Esty and Winston seem to be a perfect duo to write this book. Together they have a very strong and complementing background, ranging from experiences in academics and government to green and strategy consulting. The result is a book that has the right balance of theory and practice. While many books on green business only focus on the bright side, Esty & Winston are more realistic. They admit that not every business policy leads to win-win situations and describe the main fallacies, therewith making their book more "complete". The book is very easy to grasp through clear structures, concise business maps and numerous examples of S&P 100 firms. Furthermore, the latter ensures that you'll remind the book's message every time you'll order a cup of coffee at Starbucks or a meal at McDonald's.

The first 70% of the book is most interesting. After that, Esty and Winston start repeating concepts as well as business cases. Although the discussed cases are strong and helpful, Esty and Winston refer to the same companies over and over again, while forgetting about many other so called "WaveRiders". I'm wondering what the book would have been like if they had picked another set of front running firms to shed light on. They could probably fill a complete second book with it, so who knows..

I have revisited this book a number of times since I read it last year. It is a good resouce in understanding the benefits and dangers of going green.

Excellent breakdown of the drivers for companies to go green. Also excellent analyses of strategies used by the corporate world to achieve their goals with green programs. Many examples of what worked and what didn't work.
Great reading!

Good book with alot of insights... but I think you really have to be interested with these matters to be able to finish the book.

If possible I would have given this book 6 stars. Very well written and the best of all: The notes.

This is a great book! The information presented is very useful. I have also heard both authors speak at conferences. They have a great message and convey it clearly.

This book explores what every executive must know to manage the environmental challenges facing society and business. According to the authors, companies generate lasting value by building environmental thinking into their business strategies. This book attempts to show how to be good stewards of the Earth while simultaneously building the bottom line; how to keep a sharp focus on execution while using an environmental strategy; and ways to cope with environmental pressures and responsibilities.

According to the authors, the state of the art in environmental thinking can be summed up with the slogan, "Reduce, Reuse, Recycle." The best pollution-control option is to reduce the use of resources and eliminate waste. The next best option is to refurbish or reuse items. Then recycle what's left. As a last resort, throw something out.

I really enjoyed the many case studies included. Here are a few:

(a) In the weeks before Christmas 2001, the Dutch government was blocking Sony's entire European shipment of PlayStation game systems; more than 1.3 million boxes were sitting in a warehouse because a small, but legally unacceptable, amount of the toxic element cadmium was found in the cables of the game controls. Sony rushed in replacements to swap out the tainted wires. It also tried to track down the source of the problem by inspecting more than 6,000 factories and resulted in a new supplier management system. The total cost of this environmental problem was more than $130 million.

(b) In a speech to shareholders, Wal-Mart CEO Lee Scott vowed to cut energy use by 30 percent; to use 100 percent renewable energy (from sources like wind farms and solar panels); and to double the fuel efficiency of its massive shipping fleet. The company will invest $500 million annually in these energy programs.

(c) In the mid-1990s, executives at Unilever saw a big threat to one of their product lines. Supply for the frozen fish sticks business was at risk because the oceans were running out of fish. In partnership with World Wildlife Fund, the company set up the Marine Stewardship Council, an independent body to promote sustainable fisheries around the world. The Council certifies fisheries where the total catch is limited so that fish populations do not diminish over time. To create specific incentives for fishermen to seek certification, Unilever committed to buying 100 percent of its fish from sustainable sources by 2005.

(d) Over the last 15 years, chemical giant DuPont has cut its contribution to global warming by 72 percent. Half of the cuts came from changing one process: the production of adipic acid. This modification eliminated emissions of nitrous oxide, a potent greenhouse gas that causes far more warming than carbon dioxide.

(e) IKEA is proud of its "flat packaging." Efforts to squeeze millimeters out of every box have allowed the company to pack its trucks and trains tighter. That saves up to 15 percent on fuel per item.

