Strategy for Sustainability: A Business Manifesto [Hardcover]

Adam Werbach (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 6, 2009

This is the definitive work on business strategy for sustainability by the most authoritative voice in the conversation.

More than ever before, consumers, employees, and investors share a common purpose and a passion for companies that do well by doing good. So any strategy without sustainability at its core is just plain irresponsible - bad for business, bad for shareholders, bad for the environment. These challenges represent unprecedented opportunities for big brands - such as Clorox, Dell, Toyota, Procter & Gamble, Nike, and Wal-Mart - that are implementing integral, rather than tangential, strategies for sustainability. What these companies are doing illuminates the book's practical framework for change, which involves engaging employees, using transparency as a business tool, and reaping the rewards of a networked organizational structure.

Leave your quaint notions of corporate social responsibility and environmentalism behind. Werbach is starting a whole new dialogue around sustainability of enterprise and life as we know it in organizations and individuals. Sustainability is now a true competitive strategic advantage, and building it into the core of your business is the only means to ensure that your company - and your world - will survive.

In Strategy for Sustainability, Adam Werbach shows us how sustainability moves beyond compliance-oriented green initiatives to become a key strategy for achieving both competitive advantage and meaningful change. By integrating a systems perspective into business practice and priorities, Werbach lays out a compelling new model for building core business strategy. Gene Kahn, VP, Global Sustainability Officer, General Mills, Inc.

By applying the laws of nature to the laws of business, Werbach provides a trail map that any enterprise or entrepreneur can follow to become a surer, more nimble traveler as our economy enters unchartered terrain. Seth Goldman, Cofounder and TEA-EO, Honest Tea

Editorial Reviews

Review

...a smart book about creating a workable sustainability plan for your organization. --Associations Now, June 2009

...useful and refreshingly nondoctrinaire book...tells vivid and interlocked stories that stick in the brain. --Stanford Social Innovation Review, Summer 2009

About the Author

Adam Werbach, Global CEO, Saatchi & Saatchi S. Adam is an environmental activist who was elected as the youngest-ever national president of the Sierra Club in 1996 when he was 23 years old. In late 2004, he wrote and presented a widely-circulated speech referred to as "Is Environmentalism Dead?" (the official title was "The Death of Environmentalism and the Birth of the Commons Movement") at the Commonwealth Club of California. Werbach founded Act Now Productions to consult to nonprofits and work with corporations that wished to green their enterprise, including clients such as Autodesk, Procter & Gamble, Cisco Systems, Columbia Records, General Mills, Sierra Club, and World Wildlife Fund. In 2006, he controversially began to work with Wal-Mart to help lead their efforts in sustainability. In January 2008, Act Now Productions joined the global advertising firm Saatchi & Saatchi to become Saatchi & Saatchi S, which consults with large corporations to "create sustainable visions."

Product Details

• Hardcover: 224 pages
• Publisher: Harvard Business Press (July 6, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 142217770X
• ISBN-13: 978-1422177709
• Product Dimensions: 6.5 x 0.9 x 9.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (35 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #59,266 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #82 in Books > Business & Investing > Economics > Environmental Economics

More About the Author

Adam Werbach, Global CEO, Saatchi & Saatchi S



Adam Werbach is the author of Strategy for Sustainability, published by Harvard Business Press. Werbach is widely known as one of the foremost experts in sustainability strategy. In 1996, at age 23, Werbach was elected the youngest-ever President of the Sierra Club, the oldest and largest environmental organization in the United States. Since then, Werbach has declared environmentalism dead, built and sold three companies, and merged with global ideas company Saatchi & Saatchi to create the world's largest sustainability agency, Saatchi & Saatchi S.

As Global CEO of Saatchi & Saatchi S, Werbach guides sustainability work from China to South Africa to Brazil, advising companies with nearly $1 trillion in combined annual sales, including Walmart, Procter & Gamble, General Mills and WellPoint. Werbach worked with Walmart to engage the company's 1.9 million Associates in its sustainability effort, creating the Personal Sustainability Project ("PSP").

Twice elected to the International Board of Greenpeace, Werbach is a frequent commentator on sustainable business, appearing on networks including BBC, NPR, and CNN, and shows ranging from the The O'Reilly Factor to Charlie Rose. He lives in San Francisco's Bernal Heights with his wife Lyn and children Mila, Pearl and Simon.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

28 of 31 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Passion yes, clarity ? June 22, 2009

By Karen Tiede VINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Vine™ Review (What's this?)

First, read Robert Morris' thorough 5-star review to get an overview of this book's contents.

The author's frustration at not being able to persuade New Orleans' leaders of the risks of a hurricane inspired this book. I appreciate the passion. However, I came away confused, feeling that perhaps the passion was driving his writing faster than he could evaluate what actually reached the page; that perhaps there were more thoughts behind the words than were actually communicated by the ink on the paper.

