Here is a Sustainable Business Reading List which covers books in sustainability and the sustainable business field. Note I am not recommending all these. Some of them I don’t like at all. (You will pick this up if you follow the links to my commentaries). Still, reading them helps give an idea of what discussions are taking place.
Indeed, no one could really like all these books without being so open-minded as to be fairly mindless. The authors vary between the populiust right, some right-wing libertarians, those focused on incremental improvement, and some who want to overthrow capitalism by Tuesday. Why not read them all and decide what works for you? Have fun.
Understanding Where They Are Coming From
To help the reader find what they might be interested in I have sought to plot the books. I have plotted them by a) date on the X-axis (some are getting a bit old), c) the level of detail they use using size of the square, and c) the amount of change the authors envisage in the way business needs to be conducted.
There are text-based methods you can analyze books, (see here) and using these plot them relatively objectively. I haven’t done that, a) because I don’t have rights-free texts to analyze, b) I wanted to use my own judgment, and c) it seemed like unnecessarily hard work. As such, I’ve plotted them based upon my own personal assessment. (Message me if you disagree). I hope the mapping is informative.
Sustainable Business Reading List
B Corp Handbook
Ryan Honeyman & Tiffany Jana, The B Corp Handbook: How You Can Use Business as a Force for Good. Advice for B Corp. Second edition adds more on societal issues. Tone is probably not for everyone as it can be quite “US Progressive”. https://neilbendle.com/dont-expect-perfect-go-for-better/
Bad Bananas
Mike Berners-Lee, How Bad Are Bananas? The carbon footprint of everything. Less famous Berners-Lee brother looks at various different products and what impact they have on climate change. A bit dated and numbers depend upon where you live but it has lots of detail on the contribution of items we buy. Should help people make better choices. https://neilbendle.com/measuring-impact-on-climate/
Better Business
Christopher Marquis, Better Business How the B Corp Movement is Remaking Capitalism. Describes the B Corp movement with lots of useful examples of stakeholder-focused companies. https://neilbendle.com/certification-and-better-business/ https://neilbendle.com/the-marketing-of-better-business/
Climate Disaster
Bill Gates, How to Avoid a Climate Disaster: The Solutions We Have And The Breakthroughs We Need. A practical and clear outline of where we are on climate change and what we can do to make this better. Can we trade in Musk or Bezos and get another Bill Gates? https://neilbendle.com/planning-for-sustainability/
Decarbonization Imperative
Michael Lenox & Rebecca Duff, The Decarbonization Imperative: Transforming the Global Economy By 2050. Very practical and detailed look at various ways different industries can get to net zero. https://neilbendle.com/the-path-to-2050/
Doughnut Economics
Kate Raworth, Doughnut Economics: Seven Ways to Think Like A 21st Century Economist. This suggests the need to ‘reinvent’ economics to focus on achieving basic social conditions for everyone while not putting excessive strain on the planet. https://neilbendle.com/working-in-the-doughnut/
Drawdown
Paul Hawken (and team), Drawdown: The Most Comprehensive Plan Ever Proposed to Reverse Global Warming. Paul Hawken led a team to analyze how we could get to carbon neutrality. It has excellent detail on solutions that can be implemented as well as some more random bits. Getting older now so you should also go to Project Drawdown for updates. https://neilbendle.com/comprehensive-guide-to-drawdown-solutions/
Ecology Of Commerce
Paul Hawken, The Ecology of Commerce Revised Edition: A Declaration of Sustainability. early book on sustainable business, author comes across as a tad grumpy. https://neilbendle.com/building-allies-for-sustainability/
Factfulness
Hans Rosling, Ola Rosling, & Anna Rosling Ronnlund, Factfulness: Ten Reasons We’re Wrong About the World- And Why Things Are Better Than You Think. Highlights human achievements, especially in health. Must read, and also go to their Gapminder Institute for more. https://neilbendle.com/a-positive-view-of-the-world-using-facts/
Green Swans
