Amazon.com
Paul Hawken, the entrepreneur behind the Smith & Hawken gardening supplies empire, is no ordinary capitalist. Drawing as much on Baba Ram Dass and Vaclav Havel as he does on Peter Drucker and WalMart for his case studies, Hawken is on a one-man crusade to reform our economic system by demanding that First World businesses reduce their consumption of energy and resources by 80 percent in the next 50 years. As if that weren't enough, Hawken argues that business goals should be redefined to embrace such fuzzy categories as whether the work is aesthetically pleasing and the employees are having fun; this applies to corporate giants and mom-and-pop operations alike. He proposes a culture of business in which the real world, the natural world, is allowed to flourish as well, and in which the planet's needs are addressed. Wall Street may not be ready for Hawken's provocative brand of environmental awareness, but this fine book is full of captivating ideas.
Book Description
A visionary new program that businesses can follow to help restore the planet.
Customer Reviews:
Sustainability: Economic revolution - Ecological necessity .......2007-09-09
I discovered both this book and the author after watching "The Corporation", an award winning documentary about the genesis, evolution, and nature of the "dominant institution of our time". In one of the film's many compelling interviews, Ray Anderson, the CEO of the world's largest carpet manufacturer Interface, mentions that after reading Hawken's book he was so deeply convicted about the negative effects his company was having on the environment that he vowed to completely restructure the Interface business model. In a campaign called, "Mission Zero", Interface carpet has promised to "eliminate any negative impact our company may have on the environment by the year 2020." Needless to say, after hearing from Anderson that Hawken's book was capable of so dramatically transforming his managerial approach at Interface, I put The Ecology of Commerce at the top of my "to read" list. I would suggest that you do the same.
[...].
The Ecology Of Commerce: A Personal Review.......2007-09-07
The best book I have ever read since June 1999 was The Sorcerers Apprentice by Tahir Shah. I have read hundreds since then. Some came close to displacing this book. But not one ever quite did.
Until August 2007 when I read this one. The Ecology Of Commerce by Paul Hawken.
The book is amazing piece of writing. A stunning piece of research. An exemplary piece of analysis. An inspiring piece of synthesis. The scope and breadth of the raw and polished material is stunning.
Levels of life from bacteria to the solar system; from subsistence markets to global money markets; from home gardening to food super marketing; from ecological disasters to ecological wisdoms; all levels of life are combed for threads that weave his compelling picture.
The highlights of this book are too many to itemise here.
At the heart of this work is the idea that over the agrarian, industrial and current information ages, the primacy of economy has overtaken the primacy of ecology in the bid to meet the (so-called) needs of 5.8 billion people breeding exponentially.
The top quintile metabolizes 83% of the world resources in the process while the remaining 17% is shared by the other 4.5 billion.
Economic practices and "principles" are outstripping the ecological resources of the planet faster than nature can replace them.
Hawken squarely points the finger at business for plundering these resources but makes the salient point that all these problems derive not from management problems per se but fundamentally from business design problems.
The way business and economy is designed is the key problem. Bad business is the result of bad design. Bad business behaviour and impacts is the result of bad design.
What we need to do is redesign business and the role it plays in human life.
To quote Hawken: "At the heart of the (new) design is a system of commerce and production where each and every act is inherently sustainable and restorative. Business will need to integrate economic, biologic and human systems to create a sustainable method of commerce."
A litany of environmental disasters is chronicled as a necessary preface to solutions.
One hundred and fifty years ago there seemed no need to understand the relationship between business and a healthy environment because natural resources seemed unlimited.
Now the challenge is for business, the single biggest organism in this ecology of commerce, to redesign themselves because natural resources are depleting at alarming rates.
He suggests a set of 8 objectives to move this mission forward.
1. Reduce absolute consumption of energy and natural resources in the North by 80 percent within the next half of the century.
2. provide secure, stable, and meaningful employment for people everywhere
3. Be self-actuating as opposed to regulated or morally mandated
4. Honor market principles
5. Be more rewarding than our present way of life
6. Exceed sustainability by restoring degraded habitats and ecosystems to their fullest capacity
7. Rely on current income
8. Be fun and engaging and strive for an aesthetic outcome.
Hawken filled in a lot of gaps, and synthesised a lot of strands for me, in one powerful book.
One of the gaps he filled for me was the carbon-emission issue. (breathtakingly simulated at the breathing earth website).
Another for me was how green taxes would replace income tax so that the population can afford the real price of food and that tax breaks come on what you can restore and replenish the environment rather than on income.
Another was the tactics and strategies free market interest use to influence and direct public policy.
As I said to my partner, a great thing about this book was that it provided real information for things we suspected for years that we could only express to a slogan or sound bite level.
Also Hawken provides a framework for thinking and acting not only for business, but also for that scared entity for whom the shareholder claims to act.
