Beyond Sustainability Reporting
Beyond Sustainability Reporting

Author: Gerald Trites

Publisher: Business Expert Press

Published: 2020-10-05

Total Pages: 196

ISBN-13: 1637426194

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How to Convert Sustainability Disclosure into Action New standards such as those of the International Sustainability Standards Board and new regulations from the Securities and Exchange Commission are challenging companies to increase and improve their disclosure on what they are doing to support sustainability for their Environmental, Social and Governance activities. Companies are responding by changing their controls and procedures to include sustainability processes. But is this enough? For companies that truly want to help with sustainability issues, the answer is no. What is needed is the more action-oriented approach laid out in this book, which: Enables modifying the corporate strategic plans to include real sustainability actions. Makes use of the skills developed in providing sustainability disclosures, such as integrated thinking. Includes proper adoption of recognized standards for control procedures recognized by regulatory authorities. Adapts traditional management change tools, such as SWOT and the Porter Five Forces Model to include sustainability. Shows how to move the company from sustainability disclosure to integrated thinking to Corporate Social Responsibility. Beyond Sustainability Reporting: Integrated Thinking and Corporate Social Responsibility is a must-read for any company wanting to make a strong contribution to sustainability issues, for educators who wish to teach sustainability issues and how to manage them, and for anyone interested in knowing how companies can develop a strong and successful action-oriented program for sustainability.

Beyond Sustainability
Beyond Sustainability

Author: Tim Delaney

Publisher: McFarland

Published: 2021-06-30

Total Pages: 309

ISBN-13: 1476644292

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This book approaches environmentalism via two academic disciplines, sociology and philosophy. Both have concerns about the environment's ability not only to sustain itself but to thrive. The authors argue that rather than simple sustainability, we must promote thrivability for the sake of protecting the environment and all living things. In this greatly expanded second edition, the authors have updated data and examples, introduced new topics and concepts, and emphasized the need to lessen our dependence on fossil fuels. Numerous topics are explored, from the differences between sustainability and thrivability, and the overuse of plastic, to mass extinction, the role of natural disasters and more. The Covid-19 pandemic offers an added perspective on the relationship between disease and the environment.

Thriving Beyond Sustainability
Thriving Beyond Sustainability

Author: Andres R. Edwards

Publisher: New Society Publishers

Published: 2010-05-01

Total Pages: 241

ISBN-13: 1550924508

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Every fifteen seconds on our Earth, a child dies from waterborne disease. Three times an hour, another species becomes extinct. Each day we consume eighty-five million barrels of oil and pump twenty-three million tons of carbon dioxide into an already warming atmosphere. But against this bleak backdrop, beacons of hope shine from thousands of large and small initiatives taking place everywhere from isolated villages to major urban centers. Thriving Beyond Sustainability draws a collective map of individuals, organizations, and communities from around the world that are committed to building an alternative future—one that strives to restore ecological health; reinvent outmoded institutions; and rejuvenate our environmental, social, and economic systems. The projects and initiatives profiled are meeting the challenges of the day with optimism, hope, and results, leading the way in: Relocalization Green commerce Ecological design Environmental conservation Social transformation Overflowing with inspiration, the stories and ideas in these pages will cause the most chronic pessimist to see the glass as half full—to move beyond a perception of surviving with scarcity to one of flourishing with abundance. The comprehensive resource section provides the tools for everyone to become a catalyst for change. Andres R. Edwards is the author of The Sustainability Revolution, which has sold over twenty thousand copies. He is an educator, media designer, LEED-accredited green building and sustainability consultant, and the founder of EduTracks, a firm specializing in developing education programs and providing consulting services on sustainable practices.

The Upcycle
The Upcycle

Author: William McDonough

Publisher: Macmillan

Published: 2013-04-16

Total Pages: 258

ISBN-13: 0865477485

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From the authors "Cradle to Cradle," the next step, in how society must change the way it uses resources. Drawing on the lessons gained from 10 years of using the cradle-to-cradle concept, McDonough and Braungart envision the next step in the solution to our ecological crisis.

