Doing the right thing on climate change saves money, retains customers, creates new market opportunity and takes you beyond just compliance. It reduces your risk exposure and reduces risk to shareholders - Dr Jonathan Foot, Chief Environmental Officer, EDF Energy
We have an economy that tells us it is cheaper to destroy earth in real time rather than renew, restore, and sustain it. You can print money to bail out a bank but you can’t print life to bail out a planet - Paul Hawken, entrepreneur, environmental activist and author
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"Let your social and environmental conscience be your guide" can be a successful and durable strategy for a firm. This is the first book to explain how following a vision for the earth and for society can be a powerful route to profits for small and medium sized companies.
Companies on a Mission: Entrepreneurial Strategies for Growing Sustainably, Responsibly and Profitably, explains that mission-driven companies appreciate and leverage traditional strategic principles—with a twist—to win in the marketplace. By clearly and pragmatically laying out this argument, author Michael V. Russo crystallizes for enlightened businesses what Michael Porter made clear for mainstream firms years ago. The book shows that a mission-driven approach creates significant barriers to imitation by larger, established rivals
Mission-driven firms build their brands on authenticity. Only you are you. And, authenticity builds customer loyalty. Later in the book, Russo moves beyond the firm level to look at these companies in context. He finds, for instance, that just as specific industries often develop in geographic clusters, mission-driven companies also aggregate. But, they put down roots where other businesses are pursuing complementary goals. Portland and the Bay Area are two such hotbeds. This allows for cooperation, as opposed to breeding stiff competition.
The rise to prominence of mission-driven companies like Patagonia, Seventh Generation, Kettle Foods, and Calvert Group is undoubtedly the result of powerful trends in consumer markets, including the rise of conscious consumerism, the transparency movement, and fallout from global competition. Most books that address social and environmental issues are focused on large corporations, crafted as autobiographies by CEOs, or written as moral calls to action without regard for the bottom line. Companies on a Mission both chronicles a movement and provides grounded guidance to entrepreneurs and managers who wish to join the wave.
Andrew Winston, author of Green Recovery, said in a review of Russo's book:
"Michael Russo documents both the direct economic benefits of taking a mission-driven approach (toward sustainability) and the intangible benefits of brand value, product positioning, customer satisfaction and more,"
According to University of Oregon Media Relations:
Companies on a Mission uses the stories and experiences of more than 100 companies to support its premise. Some are well established, such as Patagonia, the outdoor clothing empire founded in 1972 by rebel rock-climber Yvon Chouinard; and Kettle Foods, the Salem company that in 2003 installed the largest solar array in the Pacific Northwest. Others are emerging companies introducing inspiration to traditional fields, such as Revolution Foods, founded by Kristen Richmond and Kirsten Tobey, which brings nutritious school lunches to underprivileged school children in California, Denver, and Washington, D.C.; and Freitag, a Swiss company founded by Markus and Daniel Freitag, which sells fashion-forward bags and purses made from recycled truck tarps.
Russo added:
Companies on a Mission is a book that can be appreciated by anyone with an interest in how small- and medium-sized businesses can be a force for positive change. Larger, established companies have also found that there is much to learn from these companies.
Russo is the Charles H. Lundquist Professor of Sustainable Management at the UO, and academic director of the Center for Sustainable Business Practices at the Lundquist College of Business. He is an award-winning researcher and frequent lecturer on the topic of environmental management strategy. He is editor of "Environmental Management: Readings and Cases," and has been a member of the university's business faculty since 1989.