15 MUST Read Books with Environmental Focus
Updated: Sep 13, 2022
Want to learn more about climate change, sustainability, environment or want to know more about how to become environmentally conscious or get involved in environmental citizenship? Or do you love reading and want to immerse yourself in a book where you can also expand your horizons on how to take real actions to support our environment in day-to-day life? Look no further! In this article, the No Waste Space Team are sharing some of our favourite environment and sustainability focus books about all those things plus more, that are really worth reading.
We hope that you will find something that would interest you from this list.
Happy reading!
Gabby
The No Waste Space Team x
Topics:
Climate Change
There Is No Planet B by Mike Berners-Lee
Originally Published in 2019, Revised edition in 2021
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
336 pages
Available as an e-book and paperback
Recommendation:
This book gives simple and condensed, yet very well-researched answers to the most important questions about our environment, climate change and our Earth. Excellent if you want bite-size chunks of information, statistics and facts together in one place. Clear, concise and to the point writing with a strong call to action. Definitely recommend this book if you want an easy introductory read to this topic that is not a heavy, dry or academic read.
Book Blurb:
‘’Feeding the world, climate change, biodiversity, antibiotics, plastics, pandemics - the list of concerns seems endless. But what is most pressing, and what should we do first? Do we all need to become vegetarian? How can we fly in a low-carbon world? How can we take control of technology? And, given the global nature of the challenges we now face, what on Earth can any of us do, as individuals?
Mike Berners-Lee has crunched the numbers and plotted a course of action that is full of hope, practical, and enjoyable. This is the big-picture perspective on the environmental and economic challenges of our day, laid out in one place, and traced through to the underlying roots - questions of how we live and think’’.
How to Avoid Climate Disaster: The Solutions We Have and the Breakthroughs We Need by Bill Gates
Published in 2021
Publisher: Allen Lane
272 pages
Available as an e-book, audiobook, hardcover and paperback
Recommendation:
A very clear, concise and easy-to-read book about Climate Change and what tools we as a society currently have to tackle it. An excellent introduction to Climate Change for those who aren’t familiar with it. This book breaks Climate Change into very simple chunks, providing readers with current issues associated with Climate Change, the evidence we have about it and the ways in which we can use tools to tackle it. Also, this book is filled with graphs and charts that help visualise the points which author is making, as well as allow us to visually interpret the evidence presented in the text. Written in strong but simple language and displays the importance of taking action now before it is too late. Recommend if you want an easy and concise, yet full of starts and facts introduction to Climate Chance and tools to tackle it.
Book Blurb:
‘’Bill Gates has spent a decade investigating the causes and effects of climate change. With the help of experts in the fields of physics, chemistry, biology, engineering, political science, and finance, he has focused on what must be done in order to stop the planet's slide toward certain environmental disaster. In this book, he not only explains why we need to work toward net-zero emissions of greenhouse gases, but also details what we need to do to achieve this profoundly important goal. He gives us a clear-eyed description of the challenges we face. Drawing on his understanding of innovation and what it takes to get new ideas into the market, he describes the areas in which technology is already helping to reduce emissions, where and how the current technology can be made to function more effectively, where breakthrough technologies are needed, and who is working on these essential innovations. Finally, he lays out a concrete, practical plan for achieving the goal of zero emissions-suggesting not only policies that governments should adopt, but what we as individuals can do to keep our government, our employers, and ourselves accountable in this crucial enterprise. As Bill Gates makes clear, achieving zero emissions will not be simple or easy to do, but if we follow the plan, he sets out here, it is a goal firmly within our reach’’.
Hothouse Earth: An Inhabitant’s Guide by Bill McGuire
Published in 2022
Publisher: Icon Books
192 pages
Available as an e-book and paperback
Recommendation:
A book that perfectly explains all the impacts that Climate Change and Global Warming are having on both, our society and the environment. This book looks at what is happening now but also paints a picture of the future, especially the uncertainty surrounding the impacts of changing climate in the very near future. A short but very thoroughly researched book that also offers insight into how effective or not are the actions that we are currently taking to tackle climate change. Very clearly and accessible writing, with a very important message. Perfect for those who want to know what is happening now without Climate and what is likely to happen in the future.
