Customer Reviews

Ecological Intelligence: How Knowing the Hidden Impacts of What We Buy Can Change Everything

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

It's the ultimate detective work: examining the processes (including energy, chemicals, social impacts) involved with creating, transporting, storing and ultimately consuming and disposing of "stuff." Author Goleman digs deep into "life cycle analysis" (LCA) of a wide range of products, looking at the environmental and social ramifications that are usually "out of sight, out of mind," guided by expert Gregory Norris. The insights are illuminating and go far beyond the usual (casual) carbon calculation. The process of recycling glass alone-- and the energy and chemistry involved-- is a real eye-opener, reminding us that reducing our impact to CO2 emissions vastly oversimplifies our footprint on the planet.

In my mind, this approach of telling stories and conducting forensic investigations into "stuff" should be embedded throughout education, because it is inherently interdisciplinary, combining math and science, but also social studies, history, psychology, business, sociology. It's also timely and would contribute to "eco-school" and 100% green school goals that are currently being developed.

For business people, this book is a must. While the "greening" of business is nothing new and is all too often manifest as "green-washing," there are signs that business is taking "cradle to grave" analysis of products and the supply chain seriously, in part because regulation of embedded greenhouse gases will require careful accounting, in part because of increased social responsibility, and in part because, when done correctly, it can save money, reduce waste, and provide a competitive advantage over the competition.

Goleman rightly points out that we can't consume our way of the dire situation we are in, but we can reduce our consumption and buy smartly. While a few individuals by choice or circumstances leave little environmental footprint, for most of it the challenge is to become significantly more aware of the impacts or the products and services we choose, thereby minimizing not only our carbon footprint, but our overall influence on the planet.

Both the book and the CD version (spoken by the author) are well reasoned, well presented investigations into "stuff" in all its shapes and sizes, providing fresh insights into the complexities and hard choices that must be made at all levels of society in order to turn the tide of waste and social/environmental degradation and foster the new energy economy with resilient, sustainable communities.

"Then God said, 'Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.'" -- Genesis 1:26

It's one thing to have power over the Earth; it's another to take good care of that gift. Dr. Daniel Goleman has long been concerned about how people can become more aware of the trade-offs that affect their health, the purity of the environment, and the sustainability of the resources that are being wasted. Most of the rules of thumb we learn about what's best for the environment are wrong in many particular instances. As a result, you need someone to analyze everything very carefully and tell you what the net effects are of option A versus option B, much as details about food contents of packages help consumers pick the best choices for their families.

In this book, Dr. Goleman looks at the information challenges and how people have responded to being provided with better information. He makes an aggressive and optimistic argument that information alone will provide the basis for people to make more rational decisions about ingredients, practices, and eliminating waste. While I hope he's right, I think he's over optimistic. While Dr. Goleman doesn't believe that government has a useful role, it's entirely possible that pollution and waste taxes can provide additional incentives to make more appropriate decisions.

Based on many years of best practice research my students and I have conducted, I agree with his assertion that eliminating waste, taking out harmful ingredients, and upgrading the surrounding environment is more profitable than the alternative. I also agree with his observation that few business leaders realize these large profit opportunities exist. The current recession will hopefully encourage the emergence of better leaders who will find these opportunities.

Ultimately, you can eliminate a large percentage of ecological challenges by educating government and business leaders and managers about how to acquire the right information and make better decisions. I think Dr. Goleman underestimates the potential interest in learning how to do these things. Just because conventional schools do a poor job in this area doesn't mean that proper information and methods couldn't be quickly and well taught. Good leaders will seek out that learning. Poor leaders will see their organizations falter instead.

The book's main weakness is the title: Ecological Intelligence. That's more than this book tries to accomplish. But you will learn more than you know now about what more transparency can accomplish.

I listened to the recording of this book. I recommend reading the book instead. I found it to be hard listening. Dr. Goleman builds up his points very slowly and painfully. In a book you can speed through such sections. Orally, you just have to listen.

