Some suggestions for fireside reading over the winter holidays
Corporate Responsibility Coalitions: the past, present and future of alliances for sustainable capitalism
By David Grayson and Jane Nelson
Hardback: 450 pages, £24.95
ISBN: 1906093814
Publisher: Greenleaf Publishing
Published: January 2013
Regular Ethical Corporation commentator David Grayson has teamed up with CSR expert Jane Nelson to produce an important evaluation of business-led initiatives that promote corporate responsibility. As well as assessing the background of such coalitions, the authors draw on their experience to ask how such alliance can be made fit for the future.
Corporate Governance, Ethics and CSR
By Justine Simpson and John Taylor
Paperback: 296 pages, £34.99
ISBN-10: 0749463856
Publisher: Kogan Page
Published: January 2013
Business is given to nebulous concepts at times. Ideas such as “ethics” and “responsibility” are particularly prone to vagary. This book seeks to provide a practical framework for unpicking these concepts and reporting on them. Packed with real-life examples and case studies, this book provides a clear guide to what honest, holistic reporting looks like.
The End of Corporate Social Responsibility: crisis and critique
By Peter Fleming and Marc Jones
Hardback: 144 pages, £75
ISBN-10: 1849205159
Publisher: Sage Publications
Published: December 2012
This book doesn’t pull any punches. Its 144 pages leave few critiques of corporate responsibility untouched. But don’t dismiss it out of hand. Assessing the function of CR in the context of political economy may sound like academic quibbling, but this line of thinking has important implications for how CR is privately conceived and popularly perceived.
Corporate Social Irresponsibility:a challenging concept
By Ralph Tench, William Sun and Brian Jones (eds)
Hardcover: 300 pages, £72.95
ISBN-10: 1780529988
Publisher: Emerald Group Publishing
Published: December 2012
This book carries a high price tag given its fundamental premise that corporate irresponsibility provides a clearer theoretical platform than its responsible equivalent. Turning things on their head isn’t always a bad thing, though. This collection of essays provides plenty of new angles and fresh arguments to chew over.
Sustainability: the basics
By Peter Jacques
Paperback: 224 pages, £11.99
ISBN: 0415608481
Publisher: Routledge
Published: December 2012
For once, a book that delivers on its title. Peter Jacques lays out the bare essentials of sustainability theory. Cutting through the waffle, he spells out what the term means, how it is being applied in practice and what difference it can make to the world around us. A great primer for first-timers to the subject.
Climate Economics: the state of the art
By Frank Ackerman and Elizabeth Stanton
Hardcover: 192 pages, £85
ISBN: 041563718X
Publisher: Routledge
Published: February 2013
Economics is considered a “hard” science. Climate change, not so much. This book sets out to take the fluff out of environmentalism and show what it means in terms of dollars and cents. The planet needs economists to get involved. This book gives a valuable insight into how they can go about doing so.
The Beautiful and the Good: reasons for sustainable fashion
By Marco Ricchetti and Luisa Frisa
Paperback: 236 pages, £25.58
ISBN: 8831712608
Publisher: Marsilio Editori
Published: February 2013
Sustainability is no fleeting trend, so what can it say to an industry built on faddish impulses? Quite a lot, it would seem. This book challenges fashionistas the world over to consider the impacts of their consumption habits. It has a happy ending, though: good ethics don’t necessary mean ugly aesthetics.
By Ian Ellingham and William Fawcett
Paperback: 160 pages, £29.95
ISBN: 1859464505
Publisher: RIBA Publishing
Published: January 2013
If you’re in the building game and you’ve not heard of Whole Life Costing or you’ve written it off as too complicated, then this is the book for you. Done well, WLC can provide a back-of-the-envelope technique for balancing environmental design with long-term cost issues. An important and practical contribution to the promotion of eco-design.