Ecological Intelligence: How Knowing the Hidden Impacts of What We Buy Can Change Everything |  | Author: Daniel Goleman
Publisher: Crown Business
Category: Book
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Rating:  17 reviews
Sales Rank: 51338
Media: Hardcover
Pages: 288
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.3
Dimensions (in): 9.1 x 6.2 x 1.2
ISBN: 0385527829
Dewey Decimal Number: 333.7
EAN: 9780385527828
ASIN: 0385527829
Publication Date: April 21, 2009
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Product Description
The bestselling author of Emotional Intelligence and Primal Leadership now brings us Ecological Intelligence—revealing the hidden environmental consequences of what we make and buy, and how with that knowledge we can drive the essential changes we all must make to save our planet and ourselves.
We buy “herbal” shampoos that contain industrial chemicals that can threaten our health or contaminate the environment. We dive down to see coral reefs, not realizing that an ingredient in our sunscreen feeds a virus that kills the reef. We wear organic cotton t-shirts, but don’t know that its dyes may put factory workers at risk for leukemia. In Ecological Intelligence, Daniel Goleman reveals why so many of the products that are labeled green are a “mirage,” and illuminates our wild inconsistencies in response to the ecological crisis.
Drawing on cutting-edge research, Goleman explains why we as shoppers are in the dark over the hidden impacts of the goods and services we make and consume, victims of a blackout of information about the detrimental effects of producing, shipping, packaging, distributing, and discarding the goods we buy.
But the balance of power is about to shift from seller to buyer, as a new generation of technologies informs us of the ecological facts about products at the point of purchase. This “radical transparency” will enable consumers to make smarter purchasing decisions, and will drive companies to rethink and reform their businesses, ushering in, Goleman claims, a new age of competitive advantage.
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 17
 Transforming the world from the inside out April 29, 2009
Mark Mccaffrey (Lafayette, CO)
39 out of 52 found this review helpful
It's the ultimate detective work: examining the processes (including energy, chemicals, social impacts) involved with creating, transporting, storing and ultimately consuming and disposing of "stuff." Author Goleman digs deep into "life cycle analysis" (LCA) of a wide range of products, looking at the environmental and social ramifications that are usually "out of sight, out of mind," guided by expert Gregory Norris. The insights are illuminating and go far beyond the usual (casual) carbon calculation. The process of recycling glass alone-- and the energy and chemistry involved-- is a real eye-opener, reminding us that reducing our impact to CO2 emissions vastly oversimplifies our footprint on the planet.
In my mind, this approach of telling stories and conducting forensic investigations into "stuff" should be embedded throughout education, because it is inherently interdisciplinary, combining math and science, but also social studies, history, psychology, business, sociology. It's also timely and would contribute to "eco-school" and 100% green school goals that are currently being developed.
For business people, this book is a must. While the "greening" of business is nothing new and is all too often manifest as "green-washing," there are signs that business is taking "cradle to grave" analysis of products and the supply chain seriously, in part because regulation of embedded greenhouse gases will require careful accounting, in part because of increased social responsibility, and in part because, when done correctly, it can save money, reduce waste, and provide a competitive advantage over the competition.
Goleman rightly points out that we can't consume our way of the dire situation we are in, but we can reduce our consumption and buy smartly. While a few individuals by choice or circumstances leave little environmental footprint, for most of it the challenge is to become significantly more aware of the impacts or the products and services we choose, thereby minimizing not only our carbon footprint, but our overall influence on the planet.
Both the book and the CD version (spoken by the author) are well reasoned, well presented investigations into "stuff" in all its shapes and sizes, providing fresh insights into the complexities and hard choices that must be made at all levels of society in order to turn the tide of waste and social/environmental degradation and foster the new energy economy with resilient, sustainable communities.
From 4 to Five for Gifted Story and Amazon Price Cut November 29, 2009
Robert D. Steele (Oakton, VA United States)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
I chose this book over Ecological Intelligence: Rediscovering Ourselves in Nature and seeing the author's note about this other book "by a physician, Jungian analyst, and poet" am certain I made the right choice.
The author's "big idea" is called "Radical Transparency," what the rest of us have been calling "Open Books for decades. I like it, and in the context of his elegant story-telling, I buy in. This book also goes to a five because it is an Information Operations (IO) books, ably focused on data, information, and information-sharing as well as collective sense-making. He author anticipates most of us becoming "active agents" for change, armed with information as Thomas Jefferson understood so well.
CORE NUGGET: Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is not done for most things, but when done right, it is mainly data and it tracks impacts on human health, ecosystems, climate change, and resource draw-down, for every single component and every single process including transport, packaging, etcetera. Toward the end of the book when the author talks about how an LCA commons is emerging, and quotes Andy Ruben of normally ultra-evil Wal-Mart as saying that LCA innovation "is the largest strategic opportunity companies will see for the next fifty years," I am seriously impressed.
EARLY INSIGHT: Drawing on Howard Gardner's Five Minds for the Future and other works, the author observes that the human brain is optimized by heredity for the here and now, able to sense "obvious" but not subtle changes.
EARLY INSIGHT: Everything we buy or use was designed to tackle one need without regard to social or ecological costs. It was NOT designed to be green (the author cites Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things. The author states "Green is a process not a status."
QUOTE: "Ecological Intelligence allows us to comprehend systems in all their complexity, as well as the interplay between the natural and man-made worlds." I am reminded of Buckminster Fuller and Critical Path.
