*All summaries from Amazon.com unless otherwise stated.
The Next Sustainability Wave by Bob Willard
The idea of sustainability has been embraced enthusiastically by some businesses and rejected by others. The first wave of corporate converts to sustainability was perhaps driven by a public relations crisis, regulatory pressures or the founder’s personal passion. The next wave, however, requires different drivers if it is to build a critical mass for corporate responsibility in the business community. Emphasizing the importance of how sustainability is presented to corporate leaders—using the right language and avoiding threats to the status quo that provoke habitual corporate defense mechanisms—the book applies effective selling techniques to reposition sustainability strategies as a means to achieving existing corporate ends, rather than as a separate priority to worry about. It sells sustainability as a solution, a business strategy and a catalyst for business transformation. An appendix gives a version of the sustainability business case for small- to medium-level enterprises.
The Sustainability Revolution by Andres R. Edwards
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, Commerce, Resource Extraction, Ecological Design, and Biosphere. The book analyzes 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.
Radical Simplicity by Jim Merkel
Imagine you are first in line at a potluck buffet. The spread includes not just food and water, but all the materials needed for shelter, clothing, healthcare, and education. How do you know how much to take? How much is enough to leave for your neighbors behind you—not just the six billion people, but the wildlife, and the as-yet-unborn? In the face of looming ecological disaster, many people feel the need to change their own lifestyles as a tangible way of transforming our unsustainable culture. Radical Simplicity is the first book that guides the reader to a personal sustainability goal, then offers a process to monitor progress to a lifestyle that is equitable amongst all people, species, and generations. It employs three tools to help readers begin their customized journey to simplicity.
The Principles of Sustainability by Simon Dresner
At a time of increasingly rapid environmental deterioration and climate change, sustainability is one of the most important issues facing the world. Can we create a sustainable society? What would that mean? How should we set about doing it? How can we bring about such a profound change in the way things are organized? This text tackles these questions directly. It covers: historical development of the concept of sustainability; contemporary debates about how to achieve it; and obstacles and the prospects for overcoming them. This new fully revised edition covers the latest on the climate change front, particularly the advances in scientific understanding and political awareness of climate change. Other updates include more recent economic analyses, particularly the Stern Report, and the global shift away from faith in markets over the past five years.
Climate Change Begins at Home by Dave Reay
Climate change is one of the greatest threats that humankind faces in the twenty-first century. But while government and industry fail to act, this book argues, we could all work to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 60%, the level necessary to halt the current trend according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Packed with provocative case studies, calculations, and lifestyle comparisons, this entertaining and authoritative book makes the complexities of climatology tractable and challenges readers to rethink their notions of "doing their bit".
The Great Disruption by Paul Gilding
It's time to stop just worrying about climate change, says Paul Gilding. Instead, we need to brace for impact, because global crisis is no longer avoidable; we have come to the end of a world economy based on consumption and waste, where we live beyond the means of our planet's resources. The Great Disruption offers a stark and unflinching look at the challenge humanity faces-yet also a deeply optimistic message. The coming decades will see loss, suffering, and conflict as our planetary overdraft is paid; however, they will also bring out the best humanity can offer: compassion, innovation, resilience, and adaptability. Gilding tells us how to fight-and win-what he calls the "one-degree war" to prevent catastrophic warming of the earth, and how to start today.
Cradle to Cradle by Michael Braungart & William McDonough
"Reduce, reuse, recycle" urge environmentalists; in other words, do more with less in order to minimize damage. As William McDonough and Michael Braungart argue in their provocative, visionary book, however, this approach perpetuates a one-way, "cradle to grave" manufacturing model that dates to the Industrial Revolution and casts off as much as 90 percent of the materials it uses as waste, much of it toxic. Why not challenge the notion that human industry must inevitably damage the natural world, they ask.
The God Species by Mark Lynas
We humans are the God species, both the creators and destroyers of life on this planet. As we enter a new geological era - the Anthropocene - our collective power now overwhelms and dominates the major forces of nature. But from the water cycle to the circulation of nitrogen and carbon through the entire Earth system, we are coming dangerously close to destroying the planetary life-support systems that sustain us. In this controversial new book, Royal Society Science Books Prize winner Mark Lynas shows us how we must use our new mastery over nature to save the planet from ourselves. Taking forward the work of a brilliant new group of Earth-system scientists who have mapped out our real 'planetary boundaries', Lynas draws up a radical manifesto calling for the increased use of environmentally-friendly technologies like genetic engineering and nuclear power as part of a global effort to use humanity's best tools to protect and nurture the biosphere.