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What We Learned in the Rainforest Business Lessons From Nature: Innovation, Growth, Profit, and Sustainability at 20 of the World's Top Companies

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  • Publisher:
    Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 2001
    Note: This book was purchased with support from the Government of Canada's Social Development Partnerships Program - Disability Component.

Details:

  • Edition: 1 ed.
    Date:
    Created
    2001
    Summary:

    What We Learned in the Rainforest presents a surprising new business principle: by applying strategies and practices gleaned from nature-by emulating what it once sought to conquer-business can adapt rapidly to changing market conditions and attain greater and more sustainable profits. With clear, direct language and dozens of real-world examples, Kiuchi and Shireman show how a company can become a complex living system that doesn't merely balance competing interests but truly integrates them. Examples from leading companies include: - How Coca-Cola CEO Doug Daft uses diversity to drive sales    How Intel founder Gordon Moore creates profit by design     - How Bill Coors builds businesses on the theory that "all waste is lost profit"     - How Shell profits as an industrial ecosystem     - What Weyerhaeuser and activists learned from each other     - How Dow earns 300 percent returns, and Dupont builds market share with eco-effectiveness, and more This book shows that the old model of business-the machine model that pitted business against nature-is growing obsolete. In the emerging economy, businesses excel when they emulate what they once sought to conquer. They maximize performance as they become like nature, like a complex living system. By moving beyond the industrial machine model, and applying the dynamic principles of the rainforest instead, business can learn how to create more profit than ever, and to do so more sustainably. Written by two would-be "arch enemies"-a hard-nosed CEO of a major corporation and a dedicated environmentalist-this book doesn't just balance competing interests, it integrates them into a truly revolutionary new paradigm. Kiuchi and Shireman present numerous real-world examples from leading companies-business strategies and management practices that maximize business performance by all measures: economic, social, and environmental. They illustrate the powerful business model provided by nature for driving innovation, increasing profit, spurring growth, and ensuring sustainability.

    Original Publisher: San Francisco, US, Berrett-Koehler Publishers
    Language(s): English
    ISBN: 9781626562288