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Green to Gold: How Smart Companies Use Environmental Strategy to Innovate, Create Value, and Build Competitive Advantage Hardcover – October 9, 2006
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Daniel C. Esty
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Andrew S. Winston
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Enhance your purchase
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Print length366 pages
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LanguageEnglish
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PublisherYale University Press
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Publication dateOctober 9, 2006
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Dimensions9.32 x 6.44 x 1.19 inches
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ISBN-100300119976
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ISBN-13978-0300119978
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Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Review
"The future of our country and our children's world depends on getting society on a sustainable track with regard to both energy needs and environmental requirements. It is up to corporate leaders to meet this challenge, and Green to Gold blazes a trail for businesses of all kinds to follow."―Michael Morris, CEO, American Electric Power
-- Michael Morris"Every business, big or small, in manufacturing or services, faces environmental risks and opportunities. Esty and Winston show how companies have benefited from taking these challenges as strategic opportunities, but they also detail why corporate environmental initiatives often fall flat. There are important lessons to be learned from both the successes and the failures."―Bertrand Collomb, Chairman, Lafarge
"Environment and sustainability issues have become an important focus in business generally and in the financial world in particular. Green to Gold is rich with both big-picture thinking and practical 'how-to' suggestions that will help bankers, analysts, fund managers, and investors stay on top of the 'green wave.'"―Larry Linden, Advisory Director, Goldman Sachs
"Esty and Winston have produced a compelling blueprint for how companies can address critical environmental problems, from climate change to water, and improve their performance, gain competitive advantage, make more money, and win friends."―William K. Reilly, Founding Partner, Aqua International Partners and former Administrator, US Environmental Protection Agency
"Green to Gold is a must-read for the twenty-first century CEO. Esty and Winston provide convincing examples of how companies out-compete their peers by tackling sustainability head on, engaging stakeholders, developing NGO partnerships, and folding environmental stewardship into their corporate culture."―Tensie Whelan, Executive Director, Rainforest Alliance
"No executive can afford to ignore the green wave sweeping the business world. Esty and Winston show how to make sustainability a core element of strategy―and profit from it."―Chad Holliday, CEO, DuPont
"Green to Gold is a must read for anyone interested in investing in the vast emerging environmental markets."―Mark McGough, President and CEO, Pentadyne Power Corporation
-- Mark McGough"Green to Gold provides the definitive thinking on how business leaders can address environmental issues in the new economy, a world where companies win by integrating company strategies with social challenges, rather than treating economic and social as separate and different."―Michael E. Porter, Professor, Harvard Business School
-- Michael E. PorterAbout the Author
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Product details
- Publisher : Yale University Press; 1st edition (October 9, 2006)
- Language : English
- Hardcover : 366 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0300119976
- ISBN-13 : 978-0300119978
- Item Weight : 1.67 pounds
- Dimensions : 9.32 x 6.44 x 1.19 inches
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Best Sellers Rank:
#679,935 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #192 in Green Business (Books)
- #972 in Business Ethics (Books)
- #1,624 in Environmental Economics (Books)
- Customer Reviews:
Customer reviews
Top reviews from the United States
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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).
That's the striking core message of this 2006 business tome, which spotlights the cause of environmentalism with a decidedly capitalist slant. At the core of capitalism's success, they say, is innovation. That same innovation, when applied responsibly by businesses of many types, has resulted in big gains against pollution, resource depletion, and other sustainability issues, often helping those businesses add to their bottom line.
Authors Daniel C. Esty and Andrew S. Winston back up this central point with numerous examples of industries reaping the rewards of a green strategy, dating back to Toyota's milestone launch of the Prius hybrid in 1993. Not every earth-friendly idea is so rewarding, but even the hardest-cost items can be useful in demonstrating a corporation as a good citizen, something critical in the face of growing regulatory pressure and activist advocacy.
"No company can afford to ignore green issues," the authors write. "Those who manage them with skill will build stronger, more profitable, longer-lasting businesses - and a healthier, more livable planet."
Two groups of people are likely to find this book not to their liking. One are the group that believe climate change - presented as a simple case of fact in this book - is the product of phony science. However, as I write this on an 85-degree day in April, many of these people would likely agree with me that in the world of stock markets particularly, perception is reality and there's little value now in digging one's heels in the ground and calling Al Gore names.
The other group, interestingly, is hard-core environmentalists. "Green To Gold" is an eco-positive book, but its message will likely anger those who believe capitalism itself is the world's greatest environmental threat. Esty and Winston even go so far as to point out examples of where a green-first philosophy won't work for most businesses. Patagonia, for example, can charge more for its earth-friendly products because its a privately held company. For other businesses, as a Shell executive notes, the environment can be most effective as a "third button", not a reason for making a purchase in itself, but as a kind of feel-good value add.
There is a good deal of repetition, PowerPoint graphics, and acronymic dross in "Green To Gold", which at least establishes that it is indeed a business book. It's a little too rah-rah at times, like about cap-and-trade, which is pure taxation and only helpful in the way it can hurt your competitor more than you. At one point, the authors suggest businesses should embrace even stricter regulations, after preparing themselves to meet those regs, in order to gain competitive advantage against their scrambling peers. There's a green strategy Gordon Gekko would have liked!
I liked "Green To Gold" less for its message (no treehugger me!) than for the solid way it is presented. There's also useful information about how companies can foster an eco-friendly culture that will affect change within the organization, thus priming it for the tough regulatory stretch ahead. The fact is the world is taking green issues more seriously, and smart businesses need to stay ahead of this development. "Green To Gold" offers the kind of guidance that speaks to the comptroller as well as the dreamer.
Top reviews from other countries
The first part of the book provides background and context to the issues that we are all facing today. The latter parts of the book explores the strategies that the "best in class" companies are using.
I found the book a really useful introduction to the business rationale behind sustainability. We didn't get bogged down in environmental facts and figures and it didn't try to scare us into action. Just a well balanced, practical approach to making businesses more sustainable. Highly recommended reading for those interested in strategies around building sustainable business.
The book needs updating and the authors need to look in the mirror and ask themselves whether they've been duped by some of their subjects.
How about an additional chapter entitled "Greenwashing"?
Postage a little slow.













