Sustainability Books

The University of Cambridge's Programme for Sustainability Leadership recently asked its alumni – "around 2,000 senior leaders from around the world who have participated in its sustainability programmes over the past decade or more" – to list some of their favourite "sustainability" books.

Here, in alphabetical order, are their Favorite 50. There are most of the requisite classics, but stunningly neither Walden (perhaps not as significant to Brits as to those of us on this side of the pond) nor McKibbon's The End of Nature made the list. The list also lacks any representation of resilience theory. What surprises or omissions do you find?

• Banker to the Poor: Micro-Lending and the battle Against World Poverty, by Muhammad Yunus1999
• Biomimicry: Innovation Inspired by Nature, by Janine Benyus, 2003
• Blueprint for a Green Economy: by David Pearce, Anil Markandya and Edward B. Barbier, 1989
• Business as Unusual: My Entrepreneurial Journey, Profits and Principles, by Anita Roddick, 2005
• Cannibals with Forks: The Triple Bottom Line of 21st Century Business, by John Elkington, 1999
• Capitalism as if the World Matters, by Jonathon Porritt, 2005
• Capitalism at the Crossroads: Aligning Business, Earth, and Humanity, by Stuart Hart, 2005
• Changing Course: A Global Business Perspective on Development and the Environment, by Stephan Schmidheiny and WBCSD, 1992
• The Chaos Point: The World at the Crossroads, by Ervin Laszlo, 2006
• The Civil Corporation: The New Economy of Corporate Citizenship, by Simon Zadek, 2001
• Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Survive, by Jared Diamond, 2005
• The Corporation: The Pathological Pursuit of Profit and Power, by Joel Bakan, 2005
• Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things by William McDonough and Michael Braungart, 2002
• The Dream of Earth, by Thomas Berry, 1990
• Development as Freedom, by Amartya Sen, 2000
• The Ecology of Commerce: A Declaration of Sustainability, by Paul Hawken, 1994
• The Economics of Climate Change: The Stern Review, by Nicholas Stern, 2007
• The End of Poverty: Economic Possibilities for Our Time, by Jeffrey Sachs, 2005.
• Factor Four: Doubling Wealth, Halving Resources Use-A Report to the Club of Rome, by Ernst Von Weizsäcker, 1998
• False Dawn: The Delusions of Global Capitalism, by John Gray, 2002
• Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side on the All-American Meal, by Eric Schlosser, 2005
• A Fate Worse than Debt: The World Financial Crisis and the Poor, by Susan George, 1990
• For The Common Good: Redirecting the Economy toward Community, the Environment and a Sustainable Future, by Herman Daly and John Cobb, 1989
• Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid: Eradicating Poverty through Profits, by C.K. Prahalad, 2004
• Gaia: A New Look at Life on Earth, by James Lovelock, 2000
• Globalization and its Discontents, by Joseph Stiglitz, 2002
• Heat: How to Stop the Planet from Burning, by George Monbiot, 2006
• Human-Scale Development: Conception, Application and Further Reflections, by Manfred Max-Neef, 1991
• The Hungry Spirit: Beyond Capitalism: The Quest for Purpose in the Modern World, by Charles Handy, 1999
• An Inconvenient Truth: The Planetary Emergency of Global Warming and What We Can Do About It, by Al Gore, 2006
• The Limits to Growth, by Donella H. Meadows, Dennis L. Meadows and Jorgen Randers, 1972
• Maverick: The Success Story Behind the World's Most Unusual Workplace, by Ricardo Semler, 1993
• The Mystery of Capital: Why Capitalism Triumphs in the West and Fails Everywhere Else, by Hernando De Soto, 2000
• Natural Capitalism: Creating the Next Industrial Revolution, by Paul Hawken, Amory Lovins and L. Hunter Lovins, 2000
• No Logo: No Space, No Choice, No Jobs, by Naomi Klein, 2002
• Open Society: Reforming Global Capitalism, by George Soros, 2000
• Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth, by Buckminster Fuller, 1969
• Our Common Future, by The World Commission on Environment and Development, 1987
• The Population Bomb, by Paul Ehrlich, 1969
• Presence: An Explanation of Profound Change in People, Organizations and Society, by Peter Senge, C. Otto Scharmer, Joseph Jaworski and Betty Sue Flowers, 2005
• The River Runs Black: The Environmental Challenge to China's Future, by Elizabeth C. Economy, 2004
• Sand County Almanac, by Aldo Leopold, 1949
• Silent Spring, by Rachel Carson, 1962
• The Skeptical Environmentalist, by Bjorn Lomborg, 2001
• Small is Beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered, by E.F. Schumacher, 1973
• Staying Alive: Women, Ecology and Development, by Vandana Shiva, 1989
• The Turning Point: Science Society and the Rising Culture, by Fritjof Capra, 1984
• Unsafe At Any Speed: The Designed-in Dangers of the American Automobile, by Ralph Nader, 1965
• When Corporations Rule the World, by David Korten, 2001
• When the Rivers Run Dry: What Happens When Our Water Runs Out? by Fred Pearce, 2006