Review
The book, Corporate Greening 2.0, covers the waterfront for those businesses seeking to better understand and benefit from the greening movement. Sustainability principles highlighted realistically address what must be the most basic of corporate focal points economic viability. The author demonstrates it is possible to put green talk into a business s green walk benefiting both shareholders and the environment. Don t play catch up later read this now and you won t be behin…
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Twenty years ago, “Going Green” was about minimizing risk: cleaning up decades of environmental hazards. Today, “Corporate Greening” is about maximizing reward: how to succeed and grow through sustainability.
This book is not only a must read but a must do. It not only gives a clear view of the history of greening – over the last several decades and particularly since the Earth Summit of the `90s – but also a road map for navigating the carbon neutral/sustainability global marketplace. Where “green” was once only an activist’s mantra, today it is mainstream and central to all business decisions. Governments require it. Employees want it. Shareholders encourage it. And now, increasingly, customers demand it.
And what about the next generation coming along? This illustration is telling. My daughter just started her first semester of college. What is the most critical class to her? “Global Climate Change in the Past, Present and Future”. It’s an elective. She feels it will be at the heart of everything she does in the future.
C-suite executives will find tangible guideposts to going sustainable and helpful best practices and benchmarks from leading global corporations.
This author’s earlier book — Going Green — that came out in 1993 was helpful to me in understanding what government rules were requiring and how other companies were getting their marketing and corporate messages out, so I was interested in this one, which gets into the changes because of global warming and carbon fuel/products/etc. He does a nice job laying out why the climate issues have changed the dynamics for government and companies and provides good practical guidance for companies to respond or, as he suggests, take charge of the situation. While the book is weak on exactly what the new rules are (partly because they are still developing at the federal level, which seems to be catching up to California), it is strong on the questions companies have to ask to come up with their specific strategies. I particularly liked the guide to positions of a number of leading (mostly large) companies; it’s easy to get the gist of messages and buzz issues that are developing on sustainability. If you are in corporate communications (or marketing) you will find a lot of tips, examples and direct guidance, as that has been the author’s specialty. If you want a good look into the book before you buy it, Harrison has posted the entire, long Preface (Harrison calls it his Cliff’s notes) on his web site which is http://www.envirocomm.com.
This eagerly awaited book does not disappoint. In it, the author draws on his unsurpassed experience as an advisor on environmental issues to corporate senior executives. His advice, as in his earlier book Going Green, is judicious and nuanced. He sets forth a series of principles for companies to use in managing their response to the complex issue of climate change. Corporate executives, particularly those overseeing corporate communications and public affairs functions, will find much to hearten them as they seek to counsel senior management on a strategy that will build the relationships and positioning needed for future survivability and success.
Full disclosure: I have known and worked alongside Bruce Harrison for a decade, and I know from firsthand experience how highly his insights are valued by organizations who are seeking to stay ahead of the curve on environmental strategy. His wisdom, which has enabled many companies to turn potential perceptual liabilities into significant marketplace assets, is on full display here.