Jeremy Caradonna wrote a history of sustainability in his book, Sustainability. (I read the revised edition from 2022). This work draws linkages from early ideas of sustainability and looks at where we are now. Things have moved forward, and back, on the sustainability front. There is some interesting history. As someone who lives in Georgia,…
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The History of Reporting on Brands
Roger Sinclair shows the value of experience when he surveys the history of reporting on brands. (Roger made a large number of contributions to the field of marketing accountability. I had the honor of presenting Roger’s family with the Blair Award for Marketing Accountability at the 2019 MASB Summit see here). When Firm’s Reported Their Brands…
Changing Marketing To Be Sustainable
Sustainability requires changes on several fronts. In business changes to supply chains are an obvious area to address. Marketing is another discipline with a key role in creating a more sustainable future. This is not least because it can help persuade towards both sustainable and unsustainable behavior. So how might we go about changing marketing…
Helping Experts Perform Consistently
I have recently read Atul Gawande’s The Checklist Manifesto. It is a few years old now (2009) but it still has a lot to say about the way the world works as well as Gawande’s aim of helping experts perform consistently. Do Experts Really Need Checklists? Gawande is a doctor and his main area of…
Corporate Social Responsibility
Managers at firms have a long history of seeing their role as more than just making money for their owners. Indeed, many business owners don’t just see business as only a source of profits. One way of discussing the obligations of firms is to discuss Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). Today I’m looking at a history…
Roots Of Unsustainability
A major paper in the history of sustainability is Lynn White Jr’s The Historical Roots of Our Ecological Crisis. This sought to describe the roots of unsustainability. His conclusion zeroed in on religion — specifically Western Christianity — as the culprit. Start By Putting Off The Reader Academic writing has changed a lot in the…
Change For The Better
A new year post about change for the better. Finton O’Toole tells a personal history of Ireland. This starts with his birth in 1958 and goes to the present. He is an excellent writer and there is a lot of interesting information. In this post I’ll just look at the core themes of his country…
The Pope And The Climate Crisis
In October 2023 a new letter was added to the discussion around what we should be doing to protect the environment. The author had spoken on the topic before so in many ways it wasn’t a surprise. Still, the text is very useful and has potential to reach people who don’t always pay attention to…
Population As A Disaster
Paul Ehrlich wrote The Population Bomb in 1968. I read a version printed in 1988 which had a 1978 update. It is a gloomy book that makes bold claims of famine and crises. There have certainly been problems in the last 55 years but nothing like Ehrlich predicted. It is an over-the-top book written by…
People Aren’t Getting Worse
Ever since I was in secondary school (high school in US terms) I have thought it is bizarre that people think that humans are getting worse. Adam Mastroianni and Dan Gilbert wrote a paper in Nature on this phenomenon which they call The Illusion of Moral Decline. In many ways, they have written the paper…
