Summer tips: dive into sustainability with these books, documentaries, and podcasts

Summer is just around the corner and with travel plans in flux, spending some holiday time locally seems to be the reality for many. No matter where you spend your summer, it's always the perfect time to catch up on your reading. We’ve listed some of the latest sustainability books, documentaries, and podcasts for those who want to take some time to dive deeper into the subject. Happy summer learning!

Books to bring wherever you go

Smart Green World? Making digitalization work for sustainability (2020)

It may not come as a surprise that our first tip is about how digitalization can be used to shape a more sustainable world. If you – just like us – geek out about this topic, don’t miss out Lange and Santarious’ newly launched investigation how digitalization influences environmental and social sustainability. Questions about how this can be achieved without sacrificing privacy, how the information revolution can transform consumption and industry patterns, and the on-going fostering consumption of unneeded stuff due to personalized commercials are brought to light.

Overtourism excesses, discontents and measures in travel and tourism (2019)

With travel restrictions still in place, many are deciding to cancel travel plans this year. This calls for a great opportunity to get familiar with and understand the challenges and problems the tourism industry is facing, with hope to better adjust for when people start traveling again. This book covers the overtourism phenomenon – the excessive growth of visitors leading to overcrowding that consequently makes residents suffer. Temporary and often seasonal tourism peaks lead to permanent changes of residents’ lifestyles, amenities, and well-being. This book is a read that is accessible and engaging to many, so anyone of interest can really dig into the subject.

The uninhabitable earth - a story about the future (2019)

In David Wallace-Wells’ detailed description of the consequences of our time’s climate change, it’s hard to not feel its presence. In what the Guardian explains as “an epoch-defining book”, a new kind of exploration of change in every aspect of life is undertaken, such as supply of chocolate and coffee that is likely to dry up, to hundreds of millions on the run due to climate migration. What is the reality of living on a planet with these plumed conditions? And, is there a way to prevent it?

Documentaries for rainy days inside

Anthropocene: The Human Epoch (2018)

For those of you who love striking and breathtaking scenery, this documentary is for you.
This documentary shows the transformation of humans being a part of the whole earth, to dominating it and thus moving the planet outside its natural limits. After nearly ten years of research, the Anthropocene Working Group, an international body of scientists, argue that the Holocene Epoch gave way to the Anthropocene Epoch. With an intersection of art and science, Anthropocene aims to reflect the arguably new reality that is now here.

Closing the Loop (2018)

"Unless we go to Circular it's game over for the planet; it's game over for society.” These are the opening words of the world’s first feature-length documentary film on the circular economy, directed by the global sustainability expert, Dr. Wayne Visser and two-time Telly Award and Emmy Award winner, Graham Ehlers. This documentary highlights the challenges different industries are facing and innovative cases on how to transform the highly accepted yet dangerous take-make-waste linear economy to a borrow-use-return zero-waste economy.

The True Cost (2015)

This documentary lays out the hard facts on fast fashion and its, in many cases, unsustainable supply chain. While exploring several areas of the garments lifecycle, from production and life of low wage workers in developing countries, to after-effects such as river and soil pollution, pesticide contamination and severe diseases. The True Cost pulls back the curtain on the untold story and asks us to consider, who really pays the price for our clothing?

Sustainability through your headphones

Greenbiz 350

Greenbiz 350 is a weekly updated podcast which takes up and explores everything that is headlining in sustainable news. The two hosts - Joel Makower and Heather Clancy - are both titans in the field of sustainability and have a refreshingly optimistic yet fact-based approach to their topics, inspiring hope with every released episode.

SustainAbility in Supply Chain

Supply chains are a complex and broad matter, and SustainAbility in Supply Chain covers all aspects of this area – challenges, best practices and ideas. The 30-minute episodes are filled with guests that share their stories and feature a diverse mix of innovative pioneers, change makers, young leaders, social workers, academicians, and industry thought-leaders.

Greta Thunberg in Summer in P1

We can’t make a list without including Greta Thunberg’s summertalk in the Swedish radio-show Summer in P1. The climate activist was given over one hour to talk about anything she wanted, and instead of focusing on herself, she decided to highlight the obvious example of climate changes she's witnessed with her own eyes. With over one million listeners – which is an all time record for the radio-show – this episode combines the telling of her extraordinary life story with the hard facts of climate change that got the whole world to stop to listen.