Customer Reviews

Green Recovery: Get Lean, Get Smart, and Emerge from the Downturn on Top

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Andrew Winston's new book, Green Recovery, comes in a small, green package, but it packs a big, relevant punch. It is a must read for CEOs who still think going green will cost too much and for mid-level and senior managers responsible for identifying strategic sustainability initiatives to focus on.

Like his public speaking style, Winston's writing voice is personable, authentic and engaging. Building on his previous book Green to Gold and his sustainability consulting experience, he presents a clear, green recovery framework that outlines four key paths to a leaner, greener world:

* Get lean: Invest in energy efficiency, waste reduction and other quick-return strategies, and use the cost savings to fund innovation.

* Get smart: Gather data on your environmental footprint throughout the value chain, and use the data to identify priorities, encourage creativity and support employee engagement.

* Get creative: Encourage staff to ask heretical questions and implement strategies to nurture innovation.

* Get engaged: Galvanize your staff by making a real commitment to sustainability, and encourage alignment with core business goals by linking performance to key metrics.

Winston advises that companies that follow this framework will, "...survive today's travails, thrive as things get better and emerge from the downturn on top."

Top reasons to read Green Recovery

1. Business case for going green: Winston does a great job making the business case for why going green is a vital business strategy, with specific examples that address six business drivers. You might want to get a copy for your CEO, or other senior staff, if they are not fully on board yet.

2. Practical ideas: This small book is chocked full of practical ideas and strategies that can both save money and strengthen your business, with case studies from large corporations, such as DuPont, Procter & Gamble, Toyota, Wal-Mart and Disney. Yet, the framework will apply to smaller companies as well.

3. Holistic approach: If you integrate all four approaches, you will be addressing sustainability from an authentic and holistic perspective. Yes, switching light bulbs will save you money, but if you stop there, you are not maximizing the business value sustainability can offer.

Sometimes a relatively new book feels out of date by the time I read it. With Green Recovery, I had the opposite reaction. It almost seems as if the green wave he describes has grown even stronger since the book was written.

In the conclusion, Winston does a great job of weaving together how the four key components of the framework interact with each other.

So, push the boundaries, ask heretical questions and create a culture of creativity where everyone is fully engaged. "In the process, you'll redefine your business and help build a leaner, greener world," concludes Winston. Let's hope he is right!

And if you read this book and decide you need assistance implementing these concepts, give Green Impact a call![...]

Andrew S. Winston stands for quality. Not for nothing this book and Green to Gold are bestselling books in the field of environmentalism and green business strategies. In "Green Recovery" he outlines tactics and techniques how to arise from an economical downturn, making use of green and sustainable business strategies. Although, while I was reading the book, I sometimes thought that Winston sees it a bit black and white (regarding becoming green being the only way out of a crisis) I was very impressed by this book.

"Green Recovery" is not only written as a guide on how to go green, stay green, and become the next environmental steward, but also provides the reader with a lot of background information. This mix made the book a nice read apart from being an extremely valuable resource for everyone who tries to restructure an organization. If you want to get a few tips and tricks on how to become greener and more successful at the same time, this book delivers you insights from years of experience.

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

Andrew Winston does a marvelous job at taking a complex topic and making it simple with pithy examples and a systematic flow of material. The work can easily be pegged as a CFO's handbook to chart the whitewaters of an organization's transition from controlling costs to managing costs (not just for sustainability purposes but for all strategic projects and operational tactical processes). Winston advocates the budgeting-to-a-plan method that allows the organization's vision to dictate its strategic approach (versus the all-too-common and failed planning-to-a-budget approach in which allotted budgets dictate organizational strategy). The 10 tips for process improvements (running lean while still growing the business, etc.) will remain priceless, timeless tactics that can be achieved with little-to-no cost. Winston provides extraordinary wisdom in how to transform an organizational culture into one that produces innovative thinkers who produce profound results. The most important lesson contained in the book is how to engage the workforce to make an organization distinct, effective, and influential.

Green Recovery is a quick, thought provoking fairly simple read. Applicable for anyone in an organization, from "Champions" on any level to the C-Suite.

The message is simple; GET GREEN NOW while much of the business world is in survival mode. Your business will WIN NOW in the short term, and while you are getting green now, you will also create long term shareholder value and competitive advantage.

