Flourishing: a Frank Conversation About Sustainability Book Review

Book Review

Flourishing: A Frank Conversation about Sustainability, is a conversation two sustainability expert, they explain how society is wrong in their current assessment of sustainability. They overview the issue, explain the current situation and look at what to expect for the future. The author is , Andrew J. Hoffman, a professor at the University of Michigan who gives lessons on sustainability, and he interviews/converse with John R. Ehrenfeld, a former sustainability professor. They go back and forth on talking about various concerns they have about sustainability. The book was published in May 2013 thus making it accurate.

One of the first issue the book deals with is the simplicity of humanity. We are creatures of habbit (Ian Clark), and have troubles changing the way we do things. We over produce and over consume, mass media influences and sell us the idea that the bigger our houses the bigger our car the better we are. It is impossible to change the problem of sustainability if we don’t change the way we consume. Mr. Hoffman argues that the mentalities of humans need to change in order to solve the problem. In today’s era, the mass production and reducing cost is sold to be the best business model there is. The only problem with that is the fact that resources are finite, and once those are gone, well they are gone forever. To deal with the issue, companies have continued to look at it from the same mentality. They tried to become greener, by being less environmentally harmful and being more efficient with the resources. However, like stated in the book, this is not what sustainability is about. This is only a temporary solution in slowing down the impact on the environment. The author seems to have an issue with how most companies try to attach a ‘green’ tag to their product, where that green tag apparently means it is sustainable. They are not using the so called green tag to what it should really be, they are using the tag has a marketing...