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The Ecology of Commerce - by Paul
Hawken
"I
have come to believe
that we in America and in the rest of the industrialized West do not
know what business really is, or,..."
Paul Hawken, the entrepreneur behind
the
Smith & Hawken gardening supplies empire, is no ordinary
capitalist. Drawing as much on Baba Ram Dass and Vaclav Havel as he
does on Peter Drucker and WalMart for his case studies, Hawken is on a
one-man crusade to reform our economic system by demanding that First
World businesses reduce their consumption of energy and resources by 80
percent in the next 50 years.
As if that weren't enough, Hawken
argues
that business goals should be redefined to embrace such fuzzy
categories as whether the work is aesthetically pleasing and the
employees are having fun; this applies to corporate giants and
mom-and-pop operations alike. He proposes a culture of business in
which the real world, the natural world, is allowed to flourish as
well, and in which the planet's needs are addressed. Wall Street may
not be ready for Hawken's provocative brand of environmental awareness,
but this fine book is full of captivating ideas.
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