Making Sustainability Stick: The Blueprint for Successful Implementation, Premium Edition

Chapter 1. The Climate Imperative

Humankind is faced with an unprecedented challenge. Never before has an ecological crisis presented as fundamental and serious a threat to our way of life on such a global scale as climate change. It seems that until recently, very few people—aside from climate scientists and a handful of environmentalists—paid attention to the greenhouse gases we were emitting into the atmosphere. I believe we are just now awakening to the reality of the situation.

We got into this situation because, over the past century, we have built our capitalistic market structure on two principles: an abundance of cheap fossil fuel energy and a focus on maximizing shareholder value in our business activity. These have been detrimental ...