About the Author

Chris Laszlo, Ph.D., is the author of Sustainable Value: How the World's Leading Companies Are Doing Well by Doing Good (2008) and The Sustainable Company (2003, paperback 2005). He is an Associate Professor at Case Western Reserve University's Weatherhead School of Management, where he is the Faculty Research Director at the Fowler Center for Sustainable Value. Chris is also the co-founder and Managing Partner of Sustainable Value Partners, LLC, an advisory services firm specialized in sustainability for business advantage.

Nadya Zhexembayeva, Ph.D., is the Coca-Cola Chair of Sustainable Development at IEDC-Bled School of Management, the European business school based in Slovenia, where she teaches leadership, organizational design, and sustainability strategy. Nadya currently serves as Vice-President of Challenge:Future, a global youth think tank. She is a member of the Advisory Board of the Fowler Center for Sustainable Value at the Weatherhead School of Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland Ohio. Nadya is also an Associate Partner of Sustainable Value Partners, LLC.

Reviews

"Sustainability thought leader Chris Laszlo and his co-author Zhexembayeva's new book is a magnificent and highly readable tour de force of business strategy and innovation that shows how sustainability is a natural and important progression in thinking about business value. They make a crucial distinction between earlier piecemeal ('bolt-on') approaches to sustainability and the newer generation of strategies that embed sustainability within the core business of the enterprise. The book is a must-read for all serious business executives and managers. It illustrates key points through case studies and examples that provide a clear understanding of how to execute on a strategy of embedded sustainability."—Dr. Ram Nidumolu, Founder and CEO, InnovaStrat, Inc.

"Business strategy and competitive advantage are essentially about choice and discipline, though rising ecological and social pressures have left many organizations around the world floundering in terms of what those strategic choices and discipline should look like. Smart leaders will quickly seize on Laszlo and Zhexembayeva's blueprint for embedded sustainability as the foundation for the new economic logic of competitive advantage. Embedded sustainability is the essential discipline for market leaders."—Mason Carpenter, M. Keith Weikel Professor of Leadership, University of Wisconsin–Madison

"We are in the midst of a tectonic shift: The industrial corporate model of the 19th century is dying and being replaced by the sustainable enterprise model of the 21st century. In this new world of declining resources, radical transparency, and increasing expectations, 'corporate social responsibility' will no longer be enough. In this book, Laszlo and Zhexembayeva show clearly that the defining characteristic of the successful 21st century corporation will be its ability to embed sustainability in every fibre of its being. And, even more importantly, embedded sustainability will hold the key to future profit and value creation."—Stuart L. Hart, S. C. Johnson Chair in Sustainable Global Enterprise, Cornell University and author of Capitalism at the Crossroads

"Chris Laszlo and Nadya Zhexembayeva have not only created a compelling guide for businesses to do well while doing good through Embedded Sustainability. They have also affirmed the critical importance of linking rigorous analytical developments to the testing ground of engagement with real-world problem solving. This book should be required reading in the programs from which future business leaders will emerge."—Rebecca Chopp, President, Swarthmore College