SLM Bookshelf
A wealth of recent books, CD-ROMs, and DVDs are helping sustainability-minded business leaders stay current and get inspired. Here's what's on our shelf right now. Scroll to browse, or search by title:
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
Ants, Galileo, and Gandhi: Designing the Future of Business Through Nature, Genius, and Compassion
By Sissel Waage (ed.)
With contributions from Ray Anderson, Gretchen Daily, Karl-Henrik Robèrt, Alois Flatz, Allen White, and many more, this book illustrates sustainability-inspired business efforts are considering new ways to address human needs and desires. The book is divided into five sections to present a set of theories emerging about sustainability and its application to: business strategy and operations; financial-sector practices; accountability and reporting drivers; and organizational change pathways. More »
Architecture to Zucchini: The People, Companies, and Organizations Pioneering Sustainability
This DVD focuses on practical ways to merge economic, social, health and environmental considerations while building a successful business and sparking regional economic development. Segments include Norm Thompson, The Collins Companies, ShoreBank Pacific, New Seasons Market, Stahlbush Island Farms, Hot Lips Pizza, Zenger Farm, Barrs & Genauer Construction, Ecotrust, Sustainable Northwest, Second Nature/Education for Sustainability West, and Oregon Natural Step Network. More »
Buying for the Future: Contract Management and the Environmental Challenge
By Kevin Lyons
Supported by WWF this vital new book demonstrates how to make environmentally sound purchasing decisions. Drawing on his experience as the head of purchasing for a major American university, Kevin Lyons offers a practical guide to responsible purchasing. Working for a university with a population of 60,000 Lyons faced the challenge of how to reduce damage to the environment while still meeting the needs of this community. More »
Cause for Success: 10 Companies That Put Profit Second and Came in First
By Christine Arena
From Hewlett-Packard to British Petroleum to Stonyfield Farms and The Body Shop, Cause For Success profiles two case-study companies per chapter, exploring ideas such as philanthropy partnerships, ethics-driven businesses, how companies are serving the world's poor, bottom-line advantages of standing for social justice, as well as how some of the worst corporate citizens have become some of the best. More »
The Clean Tech Revolution: The Next Big Growth and Investment Opportunity
By Ron Pernick and Clint Wilder
An excellent overview of the significant drivers, ongoing developments, and potential breakthroughs in the realm of a multitude of "clean technology" sectors, including solar, wind, grid management, green buildings, biofuels, water filtration, transportation. In each chapter, in addition to the trends and recent developments, the authors identify the key players, key challenges for that technology to become mainstream, and then hypothesises on the potential breakthroughs related to that field, and which companies are in best position to achieve that. More »
Competitive Environmental Strategy: A Guide to the Changing Business Landscape
By Andrew J. Hoffman
This book examines the effects of environmentalism on corporate management, explaining how and why environmental forces are driving change and how business managers can think about environmental issues in a strategic way. Includes a wealth of real-world examples that demonstrate the validity and applicability of the concepts for business people, clearly showing how managers are turning an understanding of environmental issues to competitive advantage. More »
Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things
By William McDonough & Michael Braungart
McDonough and Braungart argue that the conflict between industry and the environment is not an indictment of commerce but an outgrowth of purely opportunistic design. Cradle to Cradle maps the lineaments of McDonough and Braungart's new design paradigm, offering practical steps on how to innovate within today's economic environment. More »
Dancing with the Tiger: Learning Sustainability Step by Natural Step
By Brian Nattrass and Mary Altomare
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 case studies of the most successful companies and communities in North America, including Starbucks, Nike, and CH2MHill. More »
Earth in the Balance: Ecology and the Human Spirit
By Al Gore
The former vice president has come out hard for climate-awareness issues in the wake of his best-selling book on the topic. Earth in the Balance is arranged into three sections: the first describes the plagues; the second looks at how we got ourselves into this mess; and the final chapters present ways out. More »
Eco-Efficiency: The Business Link to Sustainable Development
By Livio D. DeSimone and Frank Popoff
This book outlines the principles of eco-efficiency and presents case studies of their application from a number of international companies, including 3M and the Dow Chemical Company. It also discusses the value of partnerships with other companies, business associations, communities, regulators, and environmental and other nongovernmental groups. More »