Book Blurb: ‘’Hothouse Earth: An Inhabitant's Guide provides a post-COP26 perspective on the climate emergency, acknowledging that it is now practically impossible to keep this side of the 1.5°C dangerous climate change guardrail. The upshot is that we can no longer dodge the arrival of disastrous, all-pervasive, climate breakdown that will come as a hammer blow to global society and economy. Bill McGuire, Professor of Geophysical and Climate Hazards, explains the science behind the climate crisis and for the first time presents a blunt but authentic picture of the sort of world our children will grow old in, and our grandchildren grow up in; a world that we catch only glimpses of in today's blistering heatwaves, calamitous wildfires and ruinous floods and droughts. Bleak though it is, the picture is one we must all face up to, if only to spur genuine action - even at this late stage - to stop a harrowing future becoming a truly cataclysmic one’’.
How to Talk about Climate Change in a Way That Makes Difference by Rebecca Huntley
Published in 2021
Publisher: Murdoch Books
296 pages
Available as an e-book, audiobook and paperback
Recommendation:
Brilliant and engaging book with clear and concise writing that keeps you wanting to read this book until the end. Full of personal stories of climate activists, scientists, believers and deniers, the author explores ways in which we can talk about and discuss Climate Change more openly and include a variety of our emotions in those conversations. A perfect book to open a Climate Change conversation, as it shows how to talk about it, how to approach the subject and how to understand others’ opinions and anxieties about it. This book clearly shows that the feelings of communities, individuals and society matters so much when it comes to talking about Climate Change.
Book Blurb:
‘’Why is it so hard to talk about the future of our Earth? Rebecca Huntley's book explores why the key to progress on climate change is in the psychology of human attitudes and our ability to change.
While scientists double down on the shocking figures, we still find ourselves unable to discuss climate change meaningfully among friends and neighbours - or even to grapple with it ourselves.
The key to progress on climate change is in the psychology of human attitudes and our ability to change. Whether you're already alarmed and engaged with the issue, concerned but disengaged, a passive skeptic or an active denier, understanding our emotional reactions to climate change - why it makes us anxious, fearful, angry or detached - is critical to coping on an individual level and convincing each other to act.
This book is about understanding why people who aren't like you feel the way they do and learning to talk to them effectively. What we need are thousands - millions - of everyday conversations about the climate to enlarge the ranks of the concerned, engage the disengaged and persuade the cautious of the need for action’’.
Environmental Leadership and Citizenship
The Intersectional Environmentalist by Lean Thomas
Published in 2022
Publisher: Souvenir Press
256 pages
Available as an e-book, hardcover and paperback
Recommendation:
This book also is a great and clear introduction to intersectionality and its application in environmental studies and sectors. If you are interested in the history of environmental activism, justice, ecofeminism, and race struggles across the environmental movements, then this book is definitely your next perfect read.
Book Blurb:
‘’Leah Thomas coined the term 'intersectional environmentalism' to describe the inextricable link between climate change, activism, racism and privilege. The fight for the planet should go hand in hand with the fight for civil rights. In fact, one cannot exist without the other.
This book is a call to action, a guide to instigating change for all and a pledge to work toward the empowerment of all people and the betterment of the planet - an indispensable primer for activists looking to create meaningful, inclusive and sustainable change. Driven by Leah's expert voice and complemented by the words of young activists from around the globe, it is essential reading on the issue - and the movement - that will define a generation’’.
This is not a Drill - Extinction Rebellion Handbook
Publisher in 2019
Publisher: Penguin Books
208 pages
Available as an e-book, audiobook and paperback
Recommendation:
A book all about the Extinction Rebellion, including their reasoning for environmental activism, the rise of this movement, as well as the reasons why this movement exists the way it is. Definitely recommend this book for those who are interested in environmental activism and leadership and if you are interested to learn more about one of the biggest environmental activism groups of our age.
