Usually I skip the preface and acknowledgments in a book. With the decade old Natural Capitalism from Paul Hawken (author of The Ecology of Commerce), Amory Lovins, and Hunter Lovins, co-founders of Rocky Mountain Institute in Colorado, I felt it was going to provide valuable background and history. In reading these sections I was struck by the optimistic tone. So much of what was being written ten plus years before the founding of 2nd Green Revolution – about the precipice of sustainability upon which businesses find themselves – can be heard today.  Hawken et al mention the coming breakthrough in green technologies and sustainable practices, but we have yet to see this materialize. Paradoxically, this is disconcerting yet hopeful.

So many of those mentioned in the preface and acknowledgments have become the forebears of the second green revolution. Cradle to cradle founders William McDonough and Michael Bruangart, as well as the originator of the triple bottom line, John Elkington receive mention. Dana Meadows and systems thinking, along with the Natural Step and Peter Senge (author of The Necessary Revolution), all of which have surfaced in posts we have written, continue to play an integral role.

If the second green revolution is upon us, and I believe it is, Hawken and others provide a blueprint of how businesses can lead the charge. Natural Capitalism, The Necessary Revolution, Cradle to Cradle, and Hawken’s own The Ecology of Commerce are but a few of the quintessential works that reiterate the importance and the viability of moving in this direction. Over the course of the summer I will check back in with reflections as I read the remainder of Natural Capitalism. Just because it was written at the close of the 20th century, doesn’t make it obsolete as we had into the “Decade of Sustainability.”

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