(f) Toyota saw the Green Wave coming and responded with the energy-efficient "hybrid" Prius, a breakthrough product that enhanced profits.

According to the authors, the top 10 environmental issues facing humanity are:

1. Climate Change. This includes rising sea levels, changes in rainfall patterns, severe droughts and floods, harsh hurricanes and new pathways for disease.
2. Energy. Companies selling goods and services that promise to improve energy efficiency will claim market share.
3. Water. Companies around the world now face limits on access to water.
4. Biodiversity and Land Use. Biodiversity preserves our food chain and the ecosystem on which all life depends. It also holds prospects of new drugs, foods and other products. A key factor in the decline of biodiversity is habitat loss.
5. Chemicals, Toxics and Heavy Metals. Part of what makes air pollution more dangerous is the presence of toxic elements. Exposure to chemicals like dioxin, a byproduct of production processes such as papermaking, and heavy metals such as lead and mercury can create severe public health risks.
6. Air Pollution. Significant air-quality controls on factories, cars and other emissions sources have reduced air pollution over the past 30 years in the United States, Japan and Europe. But the air is still not clean.
7. Waste Management. The EPA estimates that the 1,200 Superfund sites across the country will require
about $200 billion to clean up over the next 30 years. Under the liability provisions of the Superfund law, anyone found responsible for the waste at a site can be held liable for the full cost of cleanup, even if the toxics were legally disposed.
8. Ozone Layer Depletion. With a thinned ozone layer, the world becomes a more dangerous place, with
reduced agricultural productivity, higher risk of skin cancer and other health problems.
9. Oceans and Fisheries. More than 75 percent of the world's fisheries are over-exploited and beyond sustainability.
10. Deforestation. Every company that uses wood, paper or cardboard packaging has a stake in, and responsibility for, the state of our forests. When McDonald's realized 15 years ago that litter was an issue, it began working on reducing packaging.

Companies can and should be a force for good, leading the charge on caring for the environment and protecting our shared natural assets. Financial and environmental success can be achieved together. With the right mindset and tools, companies can handle the hard trade-offs.

This is a great book that should be required reading to executives at all levels!

In recent years, many useful books have been published promoting the greening of business. I think immediately of Natural Capitalism (2000) by Paul Hawken, Amory Lovins, and L. Hunter Lovins. The strength of Green and Gold lies in its extensive reference to case histories of "Green Wave Riding" corporations, ranging from IKEA to BP. The authors, Daniel C. Esty and Andrew S. Winston, spent years conducting interviews with key environmental managers and top executives in the companies (both US and international) which they identify as leading the way toward environmentally sustainable production. I learned a great deal from the many examples, which include several instances of green initiatives that failed, for one reason or another. The authors emphasize that trade offs are always necessary on the market, and that when it comes to so-called "green" products, marketing may work best when the green advantage comes third after price and performance. It is impossible to summarize the many angles that the authors discovered are being pursued by companies that have discovered that "no" is not an answer when it comes to doing things the right way, environmentally. My only quibble is that at times I lost sight of the overall structure of the book, such that I needed on occasion to refer to the table of contents to remind me of the main focus of a given chapter. Overall, I highly recommend this very accessible, well written, and timely book.

This book was a primary resource for the development of my client's green program. It was focused enough to provide a thorough understanding of the hot environmental issues, without being too tree-huggerish. It highlights the responsibilities of global stewardship along with those of being financially accountable in the business arena.

Green to Gold is a very thorough, well written book. Anyone involved in marketing should definitely take the time to read this book. I learned a great deal from this book it was well worth my investment of money and time.

