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The Ecology of Commerce Revised Edition: A Declaration of Sustainability (Collins Business Essentials) Kindle Edition
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Paul Hawken
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LanguageEnglish
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PublisherHarper Business
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Publication dateMarch 5, 2013
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File size1045 KB
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Editorial Reviews
From the Back Cover
The world has changed in the seventeen years since the controversial initial publication of Paul Hawken's Ecology of Commerce, a stirring treatise about the perceived antagonism between ecology and business. Yet Hawken's impassioned argument—that business both causes the most egregious abuses of the environment and, crucially, holds the most potential for solving our sustainability problems—is more relevant and resonant than ever.
Containing updated and revised material for a new audience, The Ecology of Commerce presents a compelling vision of the restorative (rather than destructive) economy we must create, centered on eight imperatives:
- Reduce energy carbon emissions 80 percent by 2030 and total natural resource usage 80 percent by 2050.
- Provide secure, stable, and meaningful employment to people everywhere.
- Be self-organizing rather than regulated or morally mandated.
- Honor market principles.
- Restore habitats, ecosystems, and societies to their optimum.
- Rely on current income.
- Be fun and engaging, and strive for an aesthetic outcome.
From Publishers Weekly
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Library Journal
- Diane M. Fortner, Univ. of Califor nia, Berkeley
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Kirkus Reviews
Amazon.com Review
About the Author
Paul Hawken's bestselling books include Blessed Unrest, Natural Capitalism, and The Next Economy. He has also written dozens of articles, op-eds, and papers concerning the responsibility of business to the natural environment. His writings have appeared in the Harvard Business Review, Inc magazine, the Boston Globe, the Utne Reader, and more than a hundred other publications.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.Product details
- ASIN : B00B72CG5C
- Publisher : Harper Business; Revised edition (March 5, 2013)
- Publication date : March 5, 2013
- Language : English
- File size : 1045 KB
- Text-to-Speech : Enabled
- Enhanced typesetting : Enabled
- X-Ray : Not Enabled
- Word Wise : Enabled
- Print length : 259 pages
- Lending : Not Enabled
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Best Sellers Rank:
#149,214 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #24 in Sustainable Development Economics
- #65 in Business Ethics (Kindle Store)
- #100 in Sustainable Business Development
- Customer Reviews:
Customer reviews
Top reviews from the United States
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Like most people, I rely on honest product reviews to make purchase decisions. Because the experience of others has been so helpful to me, I try to provide honest, helpful reviews to assist other shoppers in selecting the right products for them. I hope my review has been helpful to you!
His metaphor for business IS the environment: everything in nature is cyclical, which brings maximum efficiency. Nothing is more efficient than the natural world: one organism's waste is another organism's life source. If business would approach operations and resources from this perspective, waste would not be 'waste' and the benefits of increased efficiency would permeate throughout all life and systems. His metaphor is very simple but exceedingly beautiful, and only becomes more so as Hawken goes in-depth with concrete examples and further exploration of all issues from both sides. Throughout reading this book, I was continuously floored by his analysis, his insight and his prescription for the future.
And a note about his prose: every sentence reflects structurally the economies and efficiencies it conveys ideologically. This man is concise and his style is powerful - every word packs a punch. He says so much with so little, maximizing the time spent in our reading investment. Clearly, I have nothing but the highest praise for Hawken and this book - it is truly visionary.
The Ecology of Commerce addresses these issues from both business and environmental points of view. It recognizes there will be immediate, sometimes substantial, economic costs during the transition to a sustainable economy. The point is made, however, that should the strain on the planets resources exceed carrying capacity, the consequences would be devastating.
We don't, and probably can't know the precise limit till we get there. At that point things are likely to get ugly. Really ugly. Paul correctly argues that we need to move toward a sustainable economy that more closely mirrors biological systems. He suggests production processes that begin with the end of the useful life of a product in mind so that waste can easily and continually be recycled into new products.
The book seems to be overly optimistic that business will see the light and move to adopt sustainable business practices. While some are moving in this direction, they are not moving fast enough. As the most powerful nation in the world and the one that uses far more resources than any other in the world, the US must lead the way. Some companies are taking positive steps, but efforts need to increase dramatically.
The Ecology of Commerce is a good start. It lays out the direction in which we need to move. The vision is an economy in which the full economic AND environmental costs are factored into the cost of goods and services. This book lays out where we need to go; now we just need to figure out how to make a smooth transition to get there.
It still reads like a collection of keynote speeches where every sentence is designed to pack a punch. It doesn't take a lot of words to be honest and direct. Ecology of commerce is not a spectator sport; if really read it is a call to action.
Top reviews from other countries
I'm not sure I entirely agree with Hawken's proposals for green taxation as I tend to look for feedback in such systems and taxation on products that are not supposed to do us good (cigarettes, alcohol, aviation fuel...) don't seem to have had much impact on the population and in fact make the government the beneficiary of such activities reducing their desire to curb them long-term.
But apart from that his call to business to look for cyclic, restorative models and stop externalising the costs of the environmental damage they do makes good business sense to me and that gives it some chance of actually permeating into culture. Hence, many years after its first publication, a growing number of companies are directly or indirectly responding to his call. Marvellous.
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