April book reviews

“The Power of Unreasonable People: How Social Entrepreneurs Create Markets That Change The World”
By John Elkington and Pamela Hartigan
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RATING:

Unreasonable? Who’s unreasonable? Big oil, pharmaceutical giants and health insurance providers seem unreasonable to me. However, this book’s authors must consider those people “reasonable,” because Elkington and Hartigan claim entrepreneurs who believe they can impact society or the environment through business — rather than profit financially, only — are “unreasonable.”

To be fair, Elkington and Hartigan have compiled a nice review of many different social and environmental entrepreneurs from across the globe. The book begins with their definitions and characteristics of “unreasonable” people. It then proceeds to discuss more practical and logistical considerations for the entrepreneur, such as picking the right business model and structure or sourcing capital as a result of your business vehicle, then follows with a discussion of how to identify market opportunities in social and environmental sectors.

For the most part, I think this book is most relevant, valuable and appealing to those in the nonprofit sector. I say this because a large portion of the case studies reviewed are what the book refers to as “leveraged nonprofit” or “hybrid nonprofit” business models. Academia and the public sector might also benefit from the compilation of case studies, ideas and examples. But for the social or environmental entrepreneur, this book will likely reinforce what you already know. Published by Harvard Business School Press.

"“Industry Self-Regulation and Voluntary Environmental Compliance”"
by Al Iannuzzi, Jr.
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RATING:

Environmental regulation and remediation are not the sexiest of topics. The process for compliance is infamously bureaucratic, slow, overly complicated and ultimately painful—not to mention potentially stifling to environmental innovation, remediation and progress. All that said, this book should be valuable to the all the players in the environmental regulation arena, whether on the private or public team.

Al Iannuzzi, Jr. is an expert on the topic of environmental affairs with the academic degrees and real life experience to back it up. In this book, he offers a review of the current environmental regulatory model, with its positives and negatives. He proceeds to develop his thoughts and theories on the idea of self-regulation by private industry with the use of heavy case study analysis and discussion.

In conclusion, Iannuzzi offers a proposed model for industry self-regulation that takes the best, and eliminates the worst, from the existing voluntary programs. In theory, who doesn’t love the idea of businesses striving for lower environmental impact? Which leads to an essential thought on the topic: If we began to tax waste, rather than income, wouldn’t industry naturally innovate and figure out how to eliminate waste and avoid paying the tax? Published by Lewis Publishers.