The Sustainable Organisation - a Paradigm for a Fairer Society


Book Description

Looking at the top 100 organisations in the world, have you ever wondered which ones would we really miss if they were to disappear? Or, which ones deliver something that we truly need in order to improve our health and happiness? Or even, which of these organisations are taking advantage of resources while jeopardising the quality of life of the next generations? Current performance metrics strongly overlook these facts. In fact, despite the dramatic technological progress that infused radical changes in the society over the past century, profits and shareholder value remain the cardinal assessment tools. We believe this has led us to support, recognise and reward predatory organisations in detriment to sustainable organisations. Ultimately, we end up seeing villains for heroes and blindly incentivising those who live from this, albeit not contributing to the community. Yet, a society that deters useful professions in favour of futile jobs, a society that values futile organisations, penalising the ones that bring actual value, is undeniably unsustainable. With this book, we aspire to instil discussion about the characteristics of sustainable organisations as the cornerstone of the definition of new criteria to assess how useful an organisation truly is. The main premise for this is that an organisation can only be sustainable when its full impact - internal and external - is positive in the short, medium and long-term and when its activity contributes to human survival and/or development. We propose a new model for sustainable organisations founded on transparency, merit and purpose as well as a simple index - a new algorithm - that will enable any citizen in the world to understand and compare the real value and impact of any organisation. Our hope is that this awareness will lead to a shift in global dynamics, from a perilous route - conflict-oriented - onto a prosperous trajectory that is truly sustainable and unequivocally focused on human needs. Following are reviews from three of our Beta readers: "A book that can help both identify and cure the ills of today's world with a simple formula - is a gift that we cannot afford to pass by. The Sustainable Organization points boldly to the organizational transformation reforms needed to reclaim humanity from the gridlock of inequality fostered by a predatory reward system that minimizes employee contribution while channeling the rewards to a few at the top. Offering a few simple indicators that can help organizations determine if they are on the right path the book sheds light on the hard truth about those who have to change the ways they operate. I can hardly imagine a more powerful approach to changing the status quo at a crucial time in history." Mihaela Ulieru, PhD, Global Agenda Council at the World Economic Forum, USA "The Sustainable Organization is a very interesting book which shows the way for organizations to create a win, win, win for all stakeholders in our fragile world. Become Sustainable or eventually die.Greed is a poison." Lee Cockerell, Former Executive Vice-President at Disney, USA "What you measure is what you get " how human / capitalist measure the world in the liner mind brought us to where we stand toady . What we need now is a bold and proven new measurement lead all humankind to a better world. I am glad my friend Miguel do it for us, with his insight in the writing " The sustainable organisation " we can levitate tunnel view and see a brighter future - an equal and fair world to be. I am ready to join the new perspective now, and you? Roger Lee, founder of CSR Community International; Forum works Inc. and Talents Fly Co-creation International association, TAIWAN Other comments from beta readers: http: //thesustainableorganisation.blogspot.pt/2015/04/comments-and-observations-from-our-beta.html




The 2017 Hampton Reader


Book Description

Through dozens of diverse and timely political essays and analyses, this book addresses the most pressing problems of our contemporary world. Instead of the tired, detached academic inquiry that permeates from institutions of higher education, these pages contain writings that have been produced by political organizers and revolutionaries throughout the course of their daily activity in social, economic, and political movements. The 2017 Hampton Reader includes the most popular essays from The Hampton Institute: A Working-Class Think Tank. The Hampton Institute is an intellectual and political organization that seeks to develop the working class into a self-conscious class-for-itself capable of fundamentally changing the nature of society. The essays herein are the products of a collective of organic intellectuals united by the task of clarifying our political moment, sparking a revival in working-class intellectualism, and pushing the revolutionary struggles of our day forward.




Fair Society, Healthy Lives


Book Description




Sustainability


Book Description

With "Sustainability: A Comprehensive Foundation," first and second-year college students are introduced to this expanding new field, comprehensively exploring the essential concepts from every branch of knowldege - including engineering and the applied arts, natural and social sciences, and the humanities. As sustainability is a multi-disciplinary area of study, the text is the product of multiple authors drawn from the diverse faculty of the University of Illinois: each chapter is written by a recognized expert in the field.




Fair Trade


Book Description

Looking at the strategic future for Fair Trade, this work presents concise histories of different Fair Trade organizations, revealing case studies and useful data analysis.




