Happy National Business Women’s Day!

There may still be a huge gender gap in the workforce, with even the women running Fortune 500 companies earning just 69 cents to every dollar earned by male CEOs. But women are proving to be major forces of change in virtually every industry, from international banking to non-profit organizations. These 10 women CEOs, including Eileen Fisher, Lauren Bush and Majora Carter, are promoting social and environmental responsibility within their companies and in the world at large.

On this National Business Women’s Day we salute them!

Phaedra Ellis-Lamkins, Green for All

CEO of anti-poverty organization Green for All, Phaedra Ellis-Lamkins is also a sustainability advocate who has been named among the 100 most powerful people in California’s Silicon Valley. Green for All provides green jobs training for low-income people and people of color, and helped push through a California provision that guarantees local workers access to energy-efficiency and renewable energy projects. Before she came to Green for All in 2009, Ellis-Lamkins was the Executive Officer of the South Bay AFL-CIO Labor Council and Executive Director of Working Partnerships USA, which works to address economic disparities in Silicon Valley.

Kim Jordan, New Belgium Brewing

Along with her husband Jeff Lebesch, Kim Jordan co-founded one of America’s most successful craft breweries, New Belgium. Now the company’s CEO, Jordan was instrumental not only in bringing the company from a tiny two-person operation to selling beer in 26 states, but also in making New Belgium truly sustainable. The brewing company is 100% wind-powered and employee-owned, with a sustainability team visiting each department on a regular basis to make sure operations are as green as possible.

Through smart cuts to waste, energy and water usage, New Belgium has become a leading example of how breweries can take a sustainable route to profitability. The company is about to open a new brewery in Asheville, North Carolina, where it will revitalize an industrial brownfield and create new parks and greenways.

Eileen Fisher, Eileen Fisher Sustainable Apparel

The name Eileen Fisher is associated with timeless elegance, high quality and eco-friendly fabrics like organic and Fair Trade cotton, hemp and bamboo. As CEO of her eponymous brand, Eileen Fisher has committed to environmentally and socially conscious fashion, creating sophisticated garments that can last a lifetime. Many of Fisher’s garments are hand-sewn at a family-owned facility in New York City with a seamless process that reduces waste and creates a more durable product. The company even takes back used garments to either repair and resell, or recycle into other items like rugs and blankets.

Irene Rosenfeld, Kraft

Kraft Foods isn’t exactly known for being sustainable, more closely associated with industrial ‘cheez food’ products that barely resemble actual food. But Irene Rosenfeld is trying to change that. The Kraft CEO has dedicated a vast amount of resources and time to overhaul the company’s strategies, setting aggressive sustainability goals that have resulted in massive reductions in packaging waste, water consumption, energy use and carbon dioxide emissions. Kraft is also the world’s largest buyer of coffee and cocoa from Rainforest Alliance-certified farms. While the changes may be slow, they’re certainly notable.

Lauren Bush, FEED

Ducking out of her family’s historical involvement in politics, Texan Lauren Bush (now Lauren Lauren, after marrying the son of fashion designer Ralph) has dedicated her life and career to feeding the hungry. She co-founded FEED after becoming the UN World Food Program’s 2004 Honorary Spokesperson and is now CEO and Creative Director. FEED seeks to create products that can help bring food to impoverished people across the globe. The purchase of one FEED reusable shopping bag can feed one child in school for one year.

Gail Kelly, Westpac Bank

Can big banks be sustainable, too? Gail Kelly, CEO of Australia’s Westpac Bank, believes so, and has pushed sustainability as a business strategy in this seemingly unlikely industry. Under her leadership, Westpac rose to #14 on the Corporate Knights Top 100 Most Sustainable Companies  in 2011. Kelly has advocated for unprecedented transparency in Westpac’s operations and its sustainability report reveals such small details as CO2 emissions per employee. Westpac Bank also has 37.5% women in positions of leadership, which is unusual for such big companies, let alone banking institutions.

