2.12.2008 - 11:59pm ET

(CSRwire) "The time has come to kick the tires and look under the hoods of our most powerful institutions, most particularly our corporations, to test their capacity to help drive the sustainability transformation of our politics, governance, economies, corporations, communities, and, ultimately, societies. Those who will lead the way will be able to see the big picture. . . . Marc Epstein is a successful, proven navigator in these complex new risk and opportunity spaces. Fasten your seat belts—and make sure your CEO and board have copies of this invaluable guide to hand."
—From the foreword by John Elkington, Chief Entrepreneur, SustainAbility

January 21, 2008 - Local air and water pollution in Europe, child labor in Asia, workers' rights in North America, global climate change, political upheaval in South America, and human rights in Africa. These are just a few of the challenges that now face corporations on a daily basis. The issue of whether companies should consider their social responsibility is no longer up for discussion. Today, the challenge for executives is not whether to integrate corporate social, environmental, and economic impacts into day-to-day management decisions, but how. Though there has been much written on the ethical and strategic factors of corporate sustainability, there has been little available about how to actually implement those. That is, until now.

In Making Sustainability Work, distinguished management professor Marc J. Epstein builds on his decades of work publishing articles and books on sustainability issues to offer a complete guide to implementing sustainability initiatives.

"If your challenge is to overcome the corporate 'antibodies' to drive innovation through sustainability, this is a must read," said Stuart L. Hart, S.C. Johnson Chair of Sustainable Global Enterprise, Cornell University and author of Capitalism at the Crossroads.

Senior corporate executives and managers will be coached on every key area of execution, from developing strategy and budgets for sustainability initiatives to engaging with stakeholders on those issues and effectively disclosing them to the wider public.

"Making Sustainability Work moves CSR from the theoretical to the practical, offering real-life tools, processes and metrics for creating a true corporate framework for sustainability," said Brad Shaw, Senior Vice President, The Home Depot.

Joan Bavaria, President of Trillium Investment and Co-Chair and Founder, Ceres has only praise for Epstein.

"Marc Epstein has been teaching and writing around corporate sustainability and reporting issues for decades, long before they became trendy," she said. "This book is a very readable and easy-to-use compilation of his experience and research. I highly recommend it for practitioners in all levels of management or for stakeholders who should understand what the company on the next block is or is not doing right."

Epstein, who is a foremost scholar on creating ways to measure sustainability projects, provides readers with concrete guidelines for quantifying the social and financial impact of their own corporate sustainability programs.

"Epstein provides a comprehensive guide to the implementation of sustainability strategies in organizations," said Srikant M. Datar, Arthur Lowes Dickinson Professor, and Senior Associate Dean at Harvard Business School. "Executives and managers interested in sustainability will benefit greatly from this book’s rich examples and insightful analysis."

About the author:

Marc J. Epstein is Distinguished Research Professor of Management at Jones Graduate School of Management at Rice University. Epstein is the author of eighteen previous books. He also provides seminars, executive courses, and lectures to senior managerial audiences throughout the world in an assortment of companies of all sizes. Epstein has extensive industry experience and has been a senior consultant to leading corporations and governments for over 25 years. He lives in Houston, Texas.

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