Category Archives: Books

Learning about “Regeneration” 3 recommendations

Regeneration this word/approach/concept/movement is now everywhere. Here are 3 recommendations: a book, a video and an article that provide excellent guidance to understand and follow this important movement.

1.One of the most remarkable books covering this subject is Regeneration: Ending the climate crisis in one generation by Paul Hawken. Regeneration is a radical new approach to the climate crisis, one that weaves justice, climate, biodiversity, and human dignity into a seamless tapestry of action, policy, and transformation that can end the climate crisis in one generation.

The book together with its companion website plot a pathway to achieve the goals outlined by the report “Global Warming of 1.5°C” published by the IPCC in October 2021. The book concludes with a section titled “Action and Connection” showing the solutions in detail and actions to be taken. It also includes an ever growing wiki of climate actions for the most important Nexus. Nexus are large complex issues that intersect multiple institutions, geographies, cultures, and people, but which do not fall under a single category of action or impact. Plastic, global fishing fleets, and palm oil are three prime examples (from the book Regeneration by Paul Hawken)

2. Regeneration Speech by Walmart CEO Doug McMillon (13 min)

A seminal speech by Doug McMillon, CEO of Walmart. The company has been very active with their sustainability efforts since 2005. In 2020 they committed to become a regenerative company and explains in detail how they will achieve this goal.

3. Surfing Big Waves of Regeneration: John Elkington interviews Patagonia founder Yvon Chouinard

An insightful interview by the Godfather of modern sustainability, John Elkington and the founder of Patagonia, Yvon Chouinard, a rock climber, surfer, innovator, environmentalist, entrepreneur and outdoor industry billionaire businessman.

 

A must-read for business leaders: “Net Positive: How Courageous Companies Thrive by Giving More Than They Take” by Paul Polman and Andrew Winston

source: netpositive.world

A timely and seminal work by Paul Polman and Andrew Winston. Paul Polman is Co-Founder and Chair of Imagine, Chair of the B Team, and Saiid Business School, a leading proponent that business should be a force for good. The Financial Times described Paul as “a standout CEO of the past decade”. In his 10 years as CEO of Unilever, he proved that a long-term multistakeholder model (ending quarterly reports!) can bring superior financial performance.

I will copy here the first part of the excellent “Exclusive Excerpt” of this book that Paul shared in his newsletter on Linkedin

Exclusive Excerpt

What is Net Positive?

Our vision of net positive is a business that improves well-being for everyone it impacts and at all scales—every product, every operation, every region and country, and for every stakeholder, including employees, suppliers, communities, customers, and even future generations and the planet itself.

This is a North Star. No company can achieve all these aims at once, but it’s where we should be heading if we want a viable economy and planet. To exist as a relevant business today is to enrich the world. The ultimate question is this: Is the world better off because your business is in it?

What it looks like

The net positive company will operate differently from what’s normal today. It will, for example, eliminate more carbon than it produces; use only renewable energy and renewably sourced materials; It will, for example, eliminate more carbon than it produces; us create no waste and build everything for full circularity, and replenish and make cleaner all the water it draws. This excerpt can be read in its entirety by going to the Linkedin link above.

Future of Learning Graphic Novel now Live (Singularity U)

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The output of the workshop, the graphic novel of the Future of Learning is now live! Also SU has created the Exponential Guide to the Future of Learning, which provides valuable content and resources on this topic.
From SU website;

The Future of Learning SciFi DI workshop brought together more than 50 participants, including SU Faculty and staff, startups, mentors, and alumni, as well as local teachers, students, nonprofits and foundations all connected to the field of learning innovation. We explored trends in exponential technologies, took a deep dive into augmented reality and virtual reality, discussed the future of learning and work. Identifying current challenges in the global education system, we tried to re-imagine these challenges after assuming a number of technological and social advances that could occur within fifteen years. Then the participants were led through a process of capturing the life and story of an individual living fifteen years into the future, which artists and writers in the room transformed into the graphic novel. Through the characters of the novel we explore central questions about the future purpose of learning, what it will mean to be a student or teacher in the future, what a school might look like in the future, what a curriculum might look like, and what life might feel like in general. In particular, we imagined a world where a school could follow the student instead of the student attending a school, where today’s learning curriculum and grading system is replaced by students advancing in their learning by solving real-life problems, where the boundary between being a student and teacher blurs, and where adults and children often learn together.
While we hope you’ll enjoy immersing yourself in this particular version of the future, we encourage you to design your own. What will a student, teacher, school, and curriculum look like? What technologies would you incorporate, and how would they help bring about a world where everyone could be inspired to learn and teach, solve real-world problems, and find opportunities to contribute to their community?

The Blue Economy – an action plan on improving the world through sustainable development

I had the greatest pleasure to meet on May 19th Dr. Ashok Khosla, a visionary & social entrepreneur at a private event (thanks Nina!) Dr. Khosla founded Development Alternatives in 1982 to purse his dream for sustainable development. Since then he has been innovating, demonstrating, and fostering the delivery of environmentally friendly and commercially viable technologies. He is also the Chairman of TARA (Technologies and Actions for Rural Advancement). He also presented the just launched 2 new books “To Choose Our Future” which he authored and “The Blue Economy Version 2.0” by Gunther Pauli, for which he is a contributing author. Both books will soon be available to buy online. The Blue Economy is the sequel to “The Blue Economy: 10 years 100 innovations 100 million jobs” and it is a powerful movement that has only started. I recommend you to see the TED talk of Gunter Pauli and the simple intro on the concept and to find about the 100 innovations.

