5 comments about The Consumer's Guide to Effective Environmental Choices: Practical Advice from the Union of Concerned Scientists.

1. This short and practical guide tells us how we can make a difference in protecting our environment...and also tells us what behaviors do not.
   
   It sheds a lot of insight on the topic, while also dispelling lots of myths concerning different options and choices available to today's consumer (paper or plastic?, cloth or disposable?, etc., etc.)



2. This was purchased as a gift for someone who is very interested in the health of our environment. It is a good book for those who share that interest.



3. Impeccably researched, well-referenced, and very convincing. This book will convince the shrewdest skeptics. It focuses on high-impact habits, and doesn't harp on the little tiny details that don't make a big difference. A fantastic book; true to its title!



4. I do agree that it is often important to look at the bigger picture of things. This book helps the reader to focus on the big contributors of environmental damage. However, I disagree on number of things that the the authors claim that people should not be highly concerned about.
   
   The first one is "...by remembering the small weight of many consumer products, you can reduce your guilt and anxiety levels dramatically. Light non-toxic products, such as plastic trash bags, paper napkins, and leather wallets, do not deserve to be high priorities for environmental concern." (pg. 126) If plastic bags are not of high environmental concern, then why do countries like Ireland, Taiwan, and some cities in the US either outright ban or tax the use of plastic bags at grocery and convenience stores? Is it because of the excessive use of these petroleum-based goods (the US alone uses 100 billion plastic shopping bags annually) is creating a problem in landfills, our cities and the ocean?
   
   I also love they way they make us feel so smug about using spray cans, stating that "Most spray cans currently rely on hydrocarbons such as methane, ethane, propane, cyclopropane, butane, and cyclopentane. They do not contribute to ozone depletion, have low toxicity, and have relatively LITTLE impact on global warming given the small quantities in a spray can. You should not feel embarrassed or guilty to SPRAY AWAY." (pg. 135) Please Wikipedia some of the gases mentioned above and perhaps you'll read about it's greenhouse gas effects and toxicity levels.
   
   On page 133 they write "The throwaway drinking cup has become a powerful symbol of America's wasteful, polluting society. Nevertheless, it is not a major sin against the environment to use an occasional paper or plastic cup....of course, you don't want to be wasteful, but a few dozen, or even a COUPLE HUNDRED, disposable cups a year will have relatively little environmental impact." Let's see, a couple hundred cups a year multiplied by 300 million Americans = a HUGE impact to the environment, especially when there are things we can do to not rely so much on disposables like carry your own mug to Starbucks!!!
   
   These are just a few of a number of outrageous claims from the Union of Concerned Scientists that are presented in this book. I don't think this book is entirely worthless. But please use some common sense when taking in their advice.



5. The goals of this book are admirable, but the authors (on behalf of the Union of Concerned Scientists) fail to deliver a truly practical message. Brower and Leon constructed a pretty impressive quantitative methodology to measure the true environmental impacts of a wide variety of consumer activities. But while the numbers are impressive, the authors transformed them into confusing and contradictory recommendations for the concerned citizen. The authors certainly found that some consumer behaviors that seem to be harmful to the environment, such as buying the occasional over-packaged grocery item, are not worth worrying about so much (taken individually) when you crunch the numbers. This is the authors' overall message - look at the numbers to determine which consumer behaviors actually harm the environment the most, and which can be worried about a little less by the conscientious citizen. But the problem is that the recommendations lose their focus and bleed into a very inconsistent message for the reader.
   
   Regardless of whether the one Styrofoam cup I use today has a quantitatively small impact on the environment, I'm not buying the authors' contention that I shouldn't worry because it's just one cup amongst billions of tons of waste produced by business and industry. Maybe so, but things add up, and if many people care a little, then even the authors' quantitative methods would detect the long-term benefits. This book is docked an additional star for the epilogue about the history of American consumerism (written by a third author), which is fairly interesting but reads like the literature review for a graduate student thesis. This epilogue is filler at best and not consistent with the general themes of the rest of the book. On the good side, the extensive bibliography, though outdated, offers a plethora of books and websites that would probably tackle the matter of environmental consumerism better than this book does. [~doomssdayer520~]

3 comments about The Plan: How to Rescue Society the Day the Oil Stops--or the Day Before.

1. Edwin Black, already an award-winning journalist and investigator for his previous books such as "IBM and the Holocaust" and "War Against the Weak", deserves an award for national service for producing his latest work "The Plan: How to Save America the Day After the Oil Stops--or Perhaps the Day Before." This book should shake up all Americans, and their political establishment, to wake up and take notice of the United States' peril. America has become dependent on foreign countries to feed its oil addiction.
   
   Do Senators McCain and Obama have a Plan of their own to address the ramifications of a shortfall in supplies of petroleum to the US? Have they considered the potential chaos that would ensue in the US if the purveyors of oil come up short?
   
   Edwin Black has certainly done his homework in accessing government documents, anonymous sources, and government websites. Just one of the possibilities Black points out is that should there be a military strike in the Strait of Hormuz near Iran, the US would have to tap its Strategic Petroleum Reserve immediately. Within days, America would have to beg its allies to supply its oil habit. Given that President George W. Bush was unable to secure additional oil production from supposed-ally Saudi Arabia this year, it should be clear to most that the situation begs a solution.
   
