Greener Products


Book Description

As the global demand for natural and organic products continues to grow, making and marketing greener products is becoming an imperative. The old stereotype of green products’ sub-par performance has been shattered as large multinational corporations prove that you can develop and win in the marketplace with a naturals-based product platform. And the pull for sustainably minded products is not limited to consumer marketing—business-to-business marketing of greener products has also increased due to customer demand from all business sectors. The Case for Greener Products Making a compelling business case for why companies must provide greener, more sustainable products, Greener Products: The Making and Marketing of Sustainable Brands shares best practices for the design and marketing of greener products. The book examines ecosystem and regulatory pressures as well as market pressures from customers—consumers, business customers, and government purchasers—who have created a demand on manufacturers to bring more sustainable brands to market. How Are Greener Products Made? Through case studies of green design from companies such as GE (EcomaginationTM), Timberland (Green Index®), Philips, Apple Inc., Seventh Generation, Procter & Gamble, BASF, and others, the author explores initiatives in areas ranging from product design, sustainable sourcing, and packaging to energy efficiency, recycling, and end-of-life management. A contribution from guest author James A. Fava, one of the leading thinkers and practitioners in developing greener products, presents a toolbox of environmental management systems, programs, and tools for the development of greener products. Three Keys to Successful Green Marketing Campaigns Providing the backbone for the author’s analysis of green marketing, a contribution from guest authors Lee Ann Head, Karen Barnes, and Suzanne Shelton of the Shelton Group analyzes market trend data and helps marketers understand their customers and what moves them. The author then looks more closely at drivers for green marketing, outlining three keys for successful green marketing campaigns and using them to evaluate the approaches of several leading companies. He also offers advice on how to avoid "greenwashing," create successful cause-marketing partnerships, and use eco-labels wisely. Throughout the book, the author shares best practices and lessons learned from leaders in the field across various industry sectors. Written by the senior director of product stewardship for Johnson & Johnson, this timely book offers real-world experience, valuable insights, and practical tools for the effective design and marketing of greener products. The Best Days of Green Marketing Are Still Ahead See what Al Iannuzzi has to say about making and marketing greener products in an interview at Greenbiz.com.




Green Living


Book Description

Who says living a green lifestyle has to be a chore? Part reference, part lifestyle—with a dash of inspiration—Green Living is full of approachable, accessible, and easily implemented strategies to quickly and easily bring sustainability into all areas of your life and home.




Ensuring a Sustainable Future


Book Description

This edited volume outlines the most innovative programs to address environmental challenges and improve the welfare of poor and marginalized populations.




Sustainable Values, Sustainable Change


Book Description

“Systematically investigates the philosophical foundations of sustainable development in the context of the history of environmental policy. . . . Compelling.” —Choice Sustainability is a nearly ubiquitous concept today, but can we ever imagine what it would be like for humans to live sustainably on earth? One of the most trafficked terms in the press, on university campuses, and in the corridors of government, sustainability has risen to prominence as a buzzword before the many parties laying claim to it have agreed on how to define it. But the term’s political currency urgently demands that we develop an understanding of this elusive concept. While economists, philosophers, and ecologists argue about what in nature is valuable, and why, in Sustainable Values, Sustainable Change, Bryan Norton offers an action-oriented, pragmatic response to the disconnect between public and academic discourse around sustainability. Looking to the arenas in which decisions are made—and the problems driving these decisions—Norton reveals that the path to sustainability cannot be guided by fixed objectives; sustainability will instead be achieved through experimentation, incremental learning, and adaptive management. Drawing inspiration from Aldo Leopold’s famed metaphor of “thinking like a mountain” for a spatially explicit, pluralistic approach to evaluating environmental change, Norton outlines a new decision-making process guided by deliberation and negotiation across science and philosophy. Looking across scales to today’s global problems, Norton urges us to learn to think like a planet. “An excellent distillation of Norton’s extensive and groundbreaking work.” —Ben Minteer, Arizona State University, author of Refounding Environmental Ethics “Engaging and important.” —Sahotra Sarkar, University of Texas at Austin, author of Environmental Philosophy: From Theory to Practice




Making the Sustainable University


Book Description

This book documents strategies for universities engaging sustainability challenges through the education of global citizens on topics such as climate change, habitat alteration, species loss, resource depletion and contamination, food access and sovereignty, economic equity, and energy use. Different disciplines and operational units often have disparate ideas in mind when they work toward advancing sustainability. For example, some disciplines focus on environmental challenges (identifying impacts to ecosystems, mitigation and remediation strategies), some on greening of industrial and commercial practices while others address social equity—often there is little effort to connect these pieces especially while considering economic impacts. This book examines how Florida Gulf Coast University has attempted to infuse sustainability across curricula and operations as an integrated concept and our successes and shortcomings are instructional for sustainability practitioners on college campuses and other industries in a wide audience.




