ENVS  6101

PERSPECTIVES ON

GREEN BUSINESS

                                                 Fall 2004

 

 

  Fridays, 9:30-12:30

 

 

       Course Director:  Brian Milani <bmilani@web.ca>

 

Course Description:

Perspectives on Green Business is an overview course which explores emerging concepts of business design and practice which reflect principles of sustainability.   It is intended to provide helpful perspectives to assist students whose Plans of Study deal with some aspect of business and environment/ sustainability.  It is especially recommended for FES students in the Business and Environment Diploma program. 

 

Click here for more information on the FES side of the collaborative Business and Environment diploma program at York U.

And here for the Schulich Business and Sustainability graduate specialization

 

Course Objectives:

1.       Introduce students to contending paradigms of sustainability and their practical implications for firms and economic development strategies. 

2.       Examine important relationships, opportunities, challenges and controversies in various sectors of green business.  What is green business?  What is its role in creating sustainable economies, and what are the obstacles to the authentic greening of business?   Topics include scale, accounting and management systems, forms of liability and accountability (e.g. Extended Producer Responsibility), creation of green markets, and green business incubation strategies.

3.       Survey key sectors of the economy and the nature of green business in each of those areas: agriculture, manufacturing, energy, finance, etc.  What is the state-of-the-art in green production, technology and organization in these sectors?

4.       Provide a venue for wide-ranging discussion of issues relating to green enterprise: including EPR, green infrastructure, worker ownership/participation, economic growth, eco-labelling, bioregional development, women’s and minority perspectives on green enterprise, greenwashing, community business, and more.

5.       Provide educational resources and counselling for B&E students concerning their Areas of Concentration, research themes, Plans of Study and Diploma Internship possibilities. 

 

 

Theme Areas to Explore:

·        what is sustainable or green business?

·        paradigms & principles of green economic development

·        the nature of green production in key sectors: agriculture, energy, manufacturing, transportation, etc.

·        potentials and limits of the profit motive; pros and cons of the “triple bottom line”

·        people-intensive vs. resource-intensive production

·        industrial ecology and eco-industrial development

·        the life-cycle approach and design for the environment

·        regenerative work and right livelihood

·        sustainability indicators and incentives

·        extended producer responsibility and corporate liability

·        the role of small business: opportunities and challenges

·        the role of big business: opportunities and challenges

·        the role of non-profits, third sector and co-operative businesses

·        the role of trade

·        finance and green development

·        business in the community

·        bioregional enterprise

·        green marketing and green consumerism

·        worker remuneration and participation

·        government and the ground rules for enterprise

·        green businesses in the Toronto region

 

 

Requirements:

(a) course-unit value: 3 credits

(b) assignments:  include three main components:

1.   book review: approx. 5 pages.  The student can choose a book from those listed here or any other approved book relating to green business.  Due by 8th week, but can be submitted earlier. (20% of grade)

2.   class presentation in final weeks of class: a concise 15 min. summary of any topic relating to green business.  (20% of grade).

3.   final term paper: on any topic of the student’s choosing, approx.15 pages (30% of grade).

(c) class participation: will constitute 30% of course grade. 

 

 

Prerequisites and Limitations; Relation to Other Courses:

Open to all students interested in green business issues, especially those in the Business and Environment diploma programme.  No business or economics background necessary.

This course is a prerequisite for Dimensions of Green Business, offered in the winter term, and it is meant to provide a foundation for more in-depth exploration of green business strategies and dynamics.

 

 

Instructor

Brian Milani is coordinator for the FES side of the B&E program for the 2004-2005 year.  He is author of Designing the Green Economy, and a member of the Coalition for a Green Economy.  Brian’s focus for over two decades has been on creating grassroots ecological alternatives—through business, community development and education.  Brian was co-founder of Green City Construction, and is the director of Toronto’s long-running course on green economic alternatives—The Green Economy at the Labour Education Centre—featuring Toronto’s cutting edge eco-innovators.  Brian has also served as a member of the Labour Council of Toronto’s and Carpenter’s Local 27’s environment committees.  Besides being active with the Coalition for a Green Economy, he is currently an associate of the OISE-UT Transformative Learning Centre, and a member of the Canadian Society for Ecological Economics (CANSEE).

 

 

 

Schedule & Readings

Week 1, September 24, Introduction: student introductions and statements of interest, with an overview of key issues and relationships in green business.

