The Sustainable Enterprise Fieldbook: Building New Bridges, Second Edition

by Jeana Wirtenberg (Editor), Linda M. Kelley (Editor), David Lipsky PhD (Editor), William G. Russell (Editor)

Overview

With deep thought and inspiring examples, this updated book engages readers by increasing their understanding and awareness of what'sustainability means conceptually, practically, personally, and professionally. It provides readers with the tools and techniques to improve the social, environmental, and economic performance of their organizations in both the short and long term. Since sustainability is not achieved in a siloed environment, everyone has a critical role to play on this journey.

The Sustainable Enterprise Fieldbook, with full companion materials at https://TheSustainableEnterpriseFieldbook.com, engages today’s managers and leaders of organizations, in both the private sector and civil society, who are being challenged as never before to find ways to play a proactive role in understanding and addressing the risks and opportunities of sustainability. It teaches them how to apply systems thinking to turn our most intractable problems into exciting business opportunities, and offers ground breaking frameworks in new chapters on globalization, strategy, metrics, and sustainability models for collaboration, technology, and community. That is why this book is structured to be a fieldbook to provide practitioners the Activities, Cases, and Tools that they can use to help move their enterprise through progressively higher performing stages of sustainability. Readers also have access to the innovative Living Fieldbook, an online community forum filled with supporting materials: https://www.thesustainableenterprisefieldbook.com/webinars.html.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781783535279
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	08/14/2018
Edition description:	1
Pages:	512
Product dimensions:	6.12(w) x 9.19(h) x (d)

About the Author

Jeana Wirtenberg, Associate Professor of Professional Practice, Rutgers University, USA, and President and CEO, Transitioning to Green, USA.

With:

Linda M. Kelley, Principal and Enterprise Ecologist, Transitioning to Green, USA.

David Lipsky, Head of Coaching, Assessment and Executive Onboarding at Samsung Electronics America.

William G. Russell, Principal with Transitioning to Green, USA.

Read an Excerpt

 

Foreword

Georg Kell, Executive Head, UN Global Compact

 

Businesses are challenged as never before by the unrelenting and ever-increasing

demands posed by the global economy and the marketplace to address the concerns of

a wide range of critical stakeholders, including shareholders, customers, employees,

and communities, both locally and around the world.

 

Technology and deregulation have unleashed an unprecedented expansion of business

activities over the past quarter of a century. Many companies have gone global

while governments have remained local. Businesses, large and small, are learning to

integrate into a global marketplace that offers scale and efficiency gains.

 

New markets have been developed and much progress has been made in bringing

hundreds of millions of people out of abject poverty. At the same time, poverty persists

in many parts of the world, inequity has been on the rise, and the impact of human

activities on the natural environment threatens our survival as a species.

 

We cannot predict the future, but the certainty of the major disruptive forces we are

witnessing every day makes a compelling case for us to reexamine our fundamental values,

shift our priorities, and shape a new strategic direction to create a more sustainable

world.

 

How will we master this global transformation to a sustainable future? Where will

leadership come from? Will we be able to extend the benefits of productivity gains to

those who need them most while safeguarding our natural environment? Will openness

as an economic and political idea prevail, or will we fall back into discriminatory behavior,

building walls and creating enemies? Will we be able to provide stewardship that

thrives on and cultivates the creativity of people and enterprises while safeguarding the

common good? Are we willing — and are we capable enough — to change our patterns

of consumption and lifestyles so that they meet our most basic human needs while considering

those of future generations? Can we build incentive systems that reward and

reinforce good environmental, social, and governance performance?

 

The stakes couldn’t be higher. Never before have we been so dependent on each

other.

 

There is always hope that policy-makers will eventually provide leadership. But all

too often they are concerned with territorial constituency building or the sheer desire

to maintain a hold on power. Few policy-makers are able, or willing, to take on global

perspectives or a long-term vision that goes beyond election cycles.

 

Business can hardly afford to wait for this to happen. The changing landscape has

made it imperative that business help architect and execute the solution. The notion and

practice of business responsibility and the search for practical solutions has evolved

over the past two decades. Business increasingly understands that the search for sustainability

is not just about avoiding costs; it is increasingly about creating business

value and inventing models that deliver societal and market success.

