Green Giants: How Smart Companies Turn Sustainability into Billion-Dollar Businesses

Love love love this book! I had to get if for my sustainable marketing class but I reallly loved it. To anyone interested in sustainability or just doing better business this is a good, informative, easy read.

I defy you to read this fascinating, inspiring book and not have your wheels start spinning with ideas about how to transform your own business or organization. Back in the 90s our bosses assigned us "The Art of War" as required reading; this is THAT book for this decade. The author gives us a cast of compelling characters who, with courage, vision, tenacity, and a bit of lunacy, succeed at doing well by doing good, upending and transforming huge sectors and industries. Williams certainly proves her case--that sustainability is just good business--with solid studies and insights, but the real takeaway here is the if you want to transform your business and help shape the future, you have be all in--no halfway, no increments, no compromise, and no backing down in the face of resistance and defeat. This book made me want to get up on Monday and really, really get to work. Brava, Freya!

Nocommen ts

This is a great read and an incredible exploration of how sustainable business is no longer a nice to have but a core corporate strategy.

Good book, but a bit naive in her prescriptive approach to implementing these ideas. I was particularly disappointed in her choice of "Green Giant" companies, which seemed to be chosen because of prior working relationships. For example, given Chipotle's recent highly-publicized issues with wage theft, which became the basis for a Supreme Court decision that denies employees' the right to sue, this would seem to be a particularly bad choice. Yet, the firm is high-lighted throughout the book.

A practical book with lots of inspiration. It's premise, supported by the stories of billion dollar green businesses, is that sustainability and social responsibility as core principals of business can mean profit and growth above and beyond the results created by the old view of capitalism made "religion" by Milton Friedman that only shareholders matter and everything else is socialism. Lot's here for students of sociology, politics, science and technology as well as anyone interested in business, economics or investment.

An excellent, well researched and clearly presented book which leaves the reader enlightened and inspired.

Going green can be profitable - good for your bottom line and not too bad for the environment and society at the same time.This interesting, compact book takes a look at nine top companies that are managing to ace social responsibility and green issues whilst romping home with profitability. Green can be good - or at least not something that will cost your company money by being a burden - is a take-away message here. A little bit of industry disruption, wrapped around green change, for good measure is helping many companies develop a lucrative, sustainable business. Of course disruption can occur anywhere and today’s saviours can be tomorrow’s losers, yet this disruption is not disrupting the environment and the wider society.The author mixes research, interviews and great examples with aplomb to create an interesting, thoughtful read that can act as a catalyst for change for probably almost any organisation. Over the years many people have asked the author why they should incorporate sustainability into their brand and he answers “the nine dollar burrito” – referring to Chipotle, a U.S. food chain that sells “responsibly sourced” burrito. This humble company saw revenues triple between 2006 and 2011 and revenues are now exceeding two billion dollars a year and restaurant gross margins in excess of 25 per cent. This growth shows no sign of abatement and it enjoys a market capitalisation three times bigger than Burger King. Which brand is better known around the world?The reader may draw their own conclusions. This is not a lucky strike. There are other so-called Green Giants that are also doing well by being responsible companies. The book notes: “Chipotle is not an anomaly. It is one of at least nine companies globally with more than US$1 billion in annual revenue directly attributable to a product, service or line of business with sustainability or social good at its core. The other eight are GE, with its Ecomagination business line; Toyota, with the Prius hybrid car; Nike, with its Flyknit shoe; IKEA with its line of “products for a more sustainable life at home”; as well as Whole Foods, Unilever, Tesla, and Natura. These nine brands represent a critical mass of success. Their combined revenues add up to more than US$100 billion a year, a figure greater than the GDP of 70 per cent of the world’s 180 economies. (This does not refer to the total revenues of these companies. In the cases of IKEA, GE, Nike and Toyota, it refers to only the revenues from the sustainable product, service or line of business that is the subject of this book.)"There is more too. Some so-called “Next Billions” companies are also profiled and these are operations that display similar characteristics to the Green Giants but have not yet reached the billion-dollar benchmark, though most are well on their way.Before opening this book one was a little sceptical as there are rather a lot of books out there that call for change with the subtlety and conviction of an idealistic teenager whilst lacking the breadth of vision and experience that is needed to sustain the argument. This book provided an interesting journey, shone some light onto an interesting subject and washed a little bit of negativity away that Greenwashing tends to create.

important for business

Lo que mas me agrado del libro es que se encuentra en un lenguaje que si bien es de negocios es facil de leer, describe bastantes estrategias que los grandes verdes están desarrollando en la actualidad, para un mundo donde la lectura esta ya sea en kindle o en los dispositivos móviles el tener un libro con la pasta dura, como es el caso de este, realmente es cómodo de traer contigo.

Good as reference but not for cover to cover reading as there are not much take aways or unique insights.

Good

What a brilliant book this. It's actually a kind of self help book on how to start and run a sustainable billion dollar business. Congratulations to Freya Williams for doing the huge amount of research needed and then pulling together all the threads to make it into such a page turner of a book. I hope Green Giants gets a giant readership and inspires billions of other companies to follow the 10 pioneers she has picked as exemplars