Publications

Conscious Endeavors: Essays on Business, Society and the Journey to Sustainability

By Robert M. Abbott

Written by one of Canada’s most experienced sustainability strategists, Conscious Endeavors gathers together essays and speeches that collectively serve as a compass to guide business and other key stakeholders toward a relationship with the Earth, and with each other, that is more sustainable than our current societal trajectory. Organized into four sections – origins, homage, reflection, renewal – the book also includes very personal observations by Abbott at the beginning of each section that explain his personal connection to the land. Taking its title from Thoreau’s observation that humans can elevate themselves, and those around them, by conscious endeavor, this is a brave book that inspires us all to affect the quality of our days – to make the world, and each other, better.

One of the most penetrating questions Abbott raises in the book is in his introduction when he asks, “How do organizations form a vision of where they need or want to go?” Seems like a simple question, but sustainability isn’t always considered in a company’s answer to it. And yet, embedding sustainability in the answer can create strategic advantages for a company if its leaders take sustainability into account at every step of the way. This is why Conscious Endeavors is such an apt title for the book; it emphasizes the importance of growing a business, not for the sake of growth, but also to build value for society. The book is geared towards helping sustainability leaders within an organization build their profile by building the case for sustainability as a central part of business strategy. But rather than taking the tried-and-true “how-to” approach that so many business books do, Abbott takes the reader on a journey through the history of environmentalism, the sustainability movement, and the way it has connected with business. He includes in that discussion homages to several individuals that he considers important to the sustainability movement for the work that they have done to help us understand how we interact with nature, and the importance of how we treat our “natural capital.” What’s fascinating about this section is that it isn’t the same old names one might expect: …This is one of the most valuable sections of the book because it offers insight into five people who could explain the sustainability story very effectively. Abbott’s main thrust is to help others create an effective sustainability “story” for their organizations. He feels that this story hasn’t yet been told well or certainly effectively enough. …He offers plenty of guidance within these pages of how an individual can frame that story…Another thing that works in the book’s favour is that when there are case studies presented, they are not the same case studies of Walmart and other large companies that are continuously repeated in so many sustainability books. At no point do you feel like switching off because you’ve heard this story before. Conscious Endeavors is an interesting addition to the sustainability lexicon because it opens up the discussion a bit wider, adds to our knowledge of how the sustainability debate has developed over the past 100 years, and challenges us to reinvent what it will mean in the next few years.

—Robert Colman, in Green Business: Strategies for Corporate Sustainable Development, 2009

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Uncommon Cents: Thoreau and the Nature of Business

By Robert M. Abbott

Henry David Thoreau is revered for his contributions to the American environmental movement, but his influence on business is less well known. The central argument of Uncommon Cents is that Thoreau was a uniquely synthetic thinker whose ideas about the nature of business are useful, perhaps even vital, for contemporary students and business leaders. Rob Abbott has painstakingly gathered excerpts from Thoreau’s key writings on The Nature of Business; Wealth and Well Being; Simplicity and Self-Reliance; and Leadership and placed them in a present-day context by highlighting what it is about each subject that is relevant for scholars and business leaders. As well, each chapter includes a commentary in which Abbott distills the chapter to its essence – a takeaway message to help the reader think and act differently. The book closes with Abbott’s own message on where business, and the study of business needs to go to measure up to both the standard and the spirit of what Thoreau passionately called for 150 years ago.

At a time when the role of business in society is being fiercely debated, Uncommon Cents reminds us that the path to a more just, humane and caring world can be found in Thoreau’s good words. These words might yet help us see our world in new ways, with new eyes, and forge a new relationship with nature, and with each other.

Purchase this book at Amazon.ca.