It can be rightly said that we live in a transformational era.

There is now a broad consensus that the new economy that will emerge from the current cycle of “creative destruction” will have to be green. Green business, green tech, green jobs ... the list goes on. As our nation begins to truly support the growth of renewable energy and environmentally friendly policies and practices, sustainable businesses will be the order of the day.

The recognition of the challenge of global climate change, an ominous impending energy crisis, and a fundamental reformation of the prevailing economic worldview guarantee that things will definitely be different in the twenty-first century.

In the context of all this, the meteoric rise of green business will continue unabated. Every week, I talk to business executives, students, trade unionists, entrepreneurs, people I meet in the grocery store, investors, government office holders, even shoe shiners and bus boys in restaurants—all speak of the need to transform our habits of consumption, business practices, and our culture as a whole. The world is beginning to understand that the status quo can no longer be the status quo.

Fortunately, there is a rather elegant solution to our problems: green business. Many have been preaching the benefits of green business for years, and now corporations and businesses of all kinds have begun to recognize the inextricable links between preserving our shared assets like the air, water, weather, and wildlife, a healthy economy and society, and profitability. Business can be a serious engine of change for the earth, for profitability, and for sustainable growth.

Green business is not a marketing slogan. It is a proactive embrace of a holistic worldview that integrates sound business practices with values that promote the regeneration and sustainability of the health and vitality of all life on the planet.

The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Greening Your Business is a timely and valuable resource to impel the transformations demanded by our age. It provides a comprehensive guide to best practices you can put into place today to propel your business into tomorrow’s paradigm. Get your business ahead of the curve. If you want to build a sustainable business and make profits while protecting the planet and caring for its people, this is the book for you.

One day the concepts illustrated in this book will be conventional wisdom, but in the meantime, the path to this new wisdom will be long and complicated, and we’ll all need guidance and help in forging the best road into the future. You will experiment, succeed, fail, and learn. But if you want to get started, if you want to absorb tomorrow’s wisdom today, and you want to begin building your business on a sound foundation that will withstand the tests of time, read this book.