To help executives meet the challenge of being profitable, doing the right thing, and helping save the Earth, the authors outline a program for change that firms can use to maximize their profits and minimize their negative impact on the environment. They show how executives can add environmental awareness to the strategic mix and still compete successfully. 10 line drawings.

The Business of Less rewrites the book on business and the environment. For the last thirty years, corporate sustainability was synonymous with the pursuit of ‘eco-efficiency’ and ‘win-win’ opportunities. The notion of ‘eco-efficiency’ gives us the illusion that we can achieve environmental sustainability without having to question the pursuit of never-ending economic growth. The ‘win-win’ paradigm is meant to assure us that companies can be protectors of the environment whilst also being profit maximizers. It is abundantly clear that the state of the natural environment has further degraded instead of improved. This book introduces a new paradigm designed to finally reconcile business and the environment. It is called ‘net green’, which means that in these times of ecological overshoot businesses need to reduce total environmental impact and not just improve the eco-efficiency of their products. The book also introduces and explains the four pollution prevention principles ‘again’, ‘different’, ‘less’, and ‘labor, not materials’. Together, ‘net green’ and the four pollution prevention principles provide a road map, for businesses and for every household, to a world in which human prosperity and a healthy environment are no longer at odds. The Business of Less is full of anecdotes and examples. This brings its material to life and makes the book not only very accessible, but also hugely applicable for everyone who is worried about the fate of our planet and is looking for answers.

A comparative examination of domestic climate politics that offers a theory for cross-national differences in domestic climate policymaking. Climate change threatens the planet, and yet policy responses have varied widely across nations. Some countries have undertaken ambitious programs to stave off climate disaster, others have done little, and still others have passed policies that were later rolled back. In this book, Matto Mildenberger opens the “black box” of domestic climate politics, examining policy making trajectories in several countries and offering a theoretical explanation for national differences in the climate policy process. Mildenberger introduces the concept of double representation—when carbon polluters enjoy political representation on both the left (through industrial unions fearful of job loss) and the right (through industrial business associations fighting policy costs)—and argues that different climate policy approaches can be explained by the interaction of climate policy preferences and domestic institutions. He illustrates his theory with detailed histories of climate politics in Norway, the United States, and Australia, along with briefer discussions of policies in in Germany, Japan, the United Kingdom, and Canada. He shows that Norway systematically shielded politically connected industrial polluters from costs beginning with its pioneering carbon tax; the United States, after the failure of carbon reduction legislation, finally acted on climate reform through a series of Obama administration executive actions; and Australia's Labor and Green parties enacted an emissions trading scheme, which was subsequently repealed by a conservative Liberal party government. Ultimately, Mildenberger argues for the importance of political considerations in understanding the climate policymaking process and discusses possible future policy directions.

This Handbook discusses the main issues, research, and theory on business and the natural environment, and how they impact on different business functions and disciplines

This volume presents six new papers on environmental and energy economics and policy in the United States. Rebecca Davis, J. Scott Holladay, and Charles Sims analyze recent trends in and forecasts of coal-fired power plant retirements with and without new climate policy. Severin Borenstein and James Bushnell examine the efficiency of pricing for electricity, natural gas, and gasoline. James Archsmith, Erich Muehlegger, and David Rapson provide a prospective analysis of future pathways for electric vehicle adoption. Kenneth Gillingham considers the consequences of such pathways for the design of fuel vehicle economy standards. Frank Wolak investigates the long-term resource adequacy in wholesale electricity markets with significant intermittent renewables. Finally, Barbara Annicchiarico, Stefano Carattini, Carolyn Fischer, and Garth Heutel review the state of research on the interactions between business cycles and environmental policy.

Timothy Morton argues that ecological awareness in the present Anthropocene era takes the form of a strange loop or Möbius strip, twisted to have only one side. Deckard travels this oedipal path in Blade Runner (1982) when he learns that he might be the enemy he has been ordered to pursue. Ecological awareness takes this shape because ecological phenomena have a loop form that is also fundamental to the structure of how things are. The logistics of agricultural society resulted in global warming and hardwired dangerous ideas about life-forms into the human mind. Dark ecology puts us in an uncanny position of radical self-knowledge, illuminating our place in the biosphere and our belonging to a species in a sense that is far less obvious than we like to think. Morton explores the logical foundations of the ecological crisis, which is suffused with the melancholy and negativity of coexistence yet evolving, as we explore its loop form, into something playful, anarchic, and comedic. His work is a skilled fusion of humanities and scientific scholarship, incorporating the theories and findings of philosophy, anthropology, literature, ecology, biology, and physics. Morton hopes to reestablish our ties to nonhuman beings and to help us rediscover the playfulness and joy that can brighten the dark, strange loop we traverse.

An urgent case for climate change action that forcefully sets out, in economic, ethical, and political terms, the dangers of delay and the benefits of action. The risks of climate change are potentially immense. The benefits of taking action are also clear: we can see that economic development, reduced emissions, and creative adaptation go hand in hand. A committed and strong low-carbon transition could trigger a new wave of economic and technological transformation and investment, a new era of global and sustainable prosperity. Why, then, are we waiting? In this book, Nicholas Stern explains why, notwithstanding the great attractions of a new path, it has been so difficult to tackle climate change effectively. He makes a compelling case for climate action now and sets out the forms that action should take. Stern argues that the risks and costs of climate change are worse than estimated in the landmark Stern Review in 2006—and far worse than implied by standard economic models. He reminds us that we have a choice. We can rely on past technologies, methods, and institutions—or we can embrace change, innovation, and international collaboration. The first might bring us some short-term growth but would lead eventually to chaos, conflict, and destruction. The second could bring about better lives for all and growth that is sustainable over the long term, and help win the battle against worldwide poverty. The science warns of the dangers of neglect; the economics and technology show what we can do and the great benefits that will follow; an examination of the ethics points strongly to a moral imperative for action. Why are we waiting?