Ethical Markets: Growing the Green Economy
By Hazel Henderson and Simran Sethi
Economist Henderson delivers an optimistic overview of socially responsible, environmentally sensitive businesses, investors, and visionaries. Keeping an eye on the "triple bottom line" that adds "people" and "planet" to the usual focus on "profits," the book divides "cleaner, greener, more ethical and more female sectors of our U.S. economy" into three areas: lifestyles of health and sustainability, socially responsible investing and corporate social responsibility. More »
Faith and Fortune: The Quiet Revolution to Reform American Business
By Marc Gunther
Faith and Fortune argues that an exciting new model of conducting business is taking hold, not only in small, socially responsible companies like Ben & Jerrys but inside such bulwarks of the Fortune 500 as Ford, Citigroup, and DuPont. At once realistic and inspiring, Faith and Fortune profiles companies and people who represent the best of business and exemplify these new values. More »
Green Marketing: Opportunity for Innovation
Hailed as definitive text on the subject by the American Marketing Association, this groundbreaking book written by the pioneer in green marketing will tell you what you need to know to develop and market products to the growing legions of environmentally conscious consumers. More »
Green to Gold
By Daniel C. Esty and Andrew S. Winston
Based on the authors' years of experience and hundreds of interviews with corporate leaders around the world, Green to Gold shows how companies generate lasting value, cutting costs, reducing risk, increasing revenues, and creating strong brands, by building environmental thinking into their business strategies. More »
Greener Manufacturing and Operations
By Joseph Sarkis (ed.)
Captures state-of-the-art and future practices in environmental manufacturing and operations practices and issues in one concise volume. More »
Greening the Supply Chain
By Joseph Sarkis (ed.)
Written by a diverse set of international authors, this book covers a broad variety of topics and perspectives, including: the principles of green supply chain management; empirical studies of industries throughout Asia, Europe, and North America; quantitative and analytical tools to aid in environmental supply chain development; and case studies of green supply chain practices which describe the complexities facing organizations, supply chains, and industries and how they address these environmental concerns. More »
Harvard Business Review on Business and the Environment
The venerable university offers this compilation of the latest management thinking on the role of the environment in business. More descriptive than prescriptive, it offers a general management perspective that will help outline the critical environmental issues your organization may face. More »
Lean and Green: Profit for Your Workplace and the Environment
By Pamela Gordon
Lean and Green demonstrates how organizations are taking environmental steps and profiting from them. No longer will managers think they have to choose between doing the right thing for the planet and doing well in business; this book gives hundreds of examples at well-known organizations including Sony, IBM, Apple Computer, Intel, and Louisiana-Pacific in which a lean and successful operation comes from making green decisions. More »
Marketing That Matters: 10 Practices to Profit Your Business and Change the World
By Chip Conley and Eric Friedenwald-Fishman
Award-winning marketers Chip Conley and Eric Friedenwald-Fishman offer a thorough and practical guide to selling what you do, without selling out who you are. Using real-life examples from Patagonia, General Mills, Clif Bar, and many other companies, Marketing That Matters shows how to define your company's mission, goals, and potential audience in ways that are flexible, creative, and true to your organization's core values. More »
Natural Capitalism: Creating the Next Industrial Revolution
By Paul Hawken, Amory Lovins, and L. Hunter Lovins
In this seminal sustainability book, three leading business visionaries explain how the world is on the verge of a new industrial revolution one in which business and environmental interests increasingly overlap, and in which businesses can better satisfy their customers' needs, increase profits, and help solve environmental problems all at the same time. More »
The Natural Step for Business: Wealth, Ecology, and the Evolutionary Corporation
By Brian Nattrass and Mary Altomare
This book 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 methodology as a central part of their corporate strategy. While a bit dated (it was published in 1999), the book describes themes and approaches that are surprisingly relevant today. More »
Profits with Principles: Seven Strategies for Delivering Value with Values
By Ira A. Jackson and Jane Nelson