Namely, the customer. Otherwise known as you or me.
This was a deeply deeply unsettling book. I don't think it was just my age. I think it was because the information is deeply disturbing to anyone who has just been reminded their children and their children cannot be guaranteed clean water to drink or fresh air to breathe.
It's as unsettling as being told your closest friend has cancer.
As Hawken said, the situation was far worse than he could have imagined.
This book had me checking not only my assumptions at the end of each chapter, but the assumptions of my assumptions too.
I'm a learn easy guitar teacher and I was wondering how everybody in the guitar users chain, from the virgin wood growers all the way through the value chain to the end user and teacher can act on the 8 objectives and produce ecologically inspired guitars. And music
Before reading this book such a question about guitar would never have occurred to me.
Wonderful Book!.......2007-06-04
This book is compelling and thoughtful. I find that the analysis is very well thought out and provides insight and solutions to the ecological disaster that we now face, not just a rambling list of how bad everything is and how hopeless our situation as a human race is.
Foundation Reference for Future of Business Without Waste.......2006-12-09
This is easily one of the top ten books on the pragmatic reality of what Herman Daly calls "ecological economics" (see my list of Environmental Security).
The author excels at painting a holistic view of the realities that are not being addressed by the media or by scholars in anything other than piecemeal fashion.
The bottom line: what we are doing now in the face of accelerating decay (changes and losses that used to take 10,000 years now take three years) is the equivalent of "trying to bail out the Titanic with teaspoons." On page 21-22 the author states that we are using 10,000 days of energy creation every day, or 27 years of energy each day.
This is a practical book. In brief, we can monetize the costs of the decay, we can show people the *real* cost of each product and in this way inspire both boycotts (of wasteful products) and boycotts (Jim Turner's term) of solar energy and long-lasting repairable products.
The author appears to be both pro-business and very wise in seeing that the cannot save the environment by destroying business, but rather must save business so it can save the environment--we must help business understand that doing more with less is what they must do to survive.
The author includes a recurring theme from the literature, that diversity is an option generator, and hence one of the most precious aspects of life on Earth. Diversity is the ultimate source of wealth, and anything that reduces diversity is impoverishing the planet and mankind. In a magnificent turn of phrase, the author states that the loss of a species is the loss of a biological library.
At its root this book is about missing information, needed information, about the urgency of making all inputs, processes, and outputs from corporate production transparent. He quotes Vaclav Havel on page 54 as saying that this is an information challenge, a challenge of too much (or too little) information and not enough actionable intelligence supporting sustainable sensible outcomes.
This is also a financial problem that has not been monetized properly. Although E. O. Wilson takes a crack at the strategic or gross costs of saving the Earth in his book "The Future of Life," this author looks at the retail level and describes the waste inherent in our military system. He reminds me of Derek Leebaert's "The 50 Year Wound" when he notes that the US and the USSR spent over 10 trillion dollars on the Cold War, enough to completely re-make the entire infrastructure of Earth, including all schools. As I myself like to note, for the half trillion we have spent on the war against Iraq, we could instead have given a free $50 cell phone to each of the 5 billion poor people, and changed the planet forever.
The author is compelling in pointing out that conservation alone would save more energy than drilling in Alaska, and that President Reagan not rolled back gasoline mileage expectations, we would today be free of any dependency of Middle Eastern energy.
A good part of the book focuses on the need to eliminate waste, what some call "cradle to cradle" (waste must be fully absorbed of other pieces of the system), and where waste cannot be eliminated, to include the cost of its storage in the price of the product, requiring producers of products to take them back (e.g. refrigerators).
I am inspired by the author's view that not only is technology NOT a complete solution, but that full employment is possible if we REDUCE our excessive acquisition of technology that not only replaces humans, but also consumes energy and produces pollution.
This is an extraordinarily clever and useful book that fully integrates discussions of feedback loops and especially of financial and legal feedback loops that are now misrepresentative. One example the author uses is the GATT demand that there be no discrimination of "like" products based on methods of production. This is code for blocking labor laws by imposing high tariffs on products made by slaves or under sweatshop conditions.
I completely agree with one of the author's most important opinions, that we must end corporate claims of "personality" and the rights of a person. This has had two pernicious effects, the first allowing corporations to dominate the public debate; and the second of exempting managers from legal liability and transparency.
The book emphasized the restoration of human and natural capital as vital foundations for evaluating investments--this would dramatically reduce the financial criteria's dominance and emphasis on short-term returns that do not reflect the cost of natural resources and lost jobs to the future and the community.
Distressingly but importantly, the author notes that a major component of the cost of goods is in advertising, where corporations spend more on advertising than the government spends on all secondary schools, and on packaging, much of which is designed to last vastly longer than the contents.
