Adam Rome, Professor of History and HI Faculty Fellow

Can capitalism become green without fundamental changes in the rules of the marketplace? The last 30 years has been a revealing test of the limits of corporate sustainability initiatives. In the United States, no major environmental legislation has passed since 1990, yet many businesses have worked hard to become greener. How successful have their efforts been? What has driven change, and what has stood in the way? The answers to those questions offer important insight into what we still need to do to build a sustainable economy.

Adam is an environmental historian and author of The Bulldozer in the Countryside: Suburban Sprawl and the Rise of American Environmentalism (2001) and The Genius of Earth Day: How a 1970 Teach-In Unexpectedly Made the First Green Generation (2013). He also is co-editor of Green Capitalism? Business and the Environment in the Twentieth Century (2017). In addition to a book about recent efforts by American businesses to become more sustainable, he is working on the environmental-history volume for Oxford’s Very Short Introduction series. From 2002 to 2005, he edited the journal Environmental History.

Join us at Hallwalls Contemporary Arts Center for our eighth year of Faculty Fellows talks! This lecture series brings current UB humanities research out into the community – with complimentary wine and hors d’oeuvres. Free and open to the public.