The author, Mr. Yoxon, argues that "effective environmental management makes business sense" because of commercial and business pressures to be environmentally effective. He notes that "this practical book has been written for managers who want to cut through the green rhetoric and get to the heart of practial environmental management action that will make sense for their business." The book goes on to focus on what to do, how to do it, and when to do it. As such, the book is fine as far as it goes.

You will get good information on how to do an environmental review of how you are performing now in terms of management processes, ways to identify your best targets of focus, and establish an on-going process in this area: (1) take stock of your situation (2) make business sense out of what you learn (3) make sound environmental management your policy (4) communicate how you are doing and what needs to be done (5) create measurement and reporting systems (6) train for success and (7) put environmental management into your mainstream with specific, measureable, achievable and realistic goals and efforts.

The thrust of the argument is that environmental management can open the doors to new business opportunities. These are described as often falling in the areas of reducing costs, creating greater preference for the products your company makes or services it provides, being more productive, and avoiding expensive law suits and governmental regulation.

I agree with all that, as far as it goes. What the book misses is the opportunity to work with the communities you impact to create better solutions that are mutually beneficial. That's the way that environmental decisions are being made now in the United States and many other jurisdictions. The parties get together and find good solutions. That is often the biggest opportunity of all, and the book doesn't talk about that. I graded the book down one star for that omission.

Increasing environmental sensitivity is an irresistible force. Like all such forces, you would do well to adopt a permanent policy that puts you at a competitive advantage by acting ahead of others to seize important gains. The book also did not address that subject. If you want to know more about that area, you may want to look at our new book, The Irresistible Force Enterprise, that addresses how to use irresistible forces to best advantage, regardless of their direction.

There is a self-check scoring test that you can use to self-assess your current effectiveness that will be helpful to you. That test is worth more than the cost of the book.

Enjoy higher profits, cleaner air, and purer water!

If you want to know something about Sun, pickup a copy.

I found the book to be easy to read, up to date, and pertinent to my practice. I found the images and illustrations to be of the best quality and easy to understand. I strongly recommend this textbook to any surgeon in practice or resident in training.