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Navigating the sustainability manager’s roles
In November 2016, I attended the book launch for “MVO doe je zo”“, which roughly translates into “How to get far with CSR” in English. It is written by Carola Wijdoogen, Director of Sustainable Business at the Dutch Railways. After years of roles in procurement and innovation, she was asked to create this new role.…
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Cli-fi book review: Solar leadership
Most of my book reviews are non-fiction, but my favorite summer fiction – Solar by Ian McEwan – fits right in. It’s actually a perfect follow up to the earlier post on leadership for sustainable change. This review focuses on analysis of the leadership displayed in this “cli-fi” book. Don’t worry if you’re planning to…
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Reinventing organizations for purpose
Early July, I had the opportunity to be part of a group of trainers for a full day workshop at Nyenrode Business University. The focus of the day was on so-called teal organizations and new ways of working, inspired by the book “Reinventing Organizations” by Frederic Laloux. The focus of my contribution to the workshop…
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Why surfing the Patagonia way is so inspiring
So inspiring to read the history of Patagonia, the outdoor apparel company. The book’s title refers to the founder’s conviction that his people should spend time outdoors, as wilderness explorers and protectors, as users and inventors of Patagonia products. Book exchange for change In January 2016, Patagonia hosted a meeting for Dutch B Corps…
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Simon (Sinek) Says “Start with Why”
One of my New Year’s resolutions was to read more from my huge pile of non fiction books before it buries me. And with 2016 as my year of positive change, I thought Start with Why by Simon Sinek would be an appropriate place to start – and it was! Not only did it help me formulate…
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Wayne’s World: the Sustainable Frontiers Forecast
In September 2015, I had the pleasure of attending a lecture by South African author Wayne Visser. The lecture started with an interesting timeline of the development of sustainability and Corporate Social Responsibility. He then presented a model to create integrated value, his vision of the future of this movement. This blog post is about…
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Brands as activists for a better world
The book I co-authored is out! Thanks to all the people who sent in great cases – and supported me otherwise to see this project through. So what is it all about? An invitation: Dare to Care Do you think of activism as something that can attack and weaken a brand? It doesn’t have to…
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Activating Corporate Idealists – or Idealizing Corporate Activists?
As various people from my network tweeted about it, I got intrigued and pre-ordered a copy of Christine Bader’s book The Evolution of a Corporate Idealist. Once I started reading it, I could not put it down! I generally read non-fiction at my desk, but this book I read on the couch, in bed, on holidays and…
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Incremental behavior change – does it add up?
I have been so (happily) buried in two projects for Unilever, that I have not written a single blog post in weeks! One of the projects has behavior change at its core – a fascinating topic – so that’s the topic for this post as well. The beauty of being involved in such a project…
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So many books; so little time!
There are so many books about sustainability and embedding it into business. A quick search on Amazon with the combination of sustainability and business yields close to 8000 entries! Instead of sifting through them all, I decided to just venture into the local library – which has an excellent management collection – and see what…