I especially liked the author's suggestion that insurance costs be included in the price of homes and of gasoline, essentially making universal insurance affordable for all. I also liked his idea for indexing Nations by their sustainability, i.e. Most Sustainable Nation (MSN).
The author ends with a restatement of his three fundamentals:
1) End waste
2) Shift to renewable power (solar and hydro)
3) Create accountability and feedback
Although this book was published in 1993 and the author has now published "Natural Capital" (next on my reading list), I did not discover it until recently and am now very enthused about the author's newest project, the World Index of Social and Environmental Responsibility (WISER). I am certain in my heart that a bottom up Earth Intelligence Network is forming, and that end-user voluntary labor--social networks--are going to place enough information in the hands of individuals to restore participatory democracy and moral communal capitalism. This author is extraordinary in his understanding and his ability to teach adults about reality and the future.
An outstanding book about healing our environment and our indifference to the crises of planetary pollution.......2006-03-27
Our planet is threatened on the one side by pressures of overpopulation and on the other side by pressures of nearly exhausted natural resources and pollution that are threatening to make our world uninhabitable. Paul Hawken does a masterful job of explaining the problems we face and suggesting creative solutions to these problems.
Hawken points out that our pursuit of material gain has grown to be such an accepted goal and one that has been so successful for the industrial nations of the world, that it is difficult for most people to realize that the western standard of living cannot be sustained much longer.
Hawken suggests that it is entirely possible to create companies that are profitable but do not destroy the environment - either directly or indirectly. The problem in most Western countries is the limited vision of environmental proponents. They are doing a good job addressing recycling and reducing pollution, but are missing crucial broader principles.
Hawken recommends taxation on pollution. Hawken cautions that the public must stand vigilant guard on issues of protecting the environment, because our government is run by those who have vested interests in corporate profits rather than in the general good of all.
This is an outstanding book about healing our environment, the conduct of business, governmental management of both - and most importantly, about healing our indifference to the crises of planetary pollution and our limited healing of these problems. This book is very highly recommended - despite its publication a dozen years ago.
Book Description
Although an increasing number of organisations have embraced the idea of sustainability in the last decade, why do so many initiatives fail, leading to wasted resources, frustration and cynicism? Why have so few organisations successfully adopted more sustainable policies or practices? And when they do get launched, why do so many efforts plateau after a short time and fail to ascend to the next level of excellence? What process is required to create change within organisations to move them towards sustainability?
Because so few resources are available to answer these questions, Bob Doppelt spent three years researching how the leaders of both private and public organisations that have initiated and sustained significant sustainability programmes designed and approached them. His findings, presented in this hugely readable book, will demystify the sustainability-change process by providing a theoretical framework and a methodology that managers can use to successfully transform their organisations to embrace sustainable development.
According to Doppelt, discussions about what to do - which new technologies and policy instruments to apply - have dominated the public dialogue on sustainability. Practitioners place comparatively little emphasis on how organisations can change their internal thought processes, assumptions and ingrained behaviours to embrace new tools and techniques. Organisational and cultural change is the key missing ingredient in the operationalisation of sustainable development. Without such change, sustainability efforts usually stall soon after they begin or fail outright.
Changing organisational culture requires interventions in two key areas:
First, the governance system of the organisation must be altered. A majority of organisations today hold a mechanistic, autocratic view of governance. In contrast, organisations that have made the most progress toward sustainability view all of their internal members, as well as external stakeholders, as vital parts of an interdependent system. In the leading sustainability organisations, these beliefs engender a skilful distribution of information, power and wealth among employees and stakeholders because managers realise that all of the parts of the organisational system must feel valued and be meaningfully involved for these higher purposes to be achieved. Transforming systems of governance to achieve these results requires seven core interventions. Each intervention builds on and reinforces the others. Part II of the book describes these interventions and how the leading organisations employ them to establish an enduring systems approach to change.
The second intervention is leadership. Organisations that develop effective governance systems typically have good leadership. Effective sustainability leaders have the ability to keep their organisation focused on achieving its higher mission while simultaneously managing numerous, sometimes contradictory, streams of activity. Savvy leaders can inspire and mobilise employees and stakeholders to embrace change as an exciting opportunity to learn. In the exemplary organisations, this style of leadership pervades not only top management, but also most levels of the enterprise.
Doppelt found that, when an organisation has an effective governance system and effective, forward-looking leadership, it is much more likely to be able to marshal the tremendous forces required to transform its culture and successfully adopt sustainability-based thinking, values and behaviours. When an organisation lacks an effective governance system or sufficient leadership, its culture will remain static and the adoption of a more sustainable path will be stymied, no matter what type of new technologies are adopted, quality-control tools are used, or consultants are hired.
