One of the books that I read this summer and enjoyed immensely was Let My People Go Surfing: The Education of a Reluctant Businessman, by Patagonia’s founder Yvon Chouinard. The first half of the book is a fascinating personal history, with the second half devoted to exploring the business philosophies of Chouinard and Patagonia.

As an environmentalist, I am pulling for the growth of this movement. For every person who chooses to borrow or rent a tool, that’s one fewer tool that has to be built. For every person who chooses to buy clothing on the second-hand market, that’s one fewer garment that has to be created.

I’ve fallen out of the habit of reading in the summer, but fortunately, I was able to restart the habit this year. It was a good summer with some great books, and I’ll share a few over the next several posts.

US businesses have the lowest trust scores of all OECD countries being tracked, other than those headquartered in Mexico.

Ah, the power of certifications. None of us has the time to research every last aspect of all of the products in our lives, so certifications let us be reasonably conscious consumers despite our time crunch.

History is littered with examples of corporations that have harmed the environment in the name of earning a profit. Wouldn’t it be nice if a corporation could simultaneously seek a profit while balancing that goal with environmental and social concerns?

Projections have our oceans containing more plastic than fish, by weight, by the year 2050. A ridiculous amount of the plastic pollution I wrote about last week ends up in our oceans, where it gets caught up in massive swirling ocean currents called gyres.

So what is the balance point between the good that plastic does and the bad? Honestly, I don’t know. But the more educated we can be about plastics, the better.