Business

Contents:

Articles, Resources, Videos, Recommended Reading

"Nowadays people know the price of everything and the value of nothing" - Oscar Wilde

Business and the environment are tightly bound. Many businesses in the world thrive on a principle of unchecked growth and profit, but natural resources are finite: they cannot cope with unchecked growth. Neither can the balance of natural systems cope with an increasingly industrialised world.

We cannot become sustainable until we evolve the way we do business.  A business evolution is also a consumer evolution. We as consumers are part of the problem. How we consume affects the planet profoundly.

What would a business evolution look like?
Would we still use capitalism as our business model for the future planet, in the hope that it will solve some of the problems it has created? And if not capitalism, what model would we use?

As businesses, would we hold on to the idea of growth, or would we design a new goal? Is growth (even sustainable growth) necessary?

As consumers, would we buy less, or buy the same amount in a more ethical way? Would a real business evolution require consumers to radically rethink their lifestyles, or would subtle changes be enough?

A change is coming in the business world, and we can all play a part in directing it.

Enhance - Business Planning for Nonprofits: Why, When and How It Compares to Strategic Planning
Social Enterprise Coalition: No More Business as Usual: A Social Enterprise Manifesto
CSI Report:  New CSI Research Cluster Volunteering revisited
Welsh Assembly Government: Social Enterprise Strategy for Wales 2005
Welsh Assembly Government: The Social Enterprise Action Plan for Wales 2009
NACC: Curricular Guidelines for Undergraduate Study in Nonprofit Leadership, the Nonprofit Sector and Philanthropy

Videos:

Books we recommend:

A World Waiting to be Born – The Search for Civility By M Scott Peck
This book offers a needed prescription for our ailing society. Our illness is incivility: destructive patterns of self-absorption, callousness, manipulativeness, and materialism so ingrained in our routine behaviour that we do not recognise them. Using examples from his own life, case histories, and dramatic scenarios, Dr. Peck demonstrates how change can be effected and how we and our organizations can be restored to health.

Another World is Possible By William F Fisher and Thomas Panniah
Many believe that there are no alternatives to globalisation as we know it-with its world of giant corporations in the driving seat, dominating a "free" market in reality shaped in accordance with their dictates, and elevating economics over all other human considerations and values. But there are alternatives. And the global justice movement is giving voice to them. In this remarkable collection, the compilers have brought together some of the most important themes and voices which these rapidly growing, diverse citizens' movements have expressed at the World Social Forum. Google Books Preview

The Case Against the Global Economy By Edward Goldsmith
"Economic globalisation," writes Jerry Mander, "involves arguably the most fundamental redesign of the planet's political and economic arrangements since at least the Industrial Revolution. Yet the profound implications of these fundamental changes have barely been exposed to serious public scrutiny or debate. The 43 essays in this collection comprise a point-by-point analysis of globalization and its consequences that demonstrates that the future may not be as bright as business leaders tell us.

The Rise of the Creative Class By Richard Florida
Florida looks at the forces reshaping our economy and how companies, communities and people can survive and prosper in uncertain times. He gives us a provocative new way to think about why we live as we do today – and where we might be headed. Weaving storytelling with reams of cutting-edge research, Florida traces the fundamental theme that runs through a host of seemingly unrelated changes in American society: the growing role of creativity in our economy.

Fool's Gold By Gillian Tett
In “Fool’s Gold,” Tett describes how a small group of bankers at storied J. P. Morgan built a monster that got out of control and helped destroy much of their industry. She shows us the financial world through the eyes of her talented but short-sighted subjects: geniuses at math and marketing, they thought they had discovered how to defy the laws of nature.