Beyond the Triple Bottom Line
Beyond the Triple Bottom Line

Author: Francisco Szekely

Publisher: MIT Press

Published: 2024-08-06

Total Pages: 245

ISBN-13: 0262552809

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A pragmatic new business model for sustainability that outlines eight steps that range from exploring a mission to promoting innovation; with case studies. Many recent books make the case for businesses to become more sustainable, but few explain the specifics. In this book, Francisco Szekely and Zahir Dossa offer a pragmatic new business model for sustainability that extends beyond the traditional framework of the triple bottom line, describing eight steps that range from exploring a vision and establishing a strategy to implementing the strategy and promoting innovation. Szekely and Dossa argue that businesses and organizations need to move away from the business case for sustainability toward a sustainable business model. That is, businesses should go beyond the usual short-term focus on minimizing harm while maximizing profits. Instead, businesses on the path to sustainability should, from the start, focus on addressing a societal need and view profitability not as an end but as a means to support the sustainable organization. Szekely and Dossa explore key problems organizations face when pursuing a sustainability agenda. Each chapter presents one of the eight steps, describes a business dilemma for sustainability, provides a theoretically grounded strategic framework, offers case studies that illustrate the dilemma, and summarizes key findings; the case studies draw on the experiences of such companies as Tesla Motors, Patagonia, TOMs, and Panera. The book emphasizes leadership, arguing that leaders who question the status quo, inspire others, and take risks are essential for achieving sustainable business practices.

Beyond Sustainability
Beyond Sustainability

Author: Tushar Mittal

Publisher:

Published: 2020-11-12

Total Pages: 108

ISBN-13:

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This book makes a humble attempt in taking the discussion on sustainability and architecture forward in an effort to push the dialog beyond the jargon of 'green building'. The speed and scale of sustainable theories are not enough at this stage when the World needs immediate course correction for the increasing carbon footprint and depletion of natural resources. In Beyond Sustainability- moving towards regenerative architecture, Tushar Mittal, explores the subject of 'Regenerative Architecture' discussing the principles, the process and the toolkit that takes the architecture towards net positive. To make this big shift happen, the book suggests to change our perspective, which is provided in the book with a framework that can be readily applied on any upcoming project. It is the promise of author to the readers that the book is not talking in 'future' or about architecture of the future but to sort out the present for brighter future. This book will be of interest to citizens, students, early career scholars, established researchers and practitioners studying sustainability in the built environment. It can be used as a reference to those in the fields of design, architecture, landscape and urban design, urban studies, geography, social sciences, and engineering. Illustrated with photographs and analysis of three different genre of architecture typology, this book will hopefully set a stage for discussion on regenerative architecture. Happy Reading !

Corporate Sustainability Management
Corporate Sustainability Management

Author: Mark W. McElroy

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2012-05-23

Total Pages: 258

ISBN-13: 1136329617

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Businesses around the world are increasingly turning to an exciting new branch of management known as corporate sustainability management (CSM) to help them better understand and manage their non-financial performance. Indeed, what we are witnessing is nothing less than the birth of a new management function. The main pillar of CSM is the Triple Bottom Line (TBL), which has been successful as an organizing principle but a disappointment in practice. This is largely due to the absence of 'sustainability context' in related measurement, management and reporting efforts, when for example the monitoring of a company's use of freshwater resources fails to take into account the size of related supplies. This book is the first to introduce a systematic means of including context in sustainability management and doing effective CSM. After making the case for why context matters, the book explains how to do context-based CSM by providing a stepwise, cyclical blueprint for how to practice it in any organization. This includes a template for context-based metrics compatible with the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), as well as specific examples of metrics for each of the triple bottom lines. Practical examples of best practices are presented throughout, while simultaneously addressing key issues, such as how organizations can measure performance against context-based standards when consensus for such standards does not yet exist. Appendices include tools for developing and applying context-based metrics, as well as case studies taken from the practice of context-based CSM at two companies in the United States. This guide is the essential tool for business and organizational leaders in all sectors committed to improving their sustainability performance, with a particular emphasis on measurement, management and reporting.

