Upsizing: The Road to Zero Emissions: More Jobs, More Income and No Pollution

by Gunter Pauli

Book Overview

This volume presents findings from the research of over 2000 scientists under the banner of ZERI (Zero Emissions Research Initiative). It examines how the adoption of Zero Emissions not only reduces... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1874719187
• ISBN13: 9781874719182
• Release Date: October 1998
• Publisher: Routledge
• Length: 222 Pages
• Weight: 0.75 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 5.4" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

The Best Book I've Read on Sustainable Development

This is a must read for anyone interested in the future of business.

Refreshing and thought-provoking

Pauli has succeeded in doing a rare thing indeed...that of demonstrating how the environment and the economy can complement each other to create synergies! All this in the context of protecting and preserving our environment for current and future generations.The book is well written and supported by solid facts and well-developed case studies. It serves as a guide post for people of all walks of life, including CEOs, entrepreneurs, environmentalist and public servants, who want to act or promote action that will help reduce, even eliminate waste, while stimulating economic development. More importantly, this book gives hope that we can adopt ways of doing business that reduce the negative impacts on our environment.

Breakthrough Ideas

Upsizing seems more a visionary work to me than one to read to find out the environmental consequences of human industrialization (See review below). Pauli presents a vision for an economically viable world where there's ZERO pollution, and offers a number of real-world experiments that seem so far to have worked. However, the path he encourages won't be an easy one -- it requires systematically rethinking what industry is, how it works, and how it fits into our world. Upsizing begins to construct an argument for why we should do this and shows how the rethought world might look. Basically, Pauli is making a case for turning all industrial waste toward productive purposes. Our current processes, for instance, to make paper result in a huge loss of productivity when waste wood products -- which could be turned to other uses -- are burned or disposed of such that they are lost forever. While the ideas in this book are incredibly exciting, the delivery seemed to me a bit rough. While competently presented, as an argument this book seems a little bit disparate and untamed, and its style is a bit flat, if not boring. Still, kudos to Pauli for writing it. His is an exciting vision, and I only hope his projects get the press and consideration they deserve. I'm giving it four stars because of the extraordinary ideas: more people should know about how we can make our waste productive.

Sustainable Development Well-Described

This is an excellent book for anyone who's interested in the environmental consequences of human industrialization and development. I had never heard of the author or his organization (ZERI: Zero Emissions Research Institute), but it's all described in this book, and it's a fascinating proposition.At first I was a little worried that this book would be a little boring, but it's succinct and well-written. You'll think that the proposals are impossible or unattainable, but the author backs them up at the end with real-world implementations that are successful. I recommend this book for the CEO of any manufacturing company. The concepts presented in this book will show you how to expand your product offering, minimize environmental impact, and make more money all at the same time.