Michael Lenox is the Tayloe Murphy Professor of Business Administration at the University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business. He is the coauthor of “Can Business Save the Earth? Innovating Our Way to Sustainability” and “The Strategist’s Toolkit.” Rebecca Duff is Senior Research Associate with the Batten Institute at the University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business. She also serves as the managing director for Darden’s Business Innovation and Climate Change Initiative. They are co-authors of the new book “The Decarbonization Imperative: Transforming the Global Economy by 2050,” where they offer readers ways to effectively “decarbonize” the global economy by 2050 if we are going to avoid the worst effects of climate change.

“The Decarbonization Imperative” begins with the Preface where the authors state that the objective of the book is to examine what needs to be done to lessen the worst impacts of climate change by radically reducing our carbon footprint. One way to accomplish this is by requiring innovations across a wide number of industrial sectors that will result in cleaner industries that do not emit greenhouse gases. The main challenge lies in radically reducing net greenhouse gas emissions to zero by 2050. They analyze emerging clean technologies in five major sectors: energy, transportation, industrials, buildings, and agriculture and end by providing technology policy to get the world to this goal. The process of achieving this goal is referred to as “decarbonization.” This book is divided into chapters that individually examine each sector and what can be done to pave the way to cleaner industries. These chapters are The Path to 2050, The Energy Sector, The Transportation Sector, The Industrials Sector, The Buildings Sector, The Agriculture Sector, and The Path Forward. The Notes section at the end has notes on each individual chapter.

Over the years, climate change has become a deeper subject of conversation as we see each summer get hotter than the last. Michael Lenox and Rebecca Duff do not waste time trying to convince readers about the validity of climate change and only briefly address it in the section ‘The Looming Crisis’ in Chapter 1: “Since the beginning of the industrial age, human activity-in particular, the burning of fossil fuels-has increased the concentration of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.” According to them, climate change is “a malignant force that will reshape our economy and society for generations to come.” With this said, the rest of the book is concentrated on finding ways to achieve the all-elusive and radical decarbonization necessary to make a difference. Highlights include Chapter 7 The Path Forward where it states that we need all hands on board to get this done and Figure 7.3 Summary of Sector-Based Technology Policy which summarizes how each industry can make a difference. The subject matter can get complicated and the language is more advanced than usual, but Lenox and Duff manage to make it accessible to the average reader. With extensive research and knowledge of the environment and the various sectors, they provide possible solutions to what is rapidly become a major issue. “The Decarbonization Imperative” is a must-read for readers who are genuinely concerned about climate change as well as heads of industry who understand that changes must be implemented but are unsure where to start.

*The author received a copy of this book for an honest review. The views and opinions expressed here belong solely to her.