Books on ESG/Impact/Socially Responsible Investing
Click on the title to order.
1. Managing Corporate Social Responsibility: A Communication Approach - W. Timothy Coombs, Sherry J. Holladay
Managing Corporate Social Responsibility offers a strategic, communication-centred approach to integrating CSR into organizations. Drawing from a variety of disciplines and written in a highly accessible style, the book guides readers in a focused progression providing the key points they need to successfully navigate the benefits and implications of managing CSR.
2. Lean Startups for Social Change: The Revolutionary Path to Big Impact - Michel Gelobter
For years, the lean startup has been revolutionizing both new and established businesses. In this eye-opening book, serial social entrepreneur Michel Gelobter shows how it can do the same for nonprofits.
3. The B Corp Handbook: How to Use Business as a Force for Good - Ryan Honeyman
More than 1,000 companies from 80 industries and 35 countries are leading a global movement to redefine success in business. They're called B Corporations--B Corps for short--and these businesses create high quality jobs, help build stronger communities, and restore the environment, all while generating solid financial returns.
4. Conscious Capitalism: Liberating the Heroic Spirit of Business - by John Mackey, Rajendra Sisodia At once a bold defense and reimagining of capitalism and a blueprint for a new system for doing business, Conscious Capitalism is for anyone hoping to build a more cooperative, humane, and positive future.
5. Building Social Business: The New Kind of Capitalism that Serves Humanity's Most Pressing Needs - Muhammad Yunus The social business model has been adopted by corporations, entrepreneurs, and social activists across the globe. Its goal is to create self-supporting, viable commercial enterprises that generate economic growth as they produce goods and services to fulfill human needs. In Building Social Business, Yunus shows how social business can be put into practice and explains why it holds the potential to redeem the failed promise of free-market enterprise.
6. Getting Beyond Better: How Social Entrepreneurship Works - by Roger L. Martin, Sally Osberg Getting Beyond Better sets forth a bold new framework, demonstrating how and why meaningful change actually happens in the world and providing concrete lessons and a practical model for businesses, policymakers, civil society organizations, and individuals who seek to transform our world for good.
7. The Social Entrepreneur's Playbook - by Ian C. MacMillan (Author), James D. Thompson Wharton professor Ian C. MacMillan and Dr. James Thompson, director of the Wharton Social Entrepreneurship Program, provide a tough-love approach that significantly increases the likelihood of a successful social enterprise launch in the face of the high-uncertainty conditions typically encountered by social entrepreneurs.
8. Systems Thinking For Social Change - David Peter Stroh Systems Thinking for Social Change enables readers to contribute more effectively to society by helping them understand what systems thinking is and why it is so important in their work. It also gives concrete guidance on how to incorporate systems thinking in problem solving, decision making, and strategic planning without becoming a technical expert.
9. The Price of Profit: Rethinking Corporate Social Responsibility - Jason Wicks A consumer revolution is taking place, and it's the firms that don't do their bit that stand to lose out. The Price of Profit puts forward a clear plan for those that don't wish to make such a moral sacrifice, paving the way for a new era of conscious capitalism.
10. The Solution Revolution - William D. Eggers Government cannot handle alone the huge challenges facing our global society - and it shouldn't. We need a different economic paradigm that can flexibly draw on resources, combine efforts, and create value, while improving the lives of citizens. The Solution Revolution shows the way.
11. Nature's Fortune: How Business and Society Thrive by Investing in Nature - by Mark R. Tercek, Jonathan S. Adams A must-read for business leaders, CEOs, investors, and environmentalists alike, Nature's Fortune offers an essential guide to the world's economic-and environmental-well-being.
12. What Money Can't Buy: The Moral Limits of Markets - Michael J. Sandel In his New York Times bestseller What Money Can't Buy, Michael J. Sandel takes up one of the biggest ethical questions of our time: Isn't there something wrong with a world in which everything is for sale? If so, how can we prevent market values from reaching into spheres of life where they don't belong? What are the moral limits of markets?
13. Green Giants: How Smart Companies Turn Sustainability into Billion-Dollar Businesses - E. Williams What do Brazil's top beauty brand, America's second-fastest-growing restaurant chain, and the world's third best selling car have in common--besides achieving enormous success with revenue in the tens of billions? They are doing it all while holding to their convictions of implementing sustainable principles that help consumers live better lives.
14. The New Rules of Green Marketing: Strategies, Tools, and Inspiration for Sustainable Branding - Jacquelyn A. Ottman The New Rules of Green Marketing captures the best of Ottman's two previous groundbreaking books on green marketing and places it within a 21st Century context. Focusing on a new generation of marketers who likely grew up with an appreciation for sustainability, it provides in one place essential strategies, tools, and inspiration for connecting effectively with mainstream consumers.
15. The Power of Impact Investing: Putting Markets to Work for Profit and Global Good - Judith Rodin, Margot Brandenburg In The Power of Impact Investing, Rockefeller Foundation president Judith Rodin and Margot Brandenburg explain what impact investing is, how it compares to philanthropy and traditional investments, where opportunities are evolving around the world, and how to get started.
