How the world's most influential companies are building business
strategies that tackle the biggest global challenges.
Today's business landscape is changing in fundamental ways: Natural
resources are growing ever more scarce and expensive. Technology and
changing consumer expectations are making transparency a fact of life.
The rise of emerging economies creates vast market opportunities for
companies--and better living standards for hundreds of millions. In
Sustainable Excellence, Aron Cramer and Zachary Karabell tell the
stories of the companies who are transforming themselves by responding
to these paradigm shifts and in the process shaping the future.
From their work with these Global 1000 companies, Cramer and Karabell
know firsthand how business can successfully grapple with big-picture
issues like resource scarcity, supply chain complexities, and the
diverse expectations of government and the public. In Sustainable
Excellence, they tell the story of how Coca-Cola and Greenpeace
collaborated on a refrigerator that fights climate change. They show how
companies like Best Buy and Nike are transforming the very products they
sell to deliver more value to consumers with less waste. They recount
how GE and Google created an innovative partnership that is developing
smart grids that radically reduce energy use. And they show how business
leaders like Starbucks' founder and CEO Howard Schultz put sustainable
excellence at the center of his company's business strategy.
Through these and other fascinating stories, Sustainable Excellence
makes the case for a different way of doing business--one that will
define both business success and economic vitality in the 21st century.