Alexa Von Tobel, LearnVest

28-year-old Alexa Von Tobel started LearnVest in 2008 to teach women how to be financially independent. Since then, the company has been valued at $100 million and expanded to offer affordable financial advice to clients ranging from those extremely in debt to people with a net worth that reaches 8 figures. Von Tobel got the idea while at Harvard Business School, taking a leave of absence to follow her dream. According to LearnVest, the company has helped over one million women gain control of their finances to date.

Majora Carter, Majora Carter Group

The founder of Sustainable South Bronx (SSBX), a non-profit organization that works to address economic and environmental issues through green job training, Majora Carter is now CEO of her own economic planning and consulting group. Known as one of America’s top environmental justice advocates, Carter’s motto is “Green the Ghetto!” and her current work with the Majora Carter Group brings her SSBX approach outside the South Bronx. The Majora Carter Group “uses the green economy and green economic tools to unlock the potential of every place – urban, rural and everywhere in between.”

Denise Bode, American Wind Energy Association

Denise Bode is the CEO of the American Wind Energy Association, the national trade organization for the United States wind energy industry. A nationally recognized energy policy expert, Bode was once the president of the Independent Petroleum Association of America, but now heads up lobbying efforts to get funding for wind energy projects. She has also served as CEO of the American Clean Skies Foundation, and was named among Washingtonian’s “100 Most Powerful Women of Washington” in 2011.

Maria Eitel, Nike Foundation

After sportswear giant Nike got caught violating worker rights in outsourced factories around the world in 1998, Maria Eitel came on board to help turn things around. The CEO of the Nike Foundation and vice president of Nike, Inc. works to bring economic opportunities to the world’s most impoverished girls, focusing on 250 million girls aged 10-19 in the developing world. Eitel turned the Nike Foundation from a passive group lacking any real budget or organization into a force for change committed to gender equality. Initiatives that have been created under her leadership include efforts to keep girls in school in Zambia, to avoid early marriage in Ethiopia, and to build rural learning centers in Bangladesh.

Images: wikimedia commons, new belgium brewing, eileenfisher.com, wikimedia commons, feedprojects.com, westpac, learnvest.com, majora carter group, awea.org, unicef.org

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EcoSalon’s weekly playlist pick from 8tracks.

Songs from a little bit of everywhere, this playlist is the definition of what a good mixtape should be.

No. 14Rainy May from witanddelight on 8tracks.

The post Music Monday: No.14 Rainy May appeared first on EcoSalon.

Julie Gilhart, who helped Barneys see the potential of major designers during their formative years, who is a pioneer of eco-friendly practices – primarily for creating a green Barneys label – and was a welcoming face at many events featuring the likes of both, has officially left the building. While some might say they could see the struggling Barneys needed a fresh injection, others are crying that she and executive vice president Judy Collinson were blindsided.

Mark Lee, who just accepted the CEO gig at Barneys has replaced Julie’s role as Fashion Director with Daniela Vitae who worked under him at Gucci, where he served as CEO and she was president of all North and South American business. People are fearing that the union of Vitale and Lee under the Barneys roof will dilute the quirkiness and energy of some of its talent, making the iconic store more mainstream.

The New York Times writes that designers have grown accustomed to the “hands-on, almost nurturing approach of Ms. Collinson and Ms. Gilhart, and people in the industry were not sure how to read the decision by Mark Lee, the store’s chief executive since August, to dismiss them on Monday – without warning, according to two individuals familiar with the matter.”

With now recognized names like Proenza Schouler, Olivier Theyskens, Alexander Wang, Zero + Maria Cornejo, AsFour and Alabama Chanin as part of her successful roster of talent schooled through Barneys, the fashion world is up in arms asking “For real?”

The best question going is probably through the New York Times asking “Will Top Firings Change Barneys Cool?”

We can only wait and see, but if this re-shifting proves some sort of new trend for ho-hum mainstream to work its way even more into the fashion industry, we’re in for a boring ride.

UPDATE: A Barneys spokesperson has just informed us that Daniella Vitale will not be replacing Julie Gilhart. The organizational change is as follows: Ms. Vitale was hired on as Chief Merchant and Executive Vice-President responsible for all of Women’s and Barneys.com operations. She is also responsible for the hiring of the new women’s Fashion Director.

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