INTRODUCTION

What Do We Mean by “Strategy for Sustainability”?

IN 1997, I went to New Orleans to meet with the mayor about the city’s preparations for the effects of climate change. My role as an environmentalist was to enlist governments in effecting the changes I wanted to see in the world: specifically, I wanted the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to speed up its wetlands restoration projects near the Mississippi.

Wetlands are nature’s sponges. If you take away the wetlands, then you take away an ecosystem’s capacity to cope with the extra water from a storm. Anyone who studied the situation understood how critical the wetlands were to New Orleans’ survival; we had to protect them. I was advocating a plan that would rebuild the city’s levees ...

Get Strategy for Sustainability: A Business Manifesto now with the O’Reilly learning platform.

O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.