Crammed with case examples, interviews and checklists on how to move corporate and governmental cultures toward sustainability, the book argues that the key factors that facilitate change consistently appear in the ongoing and successful (but incomplete) efforts Doppelt examined at companies such as Nike, Starbucks, IKEA, Chiquita, Interface, Swisscom and Norm Thompson and in governmental efforts such as those in the Netherlands and Santa Monica in California. For these and other cutting-edge organisations, leading change is a philosophy for success. In fact, in many ways Leading Change Toward Sustainability is just a restatement of what their leaders already know and do.
Customer Reviews:
At the cutting edge.......2005-09-30
While the concept of sustainability and sustainable development is still ethereal, Bob Doppelt has his finger at the pulse of our best thinking, practices and strategy for implementation. I resonate with his view that the process of achieving sustainability is messy and non-linear and people enter it from many directions. This book has informed my understanding and has helped structure a subject that has a moving target component to it. Bob Doppelt's work has credibility and substance for me.
Best book on change and sustainability.......2004-03-05
Bob Doppelt is the first sustainability expert to describe the nuances and challenges of successfully implementing a systemic sustainability program. Where others have said that "you need to get the people in the organization involved," Doppelt goes deeper and tells us how to do this.
His comprehensive approach, systems thinking, and concrete examples give us previously unavailable insights about successfully implementing sustainability programs in organizations.
I especially appreciate that he includes economic, population, and social equity concerns and not just the technical aspects of protecting and improving the environment.
I have recommended this book to all my sustainability Ph.D. students.
Book Description
The Triple Bottom Line is the groundbreaking book that charts the rise of sustainability within the business world and shows how and why financial success increasingly goes hand in hand with social and environmental achievement. Andrew Savitz chronicles both the real problems that companies face and the innovative solutions that can come from sustainability. His is a hard-line approach to bottom-line fundamentals that is re-making companies around the globe.
Customer Reviews:
If You Want To Get Fluent Fast, Read This Book.......2007-02-20
This book is for interested general consumption rather than a technical practitioners' text book and as such is more than successful in teaching the basics of the triple bottom line. I'm not quite sure why some of the Amazon reviewers seem so testy about this, as the majority of American business management (mid-baby boom and above) never encountered much if anything about corporate responsibility (or ethics) in the curricula they studied on their way up. To consider what that means for concepts like the triple bottom line, pretend that for 25 years today's generation of senior managers had never been told to maximize shareholder value and now in 2007 were expected to internalize the concept and reflexively apply it to everything they do. Particularly from that point of view, Savitz' book is a superb tool to help people become intelligently informed on basic issues of corporate responsibility and sustainability. What individuals do with that is up to that is up to them, but the writing's good, the ideas are clear, the concepts are thought-provoking, and it's the kind of book that drives one to want to learn more. The graphics are particularly useful and uncluttered.
OK as an "Appetizer" not as the "Main Course" for Sustainability.......2007-01-11
While the book's title intrigued me, the amount of coverage in each topic left me hungry for more. As a noted Big Six Consultant, I was sure that Mr. Savitz would have had more to offer, but feel that he fell short. Here are my reasons.
Specifically, his use of specific examples were noteworthy, but the level of detail he provided left me asking more questions than he had answeres for. He also fell short in following through on specific tangental areas, such as describing more about emerging EU directives, as some of his competitors describe in their books.
Other examples include his description of the Maine power company struggle as well as the issues related to Hershey Foods, which could have benefited from more detail and expansive information and then closing with a "lessons learned" to captivate the reader. Perhaps the fault could lie in his choice of a co-author, someone who may be a writer, but is not a subject matter expert - you need someone in that capacity to help pull it all together.
Practical guide for sustainability planning.......2007-01-05
Savitz does a nice job laying the foundation for sustainability thinking in the first part of the book and then provides a "how to" guide in the second part. Almost to a fault for intellectual thinkers the author appears to intentionally avoid complex and underlying theories associated with sustainability concepts. The result is a well written and straight forward practical book rich with examples which makes it easy for just about anyone to read and understand.
Preaching To The Choir.......2006-12-14
The book is divided into two parts -- a lecture on sustainability and then some general things to think about. The book's first half was a lesson to which a reader would have likely already bought into. The second half promises to deliver on "how to make it happen," but really is more general information than meaningful tools.
Given the author's prior work at PricewaterhouseCoopers, it is understandable that the book reads like a macro-level consultant's report. The book could have carried more weight with the inclusion of science and hard numbers of how to actually measure environmental and social value.
An alternative book for readers looking for more solid advice could be "Green to Gold."
