Customer Reviews

Green to Gold: How Smart Companies Use Environmental Strategy to Innovate, Create Value, and Build Competitive Advantage

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I have read and praised Natural Capitalism: Creating the Next Industrial Revolution, The Ecology of Commerce and Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things here at Amazon, and I mention them to emphasize that this book, "Green to Gold," is the hands-down no-contest best primer for top management. The others are intellectual presentations. This is a business oriented primer with lots of facts, lists, and resources.

It is a pro-business book that focuses on opportunities. It is extremely well-organized, with three parts, twelve chapters, and three appendices including a superb list of active web sites relevant to doing well by doing good.

This book is based on hundreds of interviews over four years, and every aspect of it is professional presented, including boxes with "10 second overviews" interspersed throughout.

The authors are compellingly pointed in their discussion of how the environment, and attendant regulations and attendant risks of catastrophic costs, is no longer a fringe issue. Mistakes in cadmium content of connecting cables can cost hundreds of millions.

The authors excel at discussing the new pressures from natural limits that are now visible (changes that used to take 10,000 years now take 3--see my reviews on Ecological Economics, the Republican War on Science, the varied books on Climate Change, etc) and the fact that there is a growing range of stake-holders who are altering the balance of power.

The authors are clear in noting that environmental compliance and wisdom is neither easy nor cheap, but they are equally detailed in documenting that most investments to reduce environmental costs are recouped within 12-18 months. In one cited example, 3M saves $1 billion in the first year alone on pollution reduction, and over the course of a decade, was able to reduce its pollution by 90%.

On page 33 they list the top 10 environmental issues and I like this list very much as an expansion on "Environmental Degradation" which is the over-all threat that the High Level Threat Panel of the United Nations ranked as third out of ten, to Poverty and Infectious Disease. They are:

01 Climate Change
02 Energy
03 Water
04 Biodiversity and Land Use
05 Chemicals, Toxics, and Heavy Metals
06 Air Pollution
07 Waste Management
08 Ozone Layer Depletion
09 Oceans and Fisheries
10 Deforestation

The authors do a superb job in summarizing each of these in several pages perfectly suited to the busy manager. For those desiring more in-depth looks, see my many reviews across the board, including Priority One: Together We Can Beat Global Warming; various books on energy, Water: The Fate of Our Most Precious Resource; Pandora's Poison: Chlorine, Health, and a New Environmental Strategy, Blue Frontier: Dispatches from America's Ocean Wilderness; and The Blue Death: Disease, Disaster, and the Water We Drink.

The bottom line for the first part of the book: extremes can no longer be dampened down; and we now recognize the eco-system value of the wetlands that we have paid the Army Corps of Engineers to eradicate for decades.

The authors devised a schema for businesses to develop an understanding and then a strategy for reducing their environmental footprint. The authors do extremely well with their organized examination of Aspects, Upstream, Downstream, Issues, and Opportunities (AUDIO), and anyone looking at the book in a store can go directly to pages 62-63. This is an operational management handbook.

There is an excellent overview of the many new stake-holders (or significantly matured stake-holders including NGOs, religions, and local citizens. Business can no longer bribe government--government cannot "deliver" the way it used to (see my review of The Global Class War: How America's Bipartisan Elite Lost Our Future - and What It Will Take to Win It Back for a sense of how corruption of other elites by our elites has accelerated all the ills of the world).

Regulations, according to these authors, should be seen as vital incentives and parameters for both reducing costs and gaining trust.

Forty global banks, and many insurance companies, now demand proper examination of ecological costs as a condition for funding or coverage.

The authors remind me of General Tony Zinni, whose books I have reviewed, in their emphasis on relationships developed over time. They urge a strong focus on relationships NOW, across the board, as a means of building a "trust bank" as well as a deeper understanding. Blocks that used to be labels "not our problem" or "not legally liable" are now labeled "IMPORTANT TO US."

In the middle of the book they explore the digital information advantages that can accrue to those who get out of their closed loops and increase innovation. In one instance, simply adding load to trucks reduced fuel consumption and emissions considerably.

The middle of the book contains 8 detailed "Green to Gold" plays, and I won't spoil it by listing them. A box in this section says "Truth Matters" and I applaud silently.

