2018 Sustainable Reading Challenge: 12 sustainable books

It is time to embark on your sustainable reading challenge! Give yourself a New Year’s resolution you’ll be happy to keep: Read more books! We’re here to help you set, track, and easily achieve your 2018 sustainable reading goal. Yes, we decided to select 12 sustainable books to fulfill your reading challenge. How? We asked business thinkers for recommendations to make our list for the leadership sustainable titles that most pique our interest. We can’t wait to lose ourselves in new sustainable stories, and to absorb thoughtful essays about culture, gender, race and identity. And you?

Following a year of dizzying news cycles and increasingly deep political divisions, getting engrossed in a meaty book on leadership lessons, in-depth career advice or ideas for improving the way we work may sound pretty tempting. So we’ve asked business thinkers for recommendations to make our list. There is so much amazing stuff out there! Funny, inspiring, sad, thought-provoking, empowering!

The list below is a roundup of 12 titles to enjoy every month of the year, 12 books to consider adding to your sustainable bookshelf in 2018. Here are the 12 books we can’t wait to read in 2018.

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January

“Sustainable fashion” by Colleen Hill and Jennifer Farley Gordon. This book is an extremely well researched, informativ overview of sustainable fashion history, basic knowledge and strategies, so it is absolutely recommendable. It really puts sustainability in context.

February

Magnifeco” by Kate Black. With this complete head-to-toe guide covering everything from hair and beauty products to shoes and footwear, you can feel better about everything you put on your body and be—magnifeco!

March

“The Upcycle” by William Mc Donough and Michael Braungart. They reimagine our society based on their idea of cradle to cradle and show us the possibility of a world in which every human act becomes one of beneficence and abundance.

April

“Eco Fashion” by Sass Brown. It opens our eyes onto sustainable fashion and design, which doesn’t have to be gray or boring.

May

“Fashion Made Fair” by Ellen Köhrer and Magdalena Schaffrin. This beautifully illustrated book pays tribute to contemporary designers whose creations are at once fashionforward as well as sustainable, responsible, and humanely produced.

June

“Cradle to Cradle. Remaking the Way We Make Things (Patterns of the Planet)” by Michael BraungartReduce, reuse and recycle urge environmentalists; in other words, do more with less in order to minimize damage. But as architect William McDonough and chemist Michael Braungart point out in this provocative, visionary book, this approach only perpetuates the one-way, ‘cradle to grave’ manufacturing model, dating to the Industrial Revolution, that creates such fantastic amounts of waste and pollution in the first place.

July

“Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance” by Robert M. Pirsig. It is a book that was first published in 1974. It is a work of fictionalized autobiography, and is the first of Pirsig’s texts in which he explores his Metaphysics of Quality. One of the most important & influential books written in the past half-century, Robert M. Pirsig’s Zen & the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance is a powerfully moving & penetrating examination of how we live, a breathtaking meditation on how to live better. Maybe it is not a sustainable book in a direct sense, but it is a way of thinking.

August

“Let my people go surfing” by Yvon Chouinard is absolutely amazing. The personal stories of the founder of Patagonia, Inc. describes his underprivileged childhood as an immigrant in southern California, early fame as a successful mountain climber, and company’s dedication to quality and environmental responsibility.

September

“The HIP Investor: Make Bigger Profits by Building a Better World”  by Paul Herman, the creator of the HIP (Human Impact + Profit) method. The author introduces a ground-breaking system which investors can benefit from, having a positive impact on society.

October

“The life-changing magic of tidying up” by Marie Kondo. This book has been hyped a lot, but it really opened our mind to Minimalism. Once you reduce all your belongings, you can really appreciate each thing you own and think much harder before buying anything new. Apart from keeping waste in check, the best is that Minimalism really simplifies your life.

November

“Overdressed: The Shockingly High Cost of Cheap Fashion”, by Elisabeth Cline. Cline sets out to uncover the true nature of the cheap fashion juggernaut. What are we doing with all these cheap clothes? And more important, what are they doing to us, our society, our environment, and our economic well-being?

December

“Clean Protein: The Revolution that Will Reshape Your Body, Boost Your Energy—and Save Our Planet”, by Kathy Freston. It is a powerful solution to excess weight and chronic health issues, and it’s a cultural revolution that will be talked about for decades. As author says, it is the perfect book to lose weight, feel stronger and live longer.