The one-sentence summary

Sustainability is going mainstream, and here’s how it came about.

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WHAT THE BOOK SAYS

  • This is a history of how the author and his colleagues sold business on sustainability. The author is often described as the godfather of sustainability, although he prefers to say that he is one of a number of godparents. It has been his self-appointed task to tell powerful people things they don’t want to hear, and he has a reputation for speaking tomorrow’s truth to power.
  • The title is his metaphor for encouraging the human sharks of the corporate world to address new social, economic, and environmental priorities. These people need to step up or get out of the way.
  • Not all sharks are the same and each one needs different handling, particularly when they are so rich and powerful, so the skill of persuading them to accept or pursue change has been evolved over decades, making up the rules as he went along. Often this involves humour and teasing, so that senior people can see that they are not in the presence of a preaching missionary, thereby relaxing their normal defensiveness.
  • Once you have earned a reputation for dealing with tricky sharks, the dynamic changes when a client approaches you, rather than vice versa because you can negotiate on values, not just value.
  • A quartet of marine animals forms a grid that categorizes the risk each type poses to human beings from low to high, alongside their potential to serve as partners to drive long-term sustainability. Low risk and potential is a seal, low risk high potential is a dolphin, high risk and potential is an orca, and high risk low potential is a shark.
  • The book starts with spawning grounds, explaining the genesis of thinking against the backdrop of the atomic bomb, and follows with feeding frenzies tracking the societal pressures and the environmental waves of the sixties. Schooling dolphins draws these threads together and concludes that we will see more change in the next 15 years than in the last 50. It finishes with a manifesto and advice on how to tackle sharks.
  • Tickling and tackling are interrelated. The approach has to be seductive enough to pull in at least some members of the target audience, but it is rarely enough to just tickle. Tackling individuals who need persuading, along with the system, the paradigm they operate within, and the assumptions they have inherited along the way is essential. The rules for tackling sharks are:
  1. If you want to speak truth to power, have a word with yourself first.

Know who you are and what you stand for.

  1. Meet sharks where they are, not where you’d like them to be.

Find them in their rarified environments if necessary.

  1. Resist the urge to cling to like-minded people.

Move out of your comfort zone and talk to different people.

  1. Try not to look like prey.

Be seen as an equal and match them for respect.

  1. Avoid being forced into elevator pitches.

Take time to persuade them that your change agenda might be material.

  1. Don’t adopt missionary positions.

Avoid preaching like a missionary – it’s not persuasive.

  1. Don’t assume that all sharks or orcas are evil.

Many are simply a reflection of the systems that trained, selected and incentivized them.

  1. Avoid breathing your own exhaust fumes.

Don’t be taken in by your own propaganda.

  1. Encourage leaders to get out more – and take your own medicine.

Powerful people are often sheltered and insulated.

  1. Recognize that whatever you do – and however well you do it – the work of others is important.

Mobilize other people to promote the change you desire.

 WHAT’S GOOD ABOUT IT

  • The author has introduced concepts such as green growth, green consumer, green investor, and the triple bottom line, which includes people, planet, profit, and sometimes people, planet, prosperity. 25 years after inventing it, he announced a product recall, saying that it was not always being used properly and needed some fine-tuning.
  • Alvin Toffler wrote Future Shock in 1970 and The Third Wave in 1980, introducing the idea of Many Bottom Lines with economic and trans-economic objectives. John Elkington only realized later that his triple bottom line concept had been influenced by reading it a long time before.
  • Buckminster Fuller promoted the idea of spaceship earth and advocated that we need to switch our economies from weaponry to livingry.
  • Lester Brown argued for the creation of an honest market, one that tells the ecological truth by reducing taxes on work and raising them on environmentally destructive activities.
  • Light Greens are environmentalists who see protecting the environment as a personal responsibility. Dark Greens are so-called deep ecologists who see environmental problems as an inherent part of industrialization that requires radical political and cultural changes and opposing consumerism and economic growth. Bright Greens are environmentalists who agree that radical changes are necessary but conclude that systemic progress can be made using creative, constructive solutions that harness some of the processes of capitalism itself.
  • In building his businesses, the author attracted many blue-chip clients, and when a rival wanted to buy them, they were dubbed green chip businesses.

WHAT YOU HAVE TO WATCH

  • This is comprehensive, thought-provoking and beautifully written.