Grist reviews the new book Getting Green Done: Hard Truths from the Front Lines of the Sustainability Revolution, by sustainability guru Auden Schendler, pronouncing it “required” reading while quibbling with the details.
Schendler, corporate sustainability officer for the Aspen Ski Co., clearly has a penchent for this stuff but he isn’t wearing rose colored glasses.
“Dig beneath the surface of one of the many green ‘success stories’ you read about in the news and you’ll frequently find something more like Apocalypse Now than a finely tuned operation,” writes Schendler, who has written for Grist. “This doesn’t mean we give up. But we need to recognize that it’s one thing to watch a PowerPoint presentation on corporate sustainability, and another thing to make it real.”
For Schendler, that meant bringing sustainability to one of the richest enclaves in the United States. The ski resort could afford to fail, dust itself off and pour a glass of Chardonnay before trying again. “Perhaps less convincingly, he argues that the lavish Aspen lifestyle is an advantage here, making the town a good microcosm for the lavish American lifestyle at large,” Grist writes.
Regardless, it’s one for my reading list, if only to see how luxury and wealth might give new meaning to greening - or not.