Flourishing ― A Frank Conversation About Sustainability

Flourishing: A Frank Conversation about Sustainability invites you into a conversation between a teacher, John R. Ehrenfeld, and his former student now professor, Andrew J. Hoffman, as they discuss how to create a sustainable world. Unlike virtually all other books about sustainability, this one goes beyond the typical stories that we tell ourselves about repairing the environmental damages of human progress.

Through their dialogue and essays that open each section, the authors uncover two core facets of our culture that drive the unsustainable, unsatisfying, and unfair social and economic machines that dominate our lives. First, our collective model of the way the world works cannot cope with the inherent complexity of today's highly connected, high-speed reality. Second, our understanding of human behavior is rooted in this outdated model. Driven by the old guard, sustainability has become little more than a fashionable idea. As a result, both business and government are following the wrong path—at best applying temporary, less unsustainable solutions that will fail to leave future generations in better shape.

To shift the pendulum, this book tells a new story, driven by being and caring, as opposed to having and needing, rooted in the beauty of complexity and arguing for the transformative cultural shift that we can make based on our collective wisdom and lived experiences. Then, the authors sketch out the road to a flourishing future, a change in our consumption and a new approach to understanding and acting.

There is no middle ground; without a sea change at the most basic level, we will continue to head down a faulty path. Indeed, this book is a clarion call to action. Candid and insightful, it leaves readers with cautious hope.

John R. Ehrenfeld is a long-standing and influential voice in the sustainability debate. He was Director of the MIT Program on Technology, Business, and Environment. From 2000-2009, he served as Executive Director of the International Society for Industrial Ecology. He continues to do research, write, and teach, most recently at several emerging MBA for Sustainability programs. He is the author of Sustainability by Design: A Subversive Strategy for Transforming our Consumer Culture. Andrew J. Hoffman is the Holcim (US) Professor of Sustainable Enterprise at the University of Michigan. He serves as Director of the Frederick A. and Barbara M. Erb Institute for Global Sustainable Enterprise. Hoffman is co-editor of The Oxford Handbook on Business and the Natural Environment, author of Builder's Apprentice: A Memoir, and co-author of Memo to the CEO: Climate Change, What's Your Business Strategy?