Sainsbury Library welcomes you to flick through, gain inspiration and learn from the leaves of our books with our display ‘Fresh Green Leaves: New Reading on Sustainable, Responsible & Ethical Business’.

Inspired by the Future Climate Innovators Summer School, and with the assistance of our work experience student, the titles look at climate crisis solutions, social justice, environmental economics, and the role of capitalism in creating a sustainable future. There are many different perspectives on display complementing the school’s interdisciplinary and global approach to sustainability. Some argue harnessing profits is the solution, others argue for degrowth; some examine the few who control resources, whilst others examine human psychology; some discuss global solutions and others individual choices. However, they all share the idea that the earth is everyone’s business and desire for a greener world.

Also, on display are two “cli-fis” (climate fiction for those new to the genre) that imagine possible futures in light of the climate crisis. These are ideal for those who desire, or prefer, the art of storytelling and imagination to explore the above themes.

The books have been separated below into themes and excerpts from the book’s blurbs give a snapshot into the book. Some books are available online, others in our library and some in other libraries across Oxford. You can see the options by selecting the titles below. But the best way to check out the display is by coming into the library, flicking through in person and seeing what piques your interest!

Comprehensive Collaborative Guides

Both these titles from Paul Hawken cover a wide range of topics, drawn from numerous sources, alongside practical solutions for the climate crisis. They also contain high-quality photographs adding a visual experience to the themes in the book.

• Regeneration: Ending the Climate Crisis in One Generation

From land to ocean, food to industries – Regeneration proposes an extensive menu of actions that collectively can reverse the overheating and degradation of our planet. The solutions, techniques, and practices range from solar power, electric vehicles, and tree planting to bioregions, azolla fern and forest farms; they are all doable, science-based, and comprise a precise and unequivocal course of action.

You can find out more at Project Regeneration too

• Drawdown : the most comprehensive plan ever proposed to reverse global warming

For the first time ever, an international coalition of leading researchers, scientists and policymakers has come together to offer a set of realistic and bold solutions to climate change. All the techniques described here – some well-known, some you may have never heard of – are economically viable, and communities throughout the world are already enacting them. You can find out more.

You can find out more at Project Drawdown too

Books on Environmental Economics & Capitalism

• The World for Sale: Money, Power and the Traders Who Barter the Earth’s Resources– The modern world is built on commodities – from the oil that fuels our cars to the metals that power our smartphones We rarely stop to consider where they come from. But we should.
• Reimagining Capitalism in a World on Fire: how business can save the world– Free market capitalism is one of humanity’s greatest inventions, and the greatest source of prosperity the world has ever seen. But it’s also on the verge of destroying the planet and destabilizing society in its single-minded pursuit of maximizing shareholder value.
• This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate– Forget everything you think you know about global warming. It’s not about carbon – it’s about capitalism. The good news is that we can seize this existential crisis to transform our failed economic system and build something radically better.
• Green think: How profit can save the planet – in Green think, Fedrizzi turns conventional wisdom on its head by showing how profit can save the planet, and how sustainability is the biggest business opportunity of the 21st century.
• Less is more: How degrowth will save the world (not in Sainsbury Library but available in other Bodleian Libraries) -. Our planet is in trouble. But how can we reverse the current crisis and create a sustainable future? The answer is: DEGROWTH
• Environmental Economics: a very short introduction (available online)–Stephen Smith discusses environmental issues including pollution control, reducing environmental damage, and global climate change policies, answering questions about how we should balance environmental and economic considerations, and what form government policies should take.

Sustainability and Environment

• Dumping in Dixie: Race, Class, and Environmental Quality– This book provides the major economic, social, and psychological impacts associated with the siting of noxious facilities and their significance in mobilizing the African American community.
• The Necessary Revolution: How individuals and organizations are working together to create a sustainable world– Brimming with inspiring stories from individuals and organizations tackling social and environmental problems around the globe, THE NECESSARY REVOLUTION reveals how ordinary people at every level are transforming their businesses and communities.
• Collaboration for Sustainability and Innovation: A role for Sustainability Driven by the Global South? -In pursuit of a sustainable and more equitable future, the book examines such topics as Cross-Border Innovation in South-North Fair Trade Supply Chains; Potential Pollution Prevention Programs in Bangladesh; Digital Literacy and Social Inclusion in the South through Collective Storytelling and Eco-innovation at the ‘Bottom of the Pyramid’.
• Regenesis: Feeding the World without Devouring the Planet– Regenesis is an exhilarating journey into a new possible future for food, people and the planet. Drawing on the revelatory, rapidly advancing science of soil ecology, Monbiot shows how the hidden biological universe beneath our feet could transform what we eat and how we grow it
• Not the End of the World: How we can be the first generation to build a sustainable planet (not in Sainsbury Library but available in other Bodleian Libraries) We are bombarded by doomsday headlines that tell us the soil won’t be able to support crops, fish will vanish from our oceans, that we should reconsider having children. But in this bold, radically hopeful book, data scientist Hannah Ritchie argues that if we zoom out, a very different picture emerges.

Climate Change and Solutions:

• How to Avoid a Climate Disaster: the solutions we have and the breakthroughs we need: Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft, shares what he has learnt in more than a decade of studying climate change and investing in innovations to address climate problems.
• Saving the Planet Without the Bullshit: what they don’t tell you about the climate crisis (physical and available online)– Assaad Razzouk shows that for too long our ideas about what’s best for the environment have been unfocused and distracted, trying to go in too many directions and concentrating on individual behaviour. While some of these things can be useful, they are dwarfed by one big thing that simply has to happen very soon if we’re to avoid major environmental breakdown: curtailing the activities of the fossil fuel industry.
• Don’t Even Think About It: Why our brains are wired to ignore climate change – Most of us recognize that climate change is real yet we do nothing to stop it. What is the psychological mechanism that allows us to know something is true but act as if it is not? George Marshall’s search for the answers brings him face to face with Nobel Prize-winning psychologists and Texas Tea Party activists; the world’s leading climate scientists and those who denounce them; liberal environmentalists and conservative evangelicals.
• There is No Planet B: A Handbook for the Make or Break Years (available online)- given the global nature of the challenges we now face, what on Earth can any of us do, as individuals? Mike Berners-Lee has crunched the numbers and plotted a course of action that is full of hope, practical, and enjoyable.
• How to Change Everything: The young person’s guide to protecting the planet and each other (Only available by request from Offsite Storage)- The first book for younger readers by internationally bestselling social activist Naomi Klein: the most authoritative and inspiring book on climate change for young people yet.

Cli-fi:

• The Carbon Diaries 2015– “It’s January 1st, 2015, and the UK is the first nation to introduce carbon dioxide rationing, in a drastic bid to combat climate change (…) The Carbon Diaries 2015 is one girl’s drastic bid to stay sane in a world unravelling at the seams.”
• The Ministry for the Future– “From legendary science fiction author Kim Stanley Robinson comes a remarkable vision of climate change over the coming decades (…) using fictional eyewitness accounts to tell the story of how climate change will affect us all”

For more resources, see our posts about other recent book displays.

A Spotlight on Wellbeing

Celebrating in true library fashion!

Financial Times and Schroders Business Book of the Year Award 2023

Welcome to the World of AI