 

 

Week 2, October 1, Perspectives on Sustainability & Business:

Overview and discussion

Readings:

·        Frank Birkin, “Steps to Natural Capitalism”, in Sustainable Development,  9, 47–57 (2001)

·        Bill McDonough & Michael Braungart, “The Next Industrial Revolution”, in Atlantic Monthly, Oct. 1998

·        David Korten, “Economies for Life”, Yes! magazine, #23, Fall, 2002

·        Jonathan Rowe, “Is the Corporation Obsolete?”, TomPaine.com, July 12, 2001, reprinted from Washington Monthly

·        Jacquelyn Ottman, Green By Design, chapter 4 of Green Marketing: Opportunity for Innovation, New York: NTC-McGraw-Hill, 1998

·        Frank Dixon, “Total Corporate Responsibility: Making SRI and CSR Sustainable”, Trend Watching column: GreenBiz, April 2004

 

Optional:

Ø       Corporate Futures: Sarah Van Gelder interviews Paul Hawken and David Korten, Yes! magazine, Summer 1999

Ø       K.-H. Robert et al, “Strategic Sustainable Development — Selection, Design And Synergies Of Applied Tools”, Journal of Cleaner Production 10 (2002) 197–214

Ø       Paul Hawken, Amory Lovins & L. Hunter Lovins, “Making Markets Work”, Chapter 13 of Natural Capitalism: Creating the Next Industrial Revolution, Boston/NY/London: Little, Brown & Company, 1999

 

 

Week 3, October 8: Sectors: the Food System

Readings:

·        Richard Manning, “The Oil We Eat: Following the Food Chain Back to Iraq”, Harper's Magazine, February 2004

·        Wes Jackson, “Natural Systems Agriculture: A Radical Alternative”, The Land Institute website, April 17, 2001

·        Brian Halweil, “Organic Gold Rush”, excerpted from World Watch magazine, May/June 2001

·        Rebecca Spector, “Regaining Connections Between Farmers and Consumers”, Environmental News Network, Oct. 11, 2002; reprinted from Fatal Harvest: The Tragedy of Industrial Agriculture (Island Press, 2002)

Optional:

Ø       Wayne Roberts, “The Way to a City’s Heart is Through Its Stomach: Putting Food Security on the Urban Planning Menu”, Toronto Food Policy Council report

Ø       Jill Bamberg, “Pieces of the Puzzle” (on the Intervale Agro- Eco-industrial Park), Yes! magazine, Fall 2002

Links:

·   Toronto Food Policy Council

·   Food Share

·   Organic Advocates

·   The Permaculture Activist

·   Farming Solutions:  Success stories for the future of agriculture

·   The Ram's Horn

·   Sustain: the Alliance for Better Food and Farming

·   City Farmer Urban Agriculture

·   Eat the View: Promoting Sustainable Local Products (UK)

·   Everdale Environmental Learning Centre

 

 

Week 4, October 15: Sectors: Energy

Readings:

·        Keith Parkins, “Soft Energy Paths”, Gaia briefing paper.

·        Datta, Feiler, Lehmann, Lovins, Rabago, Swisher & Wicker,  Needs and Resources, Part 1 of Small is Profitable, Rocky Mountain Institute, 2003

·        Peter Gorrie, “Keeping the Coal Promise: Ontario scrambles to replace plants; Critics say it will be Herculean task”, Toronto Star, Aug. 28, 2004

·        Amory B. Lovins, “Energy Lessons Learned and To Be Learned”, Whole Earth Review, Winter 1998.

·        Amory Lovins, Towering Design Flaws, The Globe and Mail, August 21, 2003

·        David Morris, “Solar Comes to (Part of) the Earth”, AlterNet, Dec. 18, 2003

Optional:

Ø       David Morris, A Better Way to Get From Here to There: A Commentary on the Hydrogen Economy and a Proposal for an Alternative Strategy, ILSR, Jan. 2004

Ø       Martin Tampier, Green Power in Canada report, report on workshops held by Pollution Probe and the Summerhill Group, August 2004

Ø       Datta, Feiler, Lehmann, Lovins, Rabago, Swisher & Wicker,  Small is Profitable, Rocky Mountain Institute, 2003

Links

·        Energy Action Council of Toronto  (EnerACT)

·        WindShare / Toronto Renewable Energy Cooperative

·        Green$aver

·        Electricity Choices (the Clean Air Alliance)

·        Better Buildings Partnership retrofit programme

·        Sustainable Edge green engineering and design

 

 

Week 5, October 22:  Sectors: Manufacturing & Industrial Ecology

Reading:

