Takeaways from “The Environmental Capitalists” by Carl Hall — book review
Hi all, welcome back to my blog. As you know, from time to time, here in this blog I am used to review business books.
It’s been a while since the last review. So, I’ve felt I had to get back to do it.
A couple of months back, I’ve found time to read this work published by LID, authored by Carl Hall and called “The Environmental Capitalists, Making billions by saving the Planet”.
It’s a book that aims at helping Entrepreneurs, Investors and Policy Makers understand how to save the planet by making money in the age of scarcity of resources.
In other words, it’s a motivational reading that helps at acting the right way especially if you want to start your own business in this sector. It’s full of inspiring stories, examples, reflections and ideas. Anyway, only for you, from it I’ve captured and selected a couple of valuable and usable takeaways and quotes.
And here we go..enjoy:
“..This is a world in which the price of every resource is going up, and even those we previously thought were free, like water and fresh air, are starting to cost…”
takeaways from “The Environmental Capitalists. Making billions by saving the planet”
“..The current concept of sustainability is too static, too conservative and too distracting. The issue of how we are going to live on this planet is not a special interest, it is a fundamental interest. But most of all I felt that we were celebrating the wrong heroes. The person getting the applause was the CSR-guru going to the conferences instead of the entrepreneur doing the real work…”
takeaways from “The Environmental Capitalists. Making billions by saving the planet”
“..The reason CSR initiatives lack scale is usually because companies are doing it as a PR initiative or to feel good about themselves, not because it a mission critical and they make money from it..”
takeaways from “The Environmental Capitalists. Making billions by saving the planet”
“..We need to do away with the whole doomsday scenario. It only demotivates people and makes them stick their hand in the sand. We need to focus on the good news. The good news is that our huge environmental and resources problems are the world’s biggest opportunity..”
takeaways from “The Environmental Capitalists. Making billions by saving the planet”
“..We need products and services that are more attractive, better priced or simply better because they are environmentally friendly, not despite..”
takeaways from “The Environmental Capitalists. Making billions by saving the planet”
“..The environmental problems and resource challenges we face are huge. But traditional environmentalism, CSR approaches and sustainability will not solve these for us. We need to turn to capitalism, environmental capitalism..”
takeaways from “The Environmental Capitalists. Making billions by saving the planet”
“..We are talking about how we as a species are going to survive and thrive on this planet. This is not a special interest. It is something that concerns us all. We as a species are responsible for this planet and we cannot abdicate our responsibility to people that think they own issue by virtue of discovering it first. We need to wrest this issue from the environmentalists..”
takeaways from “The Environmental Capitalists. Making billions by saving the planet”
“..The new environmental hero is the capitalist, the entrepreneur. We need changes on a large scale and the only system that can reliably deliver that is capitalism..”
takeaways from “The Environmental Capitalists. Making billions by saving the planet”
“..People need to be able to make money or save money solving environmental problems. Only then we will se real change. Only then we will achieve scale..”
takeaways from “The Environmental Capitalists. Making billions by saving the planet”
“..It is individual entrepreneurs that will create the companies to tackle our environmental challenges..”
takeaways from “The Environmental Capitalists. Making billions by saving the planet”
“..Environmental and resource issues are the greatest challenge of our generation and the only way to handle them is to unleash the power of the capitalist system..”
takeaways from “The Environmental Capitalists. Making billions by saving the planet”
“..The main reason we face these environmental issues is that humans and the nature of the economic systems we have created to survive are in danger of outgrowing our planet..”
takeaways from “The Environmental Capitalists. Making billions by saving the planet”
“..Necessity is the mother of invention..”
takeaways from “The Environmental Capitalists. Making billions by saving the planet”
“..When it comes to the environment, there is a need and we will invent..”
takeaways from “The Environmental Capitalists. Making billions by saving the planet”
“..Resources are getting scarcer. This is the trend of our century. This trend is bigger than the internet, globalization or lady gaga..”
takeaways from “The Environmental Capitalists. Making billions by saving the planet”
“..In the past, when resources got scarcer we went to war. Today we increase prices. Things that use to be cheap or free — clean air, water and energy — are rapidly getting more expensive..”
takeaways from “The Environmental Capitalists. Making billions by saving the planet”
“..Five ares in which a lack of resources means prices will increase: ENERGY, WATER, FOOD, NON ORGANIC RAW MATERIAL, WASTE AND POLLUTION.
takeaways from “The Environmental Capitalists. Making billions by saving the planet”
“..Decreasing resources will force us to produce things cheaper, faster and more efficiently..”
takeaways from “The Environmental Capitalists. Making billions by saving the planet”
“..Our lives as consumers will also change. The biggest change will probably be prices or relative prices. There will be a great shift in what is cheap and what is expensive..”
takeaways from “The Environmental Capitalists. Making billions by saving the planet”
“..Entrepreneurial Innovation and the profit motive are the key to solving these issues, not a threat..”
takeaways from “The Environmental Capitalists. Making billions by saving the planet”
“..Our philosophy was simple: we could do good for the environment, have fun and make a lot of money..”
takeaways from “The Environmental Capitalists. Making billions by saving the planet”
“..I call virtualization which is when physical products become completely digital. Virtualization is the most extreme form of dematerialization..”
takeaways from “The Environmental Capitalists. Making billions by saving the planet”
“..Dematerialization Process: Convert a physical product to a digital product. E-mail is a perfect example of this. Make immaterial products like music and film, independent of their physical medium …spotify.”
takeaways from “The Environmental Capitalists. Making billions by saving the planet”
“..The future will contain less materials and more value..”
takeaways from “The Environmental Capitalists. Making billions by saving the planet”
“..Further investigations revealed that most of the products we use today will have to be redesigned not because of their functionality but because of what happens after their useful life..”
takeaways from “The Environmental Capitalists. Making billions by saving the planet”
“..We usually think of design as linked to the shape or the look of a product but a designer’s work is much more complicated than that. It’s a question of balance: form, function, production, cost and sustainability. Design can help the environmental capitalist save and make money in many ways. But the three most important can be summarized in three basic principles…”
takeaways from “The Environmental Capitalists. Making billions by saving the planet”
“…REDUCE, REUSE, RECYCLE, REDUCE: it involves limiting the use of material and energy in the products we use. REUSE: is a question of extending the lifespan of a product. RECYCLE: is about designing a product so that the materials in it can be recycled…”
takeaways from “The Environmental Capitalists. Making billions by saving the planet”
“..If environmental costs are included, environmentally friendly products should be cheaper. The problem right now of course is that environmental costs are not fully incorporated in prices..”
takeaways from “The Environmental Capitalists. Making billions by saving the planet”
“..The price we pay right now include production costs, transport, you name it..”
takeaways from “The Environmental Capitalists. Making billions by saving the planet”
“..As resource prices go up and as we are forced to tackle environmental problems, prices at the shops will rise. And as always in a market company, the person with the most attractive product at the best price wins…”
takeaways from “The Environmental Capitalists. Making billions by saving the planet”
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