Books

Understanding of Sustainability in practice and theory

This book combines the academic and practical experience from a collection of authors. The content has been used, tested and refined over many iterations, and now serves as a primary resource for academic courses and programmes around the world. Any student or practitioner looking for more clarity on how to strategically plan and act towards sustainability in a structured, scientific, and collaborative manner will find value inside.

Because of the generic nature of the Framework for Strategic Sustainable Development, it can be useful for any discipline, from engineering, to product-service innovation, to business management, to urban and regional planning, and beyond.

The book contains:
PART 1 Core Concepts of Strategic Sustainable Development
PART 2 A Closer Look at the FSSD
PART 3 Related Disciplines
PART 4 Additional Resources

The New Sustainability Advantage shows how the benefits of the "triple bottom line" can increase a typical company's profit by at least 51 to 81% within five years, depending on the company's size and industry sector, while avoiding risks that could jeopardize its financial wellbeing.

Fully revised and updated, this 10th anniversary edition clearly demonstrates that, by focusing on seven powerful yet easy-to-grasp sustainability strategies, businesses can:

• Increase revenue
• Improve productivity
• Reduce expenses
• Decrease risks

Expressed in clear business language and presented in an appealing, graphically rich format, this practical guide and the accompanying online Sustainability Advantage Simulator Dashboard enables executives to enter their own data and quickly identify high-leverage benefit areas for their organization. More detailed downloadable Sustainability Advantage Simulator Worksheets help them drill down into specific areas of interest and fine-tune the assumptions to their specific situation.

An indispensable tool for both sustainability champions and senior management, The New Sustainability Advantage proves that the quantified business case for sustainability is more compelling than ever before.

About the Author

Bob Willard gave up an award-winning, successful career in senior management at IBM to devote himself full-time to building corporate commitment to sustainability. Widely in demand as a speaker, he has delivered hundreds of presentations demonstrating the business case for sustainability to companies, consultants, academics and NGOs world-wide. Bob is the author of The Sustainability Champion's Guidebook, The Next Sustainability Wave, (and the original edition of The Sustainability Advantage). He was recently appointed an inaugural member of the Sustainability Hall of Fame by the International Society of Sustainability Professionals. Learn more at www.sustainabilityadvantage.com.

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It may be unlikely that a Swedish karate champion, family man, and cancer scientist could be at the center of developing a systems approach to life on Earth that could revolutionize the way humans operate in the world, but this is the story of just that: the idea and the man behind it.

As a cancer specialist, Karl-Henrik Robèrt faced a stream of parents who would sacrifice anything to save their children. Yet that same selflessness did not seem to extend to saving the environment, as debate on how to achieve sustainability was divided, with no agreement on universal principles. But Robèrt's experience convinced him that consensus on how to meet the most basic requirements of life should be possible.

Thus began a long process of consultation among scientists and others that eventually led to the definition of four system conditions essential for the maintenance of life on Earth: conditions that have now been agreed upon world-wide and encapsulated as The Natural Step Framework for Strategic Sustainable Development. Supported by the King of Sweden, Robèrt's original ideas were mailed to every household in Sweden. Exported around the world, they were elaborated, refined, and eventually adopted by companies like IKEA and McDonald's, and business leaders such as Ray Anderson, CEO of US carpet company Interface, and Paul Hawken, successful entrepreneur and author who later headed The Natural Step USA.

Dramatic, visionary, and inspiring, The Natural Step Story will appeal to all with a passion for sustainability including business leaders, academics, journalists, activists, and students.

About Dr. Karl-Henrik Robèrt

An internationally recognized thought leader on sustainable development, Dr. Karl-Henrik Robèrt is the Founder of The Natural Step, a global network of non-governmental organizations that lead change toward a sustainable and prosperous economy. He has successfully nurtured what began as a grassroots effort in Sweden into an international movement that has spread to 18 countries and engaged thousands of people in hundreds of organizations worldwide.

