Editor's note: Patrick Noonan is a conservationist, dedicated to preserving nature, protecting resources, and cleaning up pollution. Paul Chellgren is an industrialist, dedicated to using natural resources to make products that are useful to society, challenging nature, and creating goods and services that customers wish to buy. The "Odd Couple"? Hardly. The fact is that these two individuals share many of the same basic values and objectives – and the "camps" they represent need each other.
To characterize industrialists and environmentalists as separate and distinct is outdated. Virtually every responsible industrialist considers himself or herself an environmentalist, at least with a small "e." Moreover, most responsible environmentalists support business goals of achieving economic growth and improving the quality of life. Nevertheless, the business community and the environmental movement do have substantive differences. Only when we succeed in integrating the strengths of both sides will we see real progress in environmental stewardship.