The authors stress that mind-set, not just a check-book, is required to get this right. Five basic rules are 1) See the forest; 2) Start at the top; 3) No is not an option; 4) Feelings are facts; and 5) Do the right thing, morality DOES pay.

Pages 168-169 are sheer brilliance, and illustrate why the value chain must be completely integrated into the environmental strategy of each element of that value chain and most especially the largest and most powerful of the elements, which must carefully consider and accept responsibility for demanding improvements by the smallest elements.

Eight lessons of partnering, 13 problems and their solutions, and a final chapter of very specific actions that managers can take, conclude the book.

My final note on this book: a pleasure to read, easy to read, so well done I got through it in half the time characteristic of denser or less well designed books. This is first rate stuff!

This is one of the better books on the New Green Wave of sustainability sweeping across the business world (2006). It is written by two Yale profs who take a much more objective view of the successess - and failures - of companies who have launched into major sustainability initiatives. As such, it is a more credible assessment of the real value of sustainable business practices. It is well written with many case examples, factoids and stimulating discussion - as well as many "tools" for any company to size up their path ahead.

Most books on the topic leave you with the idea that all is rosey and money when "doing the right thing" and developing more sustainable business practices. Not so here - you will find many examples of what HASN'T worked out according to expectations. Case-in-point Interface Floor Covering, a company whose case is in about every book on sustainability. Well, in their pursuit to reinvent the way carpeting is made and sold (many excellent eco-accomplishments), they totally musjudged the marketplace and assumed corporate customers would be happy to switch from buying carpeting (out of annual capital budget) to leasing it (out of monthly operating budgets). They ignored one of the great rules of "Green Marketing": Don't expect the customer to change behaviour to make green choices. So, this book brings these valuable lessons for all to learn and avoid repeating.

This is a great book for VP, CEO, COO levels as it highlights the business case in a clear and compelling way and shows how, really, the business case for sustainability has been largely proven. Green to Gold is a quality, believable business book that will help especially managerial staff understand this topic in biz terms most known to them. It also gives some excellent but succict summaries of the top environmental problems that have led to unsustainable activity and how to savvily engage various stakeholders from Greenpeace to shareholder or employees asking tough questions.

Also highly recommended is "A Necessary Revolution: How Organizations are Collaborating to Create a Sustainable World" by MIT's Peter Senge (2008).

If you want to read this book for ways HOW to transform your company to become green, then I don't think this is the book you should get. Most of the book is about WHY we should go green. And we already know that going green is the way of the future, so I don't need a book to tell me that. Most of the illustrations are about the benefits companies obtained by going green. It does not show how they started or went about getting there, and that was the reason I bought the book, to see if I can find ways for my own company.

Green to Gold is a must-read for anyone who (a) holds a leadership position in business or is a business influencer, and (b) cares about the environment we live in. Its subtitle really best describes the book, which is probably the first (or if not, certainly the best) documentation of successful corporate environmentalstrategy on the market.

It's a little reminiscent to me of Collins Built to Last and Good to Great in that it is meticulously researched with a mix of company interviews/cooperation and empirical and investigative work. It doesn't have Collins "pairing" framework, but it doesn't need to in order to make its point.

If you liked Al Gore's movie, An Inconvenient Truth, this book will satisfy your thirst for information about what the heck the corporate world is doing or more important, can do, to do its part in not destroying our ecosystem. If you didn't like Gore's movie or didn't see it because you don't like Al Gore or don't think that many elements of the environmental movement are worthwhile, this book is an even more important read, as it brings the theoretical and scientific to the practical and treats sustainability as the corporate world must treat it in order to adopt it as a mainstream practice -- as a driver of capitalistic profit and competitive advantage.

This is a really important work in terms of advancing the cause of corporate social responsibility as it applies to the environment. Most important, it proves the axiom here that you can, in fact, Do Well by Doing Good.

I have been interested in the topic of sustainable business for years and yet have found very few well-researched and comprehensive resources on the topic. Green to Gold is just that. In fact, it is the first book I've found that layers a framework for analyzing these business opportunities on top of refreshing new examples of company activities here. I found the frame very helpful in triggering thoughts and ideas about how I could help my own company capture some of the opportunities available in this space.

