Practical Sustainability: Circular Commerce, Smarter Spaces and Happier Humans

by Corey Glickman, Jeff Kavanaugh, Michael Crow (Foreword by)

Overview

The race to carbon neutrality is top of mind for C-suite and frontline employees alike, yet we struggle to convert lofty goals into tangible results. Buildings and commerce are vital to this green future, but environmental challenges and market pressures block the path to sustainability. Finally, a practical approach to sustainability has emerged, blending the physical and the digital, the human and the machine. From tech titans to niche unicorns, Practical Sustainability showcases the best of the digital stars and the roles required to mine this twenty-first-century gold rush, with over $8 trillion of existing commercial real estate that must become more intelligent and sustainable as quickly as possible. Practical Sustainability is required reading for anyone involved with sustainability, intelligent buildings, and supply chains, illustrating how technology combined with physical environments is elevating human potential while ushering in a greener, more prosperous future.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781544527437
Publisher:	Houndstooth Press
Publication date:	02/01/2022
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	358
Sales rank:	1,068,701
File size:	8 MB

About the Author

Corey Glickman is Vice President at Infosys and leads their sustainability and design business, delivering smart space initiatives for clients globally. Corey is a member of both the World Economic Forum Pioneer Cities group and the MIT Technology Review Board and is a faculty expert at Singularity University. The American Institute of Graphic Arts named Corey one of the one hundred most influential designers of the decade.

Jeff Kavanaugh is Vice President and Head of the Infosys Knowledge Institute, the research and thought leadership arm of Infosys, a leading tech and consulting company. Jeff is an adjunct professor at the Jindal School of Management at the University of Texas at Dallas and author of the books The Live Enterprise and Consulting Essentials. Jeff has been published in Harvard Business Review and other leading business publications.

Editorial Reviews

2022-02-23
A debut business book offers an optimistic look at a technologically driven, sustainable future.

This work, written by two Infosys executives, provides an upbeat assessment of the opportunities for a technologically developed economy to become simultaneously profitable and sustainable. The volume organizes its discussion into five broad areas of adaptation and evolution: regeneration, circular commerce, human experience, systems of systems, and digital twins. They lead to a world of smart buildings and spaces that operate efficiently, protecting resources while allowing significant and ongoing returns on the investment necessary to make it all happen. Glickman and Kavanaugh present suggestions for increasing building efficiency, making supply chains multidirectional, improving physical objects by testing their digital counterparts first, and turning sustainability into a measurable metric. The book points out opportunities for near-term change, particularly as workplaces adapt to the ongoing pandemic, and delivers plenty of data to support its contention that investments in sustainability will generate substantial returns, with copious citations in the backmatter. The authors’ enthusiasm can be overwhelming, occasionally driving them to ahistorical comparisons (such as calling traditional Amazon agriculture “agrarian smart cities” because humans changed the soil composition) or condescension (the members of Egypt’s Zabaleen community are described as “remarkable people” because of their role as recyclers, with no mention of why they are “some of the poorest, most marginalized people on Earth”). Readers who approach technology from a less positive angle may be skeptical of the book’s assumptions that issues like data privacy will be easily dealt with. But knowledge workers and others for whom “the now-standard agile approach” is already part of their office routines may find that the volume’s recommendations align easily with their current realities and long-term planning, and they are most likely to be in a position to embrace its aspirational futurism. The book’s view of a society made better through the strategic use of technology is an admirable one. Although the work’s road map for accomplishing this goal is not entirely persuasive, it is thought-provoking and creates a framework for further exploration of technology-driven improvements.

An idealistic but thoughtful look at making business more sustainable.

Kirkus Reviews