There are many fantastic books written on the subject of sustainability and business and although we don't purport to know of all of them (or like them for that matter), here is a selection of our favourites.

Environment, Climate Change and Conservation
Information and Communications Technology
Strategy and Organisational Change
Sustainable Growth

Biomimicry  Benyus, Janine M.
The story of the men and women studying life's best ideas and then imitating these designs and processes to solve human problems.

Already, biomimics are learning to grow food like a prairie, harness energy like a leaf, weave fibers like a spider, compute like a cell, find cures like a chimp, and run a business like a redwood forest. Nature manufactures in water, without toxins, using abundant raw materials and very little energy. Nature banks on the diversity of polycultures rather than the vulnerability of monocultures. Nature computes using shape, not symbols. These and other new ideas will surprise you, and help you brainstorm about ways to not just tweak old paradigms, but to overturn them completely.

More at www.biomimicry.org/

State of the World (published annually)  Brown Lester and WorldWatch Institute
Known as the environmentalists bible, State of the World is an annual publication of the WorldWatch Institute.

From the thinning of the Arctic sea ice to the invasion of the mosquito-borne West Nile virus, State of the World 2001 shows how the economic boom of the last decade has damaged natural systems. The increasingly visible evidence of environmental deterioration is only the tip of a much more dangerous problem: the growing inequities in wealth and income between countries and within countries, inequities that will generate enormous social unrest and pressure for change.

More at www.worldwatch.org

The Heat is On: The Climate Crisis, the Cover-Up, the Prescription  Gelbspan, Ross
Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Ross Gelbspan exposes the machinations of oil and coal companies and conservative politicians to undermine the public confidence in science and thereby defer action against global warming. This riveting expose is a spirited call to action against the corporate disinformation campaign that threatens us all.

The Carbon War : Global Warming and the End of the Oil Era  Leggett, Jeremy K.
While explaining the science behind global warming in a manner easily accessible to the non-specialist, Leggett, originally a petroleum geologist, then a Greenpeace director and now a solar energy entrepreneur, takes us on a whirlwind eight-year personal journey through the world's climate negotiations.

From the first major meeting of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in 1990 through the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992 to the historic Kyoto Climate Summit in 1997, Leggett provides an insider's perspective on the negotiations and many of the key players. As compelling as a good thriller, the book deftly describes the machinations of what Leggett calls "the carbon club" or "the foot soldiers for the fossil-fuel industries." Working behind the scenes, these lobbyists have been successful in stalling and diluting every agreement reached to date. All the while, as Leggett explains, the world warms and climatic disasters increase.

Most readers will find it impossible to doubt the reality of global warming and its likely consequences after reading Leggett's account of the past decade. The book's only fault is that since its warmly received publication two years ago in Great Britain, nothing more than a short epilogue written in February 2000 has been added to update readers.

The Innovator's Dilemma: When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail  Christensen, Clayton M.
What do the Honda Supercub, Intel's 8088 processor, and hydraulic excavators have in common? They are all examples of disruptive technologies that helped to redefine the competitive landscape of their respective markets. These products did not come about as the result of successful companies carrying out sound business practices in established markets. In The Innovator's Dilemma shows how these and other products cut into the low end of the marketplace and eventually evolved to displace high-end competitors and their reigning technologies.

Cluetrain Manifesto: The End of Business as Usual   Locke, Christopher, et al
Thomas A. Stewart who wrote Intellectual Capital says of the Cluetrain Manifesto: "… is brilliant and impossible at the same time. It's magnificently overstated and yet entirely correct: The Web changes the way people and markets meet and work in almost every way, and a remarkably high percentage of companies just don't get it - yet. The Cluetrain Manifesto gets it, and the authors aren't shy about shoving it down our throats". Get past the 'in your face' attitude and you're in for a great read.

More at www.cluetrain.com.

Unleashing the Killer App  Mui, Chunka and Downes, Larry
The New York Times said of Unleashing the Killer App: "... a practical and persuasive guide that focuses on how all businesses, even risk-averse old line organisations, have an opportunity 'not just to survive but to exploit dramatic changes' wrought in their markets by technology."

More at www.killer-apps.com

Information Rules: A Strategic Guide to the Network Economy  Sharpiro, Carl and Varian, Hal R.
Chapter 1 of Information Rules begins with a description of the change brought on by technology at the close of the century--but the century described is not this one, it's the late 1800s. One hundred years ago, it was an emerging telephone and electrical network that was transforming business. Today it's the Internet. The point? While the circumstances of a particular era may be unique, the underlying principles that describe the exchange of goods in a free-market economy are the same. And the authors, Carl Shapiro and Hal Varian, should know. Together they offer a deep knowledge of how economic systems work coupled with first-hand experience of today's network economy.

Built to Last Successful Habits of Visionary Companies   Collins, James C. and Porras, Jerry
This book provides positive proof that successful companies preserve the core purpose and values of the organisation, and change everything else - practices, goals, and strategies - to stay relevant.