Rethinking Corporate Sustainability in the Era of Climate Crisis
Rethinking Corporate Sustainability in the Era of Climate Crisis

Author: Raz Godelnik

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2021-06-26

Total Pages: 163

ISBN-13: 3030773183

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This book provides a clear, critical, and timely analysis of the state of corporate sustainability within the context of the climate crisis. It offers not only a substantive critique of the current efforts but also clarity about the changes needed and how to implement them. The book goes beyond the more common debate on shareholder capitalism vs. stakeholder capitalism to explain the shortcomings of the current approach to sustainability in business, which the author describes as sustainability-as-usual. Using strategic design lenses, the author proposes a new model of awakened sustainability, which offers a transformational shift in corporate sustainability to ensure companies fairly and effectively address the climate crisis. The book presents the numerous changes needed in the environment in which companies operate to enable awakened sustainability and how these changes can be realized. Grounded in the scientific community’s calls for urgent action on climate change, this groundbreaking text provides scholars with an evaluation of current and future trends in corporate sustainability. It connects the dots between the progress made in the last five decades and the opportunities entailed in the work on a regenerative and just vision for companies in this decade and beyond.

Beyond Growth
Beyond Growth

Author: Herman E. Daly

Publisher: Beacon Press

Published: 2014-09-30

Total Pages: 265

ISBN-13: 0807047066

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"Daly is turning economics inside out by putting the earth and its diminishing natural resources at the center of the field . . . a kind of reverse Copernican revolution in economics." --Utne Reader "Considered by most to be the dean of ecological economics, Herman E. Daly elegantly topples many shibboleths in Beyond Growth. Daly challenges the conventional notion that growth is always good, and he bucks environmentalist orthodoxy, arguing that the current focus on 'sustainable development' is misguided and that the phrase itself has become meaningless." --Mother Jones "In Beyond Growth, . . . [Daly] derides the concept of 'sustainable growth' as an oxymoron. . . . Calling Mr. Daly 'an unsung hero,' Robert Goodland, the World Bank's top environmental adviser, says, 'He has been a voice crying in the wilderness.'" --G. Pascal Zachary, The Wall Street Journal "A new book by that most far-seeing and heretical of economists, Herman Daly. For 25 years now, Daly has been thinking through a new economics that accounts for the wealth of nature, the value of community and the necessity for morality." --Donella H. Meadows, Los Angeles Times "For clarity of vision and ecological wisdom Herman Daly has no peer among contemporary economists. . . . Beyond Growth is essential reading." --David W. Orr, Oberlin College "There is no more basic ethical question than the one Herman Daly is asking." --Hal Kahn, The San Jose Mercury News "Daly's critiques of economic orthodoxy . . . deliver a powerful and much-needed jolt to conventional thinking." --Karen Pennar, Business Week Named one of a hundred "visionaries who could change your life" by the Utne Reader,Herman Daly is the recipient of many awards, including a Grawemeyer Award, the Heineken Prize for environmental science, and the "Alternative Nobel Prize," the Right Livelihood Award. He is professor at the University of Maryland's School of Public Affairs, and coauthor with John Cobb, Jr., of For the Common Good.

Beyond GDP
Beyond GDP

Author: Marc Fleurbaey

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2013-04-11

Total Pages: 395

ISBN-13: 0199346917

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In spite of recurrent criticism and an impressive production of alternative indicators by scholars and NGOs, GDP remains the central indicator of countries' success. This book revisits the foundations of indicators of social welfare, and critically examines the four main alternatives to GDP that have been proposed: composite indicators, subjective well-being indexes, capabilities (the underlying philosophy of the Human Development Index), and equivalent incomes. Its provocative thesis is that the problem with GDP is not that it uses a monetary metric but that it focuses on a narrow set of aspects of individual lives. It is actually possible to build an alternative, more comprehensive, monetary indicator that takes income as its first benchmark and adds or subtracts corrections that represent the benefit or cost of non-market aspects of individual lives. Such a measure can respect the values and preferences of the people and give as much weight as they do to the non-market dimensions. A further provocative idea is that, in contrast, most of the currently available alternative indicators, including subjective well-being indexes, are not as respectful of people's values because, like GDP, they are too narrow and give specific weights to the various dimensions of life in a more uniform way, without taking account of the diversity of views on life in the population. The popular attraction that such alternative indicators derive from being non-monetary is therefore based on equivocation. Moreover, it is argued in this book that "greening" GDP and relative indicators is not the proper way to incorporate sustainability concerns. Sustainability involves predicting possible future paths, therefore different indicators than those assessing the current situation. While various indicators have been popular (adjusted net savings, ecological footprint), none of them involves the necessary forecasting effort that a proper evaluation of possible futures requires.