Recommended Reading
The definitive text on sustainability has yet to be written. While there are some excellent primers that cover most of the bases (a few of them are even included here), our preference is to dig into the seminal texts, some many years old, from the disciplines that inform the sustainability debate. A few of our favorites in this regard are:
What Matters? Economics for a Renewed Commonwealth (Wendell Berry) A wonderful peek inside one of the most elegant minds at work today, this collection draws together a quarter-century of essays that probe the underlying logic of capitalism as it has been practiced, especially in America. Brilliantly lucid prose.
Now or Never (Tim Flannery) Flannery, long one of Australia’s leading environmental voices, achieved global fame (and rightly so) for his earlier book, The Weather Makers, but this slim volume on climate change is a tour de force on the energy-economy-environment nexus.
The Wayfinders (Wade Davis) The CBC Massey Lectures are one of the highlights on the Canadian radio journalism calendar, and this collection from 2009, given exquisite new life in book form, are another showcase for the protean Wade Davis. Taking as his theme the need for a renewed appreciation (and application) of ancient wisdom in the modern world, Davis tells a remarkable story that should be read by all who care about the fate of the planet and the people who live here. The loss of indigenous languages and cultures across the globe is a crime against our legacy as a species.
The Five Most Important Questions You Will Ever Ask About Your Organization (Peter Drucker et al) Finding answers is typically easy if you ask the right questions. Here, the Dean of management thinkers is ably joined by Jim Collins, Philip Kotler, James Kouzes, Judith Rodin, V. Kasturi Rangan, and Frances Hesselbein to do the heavy lifting for you and your organization – they succinctly highlight the five essential questions that, if answered, will keep you on the right track.
Climate Wars (Gwynne Dyer) Dyer, a dazzling writer and one of the world’s pre-eminent military historians and strategists, weighs in on the global climate change debate with a clear-eyed (and often chilling) account of what the future holds – militarily, geopolitically, and otherwise – if we continue to speed forward as a society under the delusion that our economic future will be much like the past.
Crowdsourcing (Jeff Howe) Believe the hype – the power of “we” is much greater than “me”.
The Future of Management (Gary Hamel) First a disclosure – I’m a fan of Hamel and try to pay attention when he speaks. Here, he paints on the broadest of canvases – the nature of management, writ large. And he does so brilliantly. Hamel is especially good at bridging from the realm of innovation and, for lack of a better word, dreaming to the nuts and bolts of creating shareholder value.
How to Re-Imagine the World (Anthony Westin) A handy treatise on creativity and its application to the “sustainability problem”.
The Origin of Wealth (Eric Beinhocker) You have to be smart to get through the doors at McKinsey, and Eric Beinhocker is no exception. His chapter on strategy is worth the price of the book as a whole.
The Revenge of Gaia (James Lovelock) The world’s leading independent scientist reminds us that the living system we call Earth is not to be trifled with – a clarion call for change in the way we live, work and play.
Sustainable Fossil Fuels: The Unusual Suspect in the Quest for Clean and Enduring Energy (Mark Jaccard) Mark, a friend and mentor, has long combined a rigorous intellectual engagement tempered with a sense of humor. This makes him a formidable ecological economist (Canada’s best, in my opinion) as well as a great teacher. Here, he approaches the energy-economy-environment nexus in a controversial, but ultimately convincing way. The Donner Prize winner for best book in Canada on public policy.
Our Iceberg is Melting (John Kotter) Kotter, one of the world’s leading scholars on change management, distills a lifestime of learning into this slim volume that beautifully lays out the process for recognizing and communicating the need for change.
The Next Sustainability Wave: Building Boardroom Buy-in (Bob Willard) Bob, a lovely and generous man, spent a first career as an executive and is now carving out a vaunted second career as a scholar of organizational behavior – in particular, the way executives learn and the steps that can be taken to get more of them riding on the sustainability wave. A very useful “how to” book for anyone working in the sustainability field. Which, of course, means all of us.
A Short History of Progress (Ronald Wright) A remarkable book – a rare blend of scholarship and readability, Wright provides a cogent analysis of human civilization’s repeated failures to learn from the lessons of the past. The problem, of course, is that failure now will almost certainly doom our species.
The Seeds of Innovation (Elaine Dund) A handy book, written in plain language, that lays out what innovation is (and isn’t). Dundon wisely notes that innovation is more than creativity or R&D – it’s about creativity, strategy, implementation and, most importantly, profitability. The three "seeds" of innovation are Creative Thinking; Strategic Thinking; and Transformational Thinking. Buy this book. Read it, use it, and prosper.