The Art of the Long View  Schwartz, Peter
Author and president of an international consulting firm, Peter Schwartz presents lessons in thinking for the future. Schwartz offers scenarios from the oil industry that can be applied to all aspects of life. His first-hand accounts, originally developed for Royal Dutch/Shell, are invaluable tools for creative thinking in one's personal life and in business. Schwartz's methods will enable anyone to think more creatively. These tapes offer lessons not found elsewhere.

The Fifth Discipline   Senge, Peter
Peter Senge is a rock star among management consultants; he's the original change agent.

Ten years ago this mega selling book became a bible for business and launched a worldwide movement promoting humane workplaces, companies built around learning and the language of change.

The Fifth Discipline brings word of "learning organisations," organisations where people continually expand their capacity to create the results they truly desire, where new and expansive patterns of thinking are nurtured, where collective aspiration is set free, and where people are continually learning how to learn together. Five disciplines are described as the means of building learning organisations and case studies are provided to show how the disciplines have worked in particular companies.

Globalisation: The Lexus and The Olive Tree  Friedman, Thomas L.
For anyone that wants to understand globalisation, then Friedman, the Pulitzer Prize-winning foreign affairs columnist for The New York Times, offers an engrossing look at thisnew international system that is transforming world affairs today.

Globalisation has replaced the Cold War system with the integration of capital, technology, and information across national borders - uniting Brazilian peasants, Indonesian entrepreneurs, Chinese villagers, and Silicon Valley technocrats in a single global village. You cannot understand the morning news, know where to invest your money, or think about the future unless you understand this new system, which is profoundly influencing virtually every country in the world today. Friedman tells you what this new electronic global economy is all about and what it will take to live within it.

No Logo: Taking Aim at the Brand Bullies Klein, Naomi
In No Logo, Klein patiently demonstrates, step by step, how brands such as the Gap, McDonalds and Tommy Hilfiger have become ubiquitous, not just in media and on the street but increasingly in the schools as well. The global companies claim to support diversity, but their version of "corporate multiculturalism" is merely intended to create more buying options for consumers. When Klein talks about how easy it is for retailers like Wal-Mart and Blockbuster to "censor" the contents of videotapes and albums, she also considers the role corporate conglomeration plays in the process. How much would one expect Paramount Pictures, for example, to protest against Blockbuster's policies, given that they're both divisions of Viacom?

More at www.nologo.org.

The Unconscious Civilization  Saul, John Ralston
Saul engagingly explains the current woes of democracy, especially in Canada, the US, and Britain. He argues from history and philosophy that the democratic meaning of individualism has been obscured and the importance of economics overemphasized throughout the twentieth century.

With Socrates, he maintains that in a democracy, citizenship is the incumbent duty and government the great responsibility of the individual. Minding one's own business and getting the government off one's back are derelictions of democracy that reflect infatuation with corporatism, the brand of utopianism exemplified by Mussolini's fascism, with its melding of huge business interests and government to achieve the managed society. Privatisation as a remedy for government inefficiency and the conception of individualism as the capacity to purchase consumer goods bespeak corporatism's present power, for both reduce citizenship and place control with managers accountable primarily for the bottom line, not the public good. There are many more compelling--and disquieting--ideas in this exciting, thorough discursive, little book. (Ray Olson)

Thinking Today as if Tomorrow Mattered: The Rise of a Sustainable Consciousness   Adams, John D.
Future oriented thinkers in just about every discipline are voicing concerns about where we are headed as a global society. The emerging consensus seems to be that we have less than 30 years, or until about 2025, to have in place massive changes in how we live on the planet if we are to have any hope of sustainability.

Each of these approaches to teaching us about the challenges looming in the near future seems to be rooted in only a single discipline. When this is the case, only symptoms can be addressed.

This book ambitiously attempts to integrate several disciplines into a broad, systemic perspective and explores the way that we must change both socially and economically in order to secure a more promising future.

It concludes by arguing that we must develop entirely new ways of thinking very soon, if we want to pass on a high quality of life to future generations. More at www.eartheart-ent.com/

Mid-Course Correction: Toward a Sustainable Enterprise: The Interface Model   Anderson, Ray
Ray Anderson is the soft-spoken CEO of Interface, Inc. a carpet company based in Atlanta. Anderson had an epiphany experience when he was asked to speak to a group of his managers about the company's environmental policies. Through serendipity and good fortune, he was given a copy of The Ecology of Commerce, and he felt "the spear in his chest."

In an all-to-rare moment of corporate leadership and responsibility, he decided to turn his near $1 billion company around and become zero-waste, energy efficient (and then energy self-sufficient), and improve the working conditions for all of his 7,000 employees in 40 cities world-wide. The book describes the experience in doing this. More at www.interfaceinc.com/

EcoManagement: The Elmwood Guide to Ecological Auditing and Sustainable Business   Callenbach, Ernest (Editor)
A guide for ecologically responsible businesses from one of the world's leading ecology think tanks, the Elmwood Institute.