   Black is able to suggest a Plan to break the habit of oil consumption through a program that includes retrofitting vehicles and tapping into alternative sources of energy that will free Americans from dependence on countries such as Venezuela and Iran, which have made clear their geopolitical enmity towards the U.S. His latest book, The Plan, is alarming but should move Americans - and the current presidential election - towards discussing how technologies currently available and in development can be harnessed to free their country and start what could promise to be another Industrial Revolution.



2. There are many books urging us to get off oil--for all the known reasons--and touting all the many alternative energy possibilities. But no one else but Edwin Black has shown the guts and common sense to say America must ground the gas guzzlers, period. Or to call the automakers bluff and force them to make and market fuel efficient cars. According to Black they can do it, the technology has been available for a hundred years. Certainly, we got the wake-up call more than 30 years ago. What happened? The Plan explains what happened, why our government, auto and oil industry didn't do the right thing back then, and aren't doing it now either, despite the fact that our oil addiction is bankrupting our country and enriching enemies who want to destroy us and take us over. Getting off oil is not just an energy issue, or an environmental issue, it's a security issue. Furthermore, adopting measures called for in The Plan, such as new alternative energy and retrofitting industries, will jump start our economy. Let's hope this book falls into powerful hands. It lays out a step by step plan to save our society. We just need leadership as gutsy as this plan.



3. Edwin Black opens the conversation we as Americans need to be having yesterday. There is no time to put off addressing the fact that our transportation $$$$ are going to countries who shout "Death to America!!". The only way for the US to remain a leader in the free world is to be free from the corrupting influence that being beholden for fuel causes. Buy the book.
   
   I especially like the FASA, (Foriegn Agents Security Act) being applied to energy lobbyists, but I think it runs short. I say apply it to ALL lobbyists! Buy the book.
   
   Invest in America. Buy two of these books. Keep one for yourself, (to lend out after reading), and send the other to your congressperson. If they get enough copies maybe they'll get the message. Wouldn't it be great if they started receiving 5 copies a day? 10 copies a day? 100 copies a day?!???!!! Then start emailing them and calling, inquiring if they received your copy. Buy the book.
   
   With the car-makers coming to congress hat-in-hand looking for a bailout, now is the time, (Nov 2008), to make them build more efficient vehicles. A plug-in hybrid that runs on CNG, (compressed natural gas), is EXISTING technology. If you add solar power to a house, the cost of driving a car goes to a penny a mile! (or close enough.)
   
   Nothing, and I mean nothing, is more vital to the United States right now than energy independence, period. Our children's future rides on it. Buy the book.

No comments about When Giants Fall: An Economic Roadmap for the End of the American Era.

5 comments about Big Coal: The Dirty Secret Behind America's Energy Future.

1. I think the main thing I took away from this book is not that the coal industry can't be trusted (it can't), and not that they destroy the environment (they do); it's that we should not fall for the public relations hype that wants to position coal as "the answer" to future oil shortages. In the near future, the coal industry will start a massive publicity campaign to let Americans know that "clean coal" is the energy solution for the next 200 years in our country. Don't believe it, coal is even dirtier and more harmful to your lungs than oil. Read this book to be informed on a subject of vital importance to our country.



2. I read this book along with two others "Color of Oil" and "The clean-tech revolution" to update my energy knowledge. This was clearly the best book of the lot - meticulously researched and well-written. Enough that it tightened my own behaviors: turning off lights were possible, using natural light if an option exists etc. etc.
   
   [See my brief reviews for the other two books as well]



3. The book gives an all around view of the coal mining industry, it sheds light on the political, social and economical forces that drive the industry. The industry can be seen from the miners, mine executives, land owners, and railroads points of view. Overall an interesting read.



4. There are currently many books out there on peak oil, or energy concerns in general. However, probably not many people have read up on coal which is an old technology that's having a resurgence of sorts. This book does a nice job of filling in the gaps and talking not only about the pollution issues with coal, but also about supply and demand and what the coal industry is like in the US. I was surprised to find out how much power the railroads have, and how poorly-paid and unprotected the coal miners are. The impression I came away with is that the coal industry is a massively powerful voice in our society and is able to use that power to benefit itself, often against the good of the country. We will probably continue to hear more and more talk about clean coal technology in the near future. Anyone who wants to have some decent beginning knowledge of what's behind coal might enjoy reading this book.



5. Is the earth about ready to ecologically bite the big one via coal-caused global warming, or is this whole thing blown out of proportion? I don't know; but I think we should play it safe and listen to Jeff Goodell. I might not agree with his liberal politics, but I do respect the study he has done on `Big Coal', which is full of fascinating and scary stats and observations. According to Goodell, each American indirectly causes 20 tons of CO2 to spew out into the air each year! Also, the U.S. is known as the `Saudi Arabia of Coal', containing fully a quarter of the earth's coal supply, and consuming over a billion tons a year! Some coal trains are a mile-long! The last nuclear plant went on-line over 30 years ago because of the problem of what to do with nuclear waste.
   
   He says the earth's ecology is at the tipping point of some serious global warming because of `Big Coal'. He says that we've already raised the average temperature one degree farenheit and are well on the way to a 3.5 degrees increase which will start a catastrophic series of events in nature that we don't even want to think about. He says that it would overall, society-wide, be cheaper to clean-up the coal emissions rather than pay for the health problems the dirty air causes.
   