John Elkington, Green Swans: The Coming Boom in Regenerative Capitalism. Inventor of Triple Bottom Line gives a vision of business dramatically changing for better. https://neilbendle.com/profound-market-shifts-towards-sustainability/
Green to Gold
Daniel C. Esty and Andrew Winston, Green to Gold: How Smart Companies Use Environmental Strategy to Innovate, Create Value, and Build Competitive Advantage. Helpful and hopeful view of how business can be commercially successful through green initiatives. Bit dated which makes it seem (massively) overly generous to some businesses. https://neilbendle.com/environmental-strategy-and-competitive-advantage/
Grow The Pie
Alex Edmans, Grow the Pie: How Great Companies Deliver Both Purpose and Profit. A finance professor discusses the idea of win-wins, we can all do well together. https://neilbendle.com/using-a-pie-growing-mindset/ and https://neilbendle.com/three-principles-to-guide-decision-making/
Less Is More
Jason Hickel, Less Is More: How Degrowth Will Save the World. I’m not a fan, but he is popular with some people for mysterious reasons. A book about degrowth. https://neilbendle.com/sustainability-and-grand-historical-sweeps/, https://neilbendle.com/messaging-about-sustainability/, and https://neilbendle.com/modern-business-and-sustainability
LIFT Economy
LIFT Economy Team, The Next Economy MBA: Redesigning Business for the Benefit of All Life. Overview of business and how it could be better. Bit too few numbers for a mini-MBA to my mind. https://neilbendle.com/a-new-type-of-mba/
Mid Course Correction
Ray Anderson & John A. Lanier, Mid-Course Correction Revisited: The Story and Legacy of a Radical Industrialist and his Quest for Authentic Change. CEO of Interface Carpets (and local hero at Georgia Tech) writes on how he transformed his company to be more environmentally conscious. https://neilbendle.com/environmental-impact-equation/
More From Less
Andrew McAfee, More from Less: The Surprising Story of How We Learned to Prosper Using Fewer Resources—and What Happens Next. Positive view of where society is going. Sees capitalism as a key part of future success. https://neilbendle.com/are-only-stupid-people-positive/
Net Positive
Paul Polman & Andrew Winston Net Positive: How Courageous Companies Thrive By Giving More Than They Take Business memoir that gives a philosophy of how a big company can be a force for good https://neilbendle.com/net-positive-business/ https://neilbendle.com/managing-for-stakeholders/
Not End of World
Hannah Ritchie, Not The End of the World: How We Can Be the First Generation to Build a Sustainable Planet. The lead researcher at (the brilliant) Our World in Data website attempts to use data to counter the idea that we are doomed while still arguing we need to take more action. https://neilbendle.com/how-to-make-the-world-better/ https://neilbendle.com/denial-doom-or-informed-optimism/
Power Of And
R. Edward Freeman, Kirsten E. Martin, and Bidhan L. Parmar, The Power of And: Responsible Business Without Trade-Offs. Explains how stakeholder thinking can help avoid tradeoff thinking and so business can be better for all. https://neilbendle.com/benefiting-owners-and-much-more/
Responsible Company
Yvon Chouinard & Vincent Stanley, The Responsible Company: What We’ve Learned From Patagonia’s First 40 Years. Patagonia founder discusses his business lessons. After all, this is the company you really need to know in the sustainable business field. https://neilbendle.com/the-responsible-company/
The Profiteers
Christopher Marquis, The Profiteers: How Business Privatizes Profits and Socializes Costs. Revisits some of his Better Business book, and describes challenges with externalities and bad business practices. https://neilbendle.com/negative-externalities-reduce-public-welfare/
The Upcycle
William McDonough & Michael Braungart, The Upcycle: Beyond Sustainability—Designing for Abundance. Discusses how to change the design of products and systems to avoid waste https://neilbendle.com/eliminating-the-concept-of-waste/
Woke Inc.
Vivek Ramaswamy, Woke, Inc.: Inside Corporate America’s Social Justice Scam. A politician’s book argueing that Woke (not well defined) is a menace to society and businesses must not pay attention to non-owner stakeholders. https://neilbendle.com/woke-as-a-magical-term/ and https://neilbendle.com/stakeholder-management-as-a-threat/