Book recommendation: Thrive

One of the books that I enjoyed reading in 2014 was Arianna Huffington’s “Thrive“. A refreshing book where she makes a compelling case of the need to redefine “what it means to be successful” in today’s world. A timely book in times where people are reassessing their past and current views (on money and power) while trying to define their meaning of life.Huff_9780804140867_cvr_all_r3.indd

Book Tips: 2 books I enjoyed reading in 2011

2011 …a busy year and one that went by so quickly… I managed to read a few books finally in the second week of December.
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Most fun and inspiring read was Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson. The 570 page biography is a page turner and a must-read. The subject matter of course is fascinating, a genius, a powerful and intense individual with many contradictions that transformed 7 industries (personal computer, animated movies, music, phones, tablet computing, digital publishing, retail stores) with his passion and pursuit for making great products and making a great company that would last. And it is beautifully written.
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Another book which is a useful read for people interested in social entrepreneurship, the future of capitalism and how the silos are breaking between the business and the social world is Sir Richard Branson’s latest book “Screw Business as Usual” I enjoyed reading the second half as it iillustrates many examples of how some of the large global corporations/brands are starting to shift/experiment ways for “doing well and doing good”. I find it powerful that this call for change is coming from one of the world’s famous and admired business leaders.

Book Tips: 3 awesome books I read in 2010

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My favourite books this year may seem a bit biased geographically as all authors are living in California.
Switch-How to change things when change is hard– by Chip Heath and Dan Heath
The Dragonfly Effect -quick, effective and powerful ways to use social media to drive social change by Jennifer Aaker and Andy Smith
the Mesh -why the future of business is sharing– by Lisa Gansky
I was very fortunate to have been able to attend the lectures of Chip Heath and Jennifer Aaker when I participated this summer in the Stanford GBS Executive Program in Social Entrepreneurship (EPSE). Both are remarkable lecturers and their books are fun, effective, full of amazing examples and inspiring. Switch is about how we can effect transformative changes by understanding the two competing systems; the rational mind and the emotional mind. The Dragonfly Effect is a how to guide on driving social change (by using social media). I picked up Lisa Gansky’s book, the Mesh, while attending SOCAP10 in autumn. The Mesh explains one of the “big ideas” or one of the most important trends that is shaping new businesses logic providing products and services through sharing.
Happy reading!

A MUST READ- The Blue Sweater by Jacqueline Novogratz

Jacqueline Novogratz is founder and CEO of Acumen Fund a very successful and fast growing nonprofit venture capital firm for the poor that invests in sustainable enterprises bringing healthcare, safe water, alternative energy, and housing to low income people in the developing world. She founded Acumen Fund in 2001 and by the end of 2008 this firm had approved more than $40 million on investments in 40 enterprises serving the poor, creating through these enterprises 23,000 jobs providing basic services like water and life saving malaria bed nets to millions of low income people around the world. Her book The Blue Sweater -Bridging the Gap between Rich and Poor in an Interconnected World-is an inspiring memoir of a woman who left a career in international banking to spend her life on a quest to understand global poverty and find powerful new ways of tackling it. Many important lessons can be learned just by following her heartbreaking and hilarious stories of starting a microfinance institution and a bakery in Rwanda. Also the book is packed with examples that teach us humility and that good intentions alone are not enough as described through some failed programs of traditional charity that have left the poor people in the same or worse conditions. One also learns about the Rwandan genocide through the stories of the survivors that Novogratz had worked with. The book is inspiring, educational, entertaining and a must read for everyone and especially for those who aspire to make a difference.

A great book to start 2009: Hot, Flat and Crowded by Thomas L. Friedman

hot_flat_and_crowded.jpgHappy New Year!
Hot, Flat and Crowded-Why the world needs a green revolution-and how we can renew our global future- by Thomas L. Friedman is an extremely educational and simultaneously an entertaining and engaging book. He takes a provocative look at two of the most serious challenges we face today: global environmental crisis and America’s loss of focus and purpose since 9/11. He explains where we stand now, how these two challenges are linked and proposes how we can restore the world and revive America at the same time. Friedman explains in relatively simple language the crisis we face due to the convergence of global warming (HOT), the explosive growth of the middle-class and the leveling playing field thanks to technology (FLAT) and the rapidly increasing population-forecasted by the UN to grow from the current 6.7bn to 9.2bn in 2050- (CROWDED). He advocates that it will soon be too late to fix things unless there is a global effort to replace our inefficient energy practices with a strategy for clean energy, energy efficiency and conservation- i.e. Green Revolution. A timely contribution that raises the awareness on the critical environmental issues and the urgency to act. Highly recommended.

Safia Minney and People Tree

Last week while I was in Japan I picked up a book written by Safia Minney, a pioneer in fashionable and ecological fair trade. The book seems to be only available in Japanese but there is plenty of information on the web on Safia and People Tree, the fair trade company/brand she founded in 1995. People Tree (PT)works with more than 60 fashion and handicraft producers in 16 countries including India, Bangladesh, Peru and Kenya providing design and technical assistance based on traditional skills. PT sells their products through catalogue, internet, and also through 400 shops around Japan and 100 in Europe. Safia is an inpiring social entrepreneur that has been recognized by various organizations including the Schwab Foundation of Social Entrepreneurship where she was selected in 2004 as one of the world’s “Outstanding Social Entrepreneurs”. She has not only raised consumer awareness of poverty alleviation, ecology and fair trade but also has built a business of fashionable and ecological fair traded goods. PT’s sales have surpassed 7.5 mn USD for 2006. Another remarkable social business, a win-win example.
Her blog is highly recommended and there is also a YouTube clip where Safia’s presents People Tree in her own words, a presentation that she delivered in London in Sept 2008.