Making Sustainability Work: Best Practices in Managing and Measuring Corporate Social, Environmental, and Economic Impacts

by Marc J. Epstein, Adriana Rejc Buhovac

Senior executives who have committed their organizations to improved sustainability are realizing that implementation is particularly challenging. While there is a lot written on ethical and strategic factors, there is a dearth of information on the practical nuts and bolts of implementation. And whereas with most other organizational changes, functions, and initiatives the sole objective is improved financial performance, which is clear and easy to measure, sustainability broadens the focus to include both social and financial performance. This creates significant challenges in evaluating the tradeoffs between social and financial performance.

Now completely updated with new examples and new research, this book offers a complete guide to implementing and measuring the effectiveness of sustainability initiatives. It draws on Epstein and new coauthor Rejc Buhovac’s solid academic foundation and extensive consulting work, and includes best practices from dozens of companies in Europe, Asia, North America, South America, Australia, and Africa.   It is intellectually rigorous yet accessible to corporate managers. This is the first and still the best book to provide managers with detailed guidance on how to implement sustainability and objectively measure its success.

Genres: Sustainability, Nonfiction, Business

308 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2008

Reviews

[Beth Melillo · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is all about walking you through the Corporate Sustainability Model that Epstein has created (and which is reproduced several times in the book.)

Epstein stresses that this is a tool. Because of this, he spends a great deal of time getting into some (but not all) details of how to use his Model/Sustainability Tool and its impacts on the entirety of the organization. Some might interpret this as repetitive.

This book gives you a high level view of strategy and actions, and outlines different routes you can take as a practitioner. It's a pretty dry read, although the case studies help move it along a little faster. It assumes a fair amount of business knowledge, but doesn't assume too much in the way of sustainability and business interaction. In that respect, a newbie (or student, like myself) could read it and "understand" a little bit more than 75% of the book. It probably would be better if you were reading it with a specific company in mind.

[Kiddonne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mr. Epstein takes sustainability from the shelf and rounds up the concept with some solid examples and working strategies; a bit of economics thrown it; but generally, quite a bit of common sense and a good explanatory framework.

[Claire Binkley · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book has been optimized by Epstein, a Rice University Research Professor, and Buhovac, an Associate Professor of Management at the University of Ljubljana, to be read in a hurry. Luckily, many years ago, when I was a pipsqueak of maybe eight years old, I also read a cute little book on speed reading. It has paid untold dividends, even if I can no longer find record of it anywhere except in my own mind.

What this book is - is a cheat sheet or a how-to guide to make businesses cleaner. This is exactly what we have been looking for while the environment has floundered the past couple of years.

Looking it over, I don't think that a single person can work on the sustainability problem to fix it. It seems like a huge team effort. Something lots and lots of people like how there are gazillions of people in China or India to help out with fixing.

[Eoin · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book was written by Marc J.Epstein and Adriana Rejc Buhovac these auctions walk you through how to make Sustainability work.

Epstein and Adriana are very experienced in this area they repeat their knowledge several times in this book from the tools they learn in their academic and professional areas the reader may find this book a bit dry although the case studies are more insightful and more fruitful.

For a newbie or students like myself understanding about (75-80%) of this book as it can be repetitive for specialists working in this area they may understand more as they are involved in the Sustainability and renewable spectrum.

[Ashwaq · Rating 4 out of 5]

معلوماته كثيره وجيده لكن اخراجه سيئ

[Anna Christina · Rating 5 out of 5]

What I liked about this book was that it really explains how to implement sustainability in complex organizations with many stakeholders. I have read this book before and reread it now as it is relevant for my job, and I definitely appreciated it a lot more now that I understand better how it is to work within larger organizations.

[Amy Cordero · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very repetitious

[Gonzalo Francisco Sierra Martínez · Rating 4 out of 5]

Libro recomendado para personas que quieran implementar un modelo corporativo de sustentabilidad (económico, social y ambiental) en una organización. Tiene un enfoque hacia grandes empresas

[Angela · Rating 3 out of 5]

The information was beneficial, but it was very repetitious.