Year-End Reading Recommendations from responsAbility
As the year draws to a close and the pace begins to slow, the holiday season offers a welcome moment to pause, reflect, and read. To mark the occasion, colleagues from across responsAbility have shared a selection of books that have inspired them, challenged their thinking, or offered fresh perspectives on the themes we care about most. We hope these recommendations spark curiosity and provide an inspiring reading experience this holiday season.
Africa is not a country by Dipo Faloyin
Topic: Emerging markets Recommended by: Rachel Dale, Event & Marketing Manager at responsAbility
Africa Is Not A Country is a bright and insightful portrait of modern Africa that pushes back against harmful stereotypes to tell a more comprehensive story. So often Africa is depicted simplistically as an arid red landscape of famines and safaris, uniquely plagued by poverty and strife.
With wit and clarity, Dipo Faloyin offers a much-needed corrective. He examines each country's colonial histories, and explores a wide range of subjects, from chronicling urban life in Lagos and the lively West African rivalry over who makes the best Jollof rice, to the story of democracy in seven dictatorships and the dangers of stereotypes in popular culture.
By turns intimate and political, the book brings Africa’s diversity into sharp focus, celebrating the energy and fabric of its different cultures and communities in a way that has never been done before.
Juice by Tim Winton
Topic: Climate Recommended by: Harriet Jackson, Co-Team Head of Sustainable Food Debt Africa at responsAbility
An awkward read on an airplane, Juice offers a stark glimpse into a society shaped by climate catastrophe. People grow their own food and live underground for several months of the year to avoid extreme heat, while a group of covert eco-terrorists carries out ethically questionable missions targeting the descendants of former fossil fuel industry leaders.
Bleak and unsettling, the novel underscores the urgency of climate action by confronting readers with the stark consequences of inaction. The Economist calls it “a riveting tale of the risks of surrendering privacy for convenience.”
Careless People by Sarah Wynn-Williams
Topics: Technology, Ethics Recommended by: Paul Hailey, Head of Impact & ESG at responsAbility
Written by former Facebook (later Meta) Director of Public Policy Sarah Wynn-Williams, Careless People offers a critical insider account of the company’s culture and decision-making practices. The book is highly critical of Facebook's responses to global sociopolitical events, including its role in the Rohingya genocide and CEO Mark Zuckerberg's alleged efforts to censor on behalf of the Chinese government.
More generally, it is a compelling account of a company that pursues growth at all costs, without consideration for the ethical angle, deploying technology to devastating effect.
Net Positive: How Courageous Companies Thrive by Giving More Than They Take by Paul Polman and Andrew Winston
Topics: Sustainability, Climate Finance, Positive Impact Recommended by: Sarika Sinha, Product Controller at responsAbility
This book is a practical and ambitious guide for businesses seeking to lead responsibly in today’s interconnected world. Polman and Winston argue that companies must move beyond minimizing harm and instead create a net positive impact, improving the lives of employees, communities, and the planet.
The authors show that long-term success depends on sustainability, transparency, and collaboration to address challenges such as climate change and inequality. Net Positive is not just a philosophy, but a strategic blueprint for thriving in a future where doing good and doing well are inseparable.
21 Lessons for the 21st Century by Yuval Noah Harari
Topics: Technology, Ethics, Global Development, Resilience Recommended by: Rojin Ciplak, Human Resources Specialist at responsAbility
21 Lessons for the 21st Century provides a clear and accessible overview of the major forces shaping today’s world. Harari explores how artificial intelligence, automation, and surveillance-based business models are transforming work, politics, and personal freedom, often faster than our ability to understand or regulate them.
The book addresses urgent issues including the future of jobs, democratic fragility, misinformation, and global inequality, while emphasizing the shared responsibility of individuals and leaders in responding to climate change, social polarization, and information overload. Insightful and sometimes unsettling, it encourages readers to think critically about the world ahead and their role in shaping it.
