Review: Cheap Guide to Sustainability and Corporate Social Responsibility
Leo Raudys’s “Cheap Guide” is exactly what it says it is, no more – i.e. no proselytizing – no less: It’s a guide to the key influencers in sustainability and CSR. It provides lists of organizations, conferences, people, and vocab that are relevant if you’re working in the sector or if you’re running any kind of business – something in here is bound to come up sometime.
I read this book in December 2016 and found it fairly comprehensive, especially given its size – only 78 pages! I thought it was good as a reference but also as guideposts: A lot of the names and organizations listed were familiar to me, which means I'm headed in the right direction (at least the established direction). Many names and organizations were new, too, which gave me a chance to Google and learn more about those resources that touch my niche interests (international development, clean energy, health, and women, for anyone who’s asking). This is important for students or other CSR/sustainability newcomers like myself, but also for old-timers who are really in the weeds and want to keep a tab on who’s who and what’s what.
I have two critiques that I think are pretty obvious: First, the CSR/sustainability landscape is constantly evolving. It’s true that there are big, established players who have been making gains and setting the stage for the rest of us – and these are all here; but there are new players and disrupters coming onto the scene all the time, and this guide may have missed them. This is a predictable predicament for a print book, though, that sets Raudys up for a subsequent edition, I’d estimate in 3-5 years.
Second, any future edition should include more international/European resources. This is an important oversight from the first edition because the US is not the only CSR/sustainability playing field out there, and, from what I’ve seen, American CSR/sustainability partners are in fact often behind the curve, especially compared to Europe. I don’t know if the decision to include only US-based influencers was an editorial choice or if it was due to a concern about being able to be thorough enough or something else entirely. Regardless, I’m definitely looking forward to more international/European references in a future edition.
Overall, I give Cheap Guide to Sustainability and Corporate Social Responsibility by Leo Raudys 4 out of 5 stars. It came out in June 2016 and so far has an average rating of 3.25 on Goodreads and 4.8 on Amazon.