 

Clearly, the role of business is undergoing a profound transformation. The most obvious

is the need to manage risks in an interdependent world. As business has become

global, it can no longer take refuge behind one home government. It needs to learn to

deal simultaneously with different regulatory and societal realities. At the same time,

the pursuit of global integration and the sophistication of dispersed supply chains has

created new vulnerabilities — as have the scarcity of natural resources and the unfolding

of climate change–related regulatory and lifestyle changes.

 

New business models that understand how to build markets for the one billion people

that remain excluded, that thrive on energy efficiency and environmental stewardship,

and that build societal goodwill and support are likely to be the winning models

of the future. Such enterprises will not only succeed in their own right, they will also

make an enormously important contribution to the future of humanity.

 

We are called to support and promote business efforts that embrace sustainability

strategies as a modus operandi. Many small and large innovations and alterations are

needed to bring about a change on the scale required to safeguard our future. Human

creativity and the will to shape the future are our best hope. This Fieldbook opens the

door for business leaders and managers to the most appropriate and practical pathway

for themselves and their enterprises to forge a more sustainable future. It takes us on a

thoughtful journey through the eyes of 29 passionate, experienced practitioners inspiring

us all to step up to the plate, create a plan, and move forward with velocity, intention,

and commitment. It provides the tools, cases, best practices, learnings, and understandings

— at once profound and practical — to equip and enable every manager and

leader to play a role in the reinvention of the world.

 

 

 

Table of Contents

 PART I: Understanding reality: our context for The Sustainable Enterprise Fieldbook

Introduction and overview

PART II: Preparing the foundation for a sustainable enterprise

1. Leadership for a sustainable enterprise

2. Mental models for sustainability

3. Sustainability- aligned strategies: smart enterprise strategies to progress along a bridge to thriving

PART III: Embracing and managing change sustainably

4. Managing the change to a sustainable enterprise

5. Employee engagement for a sustainable enterprise

6. Enterprise sustainability metrics and reporting: performance measurements for resilient strategic progress

PART IV: Connecting, integrating, and aligning toward the future

7. Sustainable globalization: the challenge and the opportunity

8. Sustainability models for collaboration, technology, and community

PART V: Building new bridges to the future

9. A path forward: building new bridges to the future

10. Driving forces for change

Index 466

Editorial Reviews

"I love this book! This book, or rather this enterprise, is the fruit of a collaboration among dozens of practitioners, businesspeople, and scholars no wonder it's so useful. Their holistic vision has produced a cornucopia of actionable tools and information for audiences in multiple contexts. And timely too! Generations of children to come, who will surely be educated beyond the old dichotomies of the industrial era, will thank these writers."

Hilary Bradbury-Huang

"In recent years, we have been inundated with books focused on the content aspects of sustainable business. Few, however, provide any useful guidance on how to effectively implement sustainability in a real organization. The Sustainable Enterprise Fieldbook fills this virtual void by focusing on the human side of sustainable enterprise the organizational, behavioral, and even cognitive challenges. It is a must-read for anyone trying to make sustainability happen in the real world."

Stuart L. Hart

"This brilliant collection of essays lays the foundation for building a sustainable society. All boards of directors and their leadership should make this book required reading."

Warren Bennis

"When you step back and look at our takemakewaste industrial system in the harsh realities of the larger (and ever more constraining) natural world, you start to understand the profound depth and scope of the problem, which can paralyze rather than energize the changes needed. Managers everywhere desperately need books like The Sustainable Enterprise Fieldbook in order to get started on the journey."

Peter Senge

"As sustainability becomes the business of the 21^st century, it is essential that responsible executives and managers have the tools and mindsets to help navigate the challenges facing this transition. The Sustainable Enterprise Fieldbook (second edition) is a helpful guide for those seeking to add their mark on the larger sustainability movement, and can help ensure that companies and organizations act as positive agents toward this future."

