The Zeronauts

The Zeronauts PDF Author: John Elkington
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1136326898
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 305

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Book Description
A world of 9 billion people by mid-century will demand fundamental changes in our mindsets, behaviors, cultures, and overarching paradigm. Just as our species broke the Sound Barrier during the 1940s and 1950s, a new breed of innovator, entrepreneur, and investor is lining up to break the Sustainability Barrier. In this book, John Elkington introduces the Zeronauts – a new breed of innovator, determined to drive problems such as carbon, waste, toxics, and poverty to zero – as well as creating the first Zeronaut Roll of Honor, spotlighting 50 pioneers in the field of zero. Zeronauts are innovating in an astonishing range of areas, tackling hugely diverse economic, social, environmental, and governance challenges. To give a sense of progress to date, we zero in on five key challenges (the 5Ps): population growth, pandemics, poverty, pollution, and proliferation. The power of zero has been trumpeted, notably in relation to zero defects. This book spotlights key lessons learned in the field of total quality management – and introduces a five-stage "Pathways to Zero" model, running through from the Eureka! discovery moment to the point where a new way of doing things becomes endemic in the economy. In order to move from incremental to transformative change, we must embrace wider framings, deeper insights, higher targets, and longer time scales. This book investigates some ways in which leading Zeronauts are pushing change in relevant directions, with cases drawn from a spectrum of human activity – from water profligacy to human genital mutilation. If we learn from these pioneers, the twenty-first century could be our best yet.

The Zeronauts

The Zeronauts PDF Author: John Elkington
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1136326898
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 305

Get Book

Book Description
A world of 9 billion people by mid-century will demand fundamental changes in our mindsets, behaviors, cultures, and overarching paradigm. Just as our species broke the Sound Barrier during the 1940s and 1950s, a new breed of innovator, entrepreneur, and investor is lining up to break the Sustainability Barrier. In this book, John Elkington introduces the Zeronauts – a new breed of innovator, determined to drive problems such as carbon, waste, toxics, and poverty to zero – as well as creating the first Zeronaut Roll of Honor, spotlighting 50 pioneers in the field of zero. Zeronauts are innovating in an astonishing range of areas, tackling hugely diverse economic, social, environmental, and governance challenges. To give a sense of progress to date, we zero in on five key challenges (the 5Ps): population growth, pandemics, poverty, pollution, and proliferation. The power of zero has been trumpeted, notably in relation to zero defects. This book spotlights key lessons learned in the field of total quality management – and introduces a five-stage "Pathways to Zero" model, running through from the Eureka! discovery moment to the point where a new way of doing things becomes endemic in the economy. In order to move from incremental to transformative change, we must embrace wider framings, deeper insights, higher targets, and longer time scales. This book investigates some ways in which leading Zeronauts are pushing change in relevant directions, with cases drawn from a spectrum of human activity – from water profligacy to human genital mutilation. If we learn from these pioneers, the twenty-first century could be our best yet.

The Zeronauts

The Zeronauts PDF Author: John Elkington
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1849713979
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 306

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Book Description
In the last century, Astronauts launched into the heavens, in search of new worlds to colonize, their adventures helping to catalyze the evolution of everything from non-stick frying pans and minicomputers to satellite telecommunications. Their work forced our species to recognize that our Earth is a very rare planet indeed and our only home for the foreseeable future. Now a new wave of explorers, adventurers and entrepreneurs is pioneering novel ways to create wealth in tune with the twenty-first century reality of a human population pushing towards 10 billion people by mid-century and with key elements of the planet's biosphere already coming apart at the seams. These are the Zeronauts. Featuring contributions by 25 of the world's leading innovators and drawing on interviews and surveys of many more, the book showcases the pioneers that are at the cutting edge of the global sustainability movement, which the author, John Elkginton, has helped create and lead over several decades. Elkington introduces the emerging disciplines of zero-impact design, engineering and management through the personal experiences and reflections of the leading practitioners putting us on a path to a zero impact economy: Zero Risk, Zero Emissions, Zero Pollution and Waste, Zero Biodiversity Loss and Zero Population Growth. Leading Zeronauts explain how they came to wake up to the challenges, they speak about the mistakes they have made along the way and the lessons they have learned in the process, offering their advice on how we can get others to the same point in terms of thinking and action. From this, Elkington distils a concise set of rules for success. Concluding with recommendations for governments, investors, innovators and educators, the book shares the lessons learned from scores of people worldwide who are helping define the scale of the challenges our species now faces and, crucially, developing and deploying at scale some of the solutions that will provide the building-blocks of tomorrow's economies and the foundations for some of the future's greatest fortunes.