   The strange thing is that the coal issue is not even talked about very much, probably because most of us are so far removed from coal excavation or plants. Goodell said he had not even seen a piece of coal until he was 41 (presumably while writing this book.). By the way, I used to see coal as a kid because we had a coal furnace, but haven't seen any since. You could see lumps in the street also.
   
   All of this reminds me a little of Y2K. Nobody got excited about it until it was almost too late. Then there was a all-out (and successful) effort to avert massive computer problems.
   
   Now I think it's time to do something about the coal situation before it is too late. Is Goodell an alarmist or a realist? I hope he's only the former, but fear he is also the latter.

5 comments about Beyond Growth: The Economics of Sustainable Development.

1. Don't miss reading this book! When I read conventional economics, I constantly find myself asking why most economists use such ridiculous assumptions. Herman Daly's book tells why, and gives a start of what to do about it. Mr. Daly's work convinced me that economics will soon be undergoing a revolution like that of physics in the time of Einstein. As a patent attorney with a biochemistry degree, I can tell you that Mr. Daly is right on the money when he discusses the importance to humanity's future of discarding GNP as an economic measure. If you didn't realize before that understanding entropy is essential to economics, Mr. Daly will tell you. There is plenty of other great stuff here, too.
   I don't agree with all of Mr. Daly's points. One of his major themes is that being truly concerned about the environment and the future of humanity requires reverence for the Earth as God's creation. Since I am an atheist, and I am very concerned about the environment and the future of humanity, I find this viewpoint a little hard to swallow. Don't let that stop you from reading this great book, though.



2. I can't say enough about how moved I was by this book. Having worked in a corporate setting for a number of years, I have wondered how growth can always be the goal of business and how the world can keep expanding and still accommodate everyone's needs. Herman Daly breaks down the problems with economic growth and how fraudulent it is for measuring economic health. Daly advocates sustainable development from a number of economic and social angles. His explanations become abstract at times, but he effectively challenges established economic thinking and offers alternatives.
   
   Without recognition of physical ecological parameters, economic growth as we know it, including GNP, does not measure economic reality. The concept met with opposition from economists at the World Bank where Mr. Daly once worked (as of the mid-1990s when this book was written). The book starts with a passionate rebuttal to the World Bank and their "preanalytic vision" that the economy operates separately from the environment. In the remainder of the book his frustration is aimed more broadly at neoclassical western economists for ignoring the environment and the laws of thermodynamics. A great example is not accounting for environmental costs during the "throughput" process where products go from raw material to final waste.
   
   I learned how important size or "scale" of macroeconomics is, but not accounted for even though it is surpassing the "carrying capacity" of our planet. Daly refutes modern developments such as an "information economy," to replace depleted resources. Also, lack of natural materials can't be substituted with efficiency: "One cannot substitute efficient cause for material cause--one cannot build the same wooden house with half the timber no matter how many saws and carpenters one tries to substitute," (p. 76).
   
   Globalization, Daly argues, opposes the goal of sustainable development as does free trade, overpopulation, and inequality, all of which are closely analyzed. Globalization and free trade came across to me as particularly harmful because they limit a nation's ability to protect its people, culture, and environment. Daly recommends "maximum wage" to limit inequality. Justification for this concept uses biblical references in a religious-based section, which might seem inappropriate for an economics book, but I found the points made important and well presented.
   
   His solutions for change have the goal of creating a "steady state" economy. With such an economy, humans are able to live on the earth and use amounts of the resources that can be maintained indefinitely. This difficult goal includes principles that may seem radical like population control and limiting inequality. But accounting for our environmental costs in our economy is not radical; it's common sense.
   
   I appreciate the perspective the book takes because it proves that the loss of natural resources isn't just anti-ecological, but also anti-economical. Probably one of the most important books I've ever read.



3. this book is good enough to get a good view of how SD is going and should go. Though much has changed since this book has been published. Globalization has taken SD in directions that were not previously predicted.



4. This book is well worth reading for Daly's explanation of "ecological economics." Rather than looking at the economy as a system existing in a vacuum, where an infinite amount of exchanges are possible to create an infinite amount of economic growth--as neo-classical economists believe--Daly places the economy within the physical environment. This environment of course is a place of limits: limits on raw materials and limits on places to store pollution. Thus, Daly shows that the economy must observe limits too.
   
   Common sense, right? Yet, our whole economy is premised on the opposite idea, that we can just keep growing forever. Think of compound interest and then move on from there and you get the idea of how pervasive growth is in our economic mindset today. Offering an alternative is what makes Daly's theory radical.
   
   But the bonus in the book comes at the very end, where Daly offers economics (rightly understood with limits) as the intermediary between the physical world and religious belief. The latter, Daly believes, is necessary to offer humans the inspiration we need to radically change our current society and save our species. Some parts of the text are rough going, but if you're not an economist you can skim them to get to Daly's truly novel integration of heart and head.



