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,…
Category: Management Theory
Benefit Corporation Versus B Corp
There are two related terms for coporations that are seeking to do good in addition to doing well. Both terms often apply to such corporations but this isn’t always the case. As such, it is useful to distinguish between them. So lets look at Benefit Corporation Versus B Corp. B Corp A B Corp is…
Eliminating The Concept Of Waste
In their book Cradle to Cradle, sustainability writers William (Bill) McDonough and Michael Braungart argued that we should be thinking not in terms of Cradle to Grave — birth to death — for products. Instead, we should be thinking of reuse. Their second book along those lines, Upcycle, goes further. Their basic argument is that…
Just Say No
Vanessa Patrick is a marketing professor at the University of Houston. She used to be at the University of Georgia, where I now am, but that was before my time. (One of her stories in her book, The Power of Saying No, does involve an Athens, Georgia restaurant. The restaurant was meaty, so not really…
The Path To 2050
How can the world get to carbon neutral by 2050? This is the date the Paris Agreement specified for getting away from the activities that produce greenhouse gasses (see here). Many would argue that that the Paris agreement was not ambitious enough. Still, we don’t currently have a clear plan to reach carbon neutral by…
Zero Sum Thinking
Heather McGhee has a popular book on the problem of zero sum thinking. Her specific focus is on racism in the US. The argument is quite simple. Racism prevents policies that would benefit everyone. Zero Sum Thinking People often have a tendency to think of the world as having a fixed amount of a certain…
Epidemiological Transition
A second post on Angus Deaton’s The Great Escape. Here I discuss the epidemiological transition that he notes. There is a general movement in the way disease tends to afflict a country (and indeed across the whole world). The problems of disease, what the diseases are, and who they target, have a distinct pattern. Epidemiological…
Escape From Poverty And Disease
Angus Deaton, a famous economist, has a book, The Great Escape. This outlines humanity’s escape from poverty and disease. He outlines the progress that we, collectively, have made and gives his thoughts on what needs to be done. The Great Escape The title of the book is well chosen. It probably works better if you…
Comprehensive Guide To Drawdown Solutions
Drawdown is a New York Times Bestseller and you can see why. The book, by a large team led by Paul Hawken, has a profusion of detail on ways that the impacts of climate change can be alleviated and ultimately reversed. It provides a guide to drawdown solutions. The book gives an optimistic view of…
Must Firms Maximize Shareholder Value?
What is the purpose of a firm? Given we have so many firms and business schools are such a sizable chunk of many universities, you might think that we all agree what firms are for. You would be wrong. There is a surprising amount of disagreement as to the purpose of firms. What are they…