·  Walter Stahel, “From Products to Services: Selling performance instead of goods”, ITPS Report, No. 37

·  Ed Cohen-Rosenthal, “What is Eco-industrial Development?”, chapter 1 of Eco-industrial Strategies: Unleashing Synergy between Economic Development and the Environment, Sheffield UK: Greenleaf Publishers, 2003

·  Neil Seldman, “The New Recycling Movement” (parts 1 and 2), Institute for Local Self-Reliance website

Optional:

Ø      David Morris and Irshad Ahmed, executive summary, The Carbohydrate Economy: Making Chemicals and Industrial Materials from Plant Matter, report for the ILSR, 1993

Ø      US National Center for Eco-Industrial Development manuals on EI development (infrastructure, community development, & brownfields applications)

 

Links:

·        Clean Production Action

·        Canadian Eco-Industrial Network

·        Zero Emissions Research Institute

·        Lowell Center for Sustainable Production

·        U. of Tennessee Center for Clean Products and Clean Technologies

·        Product Life Institute, Geneva

·        Centre for Sustainable Design

·        ILSR Carbohydrate Economy Clearinghouse

 

 

 

Week 5 ½,

October 29:

Block Week

 

Week 6: November 5: Regulation

Reading:

·        Barry Commoner, “Pollution Prevention: The Source of an Ethical Foundation for Sustainable Development”, 1990

·        “EPR: A Prescription for Clean Production, Pollution Prevention and Zero Waste”, Grassroots Recycling Network, August 2003

·        Brenda Platt, Local Inititatives Leverage EPR, ILSR Waste to Wealth report, Nov. 2000

·        Michael Braungart, "Product Life-Cycle Management to Replace Waste Management", in Socolow, Andrews, Berkhout & Thomas (eds.), Industrial Ecology and Global Change, N.Y./Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994, p. 335-337

·        Neil Gunningham, Martin Phillipson and Peter Grabosky, “Harnessing Third Parties as Surrogate Regulators: Achieving Environmental Outcomes by Alternative Means”, Business Strategy and the Environment, 8, 211–224 (1999)

·        Norman Myers with Jennifer Kent, Executive Summary of Perverse Subsidies: Tax Dollars Undercutting Our Economies and Environments Alike,  IISD, 1998

·         Executive summary, Tax Waste, Not Work, Redefining Progress, 1999.

 

Optional:

Ø      Neil Gunningham and Darren Sinclair, “Regulatory Pluralism: Designing Policy Mixes for Environmental Protection”, Law and Policy 21, 49-76, 1997

Ø      Cary Coglianese and Jennifer Nash, “Policy Options for Improving Environmental Management in the Private Sector”,  Environment, Nov 2002 v44 i9 p11(14)

Ø      Dave Henson, The End of Agribusiness: Dismantling the Mechanisms of Corporate Rule, Printed in Fatal Harvest: The Tragedy of Industrial Agriculture (Island Press, May 2002)

Ø      David Boyd, Canada vs. the OECD: an Environmental Comparison, Victoria: Eco-Research Chair of Environmental Law and Policy, 2001

Ø      Steven Saar and Valerie Thomas, “Toward Trash That Thinks: Product Tags for Environmental Management”, Journal of Industrial Ecology, vol. 6 no. 2, 2003

Ø      Michael Shellenberger and Erik Curren,  Selling Ecological ‘Revolution’, The American Prospect, Jan. 2003, reprinted on AlterNet 

Ø      Brian Dunkiel, M. Jeff Hamond, and Jim Motavalli, “Sharing the Wealth:
If We Shift the Tax Burden From Work to Waste, Everyone Benefits”, E magazine, March/April 1999
 

Links:

o       Green Budget Reform                      

o       Green Scissors campaign

                       

 

Week 7, November 12: Big Business /Small Business; Scale & Scope

Reading:

·        Michael Shuman “Amazing Shrinking Machines: The Movement Toward Diminishing Economies of Scale”, New Village Journal, issue 2, 2003

·        Stephen Tinsley, “EMS Models for Business Strategy Development”, Business Strategy and Environment 11, 2002

·        John T. Lyle, “Urban Ecosystems”, In Context magazine, Spring 1993

 

Optional:

·        Stacy Mitchell, 10 Reasons Why Vermont’s Homegrown Economy Matters, and 50 Ways to Revive It, ILSR / Preservation Trust of Vermont, 2003