This book tells how to do a thorough review of a company's operations from the perspective of deep ecology as opposed to superficial environmentalism. Ecomanagement provides a clear action plan for making a company more ecologically sound.

The Lorax  Dr Seuss
The first environmentally conscious book most of us read … this is Dr. Seuss's cautionary tale of greed and destruction as told by The Lorax, who speaks for the trees. An absolute must read, especially for adults.

More at www.randomhouse.com/seussville or www.randomhouse.com.

Sustainability: The Corporate Challenge of the 21st Century   Dunphy, Dexter (Editor) and Benveniste, Jodie et al
Sustainability explores two of the major challenges faced by organisations in the 21st century. One is the successful management of human resources in a time of increasing staff turnover, decreasing loyalty, rising stress levels and emerging issues of corporate-community relations and social responsibility.

The other is growing pressure from governments, staff and the general public for organisations to adopt environmentally responsible operations. The book provides leaders and managers with a framework for understanding and adopting the principles and practices that contribute to a renewable, sustainable workforce and environment.

Cannibals with Forks   Elkington, John
John Elkington, one of the leading commentators on sustainability, and the chap who first coined the term "Triple Bottom Line", Cannibals with Forks passionately demonstrates how all businesses can and must help society achieve the three interlinked goals of economic prosperity, environmental protection and social equity, issues which are already at the top of the corporate agenda. Global in scope, it describes seven linked revolutions which will define the business environment of the first few decades of the 21st century.

More at www.sustainability.co.uk/publications/default.asp.

The Greening of Industry Resource Guide and Bibliography  Groenewegen, Peter and Fischer, Kurt
Through a series of essays and annotated references, The Greening of Industry Resource Guide and Bibliography presents analysis and commentary drawn from a variety of sources that examines critical issues in today's changing environment. The book addresses specific economic, social, and technical issues, including:

• Environmental performance assessment
• Cleaner production
• Strategic cooperation and product life cycle management
• Organisational learning and personal development
• Leadership for greening in developing countries.

It's a valuable guide to the most respected and useful research on industrial sustainability, and can provide the basis for effective policies, strategies, and actions for both business leaders and policy makers.

More at www.islandpress.org/books/bookdata/GreenIndu.html

In Earth's Company: Business, Environment and the Challenge of Sustainability   Frankel, Carl
Frankel describes the history and meaning of 'sustainable development' and outlines key contributors to the concept - including the Green consumer movement, The Brundtland Report, and the Earth Summit. He analyses how corporations have attempted to integrate environmental concerns into their operations. Critical of current techniques for measuring environmental performance, Frankel discusses emerging corporate strategies for improving the business record on the environment, as well as strategies for making the entire industrial system more sustainable. Concluding that the business record to date regarding sustainability is at best uneven, Frankel calls for greater emphasis on collaboration, process and quality in all dimensions of business practice, as well as a 'new humanism' requiring corporations to be more sensitive to the full range of human concerns and to include social equity into the calculation of the 'bottom line.'

More at www.newsociety.com/

The Ecology of Commerce: A Declaration of SustainabilityHawken, Paul
The Ecology of Commerce is the first book to design a comprehensive system that makes conservation profitable, productive, and possible. It is a practical blueprint for a prosperous, sustainable future - radically different from anything that has come before it - because it replaces the unsolvable puzzle, "How do we save the environment?" with the revolutionary challenge, "How do we save business?"

Natural Capitalism: Creating the Next Industrial Revolution   Hawken, Paul, Lovins, Amory and Lovins, L Hunter,
Business gurus and environmental leaders are united in their praise. Says Peter Senge who wrote, among others, The Fifth Discipline "If Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations was the bible for the first Industrial Revolution, then Natural Capitalism may well prove to be it for the next."

More at www.natcap.org/ and www.rmi.org.

Lean and Clean Management : How to Boost Profits and Productivity by Reducing Pollution  Romm, Joseph J
Lean and Clean Management is a must for any business. With case studies from businesses all over the world, it walks through a variety of ways to dramatically lower your costs, become more efficient and lessen your impact on the environment. It's also written in an easy to understand language, whether you are new to business or an old hand.

Resetting the Compass: Australia's Journey Towards Sustainability   Yenchen, David and Wilkinson, Debra
How serious are Australia's environmental problems and what do we need to do to fix them? Governments at all levels are preparing the state of the environment reports. Few of them, however, take the next step and set out the actions that are required to deal with the problems they have identified.

Resetting the Compass: Australia's Journey Towards Sustainability sets out Australia's environmental problems in their global context and explains what is now needed to fix them. It also illustrates how ecological sustainability can be achieved together with economic, social and cultural sustainability.