Sesame Street's Kermit the Frog famously observed, "It's not easy being green." Whether easy or not, environmental and social pressures are pushing more and more companies to ride the "green wave" to ecological sustainability. In this beautifully organized, crisply written book, Daniel C. Esty and Andrew S. Winston, both Yale professors, describe how sustainability can create competitive advantage. They succinctly make the business case for sustainability, and then provide a playbook of green strategies and tactics. The presentation is neither too abstract nor too detailed: It's just right. Nor is their presentation one-sided: They enumerate many ways sustainable products and strategies can go wrong. While some of their suggestions may seem obvious, the authors deserve praise for collecting so many excellent tips and tricks, and for describing them in memorable (mostly) jargon-free prose. We highly recommend this smart book to any business leader who wants to move beyond rhetoric to action. While Kermit's wisdom is doubtless correct, this handbook makes being green much easier.

I bought the book because of the title. I was not disappointed. The book is more focused on business prospects than on real environmental issues but it was what I was looking for.

I have read and praised "Natural Capitalism," "Ecology of Commerce," and "Cradle to Cradle," here at Amazon, and I mention them to emphasize that this book, "Green to Gold," is the hands-down no-contest best primer for top management. The others are intellectual presentations. This is a business oriented primer with lots of facts, lists, and resources.

It is a pro-business book that focuses on opportunities. It is extremely well-organized, with three parts, twelve chapters, and three appendices including a superb list of active web sites relevant to doing well by doing good.

This book is based on hundreds of interviews over four years, and every aspect of it is professional presented, including boxes with "10 second overviews" interspersed throughout.

The authors are compellingly pointed in their discussion of how the environment, and attendant regulations and attendant risks of catastrophic costs, is no longer a fringe issue. Mistakes in cadmium content of connecting cables can cost hundreds of millions.

The authors excel at discussing the new pressures from natural limits that are now visible (changes that used to take 10,000 years now take 3--see my reviews on Ecological Economics, the Republican War on Science, the varied books on Climate Change, etc) and the fact that there is a growing range of stake-holders who are altering the balance of power.

The authors are clear in noting that environmental compliance and wisdom is neither easy nor cheap, but they are equally detailed in documenting that most investments to reduce environmental costs are recouped within 12-18 months. In one cited example, 3M saves $1 billion in the first year alone on pollution reduction, and over the course of a decade, was able to reduce its pollution by 90%.

On page 33 they list the top 10 environmental issues and I like this list very much as an expansion on "Environmental Degradation" which is the over-all threat that the High Level Threat Panel of the United Nations ranked as third out of ten, to Poverty and Infectious Disease. They are:

01 Climate Change
02 Energy
03 Water
04 Biodiversity and Land Use
05 Chemicals, Toxics, and Heavy Metals
06 Air Pollution
07 Waste Management
08 Ozone Layer Depletion
09 Oceans and Fisheries
10 Deforestation

The authors do a superb job in summarizing each of these in several pages perfectly suited to the busy manager. For those desiring more in-depth looks, see my many reviews across the board, including "Priority One," various books on energy, "WATER: The Fate of Our Most Precious Resource," "Pandora's Poison," and "Blue Frontier."

The bottom line for the first part of the book: extremes can no longer be dampened down; and we now recognize the eco-system value of the wetlands that we have paid the Army Corps of Engineers to eradicate for decades.

The authors devised a schema for businesses to develop an understanding and then a strategy for reducing their environmental footprint. The authors do extremely well with their organized examination of Aspects, Upstream, Downstream, Issues, and Opportunities (AUDIO), and anyone looking at the book in a store can go directly to pages 62-63. This is an operational management handbook.

There is an excellent overview of the many new stake-holders (or significantly matured stake-holders including NGOs, religions, and local citizens. Business can no longer bribe government--government cannot "deliver" the way it used to (see my review of "Class War" for a sense of how corruption of other elites by our elites has accelerated all the ills of the world).

Regulations, according to these authors, should be seen as vital incentives and parameters for both reducing costs and gaining trust.

Forty global banks, and many insurance companies, now demand proper examination of ecological costs as a condition for funding or coverage.