Engaging guide to better fiscal, environmental, and social performance........2006-12-11
Sustainability is "the art of doing business in an interdependent world" according to consultant Andrew W. Savitz, who urges companies to focus on the "triple bottom line": solid profit, environmental quality and improved human welfare. Drawing on his experience as head of PricewaterhouseCoopers' sustainability practice, Savitz (writing with Karl Weber) makes a compelling case for moving your business toward "a sustainability sweet spot" where shareholders, environmental interests and other stakeholders can all feel satisfied. Sound like reheated corporate responsibility leftovers? Don't worry. This book offers much more than soft-headed "birdies and butterflies" rhetoric or a few threadbare anecdotes. Savitz marshals truly compelling arguments based on widely accepted demographic, regulatory and cultural trends. Even robber barons will feel the pull of his message, partly because the book is so engaging and well-paced that it reads like a novel, and partly because his prescriptions are so clear, coherent and actionable that they seem like common sense. We highly recommend this sustainability guidebook to those who want to begin the journey on which such companies as Toyota, GE, PepsiCo, Nike and Unilever have already embarked. Bottom line: you can't afford to ignore sustainability.
Average customer rating:
|
Handbook on Urban Sustainability
Manufacturer: Springer
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
 General
| Social Sciences
| Nonfiction
| Subjects
| Books
Rural
| Sociology
| Social Sciences
| Nonfiction
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Urban Planning & Development
| Nonfiction
| Subjects
| Books
Environmental Science
| Earth Sciences
| Science
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Geography
| Earth Sciences
| Science
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Science
| Subjects
| Books
Planning & Management
| Environmental
| Civil
| Engineering
| Professional & Technical
| Subjects
| Books
Environmental Science
| Earth Sciences
| Professional Science
| Professional & Technical
| Subjects
| Books
Geography
| Earth Sciences
| Professional Science
| Professional & Technical
| Subjects
| Books
Natural Resources
| Economics
| Business & Investing
| Subjects
| Books
All Amazon Upgrade
| Amazon Upgrade
| Stores
| Books
Business & Investing
| Amazon Upgrade
| Stores
| Books
Engineering
| Amazon Upgrade
| Stores
| Books
Nonfiction
| Amazon Upgrade
| Stores
| Books
Professional & Technical
| Amazon Upgrade
| Stores
| Books
Science
| Amazon Upgrade
| Stores
| Books
All Titles
| Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007
| Stores
| Books
ASIN: 1402053509 |
Product Description
Municipal authorities and agencies around the world are striving to place their cities on the road to sustainability. Cities, as very complex entities, offer a constant interaction between people, resources and the environment. This makes strategic planning demanding and difficult.
This book, written by worldwide specialists from Canada, India, Italy, Palestine, Peru, Spain and the Netherlands, is a guide to establishing a city on a sustainable path. It addresses sustainable urban planning issues by breaking the city down to its main components. The authors analyze and discuss such topics as:
- urban social and economic factors, including immigration and cultural integration, the gender component, the formation of slums, and social indicators
- the interaction of the city with the environment, including the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA)
- urban and regional economics, including specialization and dependency, asset management, and community facilities
- the relationship of a city within its region
- urban planning, including urban sprawl and core revitalization
- housing and relocation, including such concepts as community participation
- degradation and measures to reverse this situation
- energy needs, transportation management, basic infrastructural services, the generation and disposal of waste, and water in the region
- a citys preparedness, including risk analysis and contingency plans
- urban reconstruction after disasters
The concluding chapters provide a what to do and how to do it practical roadmap for implementing a sustainability program.
Book Description
Sustainability has become a buzzword in the last decade, but its full meaning is complex, emerging from a range of different sectors. In practice, it has become the springboard for millions of individuals throughout the world who are forging the fastest and most profound social transformation of our time - the Sustainability Revolution.
The Sustainability Revolution paints a picture of this largely unrecognized phenomenon from the point of view of five major sectors of society:
- Community (government and international institutions)
- Commerce (business)
- Natural Resources (forestry, farming, fisheries, etc.)
- Ecological Design (architecture, technology)
- Biosphere (conservation, biodiversity, etc.).
The book analyses sustainability as defined by each of these sectors in terms of the principles, declarations and intentions that have emerged from conferences and publications, and which serve as guidelines for policy decisions and future activities. Common themes are then explored, including:
- an emphasis on stewardship
- the need for economic restructuring promoting no waste and equitable distribution
- an understanding and respect for the principles of nature
- the restoration of life forms, and
- an intergenerational perspective on solutions.
Concluding that these themes in turn represent a new set of values that define this paradigm shift, The Sustainability Revolution describes innovative sustainable projects and policies in Colombia, Brazil, India and the Netherlands and examines future trends. Complete with a useful resources list, this is the first book of its kind and will appeal to business and government policy makers, academics, and all interested in sustainability.
