Page 20 - Logistics News Sept / Oct 2018

Book Review

A pragmatist’s take

on sustainability

By Susan Lacefield, courtesy www.supplyquarterly.com

It can be hard to find a nuanced discussion of corporate sustainability. But Yossi
Sheffi’s new book – Balancing Green: When to Embrace Sustainability in a
Business (and When Not To) – aims to provide just that, offering a clear-eyed take
on the challenges and benefits of going green.

THROUGHOUT HIS career, Massachusetts
Institute of Technology (MIT) Professor
Yossi Sheffi has researched and written
books on a wide variety of supply chain
topics, from resiliency to logistics clusters
to urban transportation. “I guess I just get
bored easily,” he quips.
But none of those books gave him as
much trouble to write as his most recent
one, Balancing Green: When to Embrace
Sustainability in a Business (and When
Not To).
Part of the reason may be that,
unlike most people who write about the
environment and sustainability, Sheffi
does not consider himself a “tree hugger”,
but he wouldn’t call himself a “climate
change denier” either. Instead, he takes
a pragmatic approach to sustainability,
balancing corporations’ responsibility
to protect the environment against
everything else a business has to
accomplish – including making a profi t,
providing jobs, giving back to the
community and providing goods and
services that people want at a price
they are willing to pay.
The result is a book that aims to
help companies decide what types of
sustainability eff orts make sense for
them from a business standpoint and
what eff orts do not. To help provide
this guidance, Sheffi and his fellow

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18 September/October 2018 | Logistics News