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World Hotels - The Triple Bottom Line: How Today's Best-Run Companies Are Achieving Economic, Social and Environmental Success -- and How You Can Too
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List Price: $27.95
Our Price: $18.45
Your Save: $ 9.50 ( 34% )
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Manufacturer: Jossey-Bass
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Average Customer Rating:   
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Binding: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 658.408
EAN: 9780787979072
ISBN: 0787979074
Label: Jossey-Bass
Manufacturer: Jossey-Bass
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 320
Publication Date: 2006-08-11
Publisher: Jossey-Bass
Studio: Jossey-Bass
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Editorial Reviews:
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The Triple Bottom Line is the groundbreaking book that charts the rise of sustainability within the business world and shows how and why financial success increasingly goes hand in hand with social and environmental achievement. Andrew Savitz chronicles both the real problems that companies face and the innovative solutions that can come from sustainability. His is a hard-line approach to bottom-line fundamentals that is re-making companies around the globe.
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: Still a good introduction to the subject.
Comment: The publisher is correct about this being a groundbreaking book when it was published. It is still excellent and many companies have a long ways to go to be operating to the triple bottom line (economic, social and environmental). Useful for either learning the goal businesses and organizations need to strive for or as a beginning how-to manual on beginning that journey.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Great guide to adjusting your company's direction
Comment: I work for a small government agency, so a lot of the production and marketing discussion doesn't apply to us. That being said, this book really makes you think, not just about how your business can be more socially and environmentally responsible, but about the practices of the companies whose products you purchase every day. A good place to start for a company that is serious about taking a hard look at their impact on the world around them.
Customer Rating:
Summary: the triple bottom line
Comment: If you're truly interested in sustainability do not purchase this book. At best it appears to be intended for use by business and PR peope looking to increase their vocabulary in respect to the subject. At worst it will only add to the confusion, cynicsm and fatigue that results from the perception that sustainability is simply the next management tool. The introduction is very promising but the research and passion for the subject are simply not present. The authors claim that the failure of genetically modified foods to win acceptance was because it got a bad rap in the media. This seems a half hearted attempt at disinformation. It ignores the fact that they have been banned in Europe because they are the very definition of what is not sustainable and contribute directly to the demise of locally grown crops that are being systematically eliminated by companies like Monsanto. The wheels fall off in the chapter on accountability. The authors vain attempt to lequate the robber barons with corporate responsibility fails completely to link past business practices with sustainable practices. The ridiculous assertion that corporate responsibility was extended to worker's rights in the '30s and '40's represents the worst kind of reactionary ahistoricism. This continues with the authors description of laissez-faire capitalism over communism. There was nothing laissez-faire about the Marshall plan or any of government's sonsorship of capitalism during the cold war. The authors spin out of control when they claim that the media is so decentalized as not to allow corporations to control their messages. I'm sure the authors are aware of how few media companies control nearly all media outlets. In the end I had to assume this was simply a puff piece for corporations like Pepsi-Co and DuPont both of whom praise the book on the jacket and are mentioned in the text. DuPont gets extra points for trying not to blow up too many of its employees. If you're interested in hiring a former regulator to advise your company on skirting environmental issues, then buy his book. If not, read Cradle to Cradle for a responsible and nuanced approach to how sustainability is the new entrepreneurship, fueled by actual innovation not the latest gimmick. The only only good part of this purchase was the super savings shipping.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Great Overview of Sustainaility's Advantage
Comment: Savitz demonstrates the strength of his background by explaining, advocating for and advising on the strategic advantage of sustainability. Along with tons of examples, he clearly explains the rationale for large organizations to embrace sustainability through triple bottom line metrics. he also deals to a large extent with the implicit challenges of this approach--the need for stakeholder buy-in, the shift in organizational culture and some options for managing these areas. The only criticism I have, and it is really somewhat ancillary to his aims, is that the examples and recommendations are very much drawn from the world of the Fortune 50. Most readers are probably dealing with these issues in small businesses, under $50m in revenue. That makes the book less applicable for them--but through extrapolation, they too can benefit. I recommend this to anyone interested in the intersection of business and the world's fate.
Amie Devero, Author of Powered by Principle: Using Core Values to Build World-Class Organizations.
Customer Rating:
Summary: If You Want To Get Fluent Fast, Read This Book
Comment: This book is for interested general consumption rather than a technical practitioners' text book and as such is more than successful in teaching the basics of the triple bottom line. I'm not quite sure why some of the Amazon reviewers seem so testy about this, as the majority of American business management (mid-baby boom and above) never encountered much if anything about corporate responsibility (or ethics) in the curricula they studied on their way up. To consider what that means for concepts like the triple bottom line, pretend that for 25 years today's generation of senior managers had never been told to maximize shareholder value and now in 2007 were expected to internalize the concept and reflexively apply it to everything they do. Particularly from that point of view, Savitz' book is a superb tool to help people become intelligently informed on basic issues of corporate responsibility and sustainability. What individuals do with that is up to that is up to them, but the writing's good, the ideas are clear, the concepts are thought-provoking, and it's the kind of book that drives one to want to learn more. The graphics are particularly useful and uncluttered.
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