Creating A Sustainable And Desirable Future: Insights From 45 Global Thought Leaders


Book Description

The major challenge for the current generation of mankind is to develop a shared vision of a future that is both desirable to the vast majority of humanity and ecologically sustainable. Creating a Sustainable and Desirable Future offers a broad, critical discussion on what such a future should or can be, with global perspectives written by some of the world's leading thinkers, including: Wendell Berry, Van Jones, Frances Moore Lappe, Peggy Liu, Hunter Lovins, Gus Speth, Bill McKibben, and many more.




Creating Sustainable Community Programs


Book Description

Public opinion polls consistently reveal the lack of confidence, disillusionment, and mistrust that citizens feel toward government. Daniels and his contributors believe that the relationship between citizens and their governments can be changed by facilitating greater citizen collaboration with government, particularly through local sustainable programs. As the case studies show, often sustainable community programs are created through grassroots movements that are initiated and managed by citizens themselves, bringing them in contact with their local elected and appointed officials. Unlike traditional programs that are administered by local officials on behalf of their citizens, once sustainable community programs are created, citizens administer their own programs in collaboration with local officials. The case studies look at a variety of sustainable programs, primarily in the United States, that help to deal with issues such as recycling, transportation, microcredit, site redevelopment, pollution, health care, and hunger. Creating Sustainable Community Programs is the first book on sustainable programs that is intended for an audience of public administration scholars, researchers, and students as well as practitioners who are searching for ways to change the relationship between citizens and their governments.




Creating Sustainable Bioeconomies


Book Description

The growing global demand for food, feed and bio-based renewable material is changing the conditions for agricultural production worldwide. At the same time, revolutionary achievements in the field of biosciences are contributing to a transition whereby bio-based alternatives for energy and materials are becoming more competitive. Creating Sustainable Bioeconomies explores the prospects for biosciences and how its innovation has the potential to help countries in the North (Europe) and the South (Africa) to move towards resource efficient agriculture and sustainable bioeconomies. Throughout the book, the situations of Europe and Sub-Saharan Africa will be compared and contrasted, and opportunities for mutual learning and collaboration are explored. The chapters have been written by high profile authors and deal with a wide range of issues affecting the development of bioeconomies on both continents. This book compares and contrasts the situations of these two regions as they endeavour to develop knowledge based bioeconomies. This volume is suitable for those who are interested in ecological economics, development economics and environmental economics. It also provides action plans assisting policy-makers in both areas to support the transition to knowledge based and sustainable bioeconomies.




Taking Sustainable Cities Seriously, second edition


Book Description

A theoretically driven comparison of sustainability programs in American cities, updated with the latest research and additional case studies. Today most major cities have undertaken some form of sustainability initiative. Yet there have been few systematic comparisons across cities, or theoretically grounded considerations of what works and what does not, and why. In Taking Sustainable Cities Seriously, Kent Portney addresses this gap, offering a comprehensive overview and analysis of sustainability programs and policies in American cities. After discussing the conceptual underpinnings of sustainability, he examines the local aspects of sustainability; considers the measurement of sustainability and offers an index of “serious” sustainability for the fifty-five largest cities in the country; examines the relationship between sustainability and economic growth; and discusses issues of governance, equity, and implementation. He also offers extensive case studies, with separate chapters on large, medium-size, and small cities, and provides an empirically grounded analysis of why some large cities are more ambitious than others in their sustainability efforts. This second edition has been updated throughout, with new material that draws on the latest research. It also offers numerous additional case studies, a new chapter on management and implementation issues, and a greatly expanded comparative analysis of big-city sustainability initiatives. Portney shows how cities use the broad rubric of sustainability to achieve particular political ends, and he dispels the notion that only cities that are politically liberal are interested in sustainability. Taking Sustainable Cities Seriously draws a roadmap for effective sustainability initiatives.




Sustainable Cities


Book Description

Global cities are facing an almost unprecedented challenge of change. As they re-emerge from the Covid 19 pandemic and get ready to face climate change and other, potentially existential threats, they need to look for new ways to support wealth and wellbeing creation – leveraging Big Data and AI and suing them into their physical reality and to become greener, more inclusive and resilient, hence sustainable. This book describes how new digital technologies could be used to design digital and physical twins of cities that are able to feed into each other to optimize their working and ability to create new wealth and wellbeing. The book also describes how to increase cities’ social and economic resilience during crisis time and addressing their almost fatal weaknesses – as it became all too obvious during the recent COVID 19 crisis. Also, the book presents a framework for a critical discussion of the concept of “smart-city”, suggesting its development into a “cyber” and “meta” one – meaning, not only digital systems can allow physical ones (e.g. cities, citizens, households and companies) to become “smarter”, but also the vice versa is true, as off line data and real life behaviours can support the optimization and development of virtual brains as a sum of big data and artificial intelligence apps all sitting “over the cloud”. An analysis of the fundamental dynamics of this emerging “info-telligence” economy, and of the potential role of big digital players like Amazon, Google and Facebook is then paving the way to discuss a few strategic forays on how traditional sectors such as financial services, real estate, TMT or health could also evolve, leveraging Big Data and AI in a cyber-physical integrated setting. Finally, a number of thought provoking use cases that could be designed around individuals, and to improve the success and the resilience of households and companies living and working in urban areas are discussed, as an example of one of the most exciting future markets to come: the one of global, sustainable cities