16. Build a Green Small Business: Profitable Ways to Become an Ecopreneur - Scott Cooney From organic groceries to fuel-efficient cars and toxicity-free dry cleaning, the opportunities to profit from a business that builds local ommunities, heals the environment, and feeds the growing green demand are almost endless. As an entrepreneur who has developed successful eco-friendly businesses, Scott Cooney gives you expert advice and guidance on starting, building, and growing a green business--and then delivers a gold mine of business ideas for every kind of product and service.
17. The High-Purpose Company: The TRULY Responsible (and Highly Profitable) Firms That Are Changing Business Now - Christine Arena What does it mean to be a socially responsible company? As Arena (Cause for Success) points out, the matter is up for debate, with some environmentalists criticizing corporate "green" programs as PR stunts, while capitalist hard-liners insist companies have no business looking after anything but profit. For Arena, however, corporate responsibility isn't about broad themes like doing the right thing or making the world a better place, and it doesn't have to be a financial burden.
18. Shopping for a Better World: The Quick and Easy Guide to All Your Socially Responsible Shopping - Benjamin Hollister, Rosalyn Will, and Alice Tepper Marlin A guide for concerned consumers rates more than two thousand products, analyzing the performance and policies of some two hundred companies in terms of community outreach, environment, workplace, advancement of women and minorities, family benefits, and other key social issues. Original.
19. Real Impact: The New Economics of Social Change - Morgan Simon A leading investment professional explains the world of impact investing--investing in businesses and projects with a social and financial return--and shows what it takes to make sustainable, transformative change.
20. Socially Responsible Investing : Making a Difference and Making Money - Amy L. Domini Selecting investments to meet specific social criteria, and keeping the twin goals of justice and environmental sustainability at the forefront, investors can achieve better results in their portfolio and create a better future. For every investor who wants the money to follow the principles, Socially Responsible Investing outlines all the details to bring congruence to investing and social awareness.
21. Forces for Good: The Six Practices of High-Impact Nonprofits - by Leslie R. Crutchfield, Heather McLeod Grant This book has lessons for all readers interested in creating significant social change, including nonprofit managers, donors, and volunteers.
22. Social Startup Success: How the Best Nonprofits Launch, Scale Up, and Make a Difference - Kathleen Kelly Janus Kathleen Kelly Janus, a lecturer at the Stanford University Program on Social Entrepreneurship and the founder of the successful social enterprise Spark, set out to investigate what makes a startup succeed or fail. She surveyed more than 200 high-performing social entrepreneurs and interviewed dozens of founders. Social Startup Success shares her findings for the legions of entrepreneurs working for social good, revealing how the best organizations get over the revenue hump.
23. Social Value Investing: A Management Framework for Effective Partnerships - by Howard W. Buffett, William B. Eimicke Social Value Investing presents a new way to approach some of society's most difficult and intractable challenges. Although many of our world's problems may seem too great and too complex to solve -- inequality, climate change, affordable housing, corruption, healthcare, food insecurity -- solutions to these challenges do exist, and will be found through new partnerships bringing together leaders from the public, private, and philanthropic sectors.
24. The Shareholder Value Myth: How Putting Shareholders First Harms Investors, Corporations, and the Public - Lynn Stout Executives, investors, and the business press routinely chant the mantra that corporations are required to "maximize shareholder value." In this path breaking book, renowned corporate expert Lynn Stout debunks the myth that corporate law mandates shareholder primacy. Stout shows how shareholder value thinking endangers not only investors but the rest of us as well, leading managers to focus myopically on short-term earnings; discouraging investment and innovation; harming employees, customers, and communities; and causing companies to indulge in reckless, sociopathic, and irresponsible behaviors. And she looks at new models of corporate purpose that better serve the needs of investors, corporations, and society.
25. Looking Beyond Profit (Corporate Social Responsibility) - Peggy Chiu In this revealing book Peggy Chiu argues against the common belief that maximizing wealth is the primary concern of ordinary small shareholders when they make their share-buying decisions. This fascinating in-depth study of small shareholders provides both theoretical and empirical insights into their personal values and attitudes to corporate social responsibility (CSR). The author establishes that personal values are a major influence on decisions about the type of investments people make and about which companies they choose to invest in. Financial risk and return are far from being the only factors that determine small shareholders' investment decisions - irresponsible behaviour is not acceptable and will not attract investment from this significant group.
26. Investing with Your Values (Conscientious Commerce) - Hal Brill The fact is that you can make money and make a difference at the same time! Now in paperback, this step-by-step guide answers all the financial basics and makes it easy to link your money with your values in a high-performance portfolio.
27. The Social Innovation Imperative: Create Winning Products, Services, and Programs that Solve Society's Most Pressing Challenges - Sandra M. Bates The Framework for Social Innovation outlined in this book removes the mystery from innovation success and provides a systematic approach anyone can adopt. The Social Innovation Imperative offers essential wisdom for innovators everywhere?whether nonprofits, NGOs, foundations, government agencies, or corporations?who wish to generate meaningful social value.