Book Blurb:
‘’Extinction Rebellion are inspiring a whole generation to take action on climate breakdown. Now you can become part of the movement - and together, we can make history. It's time. This is our last chance to do anything about the global climate and ecological emergency. Our last chance to save the world as we know it. Now or never, we need to be radical. We need to rise up. And we need to rebel. Extinction Rebellion is a global activist movement of ordinary people, demanding action from Governments. This is a book of truth and action. It has facts to arm you, stories to empower you, pages to fill in and pages to rip out, alongside instructions on how to rebel - from organising a roadblock to facing arrest. By the time you finish this book you will have become an Extinction Rebellion activist. Act now before it's too late’’.
Waste
Garbology: Our Dirty Love Affair with Trash by Edward Humes
Published 2012
Publisher: Avery Pub Group
277 pages
Available as a hardcover and paperback
Recommendation:
An excellent eye-opener on how much waste we as communities and as a society generate every day. This book explores more than that. It clearly displays where our rubbish ends up and how it affects our environment and our communities across the world. This book has a very strong message that will make you rethink your actions when it comes to waste. The author not only provides solid evidence all throughout this book but also offers some shocking real stories about waste from the USA. Really recommend if you are interested in where our waste goes when it leaves our bins but also if you don’t mind quite slow yet full of facts, evidence and stories book about this topic.
Book Blurb:
‘’Take a journey inside the secret world of our biggest export, our most prodigious product, and our greatest legacy: our trash. It’s the biggest thing we make: The average American is on track to produce a whopping 102 tons of garbage across a lifetime, $50 billion in squandered riches rolled to the curb each year, more than that produced by any other people in the world. But that trash doesn’t just magically disappear; our bins are merely the starting point for a strange, impressive, mysterious, and costly journey that may also represent the greatest untapped opportunity of the century.
In Garbology, Pulitzer Prize winning author Edward Humes investigates the trail of that 102 tons of trash and what’s in it; how much we pay for it; how we manage to create so much of it; and how some families, communities, and even nations are finding a way back from waste to discover a new kind of prosperity. Along the way, he introduces a collection of garbage denizens unlike anyone you’ve ever met: the trash-tracking detectives of MIT, the bulldozer-driving sanitation workers building Los Angeles, immense Garbage Mountain landfill, the artists in residence at San Francisco’s dump, and the family whose annual trash output fills not a dumpster or a trash can, but a single mason jar.
Garbology digs through our epic piles of trash to reveal not just what we throw away, but who we are and where our society is headed. Are we destined to remain the country whose number-one export is scrap? America as China’s trash compactor or will the country that invented the disposable economy pioneer a new and less wasteful path? The real secret at the heart of Garbology may well be the potential for a happy ending buried in our landfill. Waste, Humes writes, is the one environmental and economic harm that ordinary working Americans have the power to change and prosper in the process’’.
Waste: Uncovering the Global Food Scandal by Tristram Stuart
Published in 2009
Publisher: Penguin Books
480 pages
Available as an e-book, paperback and hardback
Recommendation:
This book mainly concentrates on exploring where our food waste goes when it leaves our household but also this book doesn’t shy away from dipping into waste all along our food chain too. The author also explores abuses when it comes to recycling initiatives in some countries in the world. This book offers loads of brilliant statistics, evidence and solutions, but it is mainly concentrated on problems with food waste in the UK. Great book if you looking for ways in which you can make changes in your day-to-day life to tackle food waste.
