The Sustainable Company: How to Create Lasting Value through Social and Environmental Performance - Hardcover

Laszlo, Chris

3.1

21 ratings by Goodreads

9781559638364: The Sustainable Company: How to Create Lasting Value through Social and Environmental Performance

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1559638362 ISBN 13: 9781559638364

Publisher: Island Press, 2003

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"This is not a book of fluff or feel-good case studies. It's a handbook for organizational change. The instructions are specific, potential pitfalls are highlighted, and the appendix provides a detailed discussion of outside evaluation tools." -GREEN MARKET REPORT
"The Sustainable Company offers some genuinely practical insights into what it really takes to improve stakeholder impacts." -ETHICAL CORPORATION
"Laszlo endeavors to translate social and environmental concerns into the language of marketing and corporate strategy...well-meaning executives will find much food for thought here." -PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
"What Mr. Laszlo calls 'Planetary Ethics' or the integration of economic, environmental, social and high ethical objectives into long-term business strategy, is the new price of entry for corporate survival. Those who 'get' this and do it best will enjoy increasing shareholder value. I believe this book carries a critical message for today's corporate executives."-DEBORAH D. ANDERSON, PH.D., FORMER VICE PRESIDENT, ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY WORLDWIDE, THE PROCTER & GAMBLE COMPANY
The Sustainable Company shows how to create value for shareholders while balancing responsibilities to society and the environment. Its step-by-step approach and tool-kit for managers make this book the solutions manual for the twenty-first-century manager.

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About the Author:

Chris Laszlo spent nearly ten years as an executive at Lafarge S.A, a world leader in building materials, holding positions as head of strategy, general manager of a manufacturing subsidiary and vice president of business development. Prior to that he spent five years with Deloitte & Touche, where he consulted to global industry leaders such as Dupont, Toshiba, Avon Products, and Renault on strategy. Educated at Swarthmore, Columbia, and the University of Paris, Laszlo earned a PhD with distinction in Economics and Management Science. He is currently a partner and co-founder of Sustainable Value Partners (http://www.SustainableValuePartners.com), a firm helping companies create value for shareholders and stakeholders.

From Publishers Weekly:

Corporations can indeed do well by doing good, argues this dutiful if not entirely convincing manifesto on responsible capitalism. Laszlo, a consultant and co-author of The Insight Edge: An Introduction to the Theory and Practice of Evolutionary Management, urges corporations to adopt a "planetary ethics" of environmental and social sustainability, one that cherishes "stakeholder value"-for everyone from employees to environmental activists-as much as shareholder value. He showcases companies whose enlightened policies have enhanced the bottom line in the form of reduced waste and cleanup costs, fewer regulatory hassles, new business opportunities and heightened appeal to socially conscious investors and green consumers. Laszlo endeavors to translate social and environmental concerns into the language of marketing and corporate strategy, writing in the kind of flow-charted, bullet-pointed management-ese ("Process cost reductions can be addressed in the framework of existing operational efficiency initiatives such as Six Sigma...") that executives feel they can understand and implement. So thorough is the corporate sustainability overhaul he demands that it involves "five logics," "five phases," "six areas of strategic focus" and "eight disciplines." Laszlo's belief that there are no unresolvable conflicts between shareholders and other stakeholders, or between profit and ethics, may strike readers as wishful thinking, and his assumption that self-interest will impel corporations to clean up their act can seem optimistic, but well-meaning executives will find much food for thought here if they can digest it.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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