The companies profiled in Profits with Principles including Starbucks, Citigroup, Alcoa, General Motors, General Electric, Dupont, and Dell come from different industries and have implemented different strategies to build trust and gain a competitive advantage. What they share, however, are basic operating principles of making values integral to the way they do business. Authors Ira A. Jackson and Jane Nelson show the quantifiable and enduring business advantage to doing the right thing. More »
Raising the Bar: Integrity and Passion in Life and Business
By Gary Erickson
Raising the Bar tells the amazing story of Clif Bar's Gary Erickson and shows that some things are more important than money. Gary Erickson and coauthor Lois Lorentzen tell the unusual and inspiring story about following your passion, the freedom to create, sustaining a business over the long haul, and living responsibly in your community and on the earth. Raising the Bar chronicles Clif Bar's ascent from a homemade energy bar to a $100 million phenomenon with an estimated 35 million consumers, and a company hailed by Inc. magazine as one of the fastest-growing private companies in the U.S. four years in a row. More »
A Strategic Approach to the Environmentally Sustainable Business
By Hiroshi Fukushi
The objective of traditional business strategy is to maximize profit but, with real imagination and a fresh approach to business strategies, environmental sustainability can actually increase both annual profit and long term shareholder value. This booklet analyzes several examples of such strategies, not only for companies operating in a capitalist economy, but also for companies based in countries that retain a traditional economy. More »
The Sustainability Advantage: Seven Business Case Benefits of a Triple Bottom Line
By Bob Willard
Written in the pragmatic language of business leaders by a senior executive at Big Blue, The Sustainability Advantage shows that the business benefits of sustainable development strategies are quantifiable and real. Each of the seven sustainability strategies presented in this practical guide are easy to grasp, yet powerful enough to lead to significant business opportunities, from reducing hiring and retention costs and improving productivity, to decreasing expenses and increasing revenue and shareholder value. More »
Thousand Shades of Green: Sustainable Strategies for Competitive Advantage
By Peter Winsemius and Ulrich Guntram
A Thousand Shades of Green is aimed at business leaders in need of a clear understanding of the key corporate environmental challenges and the insight and vision to meet them, with the promise of genuine competitive advantage for their companies. Drawing on their extensive consultancy experience with some of the most progressive companies around the world, the authors examine why and how businesses must confront the rapidly developing agenda set by environmental constraints and social and regulatory pressure. More »
The Triple Bottom Line: How Today's Best-Run Companies are Achieving Economic, Social, and Environmental Success And How You Can Too
By Andy Savitz
The Triple Bottom Line charts the rise of sustainability within the business world and shows how and why financial success increasingly goes hand in hand with social and environmental achievement. Andrew Savitz chronicles both the real problems that companies face and the innovative solutions that can come from sustainability. His is a hard-line approach to bottom-line fundamentals that is re-making companies around the globe. More »
True to Yourself: Leading a Values-Based Business
By Mark Albion
Many leaders of small businesses want to serve the common good, but everyday pressures can make that extremely difficult. Arguing that small-business leaders that look beyond the bottom-line are not only more fulfilled, but also more successful, author Mark Albion shows how by embodying competence, commitment, and compassion any small businessperson can lead more effectively. A series of five best practices forms the basis of a full plan to that shows readers how to bring the three C's to their business. business on track. More »
Values-Driven Business: How to Change the World, Make Money, and Have Fun
By Ben Cohen and Mal Warwick
Ben & Jerry's co-founder Ben Cohen and Social Venture Network chair Mal Warwick team up to provide you with a way to run your business for profit and personal satisfaction. This practical, down-to-earth book details every step in the process of creating and managing a business that will reflect your personal values, not force you to hide them. More »
Worldchanging: A Users' Guide for the 21st Century
A groundbreaking compendium of the most innovative solutions, ideas, and inventions emerging today for building a sustainable, livable, prosperous future. From consumer consciousness to a new vision for industry; non-toxic homes to refugee shelters; microfinance to effective philanthropy; socially responsible investing to starting a green business; citizen media to human rights; ecological economics to climate change, this is the most comprehensive, cutting-edge overview to date of what's possible in the near future if we decide to make it so. More »
