Rethinking Leadership for a Green World

Rethinking Leadership for a Green World
Author: Andrew Taylor
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 259
Release: 2022-03-20
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1000548686

First James Lovelock, and recently Prince William and David Attenborough believe that we have reached a tipping point in the process of climate change. Whether they are right or not, it is certainly true that the impact of humankind upon the ecology of the earth has reached a point where real changes in human behaviour are required. If managers are to be enablers of planetary survival then we need to develop a new approach to risk, which explicitly includes ecological limits upon economic behaviour. This implies a fundamental reorientation of their role in allocating resources to minimise risk and maximise reward. This book brings together some of the brightest contemporary thinkers on leadership, complexity and sustainability to consider the big ideas that we will need to make the changes required, and to outline the major themes that can inform a new approach to constructing a green world. It looks at how to ensure that local models of sustainability are able to flourish in the context of global networks and presents specific case studies of markets and organisations that offer insights into the development integrated solutions and the leadership lessons we can learn. Combining both theory and practice, this book serves to guide business managers and provides deeper insight and critical perspectives on some of the key issues facing leaders moving towards the green economy. It also provides useful supplementary reading for students in business and environmental studies.

EarthEd (State of the World)

EarthEd (State of the World)
Author: The Worldwatch Institute
Publisher: Island Press
Total Pages: 394
Release: 2017-04-20
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1610918428

Today's students will face the unprecedented challenges of a rapidly warming world, including emerging diseases, food shortages, drought, and waterlogged cities. How do we prepare 9.5 billion people for life in the Anthropocene, to thrive in this uncharted and more chaotic future? Answers are being developed in universities, preschools, professional schools, and even prisons around the world. In the latest volume of State of the World, a diverse group of education experts share innovative approaches to teaching and learning in a new era. EarthEd will inspire anyone who wants to prepare students not only for the storms ahead but to become the next generation of sustainability leaders.

Smart Green World?

Smart Green World?
Author: Steffen Lange
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 308
Release: 2020-05-07
Genre: Computers
ISBN: 1000061620

In this book, Steffen Lange and Tilman Santarius investigate how digitalization influences environmental and social sustainability. The information revolution is currently changing the daily lives of billions of people worldwide. At the same time, the current economic model and consumerist lifestyle needs to be radically transformed if society is to overcome the challenges humanity is facing on a finite planet. Can the much-discussed disruption potential of digitalization be harnessed for this purpose? Smart Green World? provides guiding principles for a sustainable digital society and develops numerous hands-on proposals for how digitalization can be shaped to become a driving force for social transformation. For instance, the authors explain why more digitalization is needed to realize the transition towards 100% renewable energy and show how this can be achieved without sacrificing privacy. They analyze how the information revolution can transform consumption patterns, mobility habits and industry structures – instead of fostering the consumption of unneeded stuff due to personalized commercials and the acceleration of life. The authors reveal how Artificial Intelligence and the Industrial Internet of Things pose novel environmental challenges and contribute to a polarization of income; but they also demonstrate how the internet can be restored to its status as a commons, with users taking priority and society at large reaping the benefits of technological change in a most democratic way. Providing a comprehensive and practical assessment of both social and environmental opportunities and challenges of digitalization, Smart Green World? Making Digitalization Work for Sustainability will be of great interest to all those studying the complex interrelationship of the twenty-first-century megatrends of digitalization and decarbonization.

Re-Constructing the Global Network Economy

Re-Constructing the Global Network Economy
Author: Andrew Taylor
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 165
Release: 2022-10-07
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1000683605

This book looks at how to build more resilience into socio-economic networks within local communities. Understanding the relationships between attachment to place, complex systems and patterns of knowledge creation is not straightforward, but these relationships are emerging as the challenges that we face in bridging the gap between the social worlds that we inhabit and an emerging digital world. These issues have been brought into even sharper focus through changes resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic. On the one hand, forced familiarity with communication technologies is driving globalisation forwards, whilst on the other, the crisis has created awareness of dependencies and heightened desires for more local solutions. Plenty of books have been written about the rise of digital networks and the decline of local communities. This book takes a radical approach by identifying how these trends fit together and provides examples of how digital networks can be made to work for the local as well as the global economy. Using a case study approach, the book offers a clear-sighted view of the role of relational capital in specific places and organisations and shows the transformational impact that they can have at a micro level. The book deliberately seeks to shake up preconceived ideas and is ideal for strategy practitioners and policy makers within governments and NGOs involved in connecting local to wider network economies.