Customer Reviews:
Building Awareness of the Sustainability Revolution.......2007-10-03
This is an interesting book in its positioning of the sustainability movement as a revolution. Let's hope. As the recent movie, the 11th Hour, emphasizes, the challenge before us is to build awareness of sustainability. One way to begin this is to do some self education and, most importantly,begin to identify the PEOPLE who are involved in moving us forward on the sustainability front. This book references ten+ people to include the work of:
Stuart Cowan
Alan Durning
Catherine Austin Fitts
Barbara Harwood
Dee Hock
David Holmgren
Wes Jackson
Jaime Lerner
Paul MacCready
Allan Savory
George Sessions
Nancy Todd
In addition to identifying some key players, the book also makes it clearer as to what sustainability encompasses. There are many, many books on the topic, and this is a good one.
fast delivery.......2007-08-05
The book meets my expectation of content. Amazon has been a fantastic delivery systme with great customer service.
useful book.......2007-08-01
I appreciated both what was presented about sustainability and how carefully Edwards compares the environmentalism and sustainability movements. He doesn't "diss" environmentalism, but illuminates a lot of general principles of the sustainability movement that show it to be significantly more sustainable as a movement.
I found each chapter to be complete, but there is a lot of parallel structure in the book so I limited myself to a chapter a day so I wouldn't confuse things between chapters.
Next edition: I could have used more explanation for why social equity is the third E (Ecology, Economy, Equity) of sustainability. I can deduce it on my own, but I just could have used some help understanding this at a fundamental level.
Overall, I loved this book and read just about every word of the text. I have marked up and flagged the extensive reference sections and have already chased down a few follow-up topics.
A complete primer on sustainability.......2005-08-05
"The Sustainability Revolution" is a thorough review of the evolution of sustainability. For a text loaded with facts and details, Andres wrote it so it would be understandable for those who are new to the history and principles of sustainability. The resources section is especially helpful because it lists organizations and contacts mentioned in the book along with brief descriptions about them. I'm sure that many of our customers -- for the DVD "Architecture to Zucchini: The people, companies and organizations pioneering sustainability" -- would be very interested in this book. I highly recommend it to higher education, consultants and business leaders.
Book Description
This title is a unified approach to corporate sustainability, combining ecological and human sustainability. Key areas covered include HRM, strategic, organizational and environmental issues. Not only valuable to students, it will also prove invaluable to practitioners as a practical guide for change agents in bringing about sustainability in a systematic way. Practice and theory are carefully balanced; uniquely the authors provide a combination of insight into the subject and practical assistance with implementation.
Book Description
Named one of a hundred "visionaries who could change your life" by the Utne Reader, Herman Daly has probably been the most prominent advocate of the need for a change in economic thinking in response to environmental crisis. An iconoclast economis t who has worked as a renegade insider at the World Bank in recent years, Daly has argued for overturning some basic economic assumptions. He has won a wide and growing reputation among a wide array of environmentalists, inside and outside the academy.
In a book that will generate controversy, Daly turns his attention to the major environmental debate surrounding "sustainable development." Daly argues that the idea of sustainable development--which has become a catchword of environmentalism and international finance--is being used in ways that are vacuous, certainly wrong, and probably dangerous. The necessary solutions turn out to be muc h more radical than people suppose.
This is a crucial updating of a major economist's work, and mandatory reading for people engaged in the debates about the environment.
"Daly is turning economics inside out by putting the earth and its diminishing natural resources at the center of the field . . . a kind of reverse Copernican revolution in economics."
--Utne Reader
Customer Reviews:
Outstanding work, Daly's predictions have come to pass 10 years later.......2007-09-08
I've read a *lot* of economics books in recent years, some good, some not. But Daly's is really in a class by itself for seeing the big picture and explaining it clearly: traditional economics is broken. Neoclassical economics today is like high energy physics: all the trusty laws that held so true in normal energy physics, or 19th and 20th century economies, mysteriously start to fail us. I love the simple, yet compelling logic of Daly's insight: take the existing neoclassical model of economics--the circular flow of income between households and firms--and then draw a box around it, to acknowledge that the world is of finite size. Once you do that, analyze however you wish...the recognition of a finite world leads inexorably to the notion of an optimum size for the national and global economy. I like how Daly uses tools from mainstream economics to make the point: we all remember from Microeconomics that every firm has an optimal size, based on the size of the overall economy. Economics has the notion of limits to growth embedded already, we just need collectively to apply that logic without flinching.
Something that impressed me was how Daly in 1997 used his intellectual model to forecast the concentration of asset ownership in the U.S., with the consequence of increasing class disparity and declining real wages for the middle class. That would have seemed like outlandish poppycock in the mid-90s, but now in 2007, lo and behold, it's coming to pass (per the CIA and the Economic Policy Institute, and BLS.gov statistics) for all the reasons Daly outlined 10 years ago. The man is onto something, and policymakers would do well to listen to him.