When a colleague suggested that I read this--my gut reaction, after just finishing a graduate degree, was that I was not going to cuddle up with a potentially bland business book. After holing up in my apartment for 48 hours, that all changed. A half dozen phone calls had gone unanswered and I had one heck of leg cramp. I had not only finished "Green to Gold", but was enraptured by it--and thankfully freshly emerging from a slight fog in my professional career.

For years I've been really unsure about how civil society could better manage its resources both economically and ecologically. Throughout my professional tenure working for government, academia and non-profits, I was not been impressed with the success of proposed solutions. Pay attention here: Esty and Winston's epiphanies are definitely worth implementing. These authors clearly embrace and illustrate the theme--as some anonymous author once said, that "innovation is the ability to see change as an opportunity - not a threat." And that is precisely what the environmental community is not doing (e.g. better incorporating the corporate Juggernaut into its strategies) and probably why it has not succeeded in disproving the theory that it's either the economy or the environment, but not both.

This insightful book shows exactly how people, whether individuals and businesses, can evaluate and modify their actions both up and downstream to save money and reduce their impact on the environment. So if you are a business tycoon, concerned citizen, emerging entrepreneur, or just a person slightly disturbed by the state of the world and looking to be re-inspired-- this could be the best eighteen dollars you'll ever invest. No doubt, this thoroughly researched and well-referenced book is an ideal corporate measurement tool and certainly, for both business and the environment, is true value added.

In Green to Gold, Esty and Winston contribute a much needed voice to the conversation about why businesses will all ultimately transform themselves for sustainability, and why the smartest ones are moving now to develop shareholder value and a competitive edge through strategic environmental action. The authors lend a distinctly rational and grounded perspective on real issues business leaders must face today, and how they can turn challenges in to opportunity for innovation and success. This is the best starting point we've seen for beginning to think both strategically and tactically about what steps you should take going forward, and forms a fantastic framework for discussion both internally, and within your value network about how to catch this next wave of innovation. Highly recommended. This book will certainly have impact on speeding the pace of change.

I must admit, I am the least "Green" person I know. However, after taking a position in a company where I had to champion sustainability efforts within the organization, I quickly asked around for the best books on the subject. This book was named repeatedly, so I bought it and read it in anticipation of my new position.

This book taught me to look at "green" and sustainability in a whole new light, and allowed me to offer intense business cases to my employer, rather than focusing on the fluffy "green" language that you hear from most environmentalists etc. It legitimately allowed me to justify certain sustainability initiatives with pure numbers, and solid arguments.

This is a must-read for corporate managers, not only because sustainability is here to stay, but because it will help you know what to look for in order to be the person that winds up saving your company millions of dollars with one simple idea.

Good Luck!

Sesame Street's Kermit the Frog famously observed, "It's not easy being green." Whether easy or not, environmental and social pressures are pushing more and more companies to ride the "green wave" to ecological sustainability. In this beautifully organized, crisply written book, Daniel C. Esty and Andrew S. Winston, both Yale professors, describe how sustainability can create competitive advantage. They succinctly make the business case for sustainability, and then provide a playbook of green strategies and tactics. The presentation is neither too abstract nor too detailed: It's just right. Nor is their presentation one-sided: They enumerate many ways sustainable products and strategies can go wrong. While some of their suggestions may seem obvious, the authors deserve praise for collecting so many excellent tips and tricks, and for describing them in memorable (mostly) jargon-free prose. We highly recommend this smart book to any business leader who wants to move beyond rhetoric to action. While Kermit's wisdom is doubtless correct, this handbook makes being green much easier.

This book literally bombards you with examples of green business practices and advices how your own company can become the next successful eco-company with a sustainable competitive advantage. Esty and Winston's years of experience as environmental consultants who advised a lot of the top green wave riding companies shines through almost every line. By giving specific practical advices, while embedding these into the bigger picture of environmentalism and sustainability, they created a must read for everyone who is involved in green business practices.

Coining terms like "eco-advantage", Esty and Winston add their valuable insights to the green scene. Well structured and clearly outlined this book provides a fantastic starting point for everyone who wants to go green or stay sustainable. The amount of practical examples covers pretty much every business area and provides plenty of techniques to start with to make the move from green to gold.

- Frank Roettgers, author of Going Green Together - How to Align Employees with Green Strategies