Wednesday, December 17, 2008

The eBooks that will help your business go green!

In the last couple of weeks we're busy with recommendations on great green-themed books. Today we're focusing on green-themed eBooks. We're happy to host Angela Wieck from EcoBrain who recommends on few green eBooks for businesses.

EcoBrain, eBook Distributor, Provides Resources for Businesses to Go Green

EcoBrain, the #1 eBook marketplace for books on green living for individuals and businesses highlights three eBooks to help businesses in their quest to create corporate sustainability.

A lot of attention has been given to the growth of eBooks recently, with eBooks reportedly rising by 58.9% and most categories of paper books decli
ning. EcoBrain would like to now focus attention on some titles that can help businesses do a better job of going green.

The Next Sustainability Wave: Building Boardroom Buy-in, by Bob Willard ($16.95)

It provides a compelling business case and emphasizes the importance of how sustainability is presented to corporate leaders - using the right language, and avoiding threats to the status quo that provoke habitual corporate defense mechanisms -- the book applies effective
selling techniques to reposition sustainability strategies as a means to achieving existing corporate ends, rather than as a separate priority to worry about. It sells sustainability as a solution, a business strategy, and a catalyst for business transformation.

Another excellent title is Dancing with the Tiger: Learning Sustainability Step by Natural Step, by Brian Nattrass and Mary Altomare ($22.95).

For corporations, communities and other organizations, the choreography of the dance toward sustainability has been systematized by The Natural Step: a framework that provides the science, analysis, methodologies and tools to use in the quest for sustainability.

Dancing with the Tiger presents the stories of individuals, teams and organizations learning about change and sustainability, and then acting on that learning. Case studies include some of the mo
st successful companies and communities in North America:

Nike: its struggles, victories and setbacks on the road to sustainability
Starbucks: the tension of modeling corporate responsibility with alarming growth
CH2MHill: its gradual evolution from environmental to sustainability engineering
Whistler: grappling with the paradox of sustainability in a high profile resort town
as well as Home Depot, Norm Thomson Outfitters, the municipalities of Seattle and Santa Monica, and others.

Firms of Endearment: How World-Class Companies Profit from Passion and Purpose, by Rajendra Sisodia, David Wolfe, Jagdish Sheth ($20.12)

It's a fact: People are increasingly searching for higher meaning in their lives, not just more possessions. This trend is transforming the marketplace, the workplace, and the very soul of capitalism. Increasingly, today's most successful companies are those who've brought love, joy, authenticity, empathy, and soulfulness into their businesses: companies th
at deliver emotional, experiential, and social value, not just profits. Firms of Endearment illuminates this: the most fundamental transformation in capitalism since Adam Smith.

It's not a book about corporate social responsibility: it's about building companies that can sustain success in a radically new era. It's about great companies like IDEO and IKEA, Commerce Bank and Costco, Wegmans and Whole Foods: how they've earned powerful loyalty and affection from all their stakeholders, while achieving stock performance that is truly breathtaking. It's about gaining "share of heart," not just share of wallet. It's about aligning the interests of all your stakeholders, not just juggling them.

It's about understanding how the "new rules of capitalism" mirror the self-actualization focus of our aging society. It's about building companies that leave the world a better place. Most of all, it's about why you must do all this, or risk being left in the dust... and how to get there from wherever you are now.

Not only does EcoBrain offer titles for businesses, but individuals as well. A recommended title for individuals is Global Profit AND Global Justice: Using Your Money to Change the World, by Deb Abbey ($11.95).

Although debate still rages about the merits of globalization, the fact remains that it is inevitable. But instead of people expending their energies on fighting the global economy, we may be much better off trying to shape it. Global Profit AND Global Justice shows how you can use your money creatively to change the world for the better. It aims to empower people to leverage capital for progressive social and environmental change. Arguing that the marketplace is a viable forum for individuals to effect such change, it shows that consumers and investors already have many tools at their disposal to help ensure that the benefits of globalization are distributed equitably.

EcoBrain.com offers thousands of titles, from hundreds of top publishers, about the environment. EcoBrain’s offers eBooks on the environment, sustainable living, cookbooks, biographies, kids’ books, how-to guides, green architecture titles, organic gardening, composting, fiction and more.

Book reviewers and journalists are encouraged to contact EcoBrain for access to complimentary copies.

Angela Wieck
Sales & Marketing
EcoBrain