Book Notes “Economics and Social Sciences” 4/2021

Joseph G. Allen and John D. Macomber: Healthy buildings: How indoor spaces drive performance and productivity. Harvard University Press, 2020. ISBN 9780674237971. 304 pp, GBP 28.95. As schools, restaurants, and offices are reopening after COVID-19, the Director of Harvard’s Healthy Buildings Program and Harvard Business School’s leading expert on urban resilience reveal what organizations and house owners can do to harness the power of offices, homes, and schools to protect people’s health and improve performance and wellbeing. Indeed, the indoor spaces where we work, learn, play, eat, and heal have an outsized impact on well-being and a whole host of higher order cognitive functions—including concentration, strategic thinking, troubleshooting, and decision-making. The authors reveal nine Foundations of a Healthy Building (from ventilation to noise and lightening) and show how tracking what they call “health performance indicators” with smart technology can help monitor and steer. The “healthy buildings” movement puts people in focus, complementing the recent “green” building movement. Ranjula Bali Swain and Susanne Sweet (Eds.): Sustainable consumption and production, volume I: Challenges and development. Springer Nature, 2021. ISBN 9783030563714. 447 pp., EUR 124.79. This is the first volume of a large project aiming to compile the state of research in sustainable consumption and production. The 20 chapters explore critical global challenges and address how consumers, producers, private sectors, international organizations, and governments can play an active role in innovating businesses to support a transition towards sustainable consumption and production. The themes covered are, e.g., sustainable markets, sustainability indices, and climate-friendly defaults rules. The edited book explores different approaches and innovations to address sustainable consumption and production within diverse social and economic contexts. Some contributions mainly address sustainable consumption and production in the developing world. Ranjula Bali Swain and Susanne Sweet (Eds.): Sustainable consumption and production, volume II: Circular economy and beyond. Springer Nature, 2021. ISBN 9783030552855. 387 pp., EUR 124.79.