Rethinking the World

Rethinking the World
Author: Peter Pogany
Publisher: iUniverse
Total Pages: 368
Release: 2006-09
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 9780595410798

The post-Marxian, new historical materialism described in this book breathes new life into our comprehension of the world. A 200-year perspective on modernity tells us that an all-embracing physical phenomenon holds humankind in its grip. History has recorded two distinct global systems thus far: "laissez faire/metal money," which spanned most of the 19th century and lasted until the outbreak of World War I, and "mixed economy/weak multilateralism," which began after 1945 and exists today. The period between the two systems, 1914-1945, was a chaotic transition. This evolutionary pulsation is well known to students of thermodynamics. It corresponds to the behavior of expanding and complexifying material systems. The exhaustion of oil and other natural resources is pushing the world toward a third global system that may be called "two-level economy/strong multilateralism." It will be impossible to get there without a new chaotic transition. No repeated warnings, academic advice, moral advocacy, inspired reforms, or political leadership can provide a shortcut around it. But if it took "1914-1945" to make a relatively minor adjustment in the global order, what will it take to make a major one?

Sustainable Logistics and Supply Chain Management

Sustainable Logistics and Supply Chain Management
Author: David B. Grant
Publisher: Kogan Page Publishers
Total Pages: 305
Release: 2022-11-03
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1398604445

Our daily lives are permeated by the activities of logistics and supply chain, from food and clothing to doorstep deliveries. As these processes have the ability to significantly impact the natural environment, it has never been so important to develop and implement sustainable principles and practices. Sustainable Logistics and Supply Chain Management is an essential textbook for undergraduate and postgraduate students for understanding sustainability as it pertains to logistics operations. This book covers the direct environmental impacts of logistics and supply chain processes, including emissions and waste, as well as how wider changes such as globalization need to be given similar considerations. Presenting different pathways to guide readers, case studies and supported by extensive research, this book provides all the support needed to understand and implement a sustainable approach. Now in its third edition, Sustainable Logistics and Supply Chain Management is fully updated with the latest research and data including trends in logistics and supply chain management and new cases. Online resources include instructor manuals, lecturer slides and a complied list of figures and tables.

Critical Systems Thinking

Critical Systems Thinking
Author: Michael C. Jackson
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 261
Release: 2024-05-13
Genre: Computers
ISBN: 1394203594

CRITICAL SYSTEMSTHINKING Understand the full range of systems approaches and how to use them with this innovative overview. Leaders and managers face increasing complexity and uncertainty because technical, organizational, socio-cultural, political, and environmental issues have become intensely interconnected. Systems thinking is recognized as the essential competence for managing complexity. As the demand for systems thinking grows, however, the fragmentation of the field into different methodologies has become a potential liability. Critical systems thinking (CST) shows how this diversity can be a strength rather than a weakness by revealing how different systems methodologies address various aspects of complexity and how they can be used in combination to resolve the messiest of wicked problems. Critical Systems Thinking offers, in a single volume, an account of the value of systems thinking and CST in the modern world, an explanation of the pragmatic philosophy and expansion in mindset necessary to embrace CST, and detailed instructions on how to undertake critical systems practice (CSP) using the variety of systems approaches to navigate multi-dimensional complexity. Readers will find: An accessible introduction to systems thinking and CST. A description and critique of the best-known systems methodologies. A guide to the mindset changes, the steps required, and the toolkit necessary to undertake successful CSP. Case studies and examples of CSP. A discussion of the nature of systemic leadership. Critical Systems Thinking is ideal for leaders and managers in government, business, the public sector, the professions, and beyond who want to understand the potential of systems thinking and use it in their work. It is essential for systems researchers and practitioners who want a deeper understanding of the field.

A People's Curriculum for the Earth

A People's Curriculum for the Earth
Author: Bill Bigelow
Publisher: Rethinking Schools
Total Pages: 433
Release: 2014-11-14
Genre: Education
ISBN: 0942961579

A People’s Curriculum for the Earth is a collection of articles, role plays, simulations, stories, poems, and graphics to help breathe life into teaching about the environmental crisis. The book features some of the best articles from Rethinking Schools magazine alongside classroom-friendly readings on climate change, energy, water, food, and pollution—as well as on people who are working to make things better. A People’s Curriculum for the Earth has the breadth and depth ofRethinking Globalization: Teaching for Justice in an Unjust World, one of the most popular books we’ve published. At a time when it’s becoming increasingly obvious that life on Earth is at risk, here is a resource that helps students see what’s wrong and imagine solutions. Praise for A People's Curriculum for the Earth "To really confront the climate crisis, we need to think differently, build differently, and teach differently. A People’s Curriculum for the Earth is an educator’s toolkit for our times." — Naomi Klein, author of The Shock Doctrine and This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate "This volume is a marvelous example of justice in ALL facets of our lives—civil, social, educational, economic, and yes, environmental. Bravo to the Rethinking Schools team for pulling this collection together and making us think more holistically about what we mean when we talk about justice." — Gloria Ladson-Billings, Kellner Family Chair in Urban Education, University of Wisconsin-Madison "Bigelow and Swinehart have created a critical resource for today’s young people about humanity’s responsibility for the Earth. This book can engender the shift in perspective so needed at this point on the clock of the universe." — Gregory Smith, Professor of Education, Lewis & Clark College, co-author with David Sobel of Place- and Community-based Education in Schools