Book Blurb:
‘’With shortages, volatile prices and nearly one billion people hungry, the world has a food problem – or thinks it does. Farmers, manufacturers, supermarkets and consumers in North America and Europe discard up to half of their food– enough to feed all the world’s hungry at least three times over. Forests are destroyed and nearly one tenth of the West’s greenhouse gas emissions are released growing food that will never be eaten. While affluent nations throw away food through neglect, in the developing world crops rot because farmers lack the means to process, store and transport them to market. But there could be surprisingly painless remedies for what has become one of the world’s most pressing environmental and social problems. Travelling from Yorkshire to China, from Pakistan to Japan, and introducing us to foraging pigs, potato farmers, freegans and food industry directors, Stuart encounters grotesque examples of profligacy, but also inspiring innovations and ways of making the most of what we have. Combining front-line investigation with startling new data, Waste shows how the way we live now has created a global food crisis– and what we can do to fix it’’.
Production and Consumption
The Story of Stuff: How Our Obsession With Stuff Is Trashing the Planet, Our Communities, and Our Health-And a Vision for Change by Annie Leonard
Published in 2010
Publisher: Free Pr
317 pages
Available in paperback and hardcover
Recommendation:
Although this book was published back in 2010, most of it is still very relevant in today’s society. Most of the linear production steps that Leonard is untangling in this book are still happening in the USA and even more now in newly emerging economies. Written in a very accessible and clear way, this book breaks down the different steps in our linear economy, production and consumption in very easily understandable concepts. This book is perfect for someone who wants to know more about ins and outs of the linear economy, production and consumption but doesn’t want an information overload.
Book Blurb:
’’A classic exposé in company with An Inconvenient Truth and Silent Spring, The Story of Stuff expands on the celebrated documentary exploring the threat of overconsumption on the environment, economy, and our health. Leonard examines the “stuff” we use everyday, offering a galvanizing critique and steps for a changed planet.
From sneaking into factories and dumps around the world to visiting textile workers in Haiti and children mining coltan for cell phones in the Congo, Leonard, named one of Time magazine’s 100 environmental heroes of 2009, highlights each step of the materials economy and its actual effect on the earth and the people who live near sites like these’’.
How Bad Are Bananas? By Mike Berners-Lee
Originally published in 2010
Revised edition published in 2020
Publisher: Profile Books
304 pages
Available as an e-book or paperback
Recommendation:
Want to know more about our food miles and our individual carbon footprint or carbon footprint of things you buy or use every day? Look no further. This book presents data on our everyday activities, showing us our Carbon Footprint in a very clear and understandable way. The writing is also very entertaining and not doom and gloom but makes you think about the everyday choices you make long after you put this book away. Perfect for those who want to know more about food miles, carbon footprint and what environmental impact our day-to-day activities or products that we consume and purchase have.
Book Blurb:
‘’From a text message to a war, from a Valentine's rose to a flight or even having a child, How Bad are Bananas? gives us the carbon answers we need and provides plenty of revelations. By talking through a hundred or so items, Mike Berners-Lee sets out to give us a carbon instinct for the footprint of literally anything we do, buy and think about. He helps us pick our battles by laying out the orders of magnitude. The book ranges from the everyday (foods, books, plastic bags, bikes, flights, baths...) and the global (deforestation, data centres, rice production, the World Cup, volcanoes, ...) Be warned, some of the things you thought you knew about green living may be about to be turned on their head. Never preachy but packed full of information and always entertaining’’.
Costing the Earth by Eric Archambeau
Published 2022
Published: Whitefox Publishing Ltd
208 pages
Available in paperback and e-book
Recommendation:
This book argues that we should see our environmental challenges and our economy in a more holistic way and that we need to be aware of how they all link and affect each other. In this book Archambeau also presents solutions to our climate and environmental issues, especially displaying the innovative ideas that new start-ups and technology companies are working towards. The author doesn’t shy in exploring how technology and machine learning can also help us tackle these issues. Must read if you are interested in learning how our economy, finances, and businesses interconnect with environmental degradation, climate change and sustainability.
Book Blurb:
‘’In Costing the Earth, leading impact investor Eric Archambeau argues that rather than making media-friendly pledges and grasping low-hanging fruit (such as aviation taxes), world leaders must radically overhaul finance instead.