Even better, I think, is that reading between the lines of Daly's book there is a real and believable message of hope. The world of the future that acknowledges limits, and embraces development over growth (think "quality" not "quantity" of the economy as the goal) is a better place than the world we live in today. Instead of the world becoming a planetary Los Angeles or Hong Kong, where life is crowded, expensive, polluted and mean, what I took away from Daly's book was a clear intellectual architecture for a world that is beautiful, full of possibilities for interesting life work, and full of hope and things to look forward to. I sincerely hope that Daly's vision helps shape the world my daughter grows up in.
Surprising Religious Angle from Serious Economist.......2006-04-15
This book is well worth reading for Daly's explanation of "ecological economics." Rather than looking at the economy as a system existing in a vacuum, where an infinite amount of exchanges are possible to create an infinite amount of economic growth--as neo-classical economists believe--Daly places the economy within the physical environment. This environment of course is a place of limits: limits on raw materials and limits on places to store pollution. Thus, Daly shows that the economy must observe limits too.
Common sense, right? Yet, our whole economy is premised on the opposite idea, that we can just keep growing forever. Think of compound interest and then move on from there and you get the idea of how pervasive growth is in our economic mindset today. Offering an alternative is what makes Daly's theory radical.
But the bonus in the book comes at the very end, where Daly offers economics (rightly understood with limits) as the intermediary between the physical world and religious belief. The latter, Daly believes, is necessary to offer humans the inspiration we need to radically change our current society and save our species. Some parts of the text are rough going, but if you're not an economist you can skim them to get to Daly's truly novel integration of heart and head.
Good enough.......2005-03-11
this book is good enough to get a good view of how SD is going and should go. Though much has changed since this book has been published. Globalization has taken SD in directions that were not previously predicted.
Growth isn't everything.......2004-10-05
I can't say enough about how moved I was by this book. Having worked in a corporate setting for a number of years, I have wondered how growth can always be the goal of business and how the world can keep expanding and still accommodate everyone's needs. Herman Daly breaks down the problems with economic growth and how fraudulent it is for measuring economic health. Daly advocates sustainable development from a number of economic and social angles. His explanations become abstract at times, but he effectively challenges established economic thinking and offers alternatives.
Without recognition of physical ecological parameters, economic growth as we know it, including GNP, does not measure economic reality. The concept met with opposition from economists at the World Bank where Mr. Daly once worked (as of the mid-1990s when this book was written). The book starts with a passionate rebuttal to the World Bank and their "preanalytic vision" that the economy operates separately from the environment. In the remainder of the book his frustration is aimed more broadly at neoclassical western economists for ignoring the environment and the laws of thermodynamics. A great example is not accounting for environmental costs during the "throughput" process where products go from raw material to final waste.
I learned how important size or "scale" of macroeconomics is, but not accounted for even though it is surpassing the "carrying capacity" of our planet. Daly refutes modern developments such as an "information economy," to replace depleted resources. Also, lack of natural materials can't be substituted with efficiency: "One cannot substitute efficient cause for material cause--one cannot build the same wooden house with half the timber no matter how many saws and carpenters one tries to substitute," (p. 76).
Globalization, Daly argues, opposes the goal of sustainable development as does free trade, overpopulation, and inequality, all of which are closely analyzed. Globalization and free trade came across to me as particularly harmful because they limit a nation's ability to protect its people, culture, and environment. Daly recommends "maximum wage" to limit inequality. Justification for this concept uses biblical references in a religious-based section, which might seem inappropriate for an economics book, but I found the points made important and well presented.
His solutions for change have the goal of creating a "steady state" economy. With such an economy, humans are able to live on the earth and use amounts of the resources that can be maintained indefinitely. This difficult goal includes principles that may seem radical like population control and limiting inequality. But accounting for our environmental costs in our economy is not radical; it's common sense.
I appreciate the perspective the book takes because it proves that the loss of natural resources isn't just anti-ecological, but also anti-economical. Probably one of the most important books I've ever read.
A Truly Important Book.......2004-07-01
Don't miss reading this book! When I read conventional economics, I constantly find myself asking why most economists use such ridiculous assumptions. Herman Daly's book tells why, and gives a start of what to do about it. Mr. Daly's work convinced me that economics will soon be undergoing a revolution like that of physics in the time of Einstein. As a patent attorney with a biochemistry degree, I can tell you that Mr. Daly is right on the money when he discusses the importance to humanity's future of discarding GNP as an economic measure. If you didn't realize before that understanding entropy is essential to economics, Mr. Daly will tell you. There is plenty of other great stuff here, too.
I don't agree with all of Mr. Daly's points. One of his major themes is that being truly concerned about the environment and the future of humanity requires reverence for the Earth as God's creation. Since I am an atheist, and I am very concerned about the environment and the future of humanity, I find this viewpoint a little hard to swallow. Don't let that stop you from reading this great book, though.
