Hence, business people have a strong self-interest in minimizing the ecological damage of their operations. In this book, business people, economists, ecologists, and other thinkers outline new practical approaches that business and society, including media and educators, must take to move towards sustainability. But executives must take responsibility themselves for reeducating themselves and their managers. The information needed both within companies and outside is becoming steadily fuller, and Charles Fombrun, Luis Martins, and Alice Tepper Marlin describe the work of services and groups that assess and help to improve the environmental performance of a wide range of large corporations. Social change takes place within the interplay among media, corporations, and the public, and Eric Utne, publisher of the innovative Utne Reader, describes some of the new patterns that are emerging in America.
Government also enters the picture on many levels.
Monika Griefahn, Minister of the Environment in the German state of Lower Saxony, describes many types of leverage that government can exert to reduce environmental impacts and motivate companies to redesign products and processes. Within the financial world, also, new ideas are stirring. Woody Tasch and Stephen Viederman, foundation executives, explain how narrow traditional notions of fiduciary responsibility among investment people are expanding to include ecological responsibility and a longer-term analysis of financial returns. Technology, which many take to be hostile to the environment, also has a new role to play in moving toward sustainability. Finally, Yvon Chouinard, founder of Patagonia, tells how he guided his highly profitable company toward limited growth, greatly reduced environmental impacts, and consistent support for positive social and ecological goals.