5. I've read a *lot* of economics books in recent years, some good, some not. But Daly's is really in a class by itself for seeing the big picture and explaining it clearly: traditional economics is broken. Neoclassical economics today is like high energy physics: all the trusty laws that held so true in normal energy physics, or 19th and 20th century economies, mysteriously start to fail us. I love the simple, yet compelling logic of Daly's insight: take the existing neoclassical model of economics--the circular flow of income between households and firms--and then draw a box around it, to acknowledge that the world is of finite size. Once you do that, analyze however you wish...the recognition of a finite world leads inexorably to the notion of an optimum size for the national and global economy. I like how Daly uses tools from mainstream economics to make the point: we all remember from Microeconomics that every firm has an optimal size, based on the size of the overall economy. Economics has the notion of limits to growth embedded already, we just need collectively to apply that logic without flinching.
   
   Something that impressed me was how Daly in 1997 used his intellectual model to forecast the concentration of asset ownership in the U.S., with the consequence of increasing class disparity and declining real wages for the middle class. That would have seemed like outlandish poppycock in the mid-90s, but now in 2007, lo and behold, it's coming to pass (per the CIA and the Economic Policy Institute, and BLS.gov statistics) for all the reasons Daly outlined 10 years ago. The man is onto something, and policymakers would do well to listen to him.
   
   Even better, I think, is that reading between the lines of Daly's book there is a real and believable message of hope. The world of the future that acknowledges limits, and embraces development over growth (think "quality" not "quantity" of the economy as the goal) is a better place than the world we live in today. Instead of the world becoming a planetary Los Angeles or Hong Kong, where life is crowded, expensive, polluted and mean, what I took away from Daly's book was a clear intellectual architecture for a world that is beautiful, full of possibilities for interesting life work, and full of hope and things to look forward to. I sincerely hope that Daly's vision helps shape the world my daughter grows up in.

5 comments about Stirring It Up: How to Make Money and Save the World.

1. Historically and at present, every school curriculum, be it at regular school or college level stresses the importance of getting and spending, about materialism, about maximizing profits and return on investment, all with good intention, but nowhere are we thought about living in harmony with nature, about sustainability and preservation of the environment, every class in business emphasis maximum profit, but not one of them
   teaches us about the impact to the environment and at what cost it is to Mother Nature.
   We are taught about making short term profits but not about the long term impact to the environment, this practice is going to cause untold misery and suffering for future generations.
   We as custodians of the environment, nature, the animal and plant world, supposedly of a higher intelligence are suppose to safeguard and protect it, but we are all guilty of abusing it.
   Industrialization and modernization has certainly given us a more comfortable lifestyle, but at what price? As a species, we human beings have consumed, exploited, and destroyed more of the earth's resources in the past fifty years than all of the previous years human existence combined.
   Besides the reduction of carbon emissions and finding alternative energy sources, one of the other solutions is to change textbooks to factor in climate and environmental issues into the business equation, as well as to change our mindsets as to how we impact the environment in our daily lives.
   No other news item, activity or event is going to dominate our lives in the future more than Global Warming, the climate and the environment.
   If we don't reverse this trend or stop it, generations of people in the future will be facing a life of hardship and suffering to difficult to fathom, for a preview of this view the movies "Mad Max" and "Waterworld".
   
   Hirshberg has proven that businees can work in harmony with nature and still make profit, this book should be read by the CEO's of all companies so that they can drive the changes from the top, like what Lee Scott of Walmart is doing. Let's hope that Hirshberg's predictions for the year 2028 will materialize (chapter 8). The Green Revoluion has to start now, or else it may be to late, history will be the judge.
   
   A Great Read, highly recommended!
   
   Bharat Vala Patel
   Lenasia, SA
   Cincinnati, US



2. Gary Hirshberg is the CE-Yo (I'm not making that up) of Stonyfield Farms where they make great yogurt. I love it because it's good. It is also organic. For me, the yogurt eater, that is mostly irrelevant.
   
   Hirshberg titled his book, Stirring It Up: How to Make Money and Save the World. The subtitle should be a clue that there are two kinds of material in this book.
   
   There are the places where Hirshberg writes as if he's trying to pass some sort of environmentalist purity test. These are mostly long expository sections that may be of great interest to you. If so, read them. I found them stupifyingly boring most of the time.
   
   If you're reading this as a business book, you may be tempted to write Gary Hirshberg off as a nut case. But consider the following.
   
   His company makes a great product. The only limit on his production is the number of organically certified cows he can get to supply his farm and meet his standards. And his company makes a lot of money. That's why you want to pay attention to the other parts of the book.
   
   The other parts of the book are where Hirshberg tells the story of his business and several other businesses including Timberlake and Patagonia. He tells about how Wal-Mart is making "environmentally friendly" changes to its operations because those changes are good business.
   
   Those were the parts of interest to me. They are written in a less formal style. They are mostly stories. And there are a lot of lessons in them about business, business practices, and what both successful businesses and Mother Nature might have to teach us about them.
   
   Here's an overview of the book.
   
   The first chapter, Natural Profits, begins with the simple, but profound, observation that nature does not produce waste. When nature is functioning naturally, everything thrown off by one process is used by another. Hirshberg suggests that following that principle with business practices will make things more efficient and, thus, more profitable.
   
   He tells us the story of how he wound up at Stonyfield Farms. There's info on the early stages of the company and how many of his principles about how to live on the planet also helped his company survive and grow. The story of Stonyfield Farms runs through the book.
   
   Mission Control gets us into the mission statement for Hirshberg's company. Frankly, this is as good a chapter on mission statements as I've seen anywhere.
   