28. The Business of Good: Social Entrepreneurship and the New Bottom Line - Jason Haber The Business of Good narrates the story behind social entrepreneurship as told by the individuals compelled to create a change in the world--not just another business. Serial and social entrepreneur Jason Haber intertwines case studies and anecdotes that show how social entrepreneurship is creating jobs, growing the economy, and ultimately changing the world.
29. The Upcycle: Beyond Sustainability--Designing for Abundance - William McDonough, Michael Braungart The Upcycle is as ambitious as such classics as Rachel Carson's Silent Spring?but its mission is very different. McDonough and Braungart want to turn on its head our very understanding of the human role on earth: Instead of protecting the planet from human impact, why not redesign our activity to improve the environment?
30. The New Sustainability Advantage: Seven Business Case Benefits of a Triple Bottom Line - Bob Willard An indispensable tool for both sustainability champions and senior management, The New Sustainability Advantage proves that the quantified business case for sustainability is more compelling than ever before.
31. The Big Pivot: Radically Practical Strategies for a Hotter, Scarcer, and More Open World - Andrew S. Winston According to Andrew Winston, bestselling author (Green to Gold) and globally recognized business strategist, the way companies currently operate will not allow them to keep up with the current-and future-rate of change. They need to make the Big Pivot.
32. A Finer Future: Creating an Economy in Service to Life - by L. Hunter Lovins, Stewart Wallis, Anders Wijkman Charting the course to a regenerative economy is the most important work facing humanity and A Finer Future provides the essential blueprint for business leaders, entrepreneurs, environmentalists, politicians, policymakers, and others working to create a world that works for people and the planet.
33. Investing for Good - Making Money While Being Socially Responsible (Step-by-step Guide for Doing Well Financially While Doing Good Socially) - Peter Kinder, Steven D. Lydenberg, and Amy L. Domini From three of the founders of the field of socially responsible investing, and the authors of the pioneering volume Ethical Investing, here is a completely up-to-date guide that teaches you how to create an investment portfolio that makes money without making you sacrifice your principles. Peter D. Kinder, Steven D. Lydenberg, and Amy L. Domini have made careers of identifying investment opportunities that respect clients' social and political interests and have a strong track record that proves you can invest profitably and still respect your conscience. Now they explain their strategies in a book that allows individual investors to guide their own course or better communicate with their own investment counselor.
34. . Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few - Robert B. Reich America was once celebrated for and defined by its large and prosperous middle class. Now, this middle class is shrinking, a new oligarchy is rising, and the country faces its greatest wealth disparity in eighty years. Why is the economic system that made America strong suddenly failing us, and how can it be fixed?
35. The Socially Responsible Guide to Smart Investing: Improve Your Future as You Improve the Environment - Samuel Case Some of the best ideas for improving the world are also the most successful new business opportunities. This book reveals how to optimize the return on investments without abandoning or ignoring personal conscience.
36. The Infinite Desire for Growth - Daniel CohenAt a time when wanting what we haven't got has become an obsession, The Infinite Desire for Growth explores the ways we might reinvent, for the twenty-first century, the old ideal of social progress.
37. Affluenza: How Overconsumption Is Killing Us--and How to Fight Back - John De Graaf, David Wann, Thomas NaylorNow in its third edition, this book can safely be called prophetic in showing how problems ranging from loneliness, endless working hours, and family conflict to rising debt, environmental pollution, and rampant commercialism are all symptoms of this global plague.
38. The Market for Virtue: The Potential and Limits of Corporate Social Responsibility - David Vogel In the highly praised The Market for Virtue, David Vogel presents a clear, balanced analysis of the contemporary corporate social responsibility (CSR) movement in the United States and Europe. In this updated paperback edition, Vogel discusses recent CSR initiatives and responds to new developments in the CSR debate. He asserts that while the movement has achieved success in improving some labor, human rights, and environmental practices in developing countries, there are limits to improving corporate conduct without more extensive and effective government regulation.
39. Ethical Markets: Growing the Green Economy - Hazel Henderson and Simran Sethi In this companion to the television series of the same name, economist Henderson delivers an optimistic overview of socially responsible, environmentally sensitive businesses, investors and visionaries. Keeping an eye on the "triple bottom line" that adds "people" and "planet" to the usual focus on "profits," the book divides "cleaner, greener, more ethical and more female sectors of our U.S. economy" into three areas: lifestyles of health and sustainability, socially responsible investing and corporate social responsibility.
40. . The Culture Map: Breaking Through the Invisible Boundaries of Global Business - Erin Meyer An international business expert helps you understand and navigate cultural differences in this insightful and practical guide, perfect for both your work and personal life.
See our class on Opportunity Zones
More Topics in Impact Investing/ESG/CSR/SRI
Online Class on Impact Investing
Corporate Ethics (or the lack therof.....)
Click Here For More Books On Socially Responsible Investing (SRI)
Click Here For More Books on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)
