Climate Change: What's Your Business Strategy? by Andrew J.
Hoffman and John G. Woody
Today on our Monday's green books series,
we're talking business and covering a new book which is actually
a memo to the CEO. Maybe one of the most important ones that
should be put on their table.
Our book for today is:
Climate Change: What's Your Business Strategy?
Authors: Andrew J. Hoffman
and John G. Woody
Andrew (Andy) Hoffman is the Holcim (US) Professor of Sustainable
Enterprise at the University of Michigan, a position that
holds joint appointments at the Stephen M. Ross School of
Business and the School of Natural Resources and Environment.
Within this role, he also serves as associate director of
the Frederick A. and Barbara M. Erb Institute for Global Sustainable
Enterprise.
John Woody is a Deal Associate at MMA Renewable Ventures
in San Francisco, where he works on the development and financing
of renewable energy and energy efficiency projects.
Publisher: Harvard Business
School Press
Published on: May 1, 2008
What it is about:
(from the publisher's website):
Believe or not - climate change is one of the most pressing
challenges facing the world today. Most of all, it is quickly
becoming a crucial business issue. But how will you and your
company respond? You need fast and reliable advice from the
world's foremost experts. Climate Change delivers just that:
four strategies from two MBA professors with broad and deep
experience with environmental issues.
Written in a concise, actionable style, authors Andrew Hoffman
and John Woody explain how to: measure your organization's
carbon footprint; set a climate target that meets environmental
needs--and your own; actively engage your operations in climate
change initiatives; and help shape future regulations by gaining
a seat at the policy development table. Climate Change gives
you a first-hand look at how world-class thinkers would react
to this pressing issue if they were in your shoes.
Why you
should get it:
I like very much the authors' business approach to climate
change (you can read more about it here - http://www.hbrgreen.org/2008/02/winners_and_losers_in_a_carbon.html).
They see climate change as an important element in the business
grid that CEOs and managements shouldn't and can't ignore
not because they're green and care about the environment (which
is a good thing, don't get me wrong here..), but because of
strategic reasons.
Climate change is already they say and you can decide if
it will become a risk to your business or an opportunity.
It all the depends on the way you choose to respond to climate
change and this book is meant to help managements to do the
right thing.
These times are full with confusion of businesses that do
not really know or sure how to digest global warming and other
environmental issues. Many of them see processes such as assessing
and reducing their carbon footprint as an expense that is
a burden on the bottom line and really not that pressing.
Hoffman and Woody show how this is exactly the opposite and
how you should react if you want to become a winner and not
a loser in the business world.
Some may not like the authors' point of view that the environmental
language and the moral language should be taken out of the
discussion, when it comes to businesses and only see it as
solely business issues, but whether we like it or not, for
many businesses - that's the only language they know.
This book is part of HBS Press' new Memo to the CEO series,
and it definitely looks like a memo that CEOs should receive
and urgently I would add (and not only for the sake of the
environment, but for the sake of their businesses as the authors
might add..).
One last thing - I liked the fact that there's an option
to buy and download the book as a PDF file (it's a relatively
short book - 'only' 97 pages).
This green
book review was originally posted on Eco-Libris blog.
More resources:
1. The book on Amazon.com
2. The book's
page on the publisher's website
3. Andrew
J. Hoffman's page
4. Article
on Reuters about the book
Back to
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