   Hirshberg says that a mission statement, in addition to guiding operations, should be simple and enduring. He also points out that Exxon's mission statement at one time only cited "increasing return to shareholders" as a guiding principle and he describes how that informed the company's response to the Exxon Valdez oil spill.
   
   Hirshberg makes the point that if you have only one purpose, as Exxon did, it's relatively easy to make decisions and to be blind to other concerns. But if you have several sub-missions or groups of stakeholders to consider, things get more nuanced. The main story in this chapter is about Patagonia, whose CEO, Yvon Chouinard, says: "Profit is what happens when you do everything else right."
   
   From CO2 to COno is about Stonyfield's efforts to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide. There's excellent material on doing analysis of a problem, seeking solutions and using metrics to gauge success or lack of it. This chapter includes the stories of Timberland, Wal-Mart's recent changes and Adobe's efforts to make its campus carbon neutral. Hirshberg describes cost-saving benefits to the corporations.
   
   Hands Across the Aisle has a lot of excellent material on Hirshberg's marketing methods. In the beginning there was no money for marketing so Stonyfield had to be creative. They were. They also developed the idea of marketing as making a "handshake connection" with everyone. He has important things to say about how the quality of the product is important because that's what gets customers to come back.
   
   The Delicious Revolution includes the story of Honest Tea. In 1998, Seth Goldman left his job at the Calvert Group of "socially responsible" mutual funds to join Barry Nalebuff and found Honest Tea. Nalebuff was Goldman's professor at Yale, where Nalebuff is known as an expert on business strategy and game theory. You may know him for his books such as Co-Opetition : A Revolution Mindset That Combines Competition and Cooperation : The Game Theory Strategy That's Changing the Game of Business and Thinking Strategically: The Competitive Edge in Business, Politics, and Everyday Life.
   
   No Such Place as Away is all about recycling and re-using and planning in ways that leave you with less to transport somewhere else. A lot of this sounds new, but it's not. There was a time when Henry Ford demanded that suppliers of engines for his cars pack their engines in boxes made of boards of a particular size. Ford then took the crates apart and used the wood to make floorboards for his cars.
   
   A real strength of this chapter is the description of Interface Carpet. Interface Carpet is two things. It is the world's largest manufacturer of carpet tiles, a publicly traded company worth almost a billion dollars. It's also a company with a commitment to sustainability.
   
   Nurturing Those Who Nourish the Earth is about Stonyfield's dealing with suppliers. There's good material here about the importance of relationships along the supply chain. Stonyfield Farms may be an "organic" business, but when Hirshberg talks about thinks like marketing and cost analysis, and supply chain relationships, the lessons are solid business.
   
   Future Perfect is Hirshberg's vision of an ideal future. Since it's a true "Utopia" or "nowhere" he feels free to let his inner zealot run free. This chapter is awash in unexamined and unsupported assumptions.
   
   Worse, from my perspective, is that Hirshberg tends to present only his own favored solution or technique. So you don't get any discussion of whether offsets, for example, are actually a good idea or how to make them work better. There are no alternatives in this chapter.
   
   Zealots are often insufferable. Practical zealots have the capacity to change the world. Gary Hirshberg is definitely a zealot, but because he's also both practical and successful, you will find a lot of good business advice in this book.



3. Excellent depiction of what truly environmentally conscious companies and individuals can and should do to help ensure sustainability of our planet for future generations. Stonyfield Farms and their CEO Gary Hirshberg provide an ever improving benchmark for making ecologically-minded decisions while achieving business success. Highly recommended.



4. Very well written, interesting, and more people should start to think
   GREEN, and than hopefully become GREEN



5. You may not be a CEO or working for a large corporation, but if you feel in your soul that you're going to change the world, read this book. It is a very business-oriented book and it also gets into specific business tactics and strategies that are green for the bottom line and the environment. However, reading about the success of Gary Hirshberg's "out-of-the-box" (pardon for the cliche) approach will grease the wheels in your head and inspire you to think bigger and more creatively.
   
   The CE-Yo of Stoneyfield Farm Yogurt shares how he built a hugely successful business by implementing ecologically sound practices. The title sums up the book quite well. If you're already in business and just starting to think about how to be more eco-friendly, Hirshberg presents his solutions in the language of business. It's tactical, factual and straightforward.

5 comments about Green Up Your Cleanup (Green House).

1. This is an excellent book. The author gives a small section on why we should go green, but recognizes that if you are even looking at a book like this you already are aware of most of the reasons. Recipes are given, essential oils are mentioned, but are not absolutely necessary, the author saying at one point "if you miss the smell of lemon in the commercial products". It enthused me to try some essential oils. I will definitely be trying some of these homemade recipes in my cleaning. The author also recognizes that sometimes you have to use commercial products but gives information so that you can make better choices.
   
   Recommended book for anyone who wants to take steps to being more eco friendly in their cleaning.



2. I bought this book with high expectations and tried almost all the recipes. The floor cleaner left my floor sticky and needed additional mopping to remove the "natural" cleaner, the washing machine detergent recipe was so potent it removed dies from dark clothing (i.e. all my husband's office attire), and the automatic dish-washing recipe left a nasty brown film over all my dishes, especially the plastics. Also, the vinegar rinse, and ensuing stench, required to sanitize the bathroom was not a big hit with my family. However, as a previous reviewer noted, the baking soda scrub recipe is very useful and a great way to cut down on cleaning fumes and costs. My recommendation is not to purchase this book but perform an on-line search for better cleaning recipes.



