A well-researched examination of consumer behavior that risks alienating readers with overly dense prose.
Amber presents sustainable transformation strategies for consumer-facing businesses in this guide.
The author aims to offer action steps to move businesses from “superficial greenwashing” to “real, lasting sustainability.” Her “triple win” approach puts people, the planet, and prosperity at its center, aiming to balance all three for a comprehensive and inclusive approach to sustainability. The triple-win model focuses on working toward three goals: economic (by choosing green and healthy products), environmental (by living simply and consuming less), and social (by buying ethically and sharing responsibly). According to research cited in the book, sustainable consumption benefits the well-being of humans and the natural world in which they live; however, up to 90% of purchases are made impulsively, resulting in needless waste and psychological dissatisfaction. The author posits that businesses and individuals must work to promote more thoughtful and sustainable consumption; instead of capitalizing on purchases made because of stress or fear, she asserts, companies can educate and empower customers to make better choices. According to Amber, companies should avoid taking a patronizing tone in their marketing and promote sustainable practices and highlight their benefits. The book also advises businesses to focus on customers who share such values, while also supporting local communities. On the consumer side, the author believes that people must work to understand the link between emotional dysregulation and overconsumption. Practicing mindfulness and pausing before purchasing can help reduce unnecessary expenditures, she says. The author concludes with a call to action for business leaders to “support the equilibrium of life, act as custodians of existence, and ensure that the next generation survives and thrives.”
Over the course of this book, Amber’s robust research, precise definitions, and extensive citations make for an intellectually rigorous read. However, although the author is clearly knowledgeable and passionate about the subject matter, the prose could benefit from a plain-language rewrite to ensure audiences outside academia can access its message. For example, the book’s central concept, emotional capital, is explained in a convoluted way: “I build on the definition of Cottingham’s emotional capital as a tripartite concept, which is composed of (1) emotion-based knowledge, (2) emotional management skills or competencies, and (3) capacities to feel that link self-processes and resources to group membership and social location.” In the rare instances of simpler prose, the concepts become clearer, as in the author’s assertion that impulsive consumption is problematic because purchases “become waste or unnecessary items, turning fitness devices into mere clothes hangers.” Diagrams such as the “Iceberg model of sustainable consumption” and a chart of 50 innovative business strategies aid comprehension of the otherwise dense text. However, the book leans heavily on specialized terminology and layered concepts, as in a section that explores the many forms—and lengthy definitions—of consumption alongside modern movements, such as voluntary simplicity. Also, the book’s emphasis on analyzing the micro (or individual) level of consumption research crowds out deeper analysis of research at the organizational and systemic levels.
A well-researched examination of consumer behavior that risks alienating readers with overly dense prose.Pub Date: June 24, 2025
ISBN: 9781788607001
Page Count: 238
Publisher: Practical Inspiration Publishing
Review Posted Online: June 13, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Cogent, well-timed ideas for meeting today’s biggest challenges.
Helping liberals get out of their own way.
Klein, a New York Times columnist, and Thompson, an Atlantic staffer, lean to the left, but they aren’t interrogating the usual suspects. Aware that many conservatives have no interest in their opinions, the authors target their own side’s “pathologies.” Why do red states greenlight the kind of renewable energy projects that often languish in blue states? Why does liberal California have the nation’s most severe homelessness and housing affordability crises? One big reason: Liberal leadership has ensnared itself in a web of well-intentioned yet often onerous “goals, standards, and rules.” This “procedural kludge,” partially shaped by lawyers who pioneered a “democracy by lawsuit” strategy in the 1960s, threatens to stymie key breakthroughs. Consider the anti-pollution laws passed after World War II. In the decades since, homeowners’ groups in liberal locales have cited such statutes in lawsuits meant to stop new affordable housing. Today, these laws “block the clean energy projects” required to tackle climate change. Nuclear energy is “inarguably safer” than the fossil fuel variety, but because Washington doesn’t always “properly weigh risk,” it almost never builds new reactors. Meanwhile, technologies that may cure disease or slash the carbon footprint of cement production benefit from government support, but too often the grant process “rewards caution and punishes outsider thinking.” The authors call this style of governing “everything-bagel liberalism,” so named because of its many government mandates. Instead, they envision “a politics of abundance” that would remake travel, work, and health. This won’t happen without “changing the processes that make building and inventing so hard.” It’s time, then, to scrutinize everything from municipal zoning regulations to the paperwork requirements for scientists getting federal funding. The authors’ debut as a duo is very smart and eminently useful.
Cogent, well-timed ideas for meeting today’s biggest challenges.Pub Date: March 18, 2025
ISBN: 9781668023488
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Avid Reader Press
Review Posted Online: Jan. 16, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
PERSPECTIVES
A conversational, pleasurable look into McConaughey’s life and thought.
All right, all right, all right: The affable, laconic actor delivers a combination of memoir and self-help book.
“This is an approach book,” writes McConaughey, adding that it contains “philosophies that can be objectively understood, and if you choose, subjectively adopted, by either changing your reality, or changing how you see it. This is a playbook, based on adventures in my life.” Some of those philosophies come in the form of apothegms: “When you can design your own weather, blow in the breeze”; “Simplify, focus, conserve to liberate.” Others come in the form of sometimes rambling stories that never take the shortest route from point A to point B, as when he recounts a dream-spurred, challenging visit to the Malian musician Ali Farka Touré, who offered a significant lesson in how disagreement can be expressed politely and without rancor. Fans of McConaughey will enjoy his memories—which line up squarely with other accounts in Melissa Maerz’s recent oral history, Alright, Alright, Alright—of his debut in Richard Linklater’s Dazed and Confused, to which he contributed not just that signature phrase, but also a kind of too-cool-for-school hipness that dissolves a bit upon realizing that he’s an older guy on the prowl for teenage girls. McConaughey’s prep to settle into the role of Wooderson involved inhabiting the mind of a dude who digs cars, rock ’n’ roll, and “chicks,” and he ran with it, reminding readers that the film originally had only three scripted scenes for his character. The lesson: “Do one thing well, then another. Once, then once more.” It’s clear that the author is a thoughtful man, even an intellectual of sorts, though without the earnestness of Ethan Hawke or James Franco. Though some of the sentiments are greeting card–ish, this book is entertaining and full of good lessons.
A conversational, pleasurable look into McConaughey’s life and thought.Pub Date: Oct. 20, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-593-13913-4
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Oct. 27, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
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