Only by aligning investment decisions with the UN’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals, and ensuring that industrial and services companies measure and incorporate in their P&L statements the full environmental and social costs of their operations – costs that are currently passed on to taxpayers or absorbed by Nature – will we stand a chance of achieving the breakthroughs we need.
Zeroing in on the agri-food sector, one of the largest contributors to global greenhouse gas emissions, water consumption and biodiversity loss, Archambeau dissects the many hidden problems caused by our current financial system.
As the stakes continue to rise and the window for action narrows, Costing the Earth makes the case that the only viable and sustainable way to achieve net-zero is to adopt the model pioneered by impact investors, which takes the three Ps – profit, people and the planet – into account when valuing a company or tracking its performance. Only then will business leaders all over the world be incentivised to place sustainability and the regeneration of the planet’s resources at the heart of their operations and decision-making’’.
Consumed by Aja Barber
Published 2021
Publisher: Brazen, Octopus Publishing Group
304 pages
Available as an e-book, hardcover, paperback and audiobook
Recommendation:
This book explores all the wrongs of the current state of our fast fashion industry. Engaging in writing about harmful practices of our everyday consumerism, fast fashion and economy, not only to our environment but to our communities and people. Barber also links our current state of the fashion industry to the history of the textile industry in the past, especially colonialism and its injustices. Worth reading if you are interested in how our current easy access to cheap products, influencers and social media advertising traps us in the constant loop of never-ending consumerism. Excellent book if you want a great and short, yet informative introduction to these topics all in one place.
Book Blurb:
‘’Aja Barber wants change.
In the 'learning' first half of the book, she will expose you to the endemic injustices in our consumer industries and the uncomfortable history of the textile industry; one which brokered slavery, racism and today's wealth inequality. And how these oppressive systems have bled into the fashion industry and its lack of diversity and equality. She will also reveal how we spend our money and whose pockets it goes into and whose it doesn't (clue: the people who do the actual work) and will tell her story of how she came to learn the truth.
In the second 'unlearning' half of the book, she will help you to understand the uncomfortable truth behind why you consume the way you do. She asks you to confront the sense of lack you have, the feeling that you are never quite enough and the reasons why you fill the aching void with consumption rather than compassion. And she makes you challenge this power disparity and take back ownership of it. The less you buy into the consumer culture the more power you have.
Consumed will teach you how to be a citizen not a consumer’’.
Fashionopolis by Dana Thomas
Newest 8th Edition Published in 2020
Publisher: Head of Zeus
368 pages
Available as an e-book, paperback, hardback and audiobook
Recommendation:
Very comprehensive and well-written book about the production side of our linear economy. It displays in-depth research, evidence and stories from all different sides of the fashion and textile industries. Also, Thomas looks at the history of fashion in very accessible and interesting ways linking it to our current ways of production and consumption. Really worth reading if you are interested in the fashion industry and the real economic, environmental and social costs of fashion.
Book Blurb:
‘’Fashionopolis is the definitive book on the cost of fast fashion, and a blueprint for how we get to a more sustainable future
Fashion has blighted our planet. Today, one out of six people on earth work in fashion, churning out 100 billion garments a year. Yet 98 percent of them do not earn a living wage, and 2.1 billion tonnes of clothing is thrown away annually. The clothing industry's exploitation of fellow humans and the environment has reached epic levels. What should we do?
Bestselling author and veteran journalist Dana Thomas has travelled the globe to find the answers. In Fashionopolis, she details the damage wrought by fashion's behemoths, and celebrates the visionaries - including activists, artisans, designers, and tech entrepreneurs - fighting for change.
We all have been casual about our clothes. It's time to get dressed with intention. Fashionopolis is the first comprehensive look at how to start’’.