Later, when he speaks of collective shared intelligence as a partial answer, he outlines three rules:
1. Know your impacts (others would add, know true costs first)
2. Favor improvements (others would add, at every level)
3. Share what you learn (others would add: this is the core concept of Multinational, Multiagency, Multidisciplinary, Multidomain Information-Sharing and Sense-Making (M4IS2) that is the 21st Century implementation of the 20th Century concept of Open Source Intelligence (OSINT)).
QUOTE: "As control of data shifts from sellers to buyers, companies would do well to prepare ahead for this information sea change."
QUOTE: [When people mobilize you see] "the dual marketplace power of lowering the cost of information combined with information sharing. The multiplier effect meats networks of people pooling their knowledge can diminish information asymmetry."
QUOTE: "To be trustworthy, Radical Transparency needs to be authoritative, impartial, and comprehensive." Sounds like a World Brain with embedded EarthGame to me, see Earth Intelligence Network or Phi Beta Iota, the Public Intelligence Blog.
MIDDLE INSIGHT: There are huge social benefits to be had by increasing wealth of the bottom billion to bottom five billion that far outweigh the ecological costs. I smile as a read this, as it coincides with the mushroom cloud over the Climate Change Unit (CRU) in England, now outed for its fraudulent practices and possibly criminal misbehavior.
MIDDLE INSIGHT: Need to tap native wisdom and combine this with better use of sunlight and rainwater.
The author discusses three inter-locking spheres in a very easy to appreciate manner:
1. GeoSphere
2. BioSphere (with four costs: Cancer, Disability Adjusted Life Years (DALY), loss of bio-diversity, and embodied toxicity.
3. SocioShere (labor and labor practices)
I have a number of fly-leaf notes, many of which will not fit within the 1,000 world limit, so here are a few:
+ "Compassionate Capitalism" is a term used, NOT in the Index (which does have "compassionate consumption" This book easily falls within the category I label "Cultural Intelligence."
+ Industrial Ecology, Environmental Health, Neuro-Economists, Epigenetics, and "Freegan"
+ Value chain analysis ignored value subtracted
+ Recycling recycles toxins [this blew my mind, I should have known better, see among many other works Pandora's Poison: Chlorine, Health, and a New Environmental Strategy and High Tech Trash: Digital Devices, Hidden Toxics, and Human Health
+ 88 billion plastic bags in USA along, "an ecological disaster," and paper bags are NO BETTER
+ Sun Screen washed off in the ocean nurtures algae capable of killing 10% of the coral reefs
+ Greenwashing is common, virtually nothing advertised as "green" really is
+ Distance of goods shipped is NOT a good indicator of carbon footprint--NZ lamb beats UK lamb every time, and KE roses beat NL roses, when all local carbon savings are counted.
+ Tens of thousands of toxins can combine in billions of combinations--US a dumping ground for stuff Europe will no longer allow
+ 11% boost in sales achieved for products with "fair labor" tags, and as price is increased, sales increase!
+ Two thirds of shoppers WANT to make ethical decisions, but the information must be EASY to grasp
+ UN Environmental Program joins the UN High Level Panel in my good book, see A More Secure World: Our Shared Responsibility--Report of the Secretary-General's High-level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change also available free online. The UN International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) should probably be disbanded, they lack both integrity and a strategic analytic model.
Bottom line: consumer perception has more weight in today's information environment, and that will only grow in relation to the declining weight of the manufacturer or offerer of any good or service. We are literally on the verge of creating the virtual fulcrum to move the Earth--information with integrity, shared freely across all boundaries.
Bottom line: Activists that used to lobby governments for regulations are now recognizing that shared information delivered directly to the consumer is the Holy Grail of doing good, at the same time that corporations are starting to "get" sustainable design equals sustainable profit.
The book is a solid four on its own merits, with the gifted story-telling, the gripping details, and well-crafted "outcome" of understanding making up for a relative lack of depth. This is double-spaced journalism, not a Toffler-esque cultural research project.
Three other books within the limit:
Ecological Economics: Principles And Applications
Blessed Unrest: How the Largest Social Movement in History Is Restoring Grace, Justice, and Beauty to the World
The Genius of the Beast: A Radical Re-Vision of Capitalism
outstanding lituature August 31, 2009
Michael Dean (encinitas, CA United States)
3 out of 4 found this review helpful
if more reople would read this book, our species might last a little longer than it's going to. much insight to the long term effects of producing products, some the same way we've been doing for 100 years. technology can vastly improve the methods we use to produce consumables. Very highly reccomened.
Great book January 7, 2010
Jerry Liu
The author proposes the creative idea: every consumer can use his purchasing behavior to affect the producers, given the full disclose of the key information about the product. It's only possible with today's information technology to analyze so much information about the ingredients of a simple product.
Will this idea work? Only the time can tell.
Great Book!!! February 17, 2010
Roger L. Jackson (CA)
Its important to see how we as consumers buy things and the effects of that purchase while ignoring the obvious negitive impacts of production to the earth. I like the long term look of this book, which I think is something diffently worth looking at, personally I think of my childern and grandchilden to come. I have notice companies poping up like Blue Iguana Software that try to help business become more green by looking deep into all aspects of the business process,facility, etc. I think the best thing about this book is trying to help move consumers and producers with green in mind. It starts with realistic steps but as we become better informed we will be able to make greater positive impacts in the ecology of the earth. Great Book!!!
Showing reviews 1-5 of 17
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