Beyond The Bottom Line: Putting Social Responsibility To Work For Your Business And The World (A Touchstone book) [Paperback]

Joel Makower (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1, 1995 | Series: A Touchstone book

The first book to distill the best of the forward-looking ideas of socially responsible policies emerging from the corporate world. By following the suggestions detailed here, individuals can institute similar programs in their own companies--because it's the right choice to make, and the smart one.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In this energizing study, Makower (The E Factor) and the advocacy group Business for Social Responsibility theorize that firms "function best when they merge their business interests with the interests of customers, employees, suppliers." This social responsibility thesis-or "caring capitalism"-is illustrated with examples from numerous well-known companies (Reebok, Body Shop). Practical tips abound as we learn how firms inaugurate such policies as environmental protection and family leave. The text is replete with quotations from memos, brochures, statements of CEOs and the like. Also included is a corporate reputation/responsibility assessment tool developed by the Levi Strauss company. Unfortunately, however, the study has nothing to say about successful firms that eschew social responsibility or those motivated only by regulatory agency guidelines. Illustrations.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

Not so long ago, business viewed enterprise as a zero sum game (i.e., I win; you lose). Today, the two words that consume business are credible and responsible. Value-driven management has achieved what marketers call critical mass. Makower (The E Factor, LJ 2/1/93) presents the case for corporate social responsibility in realistic terms: "One of the most socially responsible things most companies can do is to be profitable....[W]ithout such viability, even the best designed and well-executed efforts will be for naught." This book, which follows in the lineage of Harvey Cox (The Secular City, 1966) and Robert Reich (The Greening of America, 1970), deals with the contemporary issues of empowerment and environment as well as corporate beneficence. Essential for business collections.
Steven Silkunas, Southeastern Pennsylvania Transit Authority, Philadelphia
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 336 pages
• Publisher: Touchstone (October 1, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0684813106
• ISBN-13: 978-0684813103
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.5 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,112,138 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

"For more than 20 years, Joel Makower has been a well-respected voice on business, the environment, and the bottom line. As a writer, speaker, and strategist on corporate environmental practices, clean technology, and green marketing, he has helped a wide range of companies align environmental responsibility with business success.

His latest book, ""Strategies for the Green Economy,"" was recently published by McGraw-Hill.

Joel is a talented communicator who can cut through the hype and haze to provide clarity and perspective on a range of business environmental issues. He brings to his writing, speeches, and clients a clear understanding of the opportunities and challenges facing mainstream companies as they try to address environmental issues in a way that drives bottom-line performance and topline growth.

His balanced, realistic, and credible approach to sustainable business and clean technology has helped senior managers in a variety of companies and sectors create strategic roadmaps, make the business case, articulate a vision internally, form meaningful partnerships, and communicate with a broad range of stakeholders.

The Associated Press has called him ""The guru of green business practices.""

Joel is co-founder and executive editor of Greener World Media, Inc., which produces GreenBiz.com and its sister sites, ClimateBiz.com, GreenerBuildings.com, and GreenerComputing.com. He also serves as a senior strategist at GreenOrder, a sustainability consultancy, as well as co-founder and principal of Clean Edge Inc., a research and publishing firm focusing on building markets for clean energy technologies. From 1991 to 2005, Joel was editor and publisher of The Green Business Letter, an award-winning monthly newsletter he founded on corporate environmental strategy. In 2005, he was appointed a Batten Fellow at the Darden Graduate School of Business at the University of Virginia.

Joel has helped a wide range of companies improve their environmental strategy and communications -- including Clifbar, Gap, Hewlett Packard, Levi Strauss, Nike, Procter & Gamble, and Stonyfield Farm -- as well as advising more than a dozen early-stage companies focusing on environmentally sustainable products and services.

A former nationally syndicated columnist, Joel is author or co-author of more than a dozen books, including ""Beyond the Bottom Line: Putting Social Responsibility to Work for Your Business and the World,"" about the profit and potential of socially responsible business practices; ""The E-Factor: The Bottom-Line Approach to Environmentally Responsible Business,"" on how companies are responding to environmental challenges in positive and profitable ways, and ""The Green Consumer,"" a best-selling guide to the environmental marketplace.

In addition, he is author of an oral history of the Woodstock music festival, published in 1989, which Rolling Stone called ""the definitive history of the mega-event.""

Joel has been a featured commentator on environmental topics for public radio's ""Marketplace"" and appears frequently in both broadcast and print media. He serves as a board member or adviser to a range of for-profit and nonprofit organizations and lectures regularly to companies, industry groups, and business schools around the world."