The authors remind me of General Tony Zinni, whose books I have reviewed, in their emphasis on relationships developed over time. They urge a strong focus on relationships NOW, across the board, as a means of building a "trust bank" as well as a deeper understanding. Blocks that used to be labels "not our problem" or "not legally liable" are now labeled "IMPORTANT TO US."

In the middle of the book they explore the digital information advantages that can accrue to those who get out of their closed loops and increase innovation. In one instance, simply adding load to trucks reduced fuel consumption and emissions considerably.

The middle of the book contains 8 detailed "Green to Gold" plays, and I won't spoil it by listing them. A box in this section says "Truth Matters" and I applaud silently.

The authors stress that mind-set, not just a check-book, is required to get this right. Five basic rules are 1) See the forest; 2) Start at the top; 3) No is not an option; 4) Feelings are facts; and 5) Do the right thing, morality DOES pay.

Pages 168-169 are sheer brilliance, and illustrate why the value chain must be completely integrated into the environmental strategy of each element of that value chain and most especially the largest and most powerful of the elements, which must carefully consider and accept responsibility for demanding improvements by the smallest elements.

Eight lessons of partnering, 13 problems and their solutions, and a final chapter of very specific actions that managers can take, conclude the book.

My final note on this book: a pleasure to read, easy to read, so well done I got through it in half the time characteristic of denser or less well designed books. This is first rate stuff!

This is an informative book, very educational. The writing is a bit dry- I feel like I am reading a college textbook. The data is great, the delivery is not so engaging.

This is an informative book, very educational. The writing is a bit dry- I feel like I am reading a college textbook. The data is great, the delivery is not so engaging.

Thanks to Dan Esty and Andrew Winston, we now have useful information on a subject that affects our future in practical business terms. Due in part to the Internet, information on environmental management can leave managers and decisionmakers feeling oversaturated and wondering what to believe and whom to trust. This book helps because it encourages rational and appropriate thinking on "how" to approach integration of environmental strategy in business - not necessarily "what" to do. If you are new to business environmental strategy, make this one among the first you read - if you are already an expert, you'll likely find something new and useful. This book is going on the "highly recommended" list for all staff in my company.

Thanks to Dan Esty and Andrew Winston, we now have useful information on a subject that affects our future in practical business terms. Due in part to the Internet, information on environmental management can leave managers and decisionmakers feeling oversaturated and wondering what to believe and whom to trust. This book helps because it encourages rational and appropriate thinking on "how" to approach integration of environmental strategy in business - not necessarily "what" to do. If you are new to business environmental strategy, make this one among the first you read - if you are already an expert, you'll likely find something new and useful. This book is going on the "highly recommended" list for all staff in my company.

This is one of the newest (2006) and better books on the New Green Wave of sustainability sweeping across the business world. It is written by two Yale profs who take a much more objective view of the successess - and failures - of companies who have launched into major sustainability initiatives. As such, it is a more credible assessment of the real value of sustainable business practices. It is well written with many case examples, factoids and stimulating discussion - as well as many "tools" for any company to size up their path ahead.

Most books on the topic leave you with the idea that all is rosey and money when "doing the right thing" and developing more sustainable business practices. Not so here - you will find many examples of what HASN'T worked out according to expectations. Case-in-point Interface Floor Covering, a company whose case is in about every book on sustainability. Well, in their pursuit to reinvent the way carpeting is made and sold (many excellent eco-accomplishments), they totally musjudged the marketplace and assumed corporate customers would be happy to switch from buying carpeting (out of annual capital budget) to leasing it (out of monthly operating budgets). They ignored one of the great rules of "Green Marketing" (per Jacquie Ottman): Don't expect the customer to change behaviour to make green choices. So, this book brings these valuable lessons for all to learn and avoid repeating.

This is a great book for VP, CEO, COO levels as it highlights the business case in a clear and compelling way and shows how, really, the business case for sustainability has been proven (ie: the discussion on whether sustainability as a direction leads to long-term profitability is essentially over). Green to Gold is a quality, believable reference book that will help especially managerial staff understand this topic in business terms. It also gives some excellent but succict summaries of the top environmental problems that have led to unsustainable activity and how to savvily engage various stakeholders from Greenpeace to employees.

