Overview
An indispensable handbook of tools and advice for environmentally
responsible organizations.
Building an organization's commitment to sustainability is not just a
means to enhancing the health, diversity, and strength of the world's
ecosystems but a financially and socially sound best practice as well.
The Sustainable Enterprise Fieldbook helps readers understand what
sustainability means, and how they can implement it in their
organization. Collecting the wisdom of an outstanding network of
experts, the book uses models, tools, case studies, and examples from a
wide range of companies to show readers how they can:
manage the transition to an eco-friendly culture • foster employee
engagement • integrate sustainability into the day-to-day realities of
their business • oversee both short-and long-term goals for their
sustainability initiatives
Also included are metrics allowing readers to measure their efforts in
promoting an environmentally responsible organization. This book
provides the crucial guidance organizations need to make money and make
a difference.
About the Author
Jeana Wirtenberg, Ph.D. (Montville, NJ) is President of Jeana Wirtenberg
& Associates, a consulting firm that focuses on sustainability issues.
William G. Russell (Leonia, NJ) is the Founder of SKN Worldwide-USA, a
sustainability consulting company.
David Lipsky, Ph.D. (Highland Mills, NY) is a senior consultant with
Conversant.
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Press Release
HEADLINE:The Sustainable Enterprise Fieldbook:HEADLINE
SUBHEAD:When It All Comes Together:SUBHEAD
An indispensable handbook of tools and advice for environmentally
responsible organizations
New AMACOM book shows managers and leaders how they can make a
difference
in their company…and their world.
"Managers everywhere desperately need books like The Sustainable
Enterprise Fieldbook in order to get started on the journey.?
? Peter Senge, Founder of SoL, Senior Lecturer, Behavioral and Policy
Sciences, MIT School of Management
"This brilliant collection of essays lays the foundation for building a
sustainable society. All boards of directors and their leadership should
make this book required reading.?
? Warren Bennis, Professor, University of Southern California
Building an organization's commitment to sustainability is more than
just a means to enhancing the health, diversity, and strength of the
world's ecosystems—it is a financially and socially sound best practice
as well. And while managers and leaders of organizations are being
challenged as never before to find ways to play a proactive role in
addressing the concerns of sustainable development, they are often
overwhelmed by a bombardment of conflicting messages from the media,
shareholders, customers, employees, and citizen interest groups.
Collecting the wisdom of an outstanding network of experts, THE
SUSTAINABLE ENTERPRISE FIELDBOOK: When It All Comes Together,
(AMACOM 2008) helps readers understand what sustainability means, and
how they can implement it in their organization. Including metrics
allowing readers to measure their efforts in promoting an
environmentally responsible organization, the book uses models, tools,
case studies, and examples from a wide range of companies to show
readers how they can:
manage the transition to an eco-friendly culture • foster employee
engagement • integrate sustainability into the day-to-day realities of
their business • oversee both short-and long-term goals for their
sustainability initiatives
Each chapter illustrates through models, tools, cases, stories, and
examples from a wide range of companies how to integrate sustainability
into the day-to-day realities of a business. Covering areas such as
leadership, strategy, managing change, employee engagement, networks,
and globalization, the book offers readers step-by-step guidance on how
they can become change agents in their organizations. Readers will find
access to the innovative "Living Fieldbook?
(www.TheSustainableEnterpriseFieldbook.net), an online community support
service providing ongoing updated assistance in building a sustainable
enterprise. By making the steps needed clear, understandable, and simple
to follow, THE SUSTAINABLE ENTERPRISE FIELDBOOK helps managers,
leaders, and organizations embrace social, environmental and economic
issues, and strike a more responsible balance for the future.
About the Editors:
Jeana Wirtenberg, Ph.D. (Montville, NJ) is President of Jeana Wirtenberg
& Associates, a consulting firm that focuses on sustainability issues.