3. My classroom has found this to be a great resource to start many Green projects to help their homes.



4. Revamping and cleaning one's home can take a toll on the environment, but it doesn't need to. "Green Up Your Cleanup" is something for the environmentalist who wants to keep their humble abode in good condition while keeping their carbon footprint small. With tips and advice good for the wallet as well as the Earth, even non-green freaks may find some useful information within. "Green Up Your Cleanup" is chock-full of ideas, and the very book itself is eco-friendly, spiral bound and made of recyclable materials for extra appeal to the inner environmentalist in us all.



5. It is a little preachy but ignore that for the solutions for cleaning are excellent, articles are informative and you will save money while dealing with cleaners that smell good, do not ruin your hands and will not kill your pets.

5 comments about The Triple Bottom Line: How Today's Best-Run Companies Are Achieving Economic, Social and Environmental Success -- and How You Can Too.

1. This book is for interested general consumption rather than a technical practitioners' text book and as such is more than successful in teaching the basics of the triple bottom line. I'm not quite sure why some of the Amazon reviewers seem so testy about this, as the majority of American business management (mid-baby boom and above) never encountered much if anything about corporate responsibility (or ethics) in the curricula they studied on their way up. To consider what that means for concepts like the triple bottom line, pretend that for 25 years today's generation of senior managers had never been told to maximize shareholder value and now in 2007 were expected to internalize the concept and reflexively apply it to everything they do. Particularly from that point of view, Savitz' book is a superb tool to help people become intelligently informed on basic issues of corporate responsibility and sustainability. What individuals do with that is up to that is up to them, but the writing's good, the ideas are clear, the concepts are thought-provoking, and it's the kind of book that drives one to want to learn more. The graphics are particularly useful and uncluttered.



2. Savitz demonstrates the strength of his background by explaining, advocating for and advising on the strategic advantage of sustainability. Along with tons of examples, he clearly explains the rationale for large organizations to embrace sustainability through triple bottom line metrics. he also deals to a large extent with the implicit challenges of this approach--the need for stakeholder buy-in, the shift in organizational culture and some options for managing these areas. The only criticism I have, and it is really somewhat ancillary to his aims, is that the examples and recommendations are very much drawn from the world of the Fortune 50. Most readers are probably dealing with these issues in small businesses, under $50m in revenue. That makes the book less applicable for them--but through extrapolation, they too can benefit. I recommend this to anyone interested in the intersection of business and the world's fate.
   
   Amie Devero, Author of Powered by Principle: Using Core Values to Build World-Class Organizations.



3. If you're truly interested in sustainability do not purchase this book. At best it appears to be intended for use by business and PR peope looking to increase their vocabulary in respect to the subject. At worst it will only add to the confusion, cynicsm and fatigue that results from the perception that sustainability is simply the next management tool. The introduction is very promising but the research and passion for the subject are simply not present. The authors claim that the failure of genetically modified foods to win acceptance was because it got a bad rap in the media. This seems a half hearted attempt at disinformation. It ignores the fact that they have been banned in Europe because they are the very definition of what is not sustainable and contribute directly to the demise of locally grown crops that are being systematically eliminated by companies like Monsanto. The wheels fall off in the chapter on accountability. The authors vain attempt to lequate the robber barons with corporate responsibility fails completely to link past business practices with sustainable practices. The ridiculous assertion that corporate responsibility was extended to worker's rights in the '30s and '40's represents the worst kind of reactionary ahistoricism. This continues with the authors description of laissez-faire capitalism over communism. There was nothing laissez-faire about the Marshall plan or any of government's sonsorship of capitalism during the cold war. The authors spin out of control when they claim that the media is so decentalized as not to allow corporations to control their messages. I'm sure the authors are aware of how few media companies control nearly all media outlets. In the end I had to assume this was simply a puff piece for corporations like Pepsi-Co and DuPont both of whom praise the book on the jacket and are mentioned in the text. DuPont gets extra points for trying not to blow up too many of its employees. If you're interested in hiring a former regulator to advise your company on skirting environmental issues, then buy his book. If not, read Cradle to Cradle for a responsible and nuanced approach to how sustainability is the new entrepreneurship, fueled by actual innovation not the latest gimmick. The only only good part of this purchase was the super savings shipping.



4. I work for a small government agency, so a lot of the production and marketing discussion doesn't apply to us. That being said, this book really makes you think, not just about how your business can be more socially and environmentally responsible, but about the practices of the companies whose products you purchase every day. A good place to start for a company that is serious about taking a hard look at their impact on the world around them.



5. The publisher is correct about this being a groundbreaking book when it was published. It is still excellent and many companies have a long ways to go to be operating to the triple bottom line (economic, social and environmental). Useful for either learning the goal businesses and organizations need to strive for or as a beginning how-to manual on beginning that journey.

5 comments about Making Sustainability Work: Best Practices in Managing and Measuring Corporate Social, Environmental and Economic Impacts (Business).

1. Making Sustainability work does a significant contribution for practitioners on how to put sustainability principles and ideas into practice. We have seen in the past other important contributions about sustainability. The difference regarding this new book is in putting these ideas in a very explicit way; emphasizing on the challenges of integrating sustainability into the business strategy and in the decision-making that encompasses the implementation of successful strategies at the firm level.
   
