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Eco-Business
Book

Eco-Business

A Big-Brand Takeover of Sustainability

Peter Dauvergne and Jane Lister
MIT Press, 2013

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Editorial Rating

9

Qualities

  • Innovative

Recommendation

McDonald’s, Coca-Cola, General Electric, Nestlé, Nike and other top companies now pursue high-profile environmental initiatives to save money and to save the planet. Surprisingly, today Fortune 500 firms set the bar for sustainability, and governments and nongovernmental organizations follow their lead. In 2011, as the holiday shopping season opened, outdoor-clothing company Patagonia sponsored a full-page New York Times ad headlined: “Don’t Buy This Jacket.” The ad said, “To lighten our environmental footprint, everyone needs to consume less.” That is only one example that researchers Peter Dauvergne and Jane Lister unearth as they detail the corporate sustainability push and show how big companies sometimes use their muscle for good. Their one flaw is repetition; the same points appear in every chapter. Still, getAbstract recommends their insights to businesspeople seeking to emulate the visionary activities of top firms, participants in the global supply chain, and people who want to mitigate environmental degradation and to know where to shop.

Take-Aways

  • Big corporations – Walmart, GE, McDonald’s, Coca-Cola – are the new green heroes.
  • Because, for example, they are willing to make their supply chains comply with environmental standards, these giants have significant ecological influence.
  • Fortune 500 companies’ “ecobusiness” policies focus first on sustaining their firms.

About the Authors

Peter Dauvergne is professor of political science and director of the Liu Institute for Global Issues at the University of British Columbia. Sustainability governance scholar Jane Lister is a senior research fellow at the Liu Institute.

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