Vogue Business’s sustainable summer reading list

This article is part of our Vogue Business membership package. To enjoy unlimited access to our weekly Sustainability Edit, which contains Member-only reporting and analysis, sign up for membership here. For the past couple of summers, Vogue Business has solicited book recommendations from some of the most prominent names and boldest thinkers working to make fashion more sustainable. This year, we’ve curated a list ourselves — a selection of books that, for the most part, have nothing to do with fashion, but have everything to do with how we need to be thinking about the planet and our relationship to it. Maybe one of the books here will enhance your appreciation for woodlands, during a late summer hike, or offer inspiration for your brand’s next biodiversity strategy meeting; maybe one will spark a new way of thinking about business entirely. Whatever the outcome or whatever mood you’re in, hopefully there’s something on this list for you. Climate solutions and the energy transition Saving Us: A Climate Scientist’s Case for Hope and Healing in a Divided World by Katharine Hayhoe Hayhoe is a world-renowned climate scientist — but the brilliance of this book, according to Gaurab Basu, director of education and policy at Harvard University’s Centre for Climate, Health and the Global Environment, “lies in how Hayhoe brings us to the realisation that tackling climate change is about healing our relationship with our planet and with one another.” Possible: Ways to Net Zero by Chris Goodall A book about the challenges we must overcome for a just transition and the technologies available to address them. To quote the Financial Times: “We know how to make greener electricity and therefore cleaner cars. But it’s harder to cut emissions from aircraft, shipping, cement-making and other sectors that are tougher to electrify. Harder, but still possible.” Food is Climate: A Response to Al Gore, Bill Gates, Paul Hawken, and the Conventional Narrative on Climate Change by Glen Merzer A reminder that while there are roles for technology to play, climate and our other environmental crises aren’t actually technological problems. They boil down to lifestyle choices and our relationship with the planet. For fashion, there’s also the connection between the food system and leather — luxury’s favourite material, but which is associated with deforestation and a major source of global greenhouse gas emissions. Fashion brands and designers say that leather is a byproduct of the meat industry and would therefore be wasteful not to use; critics argue it is part of the financial model that makes the current meat industry work. Merzer’s book explains the inextricable link between that industry, and food production systems generally, and the climate crisis. Economics and the planet Slow Down by Kohei Saito This book adds another voice to the call for degrowth and deceleration — a concept increasingly part of the mainstream conversation, but also increasingly polarising for people who say it’s unrealistic, and ultimately, a distraction from finding solutions that have a greater chance of taking hold. Saito may have straddled these conflicting viewpoints: “Degrowth is often illustrated in terms of individual (consumer) action, which green growthers like to seize upon,” the New Yorker writes in a review of the book. Saito argues that individual choices are important, but that there are also larger questions at hand. If we chose to measure success differently, what would be possible? It echoes questions that other advocates, scholars and even business leaders are increasingly challenging the world to grapple with. The Price is Wrong: Why Capitalism Won’t Save the Planet by Brett Christophers A different take on the relationship between economic models and climate change. Brett Christophers argues that it is a lack of economic incentives that makes the energy transition so hard — not so much the expense. “Today’s consensus is that the key to curbing climate change is to produce green electricity and electrify everything possible. The main economic barrier in that project has seemingly been removed. But while prices of solar and wind power have tumbled, the golden era of renewables has yet to materialise,” writes the publisher. “We cannot expect markets and the private sector to solve the climate crisis while the profits that are their lifeblood remain unappetising.” The solution? “Take energy out of the private sector’s hands.” Pricing the Priceless: The Financial Transformation to Value the Planet, Solve the Climate Crisis, and Protect Our Most Precious Assets by Paula DiPerna Environmental strategist DiPerna takes on questions that many have raised for years: is it possible to put a price on nature, and how did we come to value production of material goods — many of which we don’t need — in the trillions of dollars, yet there’s zero economic value assigned to the atmosphere and ecosystems we depend on for literal survival? But she also furthers these questions, to explore experimental bonds and markets aimed at valuing ecosystems, for example, and how an intergenerational shift in wealth is redefining investment trends along with the very idea of what constitutes wealth and return, and more. Coexisting with nature The Weight of Nature: How a Changing Climate Changes Our Brains by Clayton Page Aldern Climate change is altering the planet. But it is also altering us as a species. Aldern details how hotter temperatures increase the chance of impulsive violence, and make it harder to think clearly and problem-solve. It’s not a read about climate anxiety, as important of a problem that is — it’s about how a changing environment directly impacts our brains and behaviours. Tenacious Beasts by Christopher J Preston This book, as its subtitle explains, is about wildlife recoveries that change how we think about animals. Despite the consistently grim news about wildlife and biodiversity declines globally, the author finds positive stories to tell about some species that are reclaiming the roles they are meant to play in their ecosystems. The book strives to offer a philosophical shift in how humans think about animals — and a road map for how people can learn (again) to coexist with wildlife and nature. Slow Burn: The Hidden Costs of a Warming World by Robert Jisung Park Climate change is a “slow and unequal burn”, according to Jisung Park, who dedicates this book to understanding how climate change interacts with social and economic institutions — and to argue for targeted and place-based interventions. Without them, he cautions, climate change won’t just highlight global inequality, it will exacerbate it. From the archives, but still very relevant Capital and Imperialism: Theory, History, and the Present by Utsa Patnaik and Prabhat Patnaik In a zoomed-out analysis of mainstream economics, political economists Utsa and Prabhat Patnaik argue that the accumulation of capital has long depended on resource extraction, whether it’s land, raw materials or human well-being itself. The authors argue that a protracted crisis of the modern economy is inevitable and they outline a set of ideas that are, says fellow author Samir Amin, “central to understanding the construction of the unequal global system in the past and in the present”. Stitched Up: The Anti-Capitalist Book of Fashion by Tansy E Hoskins Why does size zero exist, and what is the reality of working life for models? Can you shock an industry that loves to shock, and how much of a solution is ‘green fashion’? Hoskins’s classic “provides a unique critical examination of contemporary culture and the distorting priorities of capitalism”. It’s a critique of the portrayal of race in fashion, a book that examines the global balance of power in the industry and fashion’s vampiric relationship with the planet and with our bodies to uncover what makes it so damaging. Sign up to receive the Vogue Business newsletter for the latest luxury news and insights, plus exclusive membership discounts. Comments, questions or feedback? Email us at feedback@voguebusiness.com.

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