I thought about viral marketing after I finished reading Daniel Goleman's latest book, Ecological Intelligence: How Knowing the Hidden Impacts of What We Buy Can Change Everything. In the same way that companies can use organized word of mouth campaigns to push products, consumers have an increasing number of ways to let their views be known and shared to influence products. Goleman proposes or anticipates the development of what he calls radical transparency by which all the contents and hidden costs of all products are visible to consumers. With that knowledge, sustainability becomes more likely, dangerous ingredients are eliminated, and we are more likely to have product choices that are green and safe. While I found Goleman's presentation to be pedantic at times, and preachy at others, the bulk of his book presents some clear thinking about one area in which consumers can take action: the decision of what to buy and what to avoid. Anyone making products will find Ecological Intelligence a useful book to read and compare organizational readiness for consumers that will be more activist in their expectations and actions.

Rating: Three-star (Recommended)

I chose this book over Ecological Intelligence: Rediscovering Ourselves in Nature and seeing the author's note about this other book "by a physician, Jungian analyst, and poet" am certain I made the right choice.

The author's "big idea" is called "Radical Transparency," what the rest of us have been calling "Open Books for decades. I like it, and in the context of his elegant story-telling, I buy in. This book also goes to a five because it is an Information Operations (IO) books, ably focused on data, information, and information-sharing as well as collective sense-making. He author anticipates most of us becoming "active agents" for change, armed with information as Thomas Jefferson understood so well.

CORE NUGGET: Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is not done for most things, but when done right, it is mainly data and it tracks impacts on human health, ecosystems, climate change, and resource draw-down, for every single component and every single process including transport, packaging, etcetera. Toward the end of the book when the author talks about how an LCA commons is emerging, and quotes Andy Ruben of normally ultra-evil Wal-Mart as saying that LCA innovation "is the largest strategic opportunity companies will see for the next fifty years," I am seriously impressed.

EARLY INSIGHT: Drawing on Howard Gardner's Five Minds for the Future and other works, the author observes that the human brain is optimized by heredity for the here and now, able to sense "obvious" but not subtle changes.

EARLY INSIGHT: Everything we buy or use was designed to tackle one need without regard to social or ecological costs. It was NOT designed to be green (the author cites Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things. The author states "Green is a process not a status."

QUOTE: "Ecological Intelligence allows us to comprehend systems in all their complexity, as well as the interplay between the natural and man-made worlds." I am reminded of Buckminster Fuller and Critical Path.

Later, when he speaks of collective shared intelligence as a partial answer, he outlines three rules:

1. Know your impacts (others would add, know true costs first)

2. Favor improvements (others would add, at every level)

3. Share what you learn (others would add: this is the core concept of Multinational, Multiagency, Multidisciplinary, Multidomain Information-Sharing and Sense-Making (M4IS2) that is the 21st Century implementation of the 20th Century concept of Open Source Intelligence (OSINT)).

QUOTE: "As control of data shifts from sellers to buyers, companies would do well to prepare ahead for this information sea change."

QUOTE: [When people mobilize you see] "the dual marketplace power of lowering the cost of information combined with information sharing. The multiplier effect meats networks of people pooling their knowledge can diminish information asymmetry."

QUOTE: "To be trustworthy, Radical Transparency needs to be authoritative, impartial, and comprehensive." Sounds like a World Brain with embedded EarthGame to me, see Earth Intelligence Network or Phi Beta Iota, the Public Intelligence Blog.

MIDDLE INSIGHT: There are huge social benefits to be had by increasing wealth of the bottom billion to bottom five billion that far outweigh the ecological costs. I smile as a read this, as it coincides with the mushroom cloud over the Climate Change Unit (CRU) in England, now outed for its fraudulent practices and possibly criminal misbehavior.

MIDDLE INSIGHT: Need to tap native wisdom and combine this with better use of sunlight and rainwater.

The author discusses three inter-locking spheres in a very easy to appreciate manner:

1. GeoSphere

2. BioSphere (with four costs: Cancer, Disability Adjusted Life Years (DALY), loss of bio-diversity, and embodied toxicity.

3. SocioShere (labor and labor practices)

I have a number of fly-leaf notes, many of which will not fit within the 1,000 world limit, so here are a few:

+ "Compassionate Capitalism" is a term used, NOT in the Index (which does have "compassionate consumption" This book easily falls within the category I label "Cultural Intelligence."