The Encyclopædia Britannica

The Encyclopædia Britannica PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Encyclopedias and dictionaries
Languages : en
Pages : 1102

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Book Description


The Shape of Green

The Shape of Green PDF Author: Lance Hosey
Publisher: Island Press
ISBN: 1610912144
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 214

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Book Description
Does going green change the face of design or only its content? The first book to outline principles for the aesthetics of sustainable design, The Shape of Green argues that beauty is inherent to sustainability, for how things look and feel is as important as how they’re made. In addition to examining what makes something attractive or emotionally pleasing, Hosey connects these questions with practical design challenges. Can the shape of a car make it more aerodynamic and more attractive at the same time? Could buildings be constructed of porous materials that simultaneously clean the air and soothe the skin? Can cities become verdant, productive landscapes instead of wastelands of concrete? Drawing from a wealth of scientific research, Hosey demonstrates that form and image can enhance conservation, comfort, and community at every scale of design, from products to buildings to cities. Fully embracing the principles of ecology could revolutionize every aspect of design, in substance and in style. Aesthetic attraction isn’t a superficial concern — it’s an environmental imperative. Beauty could save the planet.

Corporate Sustainability Management

Corporate Sustainability Management PDF Author: Mark W. McElroy
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1136329617
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 258

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Book Description
Businesses around the world are increasingly turning to an exciting new branch of management known as corporate sustainability management (CSM) to help them better understand and manage their non-financial performance. Indeed, what we are witnessing is nothing less than the birth of a new management function. The main pillar of CSM is the Triple Bottom Line (TBL), which has been successful as an organizing principle but a disappointment in practice. This is largely due to the absence of 'sustainability context' in related measurement, management and reporting efforts, when for example the monitoring of a company's use of freshwater resources fails to take into account the size of related supplies. This book is the first to introduce a systematic means of including context in sustainability management and doing effective CSM. After making the case for why context matters, the book explains how to do context-based CSM by providing a stepwise, cyclical blueprint for how to practice it in any organization. This includes a template for context-based metrics compatible with the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), as well as specific examples of metrics for each of the triple bottom lines. Practical examples of best practices are presented throughout, while simultaneously addressing key issues, such as how organizations can measure performance against context-based standards when consensus for such standards does not yet exist. Appendices include tools for developing and applying context-based metrics, as well as case studies taken from the practice of context-based CSM at two companies in the United States. This guide is the essential tool for business and organizational leaders in all sectors committed to improving their sustainability performance, with a particular emphasis on measurement, management and reporting.

Flourishing

Flourishing PDF Author: Andrew J. Hoffman
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351277227
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 161

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Book Description
This astonishing book invites you into a conversation between a teacher, John R. Ehrenfeld, and his former student now professor, Andrew J. Hoffman, as they discuss how to create a sustainable world. Unlike virtually all other books about sustainability, this one goes beyond the typical stories that we tell ourselves about repairing the environmental damages of human progress. Through their dialogue and essays that open each section, the authors uncover two core facets of our culture that drive the unsustainable, unsatisfying, and unfair social and economic machines that dominate our lives. First, our collective model of the way the world works cannot cope with the inherent complexity of today's highly connected, high-speed reality. Second, our understanding of human behavior is rooted in this outdated model. Driven by the old guard, sustainability has become little more than a fashionable idea. As a result, both business and government are following the wrong path – at best applying temporary, less unsustainable solutions that will fail to leave future generations in better shape. To shift the pendulum, this book tells a new story, driven by being and caring, as opposed to having and needing, rooted in the beauty of complexity and arguing for the transformative cultural shift that we can make based on our collective wisdom and lived experiences. Then, the authors sketch out the road to a flourishing future, a change in our consumption and a new approach to understanding and acting. There is no middle ground; without serious change at the most basic level, we will continue to head down a false path. Indeed, this book is a clarion call to action. Candid and insightful, it leaves readers with cautious hope.