·        Wendell Berry, Global Problems/Local Solutions, Resurgence #206 (May/June 2001)

·        Promoting Independent Business Slideshow, Institute for Local Self-Reliance, New Rules Project

 

 

Week 8, Nov. 19: Indicators of Sustainability

Reading:

·        Mehenna Yakhou and Vernon P. Dorweiler, “Environmental Accounting: An Essential Component of Business Strategy”, Business Strategy and the Environment  13, 65–77 (2004)

·        William Greider, “The Greening of American Capitalism”, OnEarth magazine, Fall 2003

·        Mark Anielski, Genuine Wealth Accounting: Measuring the Sustainability of Communities, Anielski Management Inc., 2004

·        Andrew A. King and Michael J. Lenox, “Does It Really Pay to Be Green? An Empirical Study of Firm Environmental and Financial Performance”, Journal of Industrial Ecology, Volume 5, Number 1

 

Optional:

Ø       David Boyd, Sustainability Within a Generation: A New Vision for Canada, David Suzuki Foundation, 2004

Ø       National Roundtable on Economy & Environment (NRTEE), Environment and Sustainable Development Indicators for Canada, NRTEE website, 2003

Ø       Jeffrey Wilson and Mark Anielski, Ecological Footprints of Canadian Municipalities and Regions, report for Canadian Federation of Municipalities by Anielski Management Inc., Nov. 2003

Ø       Linda Baker,  “Real Wealth: The Genuine Progress Indicator Could Provide an Environmental Measure of the Planet's Health”, E Magazine, Volume X, Number III, May-June 1999  

 

Links:

Ø       Anielski Management Inc.

Ø       Global Footprint Network

Ø       Sustainable Measures

Ø      Redefining Progress

Ø      Toronto’s Vital Signs

Ø      Toronto’s Ecological Footprint

Ø     Sustainable Seattle

 

 

Week 9, not November 26:  Green Markets and Consumption

Note Well: class this week has been changed to Tuesday Nov. 23 to avoid conflict with Dr. Wheeler’s course.

            Reading:

·        Michael Renner, “Moving Toward a Less Consumptive Economy”, Chapter 5, pp. 96-119, from the State of the World 2004,  NY/Washington: Worldwatch Institute, 2004

·        Gary Gardner and Erik Assadourian, “Rethinking the Good Life”, Chapter 8, from the State of the World 2004,  NY/Washington: Worldwatch Institute, 2004

·        Jacquelyn Ottman, Consumers With a Conscience, chapter 2 of Green Marketing: Opportunity for Innovation, New York: NTC-McGraw-Hill, 1998

·        Joop de Boer: “Sustainability Labelling Schemes: The Logic of Their Claims and Their Functions for Stakeholders”, Business Strategy and Environment 12, 2003

 

Optional:  

·        Gary Gardner, Erik Assadourian, and Radhika Sarin, The State of Consumption Today, Chapter 1 from the State of the World 2004,  NY/Washington: Worldwatch Institute, 2004

·        The Overspent American, dialogue with Juliet Schor and leaders of the voluntary simplicity movement, Yes! magazine, summer 1998

·        James Westcott, “Shop Till You Stop”, AlterNet, December 7, 2003

·        The Conscious Consumer campaign of the Center for a New American Dream

·        David Suzuki’s Nature Challenge: strategic focus on the Canadian household, guided by the Union of Concerned Scientists’ Michael Brower and Warren Leon, authors of The Consumer’s Guide to Effective Environmental Action.

·        Scott Case, “Eco-friendly Green Procurement Gains Ground”, Government Procurement newsletter, Oct. 2003

·        Adbuster’s Black Spot anti-Nike Sneaker

·        book description and excerpts: Sharing the Work, Sparing the Planet: Work time, consumption and ecology, by Anders Hayden, MES

·        Fair Trade Trends report, 2003

 

Links

·        North American Green Purchasing Initiative

·        Markets Initiative (for sustainable wood products)

·        Center for a New American Dream

·        Fair Trade Federation

·        Global Exchange Fair Trade page

·        Global Ecolabelling Network (GEN)

·        Simple Living Network

·        Grassroots Recycling Network

·        Rev. Billy & the Church of Stop Shopping

·        Zero Waste America

·        Consumers Choice Council

 

 

Week 10 ½ , December 3:  Student Presentations

       (4 ½ hr class)

 

Week 12,December 10: Student Presentations

      (4 ½ hr class)

 

 

 

 

 

 

To MES Course List

To Green Economics Homepage