Jonas Haertle, Head of PRME, United Nations Global Compact

"WOW! This incredible work defines both the breadth and depth of the sustainability movement. The Activities, Cases, and Tools delineate the qualities of a sustainable enterprise with insight, practical value, and passion. It will shape the path to a better world for at least another 10 years. Mega-kudos to the authors for this amazing compendium, the definitive statement of the sustainable enterprise."

Dave Ulrich, Rensis Likert Professor, Ross School of Business, University of Michigan

"Sustainability management is a core competency and a competitive advantage. Most managers must overcome barriers to change, while building a culture of sustainability. Dr. Wirtenberg, Linda M. Kelley, David Lipsky and William G. Russell and have created an excellent guide with change management tactics that will ensure performance is optimized. This book will prepare you to become certified in the profession as a Sustainability Management Certified Professional, SMCP."

Angela Casler, SMCP, CEO/President, Sustainability Management Association

"As we move into the 2020’s— facing an array of critical social and environmental challenges— no task has more urgency then the building of sustainable enterprise. The updated Fieldbook retains the practical focus of the first edition, while also helping practitioners understand the holistic sustainability advantage that arises across the enterprise, from mission-aligned strategy to employee engagement to metrics. The Fieldbook is a terrific practical guide for a sustainability transition."

Eban Goodstein, Director, Graduate Programs in Sustainability, Bard College

"This important update of the Sustainable Enterprise Fieldbook offers so much valuable and practical guidance for any manager to help his or her company become a sustainability leader. With its particular emphasis on people, their mental models, the development of new behaviors and expectations, and the metrics and feedback by which progress can be evaluated, this book goes to the core of how to motivate change in any organization and help us strive for, in the words of John Ehrenfeld, a flourishing and sustainable world."

Andrew J. Hoffman, Holcim (US) Professor of Sustainable Enterprise, University of Michigan

"The Sustainable Enterprise Fieldbook is a collection of deep context and practical tools to help every reader equip their organization for the sustainable future. The authors have crafted a rich read with hundreds of case studies and perspectives ranging from Pope Francis to the animal kingdom to Mark Twain. There are countless books about the future of sustainable business, but none stitch together the historical wisdom, activation methods and story-telling like The Sustainable Enterprise Fieldbook."

Dave Stangis, Chief Sustainability Officer, Campbell Soup Company

"The authors’ holistic representation of sustainable globalization using a six-lens framework is an incredibly useful addition to the decision-making toolkit of business leaders and managers driving strategic initiatives in multinational firms. It is an especially valuable resource for managers seeking to design and execute global strategies that are aligned with sustainable objectives. This well-researched book not only draws readers’ attention toward numerous environmental and social problems currently facing humanity, using up to date numbers and figures, but also provides insights and detailed examples of specific projects undertaken by multinational firms that have sought to address a few of these problems as part of their sustainability initiatives. This book urges leaders to place sustainability at the core of their business strategy. To this end, it provides conceptual tools and real-world examples to help business leaders find their way to sustainable profits."

Pallavi Shukla, Assistant Professor of Professional Practice, Rutgers Business School

"The Sustainable Enterprise Fieldbook: Building New Bridges is an excellent resource for students just learning the ropes of organizational sustainability. It paints a clear picture of the current state of sustainable enterprise, where the gaps are, and what needs to be done by both individuals and organizations in order to cross the bridge to achieve true sustainability. In addition to theories and examples, this book provides the tools needed for people – at all levels of an organization – to take action to promote purposeful, sustainable enterprise, making it a valuable resource for both sustainability newcomers and seasoned experts alike."

Kinan Tadmori, Master of Business and Science student in Sustainability, Rutgers University Professional Science Master’s Program

"The next time I teach my "Sustainable Business" course, I will certainly be using The Sustainable Enterprise Fieldbook as the primary text. Having reviewed the advance copy of the fully revised and updated Second Edition, I am aware of no better resource for faculty and students than this text. The breadth of topics covered ensures an interdisciplinary approach to sustainable business practices with an emphasis on Human Capital, and the depth of each of the chapters, with numerous case studies, will facilitate engaged class discussion."

Ira Feldman, Founder & Managing Director, Sustainability Curriculum Consortium

From the Publisher