Citizenship and Sustainability in Organizations


Book Description

Citizenship and Sustainability in Organizations: Exploring and Spanning the Boundaries is the introductory book in the series of the same name and draws upon new conceptual thinking from some of the leading contributors to The Journal of Corporate Citizenship on topics of social responsibility, organizational citizenship, influencing and leading change for sustainability and individual agency. Chapter authors are influential thinkers, pushing the boundaries of conventional thinking about corporate citizenship and sustainability to generate innovative ideas, models and practices. The book’s core message is that the contexts within which organizations and individuals act are undergoing significant change and disruption. Existing corporate social responsibility (CSR), corporate citizenship and business sustainability models and frameworks need to be adapted, abandoned or transformed. This book represents a starting point for dialogue about these challenges and presents commentaries, debates, essays and insights that aim to be provocative and engaging, raise some of the important issues of the day and provide observations on what may be too new yet to be the subject of detailed empirical and theoretical studies. The book is aimed at researchers, students and practitioners in the fields of corporate citizenship, sustainability, CSR, business ethics, corporate governance and critical management and leadership studies.




Green's Discovery 2


Book Description

As a follow-up to Green’s Discovery, this sequel, Green’s Discovery 2, Creating a Fair & Just Society, deals with the fact that the time has come for us to complete the work started in Green’s Discovery and for our world to establish a fair and just society, and subsequently to make first contact with another civilization. After more than a decade working with the ‘visitors’ Sydney Green had to face many challenges adapting to his role as the visitor’s ambassador, and having to deal with the special powers they gave him. After all of this time he knew that his participation in the process of transforming the world wasn’t complete as the visitors discussed with him that it was now time for the final steps to be implemented in order to prepare our world for the future. To Green’s surprise the visitors invite him into their environment so they could show him who and what they are. They knew they had to put things into perspective for Green so he would understand why they were paying so much attention to the little blue planet, and why they needed him to represent them. As well, and in response to one of Green’s questions, the visitors explain what the Big Bang Theory really was, and our place in the universe. To put it mildly Green is stunned by what he hears and experiences during that visit. This is the story of how the visitors work with Green, and many others, to help us make the necessary changes to our social, political, and economic paradigms, what those changes are, and how we take control of our future, and our world. This is the story of how we create a fair and just society for all humankind; and by doing so pave the way to meet with other more advanced worlds. And finally, this is the story of how we actually make first contact with another world, and what that experience is like.




Just Sustainabilities


Book Description

Environmental activists and academics alike are realizing that a sustainable society must be a just one. Environmental degradation is almost always linked to questions of human equality and quality of life. Throughout the world, those segments of the population that have the least political power and are the most marginalized are selectively victimized by environmental crises. This book argues that social and environmental justice within and between nations should be an integral part of the policies and agreements that promote sustainable development. The book addresses the links between environmental quality and human equality and between sustainability and environmental justice.




Sustainable Education


Book Description

How will we move towards sustainability? By learning through crisis, or by design? In this Briefing, Stephen Sterling points out that: Progress towards a more sustainable future critically depends on learning, yet most education and learning take no account of sustainability; The reorientation of education towards sustainable development since the Agenda 21 agreement of 1992 has been very slow; Education is largely behind other fields in developing new thinking and practice in response to the challenge of sustainability.




Developing Sustainability in Organizations


Book Description

​This book explores the historical, foundational, and applied elements of sustainability theory and practice as relevant to the leadership, management, and innovation of organizations, companies and enterprises. It provides analytical and critical reviews of the current evolution of sustainability for people, planet, prosperity, innovation and impact. Divided into four parts, the work offers an integrated model of development for creating and delivering sustainability values at the personal, organizational, societal and environmental levels. The different sections examine sustainability leadership (focusing on of ethics, values, and purpose), sustainability management (focusing on organizational effectiveness and stakeholders’ wellbeing), sustainability innovation (focusing on social and environmental entrepreneurship), and sustainability impact (focusing on resilience, interconnectedness, consciousness, systemic thinking, and cosmic empathy for the common good and common future). Combining theoretical and practical applications that give the reader a deeper, scientific, and critical understanding of the urgent, complex, and necessary values for a sustainable future for all, this comprehensive text is a must-read for researchers and students alike, providing a framework for effective globally responsible leadership.