   The book goes further giving valuable guidelines in practical methodologies on how to measure social and environmental risks and impacts and in the implementation of systems inside the firms for permanently monitoring such impacts. This has been a weakness in some of the literature we have seen in the past. Making Sustainability Work addresses the necessary evaluation of the impacts of sustainability initiatives on the financial performance to correctly assess the convenience of implementing them in terms of the benefits to both, the firm and the stakeholders. Finally, we have in a very amenable reading style, an important guide for practitioners on how to put sustainability principles into practice.



2. This book provides a detailed model that provides guidance on how managers can implement sustainability at their companies. However, it is excellent not only for managers, but also for consumers who want to know what companies are doing or what they should be doing to improve their social and environmental responsibility. It is easy to read and contains many detailed real world examples to help readers understand what corporate sustainability is and how it should work at global companies.



3. If you want a single book on how to make your company sustainable, this is the book for you. Epstein distills the latest and greatest thinking into a sensible and comprehensive program for delivering environmental, social, and financial excellence. You don't need to look further for a guide to retool the machinery of your organization to create value for all stakeholders. Epstein is a renowned expert in the field of managing for sustainable performance. It's amazing how many insights and examples he fits into this easy-to-ready book. A great contribution to the field.



4. Whereas others have argued for why corporations must attend to social issues, Epstein helps us understand how. Epstein provides in-depth, thoughtful analysis that integrates the relevant research in the field about how to more effectively manage corporate social responsibility. He grounds this analysis in extensive examples of companies actively grappling with these issues. In doing so, he provides a manual for both academics and practitioners to understand what we know today about how to manage corporate social responsibility , and provides a set of questions for the issues that we must grapple with tomorrow. This book is a must read for anyone who cares about the success of companies and who cares about the future of our communities and our planet.



5. The challenges and opportunities facing companies today in the area of sustainability are more complex and have greater potential impact than ever before. Making Sustainability Work fulfills an unmet need for senior executives, board members, and managers seeking better ways to manage these challenges and opportunities. In this book, Epstein provides direction and guidance to help corporate leaders integrate sustainability into their daily decisions and to better understand and manage corporate social responsibilities and corporate performance. Making Sustainability Work is an outstanding contribution to the field. This book will be an invaluable resource for senior executives, boards, and managers searching for the best ways to integrate sustainability into their decision making.
   --Mark L. Frigo, Ph.D., CMA, CPA, Director of the Center for Strategy, Execution, and Valuation, Kellstadt Grauate School of Business at DePaul University

5 comments about How The Rich Are Destroying the Earth (Foreword by Greg Palast).

1. Amazingly accurate assessment of an old subject brought back to the forefront by this author. We don't have to search far and long to see that the examples of the ongoing environmental catastrophes given are happening now, right under our noses and presented in plain sight for all to see. It is similar to the industrial revolution after the civil war, then on to the overgrowth and wealth accumulation at the beginning of the 20th century. There is a problem...the planet was at least able to weather the ecological devestations somewhat...now at the current rate the earth along with its people can't keep up nor can it clean itself sufficiently to contain the onslaught.
   
   Old problems coming back to haunt activists on the sidelines are....the greedy gluttons known as the hyper rich reaping billions off the earths pillage, followed by the second tier rich wannabees .... increased poverty and inequality in the first, second, third and fourth world countries....possible shakeups of the global economic system...
   
   In an effort to protect itself , the hyper rich have instituted such safeguards as, blocking journalistic reporting of a perfected nuclear bomb, the B61-11, criminalizing protests of the anti GMO reapers, development of RFID'S, increased usage of prison, and then CONTROL OF THE MEDIA,
   
   And this ones for all the Africans Americans who accuse unjustifiably those activist as being whiners.....There are, data bank catalogs of genetic signatures mainly of blacks, 11.9 % of prisoners of African descent 25-29 years are captured behind bars, state of the emergency testing programs such as those practiced during Katrina and the ghetto riots in France. And anyone at anytime can be on the payroll...(V. Jordan) and (A. Young).
   
   Great comeback, great update and hope that it spurs interests then global action...
   



2. I watch a lot of documentaries and read books on this same theme, so most of what he discusses I was already aware. I thoroughly enjoyed his writing style and appreciated the concise way he got his point across. I think this is the perfect book to give as gifts due to its content and size. It does not take a huge time commitment to read, but gives a wealth of points to consider. Another plus is it would not overwhelm someone you are trying to persuade to see the light of these issues, although some of his wording might insult staunch non-believers such as the Righteous Right. He covers the topics from loss of civil liberties, to the raping of mother earth, and keeping the common man down economically. I think citizens of most of the western countries are realizing the full mess we are in due to greed and careless wastefulness. None of us wants to become third world nations, but at least now we are beginning to understand their plight. Will there be another French Revolution....or perhaps an American one? Change is in the air. Please vote 11/04/08.



3. The entire book is excellent. He makes the point that biosphere limits makes the development of the current on-the-threshold areas impossible along 19th century European and American lines. The interweaving of Veblen's observations of later 19th century robber baron industrial society to today is very interesting. This engine for growth now must be substituted for an engine that decreases material consumption letting go a yearning for more and more.
   
