In Earth's Company: Business, Environment and the Challenge of Sustainability (The Conscientious Commerce Series)

By Carl Frankel

In recent years, people have looked more and more to the business world to take their share of responsibility for the fast-deteriorating state of the Earth. But exactly how businesses should go about... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0865713804
• ISBN13: 9780865713802
• Release Date: July 1998
• Publisher: New Society Publishers
• Length: 240 Pages
• Weight: 0.90 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.5" x 0.8" x 6.3"

Customer Reviews

Thoughtful and informative

Whether you believe the greening of business is hype and greenwash, or that businesses are starting to play an important role in hastening the coming ecological age, In Earth's Company provides a good overview of the successes, failures, and challenges of corporate environmentalism.Author Carl Frankel is the North American editor for Tomorrow magazine, a slick glossy publication from Sweden that is one of the better periodicals covering developments in business and the environment. Frankel makes good use of his broad knowledge of current events in environmental management and his book is full of stories and examples that go beyond the usual extremes of either finger pointing or hero worship.Frankel does not attempt to demonstrate the overwhelming decline in global life support systems. He accepts that this has been well documented in many other places and focuses on how businesses have reacted to this overwhelming driving force.Why are major corporations now starting to consider integrating sustainability into their strategies and operations? To answer this question requires an understanding of the four eras of corporate environmentalismThe first era of corporate environmentalism was the era of barebones regulatory compliance. Simply complying with the growing array of environmental laws developed in the 1960s and 70s kept corporate environmental management fully occupied.After environmental catastrophes such as the release of 57,000 litres of methyl isocyanate from a Union Carbide plant into the air in Bhopal, India that killed and injured thousands, companies felt extreme pressure to disclose more to their stakeholders. The second era of increased disclosure began.Out of increased disclosure, public accountability increased and companies began to make voluntary commitments to go "beyond compliance," the defining characteristic of the current third era of corporate environmentalism.The fourth era of corporate environmentalism is just beginning. To achieve it, bigger, more creative, higher-level thinking - systems-level thinking - is required. Businesses have generally taken a narrow view of the nature and implications of sustainable development. Frankel believes that this needs to change before corporations can develop truly effective sustainability strategies. The key challenge is educational - a matter of changing mental models.Tracing the evolution of four eras of corporate environmentalism, Frankel concludes that the business community may be on a sustainability trajectory it isn't quite aware of. I hope he is right. According to Frankel, the transition to the fourth era of corporate environmentalism is linked to the death of modernism and the transition to a post-modern, post-industrial culture. Drawing parallels to the dawn of the industrial age, we know something large and significant is happening, we're just not sure what the outcome will be.Frankel calls for a new humanism - a new appreciation of

Change the way you think about sustainability--PERMANENTLY

I am not in the green-business or even the business field, and this book blew my mind. It presents a brilliant, provocative view of sustainability as an idea and a practice in the very real world of business. Mr. Frankel's perspective is illuminating both in its practical implications and its far reaching challenges to the way we live, think and create our future. This book has permanently changed the way I think about sustainability in my life and work.