SUSTAINABILITY AT WORK

Sustainability expert Waite, leader of the Climate Finance Fund, offers a comprehensive overview of environmental, social, and governance initiatives at work.

The author delivers asecond edition of her slim book, first published in 2017, on the importance and practicality of various sustainability measures in all kinds of industries and at various scales. This new edition features new chapters on climate-related careers (involving supply chain, end users, stakeholder relations, and future sustainability) and another on justice, equity, diversity and inclusion, and how they intersect with climate change and other issues. The book also acknowledges recent changes in office life, including a greater emphasis on remote work. Overall, her definition of sustainable development is an institutional structure that meets “the needs of all generations, present and future, while improving their well-being through social, economic, environmental, and intergenerational efforts.” Waite organizes her overview into what she refers to as the four pillars of sustainability—society, economy, environment, and future generations—and she builds up on a “SURF” Framework, comprised of “Supply Chain” (“the building blocks that constitute a product or help bring about a service”), “User” (the consumer, the customer, the citizen, or the client), “Relations” (“Do employees feel that there is a positive, inclusive work environment?”), and “Future” (the ethically obligation to look out for generations yet to come). Waite alternates between broader observations—backed up by extensive research—and personal stories of people who faced sustainability challenges in their workplace, such as Pia Malmquist, a pediatrician at Stockholm’s Karolinska University Hospital, whose job of caring for patients regularly touched on many aspects of environmental responsibility. The sheer range of Waite’s book is a marvel, as she covers sustainability’s history, economic feasibility, ethics, and the practicality of specific tools, such as printing presses using vegetable-based inks and chlorine-free paper. She also insightfully touches on the ways that the climate crisis has exacerbated social inequalities. Her narrative drive and remarkable talent for concision pulls these topics together into readable chapters that never feel overcrowded, and may convince even the most skeptical readers.

An impressively detailed and knowledgeable primer on environmental, social, and governance issues in the workplace.