   Following the logic of leadership of desire by the hyper rich on the global middle class the rich must scale back to allow the larger group with the actual planetary consumption gravitas to scale back and lower global material consumption. Kempf sees the world's elites looking to the opulent countries as their standard and as the richest of them all the United States stands brightly lit.
   
   Of course, the explosive fear I had about this book was that it would be awash or subtly hide simple envy. Often comments I hear from Europeans seem to have a lot of envy hiding somewhere in them. But that is not where this book is coming from. You need only to be patient and read the next few pages wherever you are in the text to see that. Excellent and short enough and clearly written enough that it is not a burden to read.
   
   His ideas of future political structures under the war on terror are also very interesting.



4. There are many, many things to be angry about right now with regards to the state of the world. One of the problems with the left in America is that we have a tendency to have our pet causes, and elevate them to the exclusion of all others, as thought what we believe to be important is better than anything else.
   
   Herve Kempf offers up a text that links the destruction of the environment with the extravagance of the wealthiest people in the world, complete with 400-foot-long yachts, private jets, and other exorbitant luxuries. By shattering our tunnel vision about social issues being independent of environmental issues, he shows us how efforts made for the sake of one can be helpful for dealing with the other--and then some.
   
   The biggest weakness of this book is that Kempf gives us a lot of evidence, and a lot of complaining--but not much in the way of actual solutions. The final chapter is a scant four pages, and barely makes a very few vague scratches on the surface of all the grand problems he explores. So while he proposes some valuable connections between causes, he leaves us rather hanging about what to do about it all.



5. Rick Wagoner, current CEO of General Motors, opined in the Wall Street Journal (November 11, 2008) that he didn't think he should be fired. GM stock is the lowest it has been since 1946. The company can't sell its ridiculous cars and trucks because nobody wants these vehicles because everyone on the planet can see that the handwriting is on the wall for these gross, pathetic tubs of personal transportation and the carbon-dioxide-spewing internal combustion engines that power them. Consequently, General Motors will go bankrupt if we, the taxpayers, don't give them billions and billions of dollars of our hard-earned money to bail it out from Mr. Wagoner's and the Board of Directors of GM's supremely destructive and stupid business decisions.
   
   Ten years ago, General Motors had the opportunity to be first in line with an electric car. If they had done so, they'd be sitting pretty. But they killed the car and its technology. Doesn't this seem positively unremittingly ill-advised to you in every way, from failing to be able to read the financial signs--for which business people are paid to do--to continuing to contribute to the degradation of the environment? If you were working for a company as a middle manager and you blew a major project that cost the company so much money that it was going to go bankrupt, wouldn't you be fired? When things are going well, it seems, the people at the top take the credit, but when events turn, everyone and everything else is responsible for that turn except themselves. Too bad we couldn't vote for the president of GM. Mr. Wagoner could then meet Mr. McCain's fate
   
   This may seem like an odd introduction to this excellent, informative, little book by Hervé Kempf, the environmentalist editor for Le Monde. Mr. Kempf never mentions Rick Wagoner, but he would know why the GM honcho gets two paragraphs as an intro here. As Mr. Kempf says without mincing words, the rich--like Mr. Wagoner--are responsible for the pickle in which our planet and its people now find themselves. A small number of human beings--billionaires in America, China , France, India, Canada, Germany, and Saudi Arabia--i.e., the super rich, own the connections and the power; their decisions have put us where we are. Who else is in charge? The poor in Mumbai? The peasants of China? Middle managers? Joe the Plumber?
   
   Make no mistake, this book is not an updated Communist Manifesto. Mr. Hervé goes after the left for its blinkered view as much as he does the right. The left simply cannot drop its old allegiances to strictly social change, thus arguing only for a bigger piece of the pie. The increasing size of pie is ending because the ideology of capitalism, with its linear notion of endless exploitation of our Earth, of greater and greater GNP, is done, finished, over, kaput. Growth is not possible any longer and--this is a key point for Mr. Hervé--it is no longer desirable because growth is destroying our planet. No planet. No us. Quick. You decide.
   
   We are all going to have to take a hit in every way in the coming decades, and for the duration. We must simplify. And whether they like it or not, that hit has to start at the top because the top is where the hit can matter most in terms of freeing resources for the rest of us. But us, too, the lower orders, we must change. No more aping our so-called "betters", no more buying Ford Expeditions so that we can ape the rich with their Hummers. In this regard: Ever heard of Thorstein Veblen? He was an economist who coined the term "conspicuous consumption". Mr. Hervé re-introduces us to him, and a valuable re-introduction it is.
   
   I could go on, but if you read Mr. Hervé, a very nice French intellectual by the way, you will be filled with hope and scared at once. We have maybe ten years to turn the ship around. Maybe eight years. If we don't, we are doomed. No. Seriously. Doomed. It's that clear. The melting of the Arctic is not a plot point in a Disney animation. This slim book helps us to see things as they are. So let us begin with a reading of How the Rich Are Destroying the Earth, and proceed to the firing of Mr. Wagoner, and the refusal to invest one blue cent in GM--unless we as the taxpayers buy it outright and the plant starts to turn out electric cars and makes us a tidy profit so our taxes can be lower. As we should have been doing for the last decade if anyone at the helm had had any foresight. Socialism? Making money is fine, friends, so long as the planet is protected, and we all share. Liberty! Ecology! Fraternity!