” And I said, “Well, first, I don’t wanna obey in advance, which is part of the problem. But second, if they’re coming after me, a cis white guy, then everything’s screwed.”
So I feel like I gotta use my privilege as best I can for good and stand up for those who can’t. But yeah, it is crazy. As someone who was a journalist for a long time, I never once had that thought until the last year or two—like, whoa, would someone come for me someday?
That’s crazy that we’re in a time like that now and people are coming for certain people. I mean, I’m small enough beans, so I don’t think I need to worry about it, but we’re both below the radar.
Mike: But I do think to your original point, that’s what they want us to do.
They want us to be quiet. But I think they’re actually afraid of us because they know if this doesn’t go the way they want, there’s gonna be a reckoning. Like The Daily had a good episode this week about even just the feeling in the Republican party right now—that if they don’t win this next presidential election, they're in trouble and who knows if it’s gonna be fair or not, I don’t know. But I feel like we’re more powerful than we think, and more powerful than they want us to think. But thank you for always speaking up. I always love hearing your thoughts on LinkedIn and your Substack and your books. I think we’ve gotta keep speaking up.
So, thanks so much for coming on the pod today.
Alison: Just a pleasure as always to talk to you. Uh, really excited for your book launch and, looking forward to cheering you on, and having some vicarious exhaustion for all your—God, you're about to experience—but I'm very excited for you and for your new baby.
And thank you.
Mike: Yeah, I know, I'm crazy. I'm launching a book and having a baby well, my wife is having a baby within a month of each other, so that's gonna be crazy. Well,
Alison Taylor: it's an experience.
Mike: Yeah. Yeah. Uh,
Alison: hopefully, hopefully it will be a baby with lots of napping.
Mike: Oh my God. Yeah. Great.
Thank you, Alison.
Alison Taylor: Take care. Talk to you soon.
Mike: Just a few days after Alison and I recorded this interview, a second U.S. citizen—Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old ICU nurse for the VA—was killed by federal agents in Minneapolis.
This time, some companies started to break their silence. Over 60 Minnesota CEOs signed a letter calling for de-escalation. More than 450 tech workers petitioned their bosses to speak out. OpenAI's Sam Altman told employees 'ICE is going too far.' Apple's Tim Cook said he was 'heartbroken' and raised concerns directly with Trump. Anthropic's Dario Amodei, Reid Hoffman, and others have broken their silence.
Honestly, these responses have been pretty weak. But at least it’s a start. The strongest response so far has come from the American Sustainable Business Network, which issued a statement condemning the recent shootings and framing defending the rule of law as an economic issue as well as an ethical one.
I’ll continue to engage with this topic in future episodes, Substack articles, and LinkedIn posts.
This also has inspired me to organize a virtual event on February sixth called “Sustainability Professionals Against Silence”, which aims to bring together sustainability professionals across industries to talk about what’s happening, how we might leverage our positions to influence more organizations to speak up for the rule of law, and raise money for an Minnesota-based immigration advocacy group. Learn more details about the event in the show notes.