Plastics
How To Give Up Plastic by Will McCallum
Published 2019
Publisher: Penguin Books
224 pages
Available as audiobook and paperback
Recommendation:
This book explores the devastating impacts that plastic is having not only on our land environment but how it is also affecting our marine environment and even humans. McCallum presents clear and shocking examples of how our overdependency on plastic is destroying our lives and our environment. He also presents a lot of brilliant and well-researched ideas on how we can tackle the plastic issue. Brilliant read if you want to know more about the impact of plastic and if you want to get some practical ideas on how we can tackle plastics and remove them from our day-to-day life. Also, clear and easy to read if you want to gain more information on your own plastic footprint and its legacy.
Book Blurb:
’’An accessible guide to the changes we can all make—small and large—to rid our lives of disposable plastic and clean up the world’s oceans
How to Give Up Plastic is a straightforward guide to eliminating plastic from your life. Going room by room through your home and workplace, Greenpeace activist Will McCallum teaches you how to spot disposable plastic items and find plastic-free, sustainable alternatives to each one. From carrying a reusable straw, to catching microfibers when you wash your clothes, to throwing plastic-free parties, you’ll learn new and intuitive ways to reduce plastic waste. And by arming you with a wealth of facts about global plastic consumption and anecdotes from activists fighting plastic around the world, you’ll also learn how to advocate to businesses and leaders in your community and across the country to commit to eliminating disposable plastics for good.
It takes 450 years for a plastic bottle to fully biodegrade, and there are around 12.7 million tons of plastic entering the ocean each year. At our current pace, in the year 2050 there could be more plastic in the oceans than fish, by weight. These are alarming figures, but plastic pollution is an environmental crisis with a solution we can all contribute to’’.
Turning the Tide on Plastic: How Humanity (And You) Can Make Our Globe Clean Again by Lucy Siegle
Published in 2018
Publisher: Trapeze
272 pages
Available as an e-book, paperback, hardback and audiobook
Recommendation:
Another book shows us the dramatic effects that plastic has on our environment and society. However, this book is more UK based, yet still includes a wealth of information and tips on how to reduce plastic consumption and waste in your day-to-day life. Also, includes loads of websites pointing the reader to do more independent and further research. Again, brilliant book if you want to learn more about the impacts of plastic and ways to reduce it, especially if you live in the UK. Also, amazing read if you want to be directed to very valuable resources for further learning about this topic.
Book Blurb:
‘’Without big action, at the current rate, pieces of plastic will outnumber fish in the ocean by 2050. That is the legacy we are leaving our children and grandchildren.
Plastic flows into our lives from every direction and most of it is not recycled. Instead it is incinerated or ends up in landfill, where it will sit for hundreds of years, or enters the world's seas where it fragments into tiny pieces to become microplastics - the environmental scourge of our times.
Many of us had assumed that governments, brands and waste authorities were dealing with plastic on our behalf. But the impact of shows such as Blue Planet along with national beach cleans and high-profile campaigns have resulted in a collective wake-up call. If there were plans and strategies, they have not worked as we imagined. It would be easy to feel despondent but instead we need to turn our anger and emotion into action, starting by making a big dent in our own enormous consumption.
Turning the tide on Plastic is here just in time. Journalist, broadcaster and eco lifestyle expert Lucy Siegle provides a powerful call to arms to end the plastic pandemic along with the tools we need to make decisive change. It is a clear-eyed, authoritative and accessible guide to help us to take decisive and effective personal action.
Because this matters. When it comes to single-use plastics, we are habitual users, reaching out for plastic water bottles, disposable coffee cups, plastic straws and carrier bags multiple times a day. If only 12 of us adopt Lucy's 'reduce, rethink, refill, refuse' approach, we could potentially ditch 3K-15K single items of plastic in a year. When we consider our power as influencers - whether at school, the hairdressers, at work or on the bus - we suddenly become part of something significant.
So now is the time to speak up, take action and demand the change you want to see in the ocean, in the supermarket aisles and on the streets. It's time to turn the tide on plastic, and this book will show you how’’.
Notes:
All the information is correct at the time of publishing this article.
Recommendations of these books are personal opinions and views of the author of this article.
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