DURHAM, N.C. – As the pace of ecological, economic and social change quickens worldwide and new challenges emerge, it’s time for governments, corporations, nonprofits and communities to re-think environmental leadership.

That’s the takeaway of a timely new book, Innovation in Environmental Leadership, edited by Deborah Rigling Gallagher, associate professor of the practice of resource and environmental policy at Duke University’s Nicholas School of the Environment.

The 246-page book, available this month from Routledge, offers thought-provoking case studies and scholarly analysis written by leading scholars and practitioners from around the globe and informed by a variety of emerging perspectives, including post-heroic approaches, systems thinking and critical leadership studies.

Chapter topics include: “The Seven Unsustainabilities of Mainstream Leadership,” “The Eco-Leadership Paradox,” “The Unseen Revolution: Leadership in Sustainability in the Tropical Biosphere,” “Climate Change Leadership: From Tragic to Comic Discourse,” and “Heroes No More: Businesses Practice Collaborative Leadership to Confront Climate Change.”  

Because Innovation in Environmental Leadership offers insights into both theory and practice, it is well suited to use by researchers, educators, practitioners and advanced students in the fields of sustainability, environmental ethics, natural resource management, environmental studies, business management, public policy and environmental management.

Gallagher is widely cited for her scholarship and research on public policies to promote environmentally sustainable business practices and public/private partnerships for environmental policy implementation. She has critically examined the United Nations Global Compact (UNGC) as an international environmental governance mechanism to promote business sustainability and promote corporate engagement in climate policy, and is currently working with the UNGC to evaluate leadership behaviors that would advance its global Sustainable Development Goals.

Gallagher was editor of Environmental Leadership: A Reference Handbook, a groundbreaking 1,032-page guide to sustainability, environmental governance and environmental leadership published in 2012.

Her co-editors on the new book are Benjamin W. Redekop, professor of leadership studies at Christopher Newport University in Newport News, Va., and Rian Satterwaite, director of serving learning and leadership at the University of Nevada Las Vegas.

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