AAAS Atlas of Population & Environment A wonderful synthesis of information on the relationships between human population and the environment from the American Association for the Advancement of Science – an important foundation of knowledge on which to build an argument for sustainability. Human Activity and the Environment 2000 (2000), Statistics Canada As with the AAAS volume, but focusing on Canada. Essential reading to understand the environmental costs of human activity. Includes a handy CD-Rom, and a wonderful 2-page (!) overview of the evolution of the concept of sustainable development.
What Management Is (Joan Magretta) Magretta, long-time strategy editor of Harvard Business Review, cuts through the rhetoric that bedevils most "management" books and explains in clear prose what management really is and how it works. The rare book that is equally valuable for the neophyte or expert.
Creative Destruction (Richard Foster and Sarah Kaplan) My favourite business book of 2001, Foster and Kaplan, long-time McKinsey stars, draw on Joseph Schumpeter’s vision of capitalism as a process of "creative destruction", and point out that it is difficult, if not impossible, to sustain a competitive advantage without challenging your company’s business model (and potentially reinventing it) on a regular basis.
The Ingenuity Gap: How Can We Solve the Problems of the Future (Thomas Homer-Dixon) Homer-Dixon, Director of the Peace and Conflict Studies Program at the University of Toronto, asks if the world is becoming too complex and fast-paced to manage. His perspective is much-needed in the face of uncertainty.
The Commonwealth of Life: A Treatise on Stewardship Economics (Peter Brown) The Director of the McGill School of Environment in Montreal, CANADA achieves a wonderful synthesis of science, policy and economics in a slim volume that should be widely read by those with an interest in making better decisions.
Let the Mountains Talk, Let the Rivers Run, (David Brower) An elegiac "summing up" from the most eloquent and influential voice in the environmental movement. Read it and be enobled.
Beyond Growth: The Economics of Sustainable Development (Herman Daly) A clear-eyed account of the future of economics. Undervalued now, it will come to be seen as prescient.
Management: Tasks, Responsibilities, Practices, (Peter Drucker) The world’s greatest authority on management lays out the rules for corporate behavior.
Cannibals with Forks: The Triple Bottom Line of 21st Century Business (John Elkington) Always ahead of the curve, Elkington’s account of the 3 dimensions of sustainability, here called a "triple bottom line", is a manifesto for change and the best single book for business on the subject.
Leading the Revolution (Gary Hamel) Building on his 1994 book, Competing for the Future, one of the world’s greatest thinkers on strategy provides a compelling case for corporate re-invention.
A Civil Action (Jonathan Harr) Forget the film version with John Travolta, this is a frightening and yet riveting chronicle of environmental litigation that takes you into the deep end of the legal process. You’ll keeping stopping to remind yourself that this actually happened – it’s not just a story.
The Ecology of Commerce (Paul Hawken) It now bears the mark of a "classic", and justifiably so. Paul Hawken’s 1993 masterpiece galvanized a generation of thinkers and doers and is a deeply satisfying account of one man’s journey towards sustainability.
The Nature of Economies (Jane Jacobs) In a series of "dialogues", Jacobs turns her formidable intellect on the subject of sustainability and gently steers the reader to an understanding of how economies should work.
The Lorax (Dr. Seuss) That rarest of books, The Lorax can (and should) be read and enjoyed as a child, but it is even more impressive when encountered as an adult. A moving meditation on the responsibility we have to our natural environment.
Less is More in Sustainability Reporting
The emergence and (tentative) mainstreaming of sustainability has helped unlock new sources of innovation and opportunity for business – to say nothing of helping to reduce humanity’s footprint on the Earth. That ‘s the good news. The bad news is that in the rush to demonstrate their sustainability credibility, many companies are spending too much time and money on sustainability reports groaning under the weight of too many “metrics” and “indicators”. By way of example, the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) guidelines – an influential set of sustainability reporting tools – suggest up to 81 indicators! Even the Balanced Scorecard, the most influential strategy measurement template of the past decade, recommends 20-25 measures. These one-size fits all efforts don’t really speak to or “fit” anyone. Worse, tracking too many measures may cause managers to lose sight of the few that really drive the achievement of strategic objectives. Hence, less is actually more when it comes to measuring and communicating sustainability performance.
