Greetings from Great Barrington, Massachusetts, hometown to W.E.B. Du Bois, alternating electrical current, Community-Supported Agriculture, and, in 2009, to global publishing on sustainability!

I was a young “green” author living in London when the McDonalds Corporation made me the only American to be caught up in the infamous “McLibel” case, the most expensive and widely publicized attack by a multinational corporation against its critics. That experience, which had devastating financial consequences, didn’t warm me towards the world of business, which my environmentalist colleagues tended to portray as a negative force, destructive of the environment and people’s lives and health. But over the years I’ve come to understand that economic activity and commercial innovation are essential forces in human history. Now, as a businessperson myself with a small global publishing company, I’m thrilled by opportunities to help experts on sustainability share what they know with eager students, citizens, and professionals in government, education, and business.

The first volume in the 10-volume Encyclopedia of Sustainability, The Spirit of Sustainability, is now in production, with publication scheduled for August. It will be followed closely by The Business of Sustainability, the most application-focused volume in the series. The remaining eight volumes will be coming out steadily over the next two years. The result will be a unique compilation of expert knowledge that we expect to be a central resource for major universities as well as for regional high schools, small public libraries, community colleges, and local government offices, serving as the starting point for a wide range of student research, expert cross-education, public presentations, and program planning. The Encyclopedia of Sustainability will solve three information challenges that face professionals working to make the world a better place:

1. Trust
2. Substance
3. Accessibility

As you know, there’s no shortage of information about environmental problems and no dearth of people calling themselves experts on sustainability. The Encyclopedia of Sustainability is designed to solve the problem of information overload by going to those who are truly expert for clear, concise overviews on a vast array of topics, then organizing their work into concise, attractive articles. The material as a whole is divided into separate thematic volumes, packed with solid research data, thorough analysis, and precise, jargon-free discussion. We are doing this to make a huge and fast-developing research domain into a publication people can really get their heads and hands around.

Later in 2009 will come Law and Politics and Natural Resources and Sustainability, which is taking a different approach from most publications on the subject. We focus as much on interaction as extraction, and look at natural resource use in terms of human needs and activities–including entertainment, recreation, education, and mobility as well as more traditional ones like food and shelter. We’re also working on a monograph series called China Green, in conjunction with the newly published Berkshire Encyclopedia of China and in partnership with leading Chinese academic presses.

We’re looking for authors, and editors for further volumes

We are hoping that you will help, in some way, to shape the volumes of the Encyclopedia of Sustainability, as well as to use them as they appear. Here are some details about the involvement we’re looking for, and we’ll be delighted to send more information if you send even a quick note of interest.

First, we need authors for a few remaining energy industry topics and for articles on specific industries and sectors (we have some terrific articles, including “Financial Services Industry” and “Automobile Industry,” which provide fine models). While we have good general business coverage we would also like to provide short overviews about sustainability in risk management, competitive positioning, M&A, fundraising, and foreign direct investment. I’d love to hear from you about any of these areas of research. I should mention that senior editor Chris Laszlo, of Sustainable Value Partners, has been clear about the need to focus this project on the positive contribution business can and does make. Joining him are Dan Fogel, associate dean and professor of business strategy at the Babcock Graduate School of Management, Wake Forest University, and Mark Milstein, director of the Center for Sustainable Global Enterprise, Cornell University, as well as dozens of authors including John Elkington, Hunter Lovins, Wayne Visser, and specialists at many specialist research centers (and centres).

We are also in the process of recruiting additional section editors. I’d appreciate your recommendations, and also hope to hear directly from scholars who have an interdisciplinary understanding of sustainability and specialist expertise in aspects of:

• The Law and Politics of Sustainability
• Natural Resources and Sustainability
• Indicators, Measurements, and Research Methods for Sustainability
• Ecosystem Management & Applied Biology

Please do write to me, Karen Christensen, karen@berkshirepublishing.com, if you are interested in serving in an advisory capacity. If you would like to be invited to contribute an article, a line to me or, better yet, a line to project coordinator Bill Siever, bill@berkshirepublishing.com, will quickly elicit contributor details. We are recruiting contributing assistant editors for the online content, too. This is part-time work that will provide valuable journalistic and academic editorial experience to graduate students and post-doctorate researchers, and we will be screening resumes in another month.

By the way, you’ll find below a coupon designed for libraries and institutions that want to order the entire set in advance to get a substantial discount and guaranteed price.

China Green also forthcoming from Berkshire

Berkshire is known for taking on challenging projects such as this. We have just published the 5-volume Encyclopedia of China, which is getting much attention. The first set was on display in New York on 1 May, having arrived only that morning  from the printers in Michigan, at a luncheon graciously hosted by the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations. Our friend Simon Winchester enthralled the audience of China experts with a lively account of the life and work of Joseph Needham, whose Science and Civilisation in China series provided us with much inspiration.

The National Committee, too, has inspired our work with their example of tireless commitment to improving mutual understanding through a wide range of programs for students, teachers, scholars, and military and government officials at the highest levels. I know many of our authors have been involved with these programs. You can see search all 2,754 pages of the Encyclopedia of China and one of the many sustainability articles, Climate Change-International Cooperation by Mark Levine, director of the China Energy Group, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, is available online at no charge, with a range of other sample articles selected from the 800 in the Encyclopedia.

Sustainable Publishing

Naturally, we’re doing all we can to figure out what a sustainable publishing company looks like. Using a “green” printer and choosing the right paper, as we did for the Encyclopedia of China (click here to read about the choices we made) and will do for the Encyclopedia of Sustainability, is only a first step. Publishing online seems like a simple answer, until one understands the huge environmental impact of computers and online technologies; I had a crash course on this subject when I chaired the first Green Data Centres conference in London last year. In some ways, publishing on paper is a better choice. We’re doing both, and trying to improve our digital processes, too.  There’s also the question of our industry’s supply chain, which is particularly inefficient and costly. But I had my first direct experience with corporate greenwashing when I contacted a shipping company that promised to reduce carbon emissions by 30%,  only to discover that they had no data to back up this claim. It’s clear now that Berkshire is engaged, as a company, in what anthropologists call “participant observation.” We are learning about our subject as we live it, and have the privilege of doing so with an extraordinary roster of sustainability experts and professionals.

Finally, if you’re curious about the McDonalds lawsuit, there’s lots available online. My own story, a minor sidebar in the drama, is part of the McLibel archives. What I find exciting is that today McDonalds is one of the many major corporations looking seriously at The Business of Sustainability.

With all good wishes,

Karen Christensen
Berkshire Publishing Group
Author of The Armchair Environmentalist: “Filled with wisdom…[there is] more environmental advice in this crisp, tightly written volume than in anything I’ve seen to date.”–Lester Brown
+1 413 528 0206 | Skype: karen_christensen
karen@berkshirepublishing.com
Blog: www.berkshirepublishing.com/blog