Two Birds in a Tree

Two Birds in a Tree PDF Author: Ram Nidumolu
Publisher: Berrett-Koehler Publishers
ISBN: 1609945794
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 269

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Book Description
The health of business is inextricably linked with the health of humanity and nature. But our current approaches to leadership treat business as entirely separate—and the result has been recurring economic, environmental, and human crises. In this extraordinary book, Ram Nidumolu uses evocative parables and stories from the ancient Indian wisdom texts, the Upanishads, to introduce Being-centered leadership. This new kind of leadership is anchored in the concept of Being, the fundamental reality that underlies all phenomena. Being-centered leaders are guided by an innate sense of interconnection—the good of the whole becomes an integral part of their decisions and actions. Using the experiences of over twenty trailblazing CEOs, as well as those from his own life, Nidumolu describes a four-stage road map every aspiring leader can use to reconnect business to the wider world—to the benefit of all.

Nature of Investing

Nature of Investing PDF Author: Katherine Collins
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351861085
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 103

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Book Description
We are all investors. We invest our time, our energy, our money. We invest every single day, as citizens, as consumers, as businesspeople. At its core, investing involves connection, exchange, and mutual benefit. Lately, however, the primary, beneficial function of investing has been overshadowed by ever-more mechanized iterations of finance. We have created funds of funds, securitizations of securitizations, and entire firms whose business is based on harvesting the advantage of microseconds of trading speed. The Nature of Investing calls for a transformation of the investment process from the roots up. Drawing on the author's twenty-plus years of leadership experience in top investment firms, the book connects real-world finance with the field of biomimicry. Citing real-life examples and discussing principles from the natural world, The Nature of Investing shows how we can create an investment framework that is different from the mechanized one currently employed. Readers will discover an approach that re-aligns investing with the world it was originally meant to serve. An approach that values resiliency over rigidity and elegant simplicity over synthetic complexity. This is the true nature of investing.

CSR 2.0

CSR 2.0 PDF Author: Wayne Visser
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 3642408745
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 89

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Book Description
The book examines the evolution and current state of corporate social responsibility (CSR), using a five-stage maturity model: defensive, charitable, promotional, strategic and transformative CSR. The first four stages are dubbed CSR 1.0 and characterise most current CSR practice, while the fifth stage is named CSR 2.0 (also transformative or systemic CSR) and describes emergent and future CSR practices. Reasons are given why CSR 1.0 approaches have failed to have any significant impact on the most serious global social, environmental and ethical challenges. The emergent CSR 2.0 will then be explored in detail by elaborating on five principles underlying the new approach, including: creativity, scalability, responsiveness, glocality and circularity. A four-part DNA Model is also introduced, covering value creation, good governance, societal contribution and ecological integrity, which provides the basis for defining and measuring CSR 2.0. Finally, a 70-question CSR 2.0 self-assessment diagnostic tool developed by the author is presented, with sample data to show how the tool can be used for future research and practitioner application.

Big Bang Being

Big Bang Being PDF Author: Isabel Rimanoczy
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351277340
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 219

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Book Description
When asked for the definition of mental health and fulfilment, Sigmund Freud had two words: lieben und arbeiten, love and work. In this book we will find how 16 business leaders brought together their compassion, their caring for others and the world, with their work. True, only on rare occasions are we able to meet the person behind initiatives that made a positive impact on the world, even less have an in-depth view into their feelings, concerns, hesitations, doubts and most intimate thoughts. What is seen publicly is the initiative, the impact on the bottom line and the community, or sometimes on the environment. Yet it is their _personal_ stories that can be most inspirational, since they draw our attention to the fact that amazing achievements start in simple ways, with just the thinking of one individual. And when we find out that the "exemplary individuals" have many very "human" aspects that we identify with and find in ourselves, it brings us closer; and, particularly, it may even trigger in us the question: If she could do it... I wonder what could _I_ do? The interviews, however, were only the beginning of the journey. The lessons of the interviews made it possible to identify how we can all develop a sustainability mindset: in other words, the thinking and the being that can take us from breakdown to breakthrough on this planet. Each one of us can play a part in leading the change; in fact, we are already playing a part – we are just not necessarily aware if that is the part we would like to play, or aware that we choose the change we are contributing to unfold. Part I presents the 16 leaders, including a summary of their story and their initiatives. Part II goes a little deeper, as you will find two dimensions that were not obvious but which underlie the way these business leaders championed the initiatives: the Thinking and the Being. Part III explores why sustainability change is so slow, and addresses the "elephant in the room": the values and beliefs that anchor our Western Weltanschauung, or worldview. Part IV addresses the alternatives that we have to convert the unsustainable values into opportunities that will permit humanity to thrive and to break through the obstructions that prevent us from stasis. Finally, Part V takes us beyond the tipping point, and presents us with an opportunity to evolve as humans developing a new way of thinking and being on this planet. This transformation is so radical and significant, that the author calls it the Big Bang Being.