Another book that has really in-depth case studies (Nike, Starbucks) and is also highly recommended is "Dancing with the Tiger - Learning Sustainability through The Natural Step." Buy this last book just for the incredibly helpful roadmap titled "The Sustainability Learning Curve" which shows the path from mere compliance through true leadership. This chart helped our organization see where we where and just how far and how much effort it would take to get to a leadership position. [for reference as a reviewer: I help lead sustainable development in a consumer product manufacturing company, so I have read a lot of these books but have found a few like this one much better than the others.]

This is one of the newest (2006) and better books on the New Green Wave of sustainability sweeping across the business world. It is written by two Yale profs who take a much more objective view of the successess - and failures - of companies who have launched into major sustainability initiatives. As such, it is a more credible assessment of the real value of sustainable business practices. It is well written with many case examples, factoids and stimulating discussion - as well as many "tools" for any company to size up their path ahead.

Most books on the topic leave you with the idea that all is rosey and money when "doing the right thing" and developing more sustainable business practices. Not so here - you will find many examples of what HASN'T worked out according to expectations. Case-in-point Interface Floor Covering, a company whose case is in about every book on sustainability. Well, in their pursuit to reinvent the way carpeting is made and sold (many excellent eco-accomplishments), they totally musjudged the marketplace and assumed corporate customers would be happy to switch from buying carpeting (out of annual capital budget) to leasing it (out of monthly operating budgets). They ignored one of the great rules of "Green Marketing" (per Jacquie Ottman): Don't expect the customer to change behaviour to make green choices. So, this book brings these valuable lessons for all to learn and avoid repeating.

This is a great book for VP, CEO, COO levels as it highlights the business case in a clear and compelling way and shows how, really, the business case for sustainability has been proven (ie: the discussion on whether sustainability as a direction leads to long-term profitability is essentially over). Green to Gold is a quality, believable reference book that will help especially managerial staff understand this topic in business terms. It also gives some excellent but succict summaries of the top environmental problems that have led to unsustainable activity and how to savvily engage various stakeholders from Greenpeace to employees.

Another book that has fantastic case studies (Nike, Starbucks) and is also highly recommended is "Dancing with the Tiger - Learning Sustainability through The Natural Step." Buy this last book just for the incredibly helpful roadmap titled "The Sustainability Learning Curve" which shows the path from mere compliance through true leadership. This chart helped our organization see where we where and just how far and how much effort it would take to get to a leadership position. [for reference as a reviewer: I help lead sustainable development in a consumer product manufacturing company, so I have read a lot of these books but have found a few much better than the others.]

Green to Gold is a must-read for anyone who (a) holds a leadership position in business or is a business influencer, and (b) cares about the environment we live in. Its subtitle really best describes the book, which is probably the first (or if not, certainly the best) documentation of successful corporate environmentalstrategy on the market.

It's a little reminiscent to me of Collins Built to Last and Good to Great in that it is meticulously researched with a mix of company interviews/cooperation and empirical and investigative work. It doesn't have Collins "pairing" framework, but it doesn't need to in order to make its point.

If you liked Al Gore's movie, An Inconvenient Truth, this book will satisfy your thirst for information about what the heck the corporate world is doing or more important, can do, to do its part in not destroying our ecosystem. If you didn't like Gore's movie or didn't see it because you don't like Al Gore or don't think that many elements of the environmental movement are worthwhile, this book is an even more important read, as it brings the theoretical and scientific to the practical and treats sustainability as the corporate world must treat it in order to adopt it as a mainstream practice -- as a driver of capitalistic profit and competitive advantage.

This is a really important work in terms of advancing the cause of corporate social responsibility as it applies to the environment. Most important, it proves the axiom here that you can, in fact, Do Well by Doing Good.