Dr. Robèrt is also a Fellow of the World Business Academy, an advisory board member at the Georgia Institute of Technology, a Doctor of Public Service at the University of Portland, a professor of sustainability at the Blekinge Institute of Technology, and a member of the EU Roundtable on Sustainability. In 2004, Dr. Robèrt launched a Masters program in Sweden on strategic leadership toward sustainability, which graduates 75 international students each year. He currently serves as Chairman of the Alliance for Strategic Sustainable Development, an international research program that recruits university, private, and public sector partners around the globe to apply The Natural Step’s Framework for Strategic Sustainable Development to key research issues.

In 1999, Dr. Robèrt won the Green Cross Award for International Leadership and, in 2000, he won the Blue Planet Prize, often considered the ‘Nobel Prize’ for ecological sustainability. In 2009, he was given the prestigious honour of being named an Ashoka Fellow.

Dr. Robèrt has made a global impact in promoting and implementing sustainability. The author of several books and dozens of scientific articles, he is a world-class speaker, teacher, scientist, social entrepreneur, and leading thinker on the root causes of the global sustainability challenges we face today.

After decades of food delivered by industrial agriculture based on cheap oil, we are learning the health costs to our own bodies and the biosphere are too great. A revolution in food – where, how, and when it’s grown is now sweeping urban centres. Read this book to see why it matters and how we can do it.

—David Suzuki, Co-Founder, David Suzuki Foundation

Our reliance on industrial agriculture has resulted in a food supply riddled with hidden environmental, economic and health care costs and beset by rising food prices. With only a handful of corporations responsible for the lion’s share of the food on our supermarket shelves, we are incredibly vulnerable to supply chain disruption.

The Urban Food Revolution provides a recipe for community food security based on leading innovations across North America. The author draws on his political and business experience to show that we have all the necessary ingredients to ensure that local, fresh sustainable food is affordable and widely available. He describes how cities are bringing food production home by:

• Growing community through neighborhood gardening, cooking and composting programs
• Rebuilding local food processing, storage and distribution systems
• Investing in farmers markets and community supported agriculture
• Reducing obesity through local fresh food initiatives in schools, colleges and universities
• Ending inner-city food deserts

Producing food locally makes people healthier, alleviates poverty, creates jobs, and makes cities safer and more beautiful. The Urban Food Revolution is an essential resource for anyone who has lost confidence in the global industrial food system and wants practical advice on how to join the local food revolution.

Peter Ladner has served two terms as a Vancouver City Councilor. With more than 35 years of journalistic experience, he is a frequent speaker on community issues and has a special interest in the intersection of food policy and city planning. He is also Vice-Chair of The Natural Step Canada's Board of Directors.

Bob Willard, a long-time supporter, partner and board member of The Natural Step, has published a new book - The Sustainability Champion’s Guidebook: How to Transform your Company. The book is available now from New Society Publishers in both print and as an ebook.

Bob is an expert on leadership, culture change, and organisational development and author of two previous books - The Sustainability Advantage and The Next Sustainability Wave. These first volumes made a compelling business case for embracing sustainability. His latest book details lessons learned about cultural transformation and provides guidance on how to imbed sustainability into corporate cultures.

This practical, easy-to-follow guidebook helps sustainability champions at any level in a company lead a transformation to a smarter, more successful, and more sustainable enterprise. The Sustainability Champion’s Guidebook outlines the transformational steps to take, tips and techniques to use, and derailers to avoid.

More information about Bob Willard, his books, and his other resources for sustainability champions is available at www.sustainabilityadvantage.com.
 

What others are saying:

Bob Willard has written a stunning compilation of experience-based wisdom: his and that of other leaders who have done real things to work towards organizational change and sustainability in business. The Sustainability Champion's Guidebook is spot on for all levels of an organization, from high-level vision right down to individual, personal behavior. Read this book to jump-start or speed your journey to a better future.
― Ray Anderson, Founder and Chairman, Interface Inc., and author of Mid-Course Correction

If you don’t understand the big system on which your own organization is dependent, you are probably not a leader. To step up to leadership requires competence rather than a change of values. Most people would like more skills on managing innovation, mitigating risk, and community building to address the dominant unsustainability challenges of our time.  Bob Willard doesn’t turn to those who still haven’t got it but to those who need to know how to get on with it ― from envisioning to structuring, through elegant transition processes, all in an easy-to-get hands-on manual.  It’s the best out there.
― Karl-Henrik Robèrt, Founder of The Natural Step and author of The Natural Step Story

If everyone in the word lived as most North Americans do, we would need five planets to support us. SuN LIVING demonstrates a practical approach to creating sustainable neighbourhoods. This beautifully illustrated, full colour guide shows how a collaborative planning and design process can produce dynamic, livable communities which support lifestyles that minimize our ecological impact.