Points:
p7: "Innovate differently, and win, or continue to innovate narrowly, and lose." Has Werbach not read The Innovator's Dilemma? "Innovating differently" is an enormous challenge to established companies and isn't going to be solved by exhortation.

p. 20: "Nature obsesses over protecting its young." No, only for some vertebrates. Not for oysters, or pine trees, or any of the bazillion R-strategist species, which have better survival profiles in unstable environments than the K-strategists that invest heavily in gestation and nuturing babies.

p. 20: "Integrate metrics. Nature brings the right information to the right place at the right time. When a tree needs water, the leaves curl." Huh? This is the place where I began to wonder whether there was some major additional thinking behind the words because the words didn't make sense to me. How on earth are curling leaves metrics information to the tree? Curling leaves are a survival "behavior," and perhaps metrics to someone with a watering can. But I don't water trees...

(There's actually a whole lot more on this particular page that leaves me scratching my head, pondering how the author's view of nature-as-business-model is different from mine. Population explosions in many species, followed by famine-driven die-offs, are pretty common in the nature I know.)

The story about Circuit City's failure on p. 26: "The company's human resource strategy failed." Did the strategy fail, or did they fail to follow the strategy? Maybe it's a nit, but this is a book about strategy.

Strategy #7: "Only the truly transparent will survive." OK. I'll allow that as a premise. However, the example provided is how the totally opaque functioning of AIG and its mortgage-backed securities drove the collapse of the company. I don't see that this example proves the point.

Enough already. I think this book makes an important contribution, and I wish I didn't have to work so hard to figure it out. Being sustainable is hard enough.

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Manifesto, yes. Roadmap, no. June 26, 2009

By Brian D. Newby VINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Vine™ Review (What's this?)

I'm really torn about this book because I think the author is clearly brilliant and he is exploring a point of view that is unique, or, at the very least, the first of many authors to publish books in this vein in the coming months.

If you are a business executive with a disposition to sustainability, this book will speak to you and is a must read. He does a pretty good job comparing his perspective to other thinking, such as that of Jim Collins (Built to Last, Good to Great, How the Mighty Fall).

But he opens with an anecdote of how he couldn't reach the leadership in New Orleans before Hurricane Katrina and he feels professional regret about not being able to frame his argument in a way it would be received.

I think that's noble and he has tried very hard to be persuasive--speaking in the language of the receiver--in this book, but he almost overly does so, pulling every business and societal buzzword (down to transparency) as conditions to be successful in meeting business and sustainability goals. Heck, actually, sustainability itself is a buzzword these days.

So, what comes out is a well-thought thesis for action, and, despite my headline, a potential roadmap. But, it's potential in that it is theoritical. I think he knows this--hence, the "Manifesto," in the subtitle. "Manifesto" worked for Jerry McGuire, though, and this author evokes similar passion.

Temper your expectations, and I think you'll be impressed with the book and retain--even apply--many of the ideas. Look to this at the ultimate prescription for sustainability in business, and you'll be disappointed.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars great ideas, organizaion needs some work July 7, 2009

By Ari Elias Bachrach

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Vine™ Review (What's this?)

Overall I really liked this book. While Werbach clearly has an environmental streak, he really does a good job of showing the reader that sustainability is more then just environmentalism, and how his long term strategies can help anyone build an enterprise which is successful in the long term. He encourages people to develop what he calls "north star goals" - goals that can be accomplished in 5-15 years and have a beneficial effect on the enterprise and society. His main strategies that he tries to drive home are (summarizing from page 19):
* Diversify across generations
* Adapt to the changing environment
* Celebrate transparency
* Plan and execute systematically, not compartmentally.
* Integrate metrics
* Improve with each cycle
* Right-size regularly, rather than downsize occasionally
* Foster longevity, not immediate gratification
* waste nothing

Unfortunately his organization could use some work. His best definition of sustainability actually comes in the conclusion of the book! (Sustainability means meeting your needs now, while not compromising your ability to meet your needs in the future). There are also a few acronyms he invents that he doesn't define until after they've been used.

The most glaring omission in the book is that while he has loads of examples and ideas, he focuses almost exclusive on the manufacturing sector of the economy, and ignores the service sector. He does mention that his ideas can be applied to the service sector too, but it would be nice to see him give more than just lip service to that notion.

Overall I don't want to dwell on the negatives too much, because there really are some great ideas in this book, and I'm convinced that enterprises which follow his roadmap will certainly be better off in the long term, as will our society as a whole. He celebrates transparency and encourages enterprises to listen to their outside critics as well as work with their partners to mutual benefit. I would certainly recommend this to anyone who is thinking about the future of their enterprise and is ready to think long term instead of just to the next quarterly earnings report.