Book Description
Coaching is vital to developing talent in organizations, and it is an essential capability of effective leaders. The CCL Handbook of Coaching is based on a philosophy of leadership development that the Center for Creative Leadership has honed over thirty years with rigorous research and with long, rich experience in the practice of leadership coaching. The book uses a coaching framework to give a compass to leaders who are called to coach as a means of building sustainability and boosting performance in their organizations. The book explores the special considerations that leader coaches need to account for when coaching across differences and in special circumstances, describes advanced coaching techniques, and examines the systemic issues that arise when coaching moves from a one-to-one relationship to a developmental culture that embraces entire organizations.
Average customer rating:
|
Eco-Efficiency, Regulation and Sustainable Business: Towards a Governance Structure for Sustainable Development (Esri Studies Series on the Environment)
Manufacturer: Edward Elgar Publishing
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
General
| Popular Economics
| Business & Investing
| Subjects
| Books
Sustainable Development
| Economics
| Business & Investing
| Subjects
| Books
Natural Resources
| Economics
| Business & Investing
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Business & Investing
| Subjects
| Books
General
| International
| Business & Investing
| Subjects
| Books
Industrial
| Management & Leadership
| Business & Investing
| Subjects
| Books
Renewable Energy
| Technology
| Science
| Subjects
| Books
All Titles
| Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007
| Stores
| Books
Business & Investing
| Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007
| Stores
| Books
Science
| Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007
| Stores
| Books
ASIN: 1843766876 |
Book Description
This book presents important new research on applied eco-efficiency concepts throughout Europe. The aim of eco-efficiency is to achieve market-based measures of environmental protection, in order to enhance the prospects for sustainable development and achieve positive economic and ecological benefits.
The distinguished authors discuss a number of themes surrounding eco-efficiency including the necessary conditions for technological dissemination and ecological modernization, and the role of government in enabling businesses and society to participate actively in this process. In particular, they highlight the application of existing European-based policies concerning material flows and energy. The authors also investigate some new concepts of sustainable development and provide a useful introduction to material flows analysis. In further chapters they study the emerging regulatory policies for eco-efficiency, and examine the issues of sustainable business and consumption strategies.
Environmental and ecological economists, policymakers and political scientists will welcome this original and insightful book which translates the theory of sustainable development into practical policy and business-related solutions.
Book Description
At a time of increasingly rapid environmental deterioration, sustainability is the most important issue facing the world today. Can we create a sustainable society? What would that mean? How should we go about doing it? How can we bring about such a profound change in the way things are organized? This book tackles these questions directly. It goes beyond rhetoric about "sustainable development" to explain the deeper issues in a way that is accessible and interesting to the non-specialist reader. It covers the development of the concept of sustainability within its broader historical context; the contemporary debates about what sustainability implies and how to achieve it; and the obstacles to reaching the goal and prospects for overcoming them.
This book will be invaluable to students, academics and activists concerned with the topics of sustainability and sustainable development.
Customer Reviews:
What we always need to know about Sustainability.......2006-06-10
This book is a must for anyone that is interested in Sustainability. It takes the reader through all the history and tries to give as much neccessary background information as possible to get the big picture on each historical event and milestone. Allthough the author sometimes becomes a bit too subjective, he doesn't impose a view and tries more to inform. Definitely a book worth having for references on Sustainability events.
Books:
- The Elusive Quest for Growth: Economists' Adventures and Misadventures in the Tropics
- The Elusive Quest for Growth: Economists' Adventures and Misadventures in the Tropics
- The Essays of Warren Buffett : Lessons for Corporate America
- The Great Risk Shift: The Assault on American Jobs, Families, Health Care, and Retirement--And How You Can Fight Back
- The Great Turning: From Empire to Earth Community (BK Currents)
- The Inmates Are Running the Asylum: Why High Tech Products Drive Us Crazy and How to Restore the Sanity
- The Magic of Believing
- The Principles of Sustainability
- The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (Dover Value Editions)
- The Rise of the Creative Class: And How It's Transforming Work, Leisure, Community and Everyday Life
Books Index
Books Home
Recommended Books
- Nine Years Among the Indians, 1870-1879: The Story of the Captivity and Life of a Texan Among the In
- Dancing in the Shadows of the Moon
- Plant Functional Genomics
- Shelters of Stone, The
- The Structure and Dynamics of Networks:
- Building the Learning Organization: Mastering the 5 Elements for Corporate Learning
- A Knife to Remember
- Practical Ecology for Planners, Developers, and Citizens
- The Granite Garden, Urban Nature and Human Design
- The Strange and Beautiful World of Orchids
Natural Capitalism: Creating the Next Industrial Revolution
Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things
Mid-Course Correction: Toward a Sustainable Enterprise: The Interface Model
Biomimicry: Innovation Inspired by Nature
Blessed Unrest: How the Largest Movement in the World Came into Being and Why No One Saw It Coming