+ Industrial Ecology, Environmental Health, Neuro-Economists, Epigenetics, and "Freegan"

+ Value chain analysis ignored value subtracted

+ Recycling recycles toxins [this blew my mind, I should have known better, see among many other works Pandora's Poison: Chlorine, Health, and a New Environmental Strategy and High Tech Trash: Digital Devices, Hidden Toxics, and Human Health

+ 88 billion plastic bags in USA along, "an ecological disaster," and paper bags are NO BETTER

+ Sun Screen washed off in the ocean nurtures algae capable of killing 10% of the coral reefs

+ Greenwashing is common, virtually nothing advertised as "green" really is

+ Distance of goods shipped is NOT a good indicator of carbon footprint--NZ lamb beats UK lamb every time, and KE roses beat NL roses, when all local carbon savings are counted.

+ Tens of thousands of toxins can combine in billions of combinations--US a dumping ground for stuff Europe will no longer allow

+ 11% boost in sales achieved for products with "fair labor" tags, and as price is increased, sales increase!

+ Two thirds of shoppers WANT to make ethical decisions, but the information must be EASY to grasp

+ UN Environmental Program joins the UN High Level Panel in my good book, see A More Secure World: Our Shared Responsibility--Report of the Secretary-General's High-level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change also available free online. The UN International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) should probably be disbanded, they lack both integrity and a strategic analytic model.

Bottom line: consumer perception has more weight in today's information environment, and that will only grow in relation to the declining weight of the manufacturer or offerer of any good or service. We are literally on the verge of creating the virtual fulcrum to move the Earth--information with integrity, shared freely across all boundaries.

Bottom line: Activists that used to lobby governments for regulations are now recognizing that shared information delivered directly to the consumer is the Holy Grail of doing good, at the same time that corporations are starting to "get" sustainable design equals sustainable profit.

The book is a solid four on its own merits, with the gifted story-telling, the gripping details, and well-crafted "outcome" of understanding making up for a relative lack of depth. This is double-spaced journalism, not a Toffler-esque cultural research project.

Three other books within the limit:
Ecological Economics: Principles And Applications
Blessed Unrest: How the Largest Social Movement in History Is Restoring Grace, Justice, and Beauty to the World
The Genius of the Beast: A Radical Re-Vision of Capitalism

Introduced me to the concept of assessing the greeness of my purchases from production of the product to the disposing of the product. Book dragged in parts and, as a consumer, I would have preferred more examples. However, it did guide me to an in-development website [...] which gives a product a "green" rating from the cradle to the grave. Getting a good rating on this site is akin to getting the "Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval" for older greenies like me. Also introduced me to a new career path for young people--industrial ecologist. In the author's words "Industrial ecology exists at the cusp where chemistry, physics and engineering meet ecology." Maybe there's hope for this planet if the Goleman's of the world impart a conscience to the production of the stuff we use.

As an admirer of Golemans other books, and as a new convert to green living, I was keen to read this book on ecological intelligence. However i was disappoited and frustrated to discover that it focuses almost exclusiveiy on the question of radical transparency (admittedly this is its subtitle) which is certainly of relevance to the ecological problems we face but can hardly be all that ecological intelligence is about. Surely being ecologically intelligent involves much more than simply choosing greener products? What about the intelligence required to know how to reduce or even eliminate our dependency on the whole consumerist culture? And what about using your creativity to, for example, make your own green products such as those used in house cleaning rather than automatically reaching for the greenest shop product? The whole impression off the book is that our only way to be ecologically intelligent is to buy wisely or hope that multinational corporatios like Coke continue to clean up their act!. Another criticism that I would make is that much of the book goes into technical details that would appeal to experts in business and manufacturing but which may not be so interesting to the general reader. On the plus side, the book did open my eyes to just how difficult it can be to manufacture and to recognize a truly green product. It also explained very well the crucial role of transparency in green shopping, which is of relevance to everyone. Perhaps the real problem of the book for me is its title, since it raises so many expectations that cannot be met by focusing so much on one aspect alone of ecological intelligence, which is product transparency. Maybe Goleman and his publishers felt that it would make this book more attractive if its title followed on from his other books on variuos types of intelligence. As a marketing ploy this works well, but it is rather misleading for the reader who is likely to be expecting something else. and given that the book advocates transparency for consummers, is it not rather ironic that the title of this book is a bit misleading and not very transparent for the busy book shopper?

if more reople would read this book, our species might last a little longer than it's going to. much insight to the long term effects of producing products, some the same way we've been doing for 100 years. technology can vastly improve the methods we use to produce consumables. Very highly reccomened.