William G. Russell (Leonia, NJ) is the Founder of SKN Worldwide-USA, a
sustainability consulting company. David Lipsky, Ph.D. (Highland Mills,
NY) is a senior consultant with Conversant.
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Excerpt
?
Foreword
Georg Kell, Executive Head, UN Global Compact
?
Businesses are challenged as never before by the unrelenting and
ever-increasing
demands posed by the global economy and the marketplace to address the
concerns of
a wide range of critical stakeholders, including shareholders,
customers, employees,
and communities, both locally and around the world.
?
Technology and deregulation have unleashed an unprecedented expansion of
business
activities over the past quarter of a century. Many companies have gone
global
while governments have remained local. Businesses, large and small, are
learning to
integrate into a global marketplace that offers scale and efficiency
gains.
?
New markets have been developed and much progress has been made in
bringing
hundreds of millions of people out of abject poverty. At the same time,
poverty persists
in many parts of the world, inequity has been on the rise, and the
impact of human
activities on the natural environment threatens our survival as a
species.
?
We cannot predict the future, but the certainty of the major disruptive
forces we are
witnessing every day makes a compelling case for us to reexamine our
fundamental values,
shift our priorities, and shape a new strategic direction to create a
more sustainable
world.
?
How will we master this global transformation to a sustainable future?
Where will
leadership come from? Will we be able to extend the benefits of
productivity gains to
those who need them most while safeguarding our natural environment?
Will openness
as an economic and political idea prevail, or will we fall back into
discriminatory behavior,
building walls and creating enemies? Will we be able to provide
stewardship that
thrives on and cultivates the creativity of people and enterprises while
safeguarding the
common good? Are we willing — and are we capable enough — to change our
patterns
of consumption and lifestyles so that they meet our most basic human
needs while considering
those of future generations? Can we build incentive systems that reward
and
reinforce good environmental, social, and governance performance?
?
The stakes couldn't be higher. Never before have we been so dependent on
each
other.
?
There is always hope that policy-makers will eventually provide
leadership. But all
too often they are concerned with territorial constituency building or
the sheer desire
to maintain a hold on power. Few policy-makers are able, or willing, to
take on global
perspectives or a long-term vision that goes beyond election cycles.
?
Business can hardly afford to wait for this to happen. The changing
landscape has
made it imperative that business help architect and execute the
solution. The notion and
practice of business responsibility and the search for practical
solutions has evolved
over the past two decades. Business increasingly understands that the
search for sustainability
is not just about avoiding costs; it is increasingly about creating
business
value and inventing models that deliver societal and market success.
?
Clearly, the role of business is undergoing a profound transformation.
The most obvious
is the need to manage risks in an interdependent world. As business has
become
global, it can no longer take refuge behind one home government. It
needs to learn to
deal simultaneously with different regulatory and societal realities. At
the same time,
the pursuit of global integration and the sophistication of dispersed
supply chains has
created new vulnerabilities — as have the scarcity of natural resources
and the unfolding
of climate change-related regulatory and lifestyle changes.
?
New business models that understand how to build markets for the one
billion people
that remain excluded, that thrive on energy efficiency and environmental
stewardship,
and that build societal goodwill and support are likely to be the
winning models
of the future. Such enterprises will not only succeed in their own
right, they will also
make an enormously important contribution to the future of humanity.
?
We are called to support and promote business efforts that embrace
sustainability
strategies as a modus operandi. Many small and large innovations and
alterations are
needed to bring about a change on the scale required to safeguard our
future. Human
creativity and the will to shape the future are our best hope. This
Fieldbook opens the
door for business leaders and managers to the most appropriate and
practical pathway
for themselves and their enterprises to forge a more sustainable future.
It takes us on a
thoughtful journey through the eyes of 29 passionate, experienced
practitioners inspiring
us all to step up to the plate, create a plan, and move forward with
velocity, intention,
and commitment. It provides the tools, cases, best practices, learnings,
and understandings
— at once profound and practical — to equip and enable every manager and
leader to play a role in the reinvention of the world.
?
?
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