Adam Werbach is regarded as one of the world's premier experts in sustainability. At age 23, he was elected as the youngest president ever of the Sierra Club, the oldest and largest environmental organization in the United States. In 1998, Werbach founded sustainability agency, Act Now, to engage the corporate and media world in social, environmental, cultural and economic change. After ten successful years, Act Now merged with global ideas company Saatchi & Saatchi to form Saatchi & Saatchi S.

Werbach has always been an advocate for change, as exemplified by his 2004 speech at the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco entitled, "Is Environmentalism Dead?" in which Werbach declared that he would no longer call himself an environmentalist, as the movement was unprepared to work with business. Soon after, Wal-Mart engaged Act Now to lead the involvement of its 2.1 million Wal-Mart associates in the Personal Sustainability Project ("PSP"). This engagement mechanism is helping Wal-Mart drive more than $500 million in savings from projects that have paybacks of 4 years or less.

Werbach returned to the Commonwealth Club in April 2008 to receive its 21st Century Visionary Award and deliver the follow-up to his 2004 remarks with a presentation entitled, "The Birth of Blue", which envisions a billion-person strong, consumer-based movement for sustainability.