The Necessary Revolution: How Individuals and Organizations Are Working Together to Create a Sustainable World

I'm a Supply Chain Management / Logistics consultant, so I bought this book to start to learn more about the impact large companies can have on the environment through their supply chains. As a beginning reference, it works well. The book is well cited, with many footnotes and references provided to the reader so a fair and balanced perspective can be reached. For this reason alone I was extremely pleased. Overall it is a fairly interesting book to read. It contained a step-by-step guide to beginning change within a large organization, and tips on how any business can start to become more environmentally friendly. Although some are more practical than others, I think anyone would benefit from reading this book. It's not as heavy on the doom-and-gloom other works are, and while it won't keep you up at night it will certainly make you think. Of particular interest to myself was the Xerox case study, and the Coca Cola water usage study.

If you're in search of a formula for going green - a goofproof method for aligning business and environmental or social issues - your eyes'll likely light up when they reach this book's chapter on "Positioning for the Future and the Present." That's where the authors introduce the Sustainable Value Framework: a cool strategic planning tool that DuPont used to transform itself from "world's number one polluter" (in 1989) to number one on BusinessWeek's list of "The Top Green Companies" of 2005. Could your company use this SVF to accomplish something special, too? You might hope. However, in the words of Harvard's Michael Porter (who has nothing directly to do with this book but who co-authored an article I recommend at the end): "Integrating business and social needs takes more than good intentions and strong leadership." To which I would add, it also takes more than the SVF. Building a business based on principles of sustainability is an ongoing process that depends on people, and on a particular set of people skills that are underdeveloped within most organizations today. IT TOOK ME BY SURPRISE, I must say, that maybe forty percent of this book is about said skills and how they can be strengthened - based on the authors' work through the Society for Organizational Learning (SoL) and with "business and non-business organizations all over the world collaborating for systemic change around core challenges such as food and water, energy, and material waste and toxicity." Chapters 12 through 24, in fact, revolve around tools and methods that've been used by individuals and groups to successfully see systems; collaborate across boundaries, and; adopt more creative orientations. This is all to the good, in my opinion, 'cause when it comes to steering companies in new directions, I've always found the "soft stuff" to be the most challenging. (One of my favorite parts of the book involves a made-up management team discussion that illustrates just how easily communications on the subject of going green can break down and stall.) So. Cool organizational learning tools plus the Sustainable Value Framework. Is this the complete, can't-miss formula for success? Almost. The rest is to be filled in by you...working effectively with others...as you learn your way to your own unique solutions. If that's your inclination, you'll find The Necessary Revolution both helpful and inspiring. *I also recommend you read Michael Porter's and Mark Kramer's article "Strategy & Society" (Harvard Business Review, December 2006).

This is one of the most interesting and important contributions of 2008 to the vital area of sustainability thinking. MIT's Peter Senge is well known for deep analysis of organizational effectiveness (that can be challenging to read). He applies the same "systems thinking" found in his best-selling book, "The Fifth Discipline", to the multi-dimensional problem of unsustainable industrialization to reveal the real drivers and not merely the symptoms of the core problems. Yet in this fresh, face-paced book, Mr. Senge takes a more "story-teller" approach to illustrate how we as a society can accomplish much more in our efforts to find more sustainable practices working together than working in a wary isolation. He uses many examples of successful collaboration between industry, brands, NGO groups, government and individuals. This is the new charter for effectiveness. As Wired magazine rightly said this year: "Global warming is too important to leave to environmentalists alone to solve." Government and business are in the best position to lead large-scale sustainable change and must take more and more ownership. I help lead sustainability programs for a major athetic brand, and we would never dream of collaborating around performance technology innovations. Yet, increasingly, we and my peers at other brands throughout the industry have been actively collaborating around many sustainability initiatives - even making ideas and patented technologies that solely benefit the environment available to others. We work with NGO groups to better inform our strategies and they are always willing and helpful to collaborate (as some of them say, we would rather work in partnership than take you to court!). We are working to develop common mreasures and standards to drive supply chains toward more sustainable production and better equip the consumer for informed choices regarding environmental impact. Senge's book is all about such collaboration - in product companies, energy sector and the built environment. No longer perceived as a fad or gimick, sustainability and eco-thinking are now evolving to necessary(and perhaps even survivability) strategies to insure this generation's children will have a world worth inheriting and similar opportunities than us adults have had living quite well off the resouces of the planet. Peter Senge shows us how to get there by developing shared awareness of the problem and working effectively across boundaries of all kinds. A main audience he wrote this book for is the grass-roots visionaries who have "gotten this" long ago and who work quietly but surely as the dynamic change-agents for a more sustainable world. A intellectually savvy and notable contribution to the topic that reads remarkably well. 5 stars.

I am a fan of the Society for Organizational Learning's approach to large organizational and social challenges. This book closes the loop on the learning's of Senge's entourage which span from The Fifth Discipline and the practical Field books to Presence. Now in The Necessary Revolution each author's unique experiences in teaching and guiding many fellow travelers along the road towards a more sustainable way of life are blended together in a coherent whole. This book captures the process of leading organizations on the journey towards sustainability without losing the necessary personal and spiritual touch that is so necessary in leading multi-dimensional sustainable changes within complex organizations. This is certainly a book to be used in business schools because while it teaches some administration of the sustainable organization, it also teaches the value of disruption and the disruptive innovation process, and how to guide and meld such strategies. I have been fortunate to have known personally, Brian, Sara, and Joe, and to have learned much as a result of their efforts through workshops, seminars and the Sustainable Enterprise Academy. I am very pleased to see so much of the essence of these efforts condensed in this volume. There are now many books on approaching sustainability through enterprise, organizations and society, but The Necessary Revolution enters new territories through the experience and rigor of the authors.

This long awaited book fulfills all of my expectations for a manual to help us create the conversations and collaboration necessary to reclaim our world's health. Over the years there have been quite a few high impact books helping us understand the extent of the challenges we face as we look forward to create a sustainable world. "The Necessary Revolution" steps forward and outlines how to create the partnerships that are needed to unleash the pent up creativity that millions of team members across the world and in all enterprises have been holding back. Peter Senge and team from his organization Society for Organizational Learning come at the subject as world leaders in the austere world of business. It is going to be very difficult for business leaders across the world to read this work and write it off as rantings of an extremist. Peter is one of the top business minds in the world and I do not believe this work can be easily ignored. For those of us who are disbursed across enterprises and feel like we have little impact on moving our enterprises towards a more sustainable future, this book provides outstanding case studies of work being done across the world by enterprises large and small. Some of the work and the visions of the leaders chronicled in this text are not only enlightening but surprising. After many chapters a "toolbox" is provided to help set the stage for the conversations and collaboration needed to move change forward. And of course, all of this work is set in a framework of systems thinking which is so necessary to be able to see beyond the silos so many are bound by. "The Necessary Revolution" should be required reading for community leaders of all types, NGO, religious, Government, and corporate alike. As we start to create these critical partnerships and conversations focused on sustainability, I believe that we can quickly change the course that we are on. A must for every person who wants to see a change in our direction. Thank you Peter, Bryan, Nina, Joe, and Sara for this extraordinary work.