SuN LIVING is an inclusive methodology that can be used in planning, designing, and implementing a sustainable neighbourhood. It is a five-step process that links broad concepts of sustainable development and sustainable living to detailed neighbourhood-scale design decisions.

About the Contributors:

Wil Mayhew developed the sustainable neighbourhood (SuN) process and is the sustainability coordinator for  Natural Resources Canada's first SuN Pilot Project, the Emerald Hills Urban Village in Strathcona County, Alberta. His company, Howell-Mayhew Engineering, specializes in sustainable housing technology, renewable energy systems and a one planet living approach to neighbourhood development.

Elisa Campbell is the Director of the Design Centre for Sustainability at the University of British Columbia, a group which develops and applies knowledge, tools and processes that facilitate the integration of sustainability concepts into our cities and communities. A LEED accredited professional, she works with designers, developers, and government agencies to implement green buildings and sustainable communities.

In this book, David Cook tells the story of the evolution of The Natural Step organisation from its start in Sweden to the present day.  Whilst the fundamentals of TNS remain the same, it has responded to the ever-evolving sustainability debate.  Based upon science and systems-thinking, the basic components of the TNS framework are laid out in the text. 

The Natural Step for Business examines how four very successful "evolutionary" corporations in Sweden and the United States - including IKEA and Scandic Hotels in Sweden, and Collins Pine and Interface in the U.S. - are positioning themselves for long-term competitiveness using The Natural Step as a central part of their corporate strategy. Nattrass and Altomare puncture the myth that a company must choose between profitability and care for the natural environment, and present a timely and practical application of this exciting model for global sustainability.

Making social and ecological change happen is not easy. At both the planetary and organizational levels, it is a dance that is fraught with danger for both the change agents themselves and their organizations. It is like dancing with a tiger.

For corporations, communities and other organizations, the choreography of the dance toward sustainability has been systematized by The Natural Step: a framework that provides the science, analysis, methodologies and tools to use in the quest for sustainability. Dancing with the Tiger presents the stories of individuals, teams and organizations learning about change and sustainability, and then acting on that learning. Case studies include some of the most successful companies and communities in North America:

• Nike: its struggles, victories and setbacks on the road to sustainability
• Starbucks: the tension of modeling corporate responsibility with alarming growth
• CH2MHill: its gradual evolution from environmental to sustainability engineering
• Whistler: grappling with the paradox of sustainability in a high profile resort town
• as well as Home Depot, Norm Thomson Outfitters, the municipalities of Seattle and Santa Monica, and others.

Following on the success of The Natural Step for Business, this book takes a deeper look at the real business impacts of sustainability. It will be of special interest to business people, government officials, and students of business, organizational development and the environment.

Sustainability may seem like one more buzzword, and cities and towns like the last places to change, but The Natural Step for Communities provides inspiring examples of communities that have made dramatic changes toward sustainability, and explains how others can emulate their success.

Chronicled in the book are towns like Övertorneå, whose government operations recently became 100 per cent fossil fuel-free, demonstrating that unsustainable municipal practices really can be overhauled. Arguing that the process of introducing change -- whether converting to renewable energy or designing compact development -- is critical to success, the authors outline why well-intentioned proposals often fail to win community approval, and why an integrated approach -- not "single-issue" initiatives -- can surmount challenges of conflicting priorities, scarce resources, and turf battles.

The book first clarifies the concept of sustainability, offering guiding principles -- the Natural Step framework -- that help identify sustainable action in any area. It then introduces the sixty-plus eco-municipalities of Sweden that have adopted changes to sustainable practices throughout municipal policies and operations. The third section explains how they did it, and outlines how other communities in North America and elsewhere can do the same. Key to success is a democratic "bottom-up" change process, and clear guiding sustainability principles such as the Natural Step framework.

The book will appeal to both general readers wishing to understand better what sustainability means and practitioners interested in introducing or expanding sustainable development in their communities.