Finding Purpose

Environmental Stewardship as a Personal Calling

By: J. MacKinnon, Andrew J. Hoffman

Both thoughtful and thought-provoking, Finding Purpose challenges our understanding of how humanity interacts with planet Earth, and our role within this. This book is an invitation: would you like to participate in one of the most important projects of imagination, perhaps the greatest ever, in human history?

Distilling and refining over 20 pieces from a lifetime of work in academia and trade, across speeches, blogs, editorials and essays, the author invites us to look beyond material growth and explore the role of the individual and business in discovering a wider purpose to bring about a balanced and sustainable society. The listeners is encouraged to consider humanity’s relationship with the environment through different lenses: business, academia, faith-based, and cultural. By bringing them together, Hoffma encourages us to understand our relationship with the planet in a far more holistic sense.

©2020 Taylor & Francis (P)2020 Routledge

Critic reviews

"It’s rather easy to get sucked into the black hole of pessimism when it comes to the state of our planet. And it’s just as tempting to find needed solace in optimism, a vague hope that something – technology or an eleventh-hour revolution – will put civilization and the biosphere on a sustainable course. Andrew Hoffman’s Finding Purpose: Environmental Stewardship as a Personal Calling, offers a path out of this stale polarity between optimism and pessimism.The book is unique in the realm of environmental literature in that it is less an alarmist call to action or policy prescription, and more of a call for self-reflection. Hoffman presents a collection of essays on the need to find purpose and calling wherever one is on life’s path. Whether a college senior on the eve of “selling out,” or a late career CEO who needs courage to look beyond the limited horizon of shareholder value, Hoffman gets the reader asking herself questions about her role in the wider effort to save our world." Bjorn Philip Beer, Earth Island Journal

"The University of Michigan’s Andrew Hoffman has crafted a series of heartfelt essays that explore why anyone connected with business should be concerned about climate change, sustainability, and the fate of the world.... Thoughtful and powerful." BizEd Magazine

"I recently had the opportunity to read a book titled Finding Purpose written by Andrew J. Hoffman. It is an outstanding book that should be read by everyone that has any interest in planet earth and its future....In summary, Finding Purpose is one of the best books I have read in a long time. If I were still teaching, this book would be required reading for every student. It is not just for students but for everyone who has had even the smallest interest in environmental issues." George P. Nassos