I have a mixed view of this book.

Firstly, on a purely literary level, as with many business oriented books these days, there is one key idea, very easily grasped in the first chapter, with which you will agree or disagree. But there is very little real need to read on after that.
Secondly, I absolutely agree with Goleman that consumers with good sustainability intentions either can't access the data they need to make an informed choice, or don't know how to assess the information they do have. In a perfect world, that information would be easily available to consumers, and they would be able to weight that information according to what matters to them - ie some might be especially concerned with the labour environment in which the product was produced, others might be more concerned with ecological impact etc.
Thirdly I agree that in an era of "big data" this information is going to be coming easier to come by and there is an opportunity to present it to consumers in a variety of convenient ways - either through apps, QR codes, rating scales etc

Where I disagree with Goleman is that ipso facto this means that consumers will make better decisions. No. Some consumers will make better decisions about some product categories some of the time. The idea that all consumers are sufficiently involved in all categories to take the trouble to make informed decisions all the time is misguided. A mother may well take the trouble to make better decisions about the products' she buys' impact on her baby's health; but will she extend that to her husband's jeans, the cat's chow and the clothes she buys for herself? Probably not in most cases. For someone who focuses a lot on supermarket / hypermarket choices it surprising that Goleman has not discovered the concept of "buy time" - basically the longer a supermarket trip goes on, the shorter the decision time for each product becomes (on average). Which is why new products tend to be clustered near entrances not exits - we are more likely to consider something new at the beginning of a shop. The same will apply to assessing sustainability impact information; at the beginning of a shop we might, near the end, as we tire and the kids start to grizzle, we wont.

I also disagree that people will make better sustainability choices even if cost is higher. Of course an affluent minority might. But for most consumers responsibility to your family, through efficient budgeting, is a higher priority than the greater good of the planet and humankind. Always has been, always will be. What people will do of course is choose the more sustainable product if everything else is the same, or nearly the same. But its a brand marketer's job to make sure that their product doesn't look or feel the same as a competitors'

I was also puzzled by Goleman's focus on the supermarket and hypermarket, with no discussion of technology, automotive or other industries with a big negative footprint such as travel. And by his refusal to recognise that although all products create negative impacts, there are positives too...through creation of employment, provision of affordable nutrition etc etc. I am not saying that these positives outweigh the negatives, but they should be taken into consideration

There are some interesting case studies here of businesses that are making money and improving their sustainability. Good. But its notable that most of these are businesses that have just taken a decision that they "should" be more sustainable, rather than being driven by consumer demand. Which sort of runs counter to the main argument of the book - that better data, will drive consumer decisions, which will force manufacturers to "do the right thing" if they want to stay in business

I disagree. Although better data availability will drive the market to some extent, and will have a positive impact, I think it will be too small to really be a game changer. Sustainable consumption has to be a case of business leading consumers, rather than consumers driving the market

Am about half way through book and am pleased to find it not a "scare tactic" argument but a rational and level approach to our current ecological crisis. Interesting and educational read.

The manufactured world has produced incredible variety, luxury and convenience, but at what cost to the environment and to human bodies? Emotional intelligence expert Daniel Goleman persuasively argues for "radical transparency" about environmental impact. He says that if people could see at a glance the harm that the products they buy wreak upon the earth and human health, they would make ecologically sounder choices. Goleman asserts that such transparency would add to the legions of eco-conscious consumers, help the environment and even boost corporate profits. Though it is not as tightly written as his previous books, getAbstract recommends this compelling, detailed work of advocacy for marketplace transparency. Goleman works hard to prove that it is an idea whose time has come.