Andrew Winston makes the business case for going green NOW ....not later. He outlines a simple strategic framework that is applicable for any size business be it small or of mega mammoth proportions. His framework of Get Lean, Get Smart, Get Creative and Get Engaged along with the business successes outlined in the book, allow for any reader to gain insights into how to spur innovation and identify quick wins in several areas, including energy and waste. These quick wins, in many cases can immediately impact your bottom line with a nice shade of green.

Where will your business be when oil prices rebound after this crunch is over? Having survived the economic crisis, will your company be in a position to survive an energy crisis, the likes of which we have never seen? Andrew gives you the framework to follow to green your business now, and avoid that pitfall.

Those companies that green up now will survive the long term non-renewable energy crunch that is surely headed our way. That is reason enough to read Green Recovery, Get Lean, Get Smart and YOU WILL... Emerge from the Downturn on Top!!!!

Coral Rose
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Over all I think this was a good book but it wasn't as good as Green to Gold. It's feels more like a update to Green to Gold, not a full book.

Last night I read Andrew S. Winston's new book Green Recovery - Get Lean, Get Smart, And Emerge From the Downturn on Top.

The book was awesome and obvious. The gist of the message is it's smart business to be green and that many of the things which companies do to save money are actually environmentally friendly.

One of my tenants in business has always been to try to get 100% utilization of resources, so if I happen to have a board room that wasn't being used, if I get someone to use it (and pay something for that), it was a good way to cover my overheads. It also happens to be good for the environment because I was already going to pay to heat that part of the building.

For some reason, there is a lot of 'Green' in my family. My parents must have raised us right. One brother owns a biodiesel refinery and has written a book on biodiesel. My other brother Glen runs a wind farm and my son has started a business selling solar installations.

The book talks about:
Get lean by revving up your energy and resource efficiency to survive the downturn.
Get smart by using environmental data about products and value chains to save money, innovate, and generate competitive advantage.
Get creative and rejuvenate your innovation efforts by asking heretical questions such as "Can we run our business with no fossil fuels?"
Get your people engaged and excited by asking employees to solve their own, the company's, and even the world's environmental challenges.
Winston had written a previous book called Green to Gold, which described how Green is good for business.

Any business that invests money is always looking for a positive ROI and some parts of ROI are tough to measure. I would argue that Green projects should be given a longer ROI than other projects because it's probable the cost of energy is going to increase also because it's good to good in the world and being green is likely to inspire some loyalty in both staff and in customers.

He talks about the obvious savings.
-Replacing ordinary incandescent bulbs with energy efficient lights, etc.
-Shut off your technology (computers can draw a lot of power). I toured a company called Chromis Fiberoptic in Connecticut Monday that makes plastic fiber optic cables. Very interesting company with potentially disruptive technology but that is another story. One advantage of fiber over copper is it uses less than 1/10 of the energy which in a datacenter environment results in huge savings because you not only save on the power in the first place, but you save on the power to cool it.
-Fill the trucks, drive fewer miles, redesign distribution.
-Travel less - telecommute and teleconference. I had spoken earlier about one of the companies I invested in called Calliflower , teleconferencing / WebEx software.

It's a short book, it's an easy read. Anyone in business can benefit by going green.

Climate change and sustainability are tremendous challenges for businesses. Inflexible firms will find the future difficult as the prices increase for oil and other scarce resource. Therefore, nimble, visionary firms are adjusting to new environmental realities. Sustainability expert Andrew S. Winston explains why going "lean and green" can be the best move a business can make, in good times and bad. He details how firms can implement green initiatives to survive and thrive in today's new economic and environmental climate. getAbstract recommends Winston's book to executives and managers who want to learn how going green can improve their strategies, business models, and profits.

This book is an excellent suppliment for Green to Gold. It is very current, has a ton of real world examples and will help get sustainability efforts moving.

"Following the green path, especially in hard times can lead your company to higher profits and sustainable advantage." That's the main premise of Andrew Winston's new book Green Recovery. The tricky word is "can", which Winston addresses by outlining four basic strategies for riding out the recession and emerging ahead of the game.

Winston's breezy style makes for a quick read (plus it's a tiny book), making business greening seem almost easy. Overcoming the recession with green recovery requires quick action. Packaging sustainability as a sensible and beneficial task helps make the business case for it.

Crucially, "green isn't an additional, tangential [business] pursuit...it is a core part of operating today." Market pressures - volatile energy/commodity prices, climate change regulation, transparency, and demands from the supply chain, employees and consumers - require making investments in greening your business now.

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