The Hunger (El Hambre) by Martín Caparrós
Topics: Food, Development Recommended by: Irene Zanella, Compliance Officer at responsAbility
First published in 2014, The Hunger is a sweeping exploration of hunger as more than famine: it is about broken food systems, poor nutrition, and waste. Through vivid reporting from India, Bangladesh, the United States, Argentina, South Sudan, and beyond, Caparrós reveals how inequality and failed structures shape lives around the world.
Gripping and urgent, the book leaves readers reflective, yet hopeful that greater awareness can drive meaningful change.
On Natural Capital – The Value of the World Around Us by Partha Dasgupta
Topics: Biodiversity, Sustainability, Economics Recommended by: Philipp Waeber, Chief Economist at responsAbility.
Partha Dasgupta’s On Natural Capital is a powerful reminder that our economies ultimately rest on the natural world, even though we fail to account for it properly. He shows that humanity now uses resources as if we had 1.7 Earths at our disposal, and that global demand has exceeded nature’s regeneration rate since the early 1970s. Dasgupta illustrates the problem vividly: if a supermarket allowed customers to walk out without paying, the chain would soon collapse—yet nature has no checkout counters, and we routinely help ourselves to vast quantities of goods and services without compensating the ecosystems that produce them. Because ecosystems are undervalued, entrepreneurs innovate to save labour, not nature, reinforcing the depletion of the very assets our prosperity depends on.
Ignoring environmental externalities remains routine practice in economics, further accelerating the degradation of natural capital. Against this backdrop, the book argues for treating ecosystems as real, measurable assets—every bit as essential as financial or produced capital. It is a compelling call to rethink how we measure wealth and design policies for long-term prosperity.
The Nutmeg’s Curse by Amitav Ghosh
Topics: Climate Justice, Global South Inequality, Environmental Philosophy Recommended by: Vinbosco Tomy, Associate Products & Structuring at responsAbility
Through the story of a single spice, The Nutmeg’s Curse reveals how colonization, exploitation, and resource extraction have shaped today’s world. Ghosh connects historical patterns of violence and domination to contemporary challenges, including climate change and global inequality.
Accessible and thought-provoking, the book shows how the past continues to shape environmental and social realities today.
The Overstory by Richard Powers
Topic: Nature Recommended by: Sharad Venugopal, Head Financial Inclusion Debt APAC at responsAbility
The Overstory is a novel about trees, but also about the role of a specific kind of tree in the lives of nine individuals (Roots). For a brief part of the book (Trunk), these lives come together in an unexpected way, before they diverge again (Crown).
Blending science, tragedy, love, and hope, the book invites readers to reconsider humanity’s relationship with the natural world. As Powers writes: “When you cut down a tree, what you make from it should be at least as miraculous as what you cut down.”
The Dream Hotel by Laila Lalami
Topic: Technology Recommended by: Harriet Jackson, Co-Team Head of Sustainable Food Debt Africa at responsAbility
Set in the near future, The Dream Hotel follows a mother detained at the U.S. border for “crime prevention” after an algorithm determines that her violent dreams make her a risk to society.
What unfolds is a powerful exploration of unregulated privatization, the perverse incentives of private prisons, the promise and dangers of AI, societal complacency, and the role of luck. The protagonist’s ordeal begins when she agrees to a sleep-aid device implanted in her brain, unaware that the fine print allows her dreams to be monitored and shared with a government “Risk Agency.”
Moral Ambition by Rutger Bregman
Topics: Biodiversity, Sustainability, Economics Recommended by: Philipp Waeber, Chief Economist at responsAbility.
Rutger Bregman’s Moral Ambition is a compelling call to rethink what we consider a successful life. He argues that talent is too often channeled into careers maximizing income or prestige rather than impact, even as the world faces urgent challenges requiring capable people.
One striking observation is how many workers themselves feel their jobs add little value, with more than a third of employees in banking, ICT, and marketing describing their work as “useless.” Against this backdrop, Bregman invites readers to adopt “moral ambition”: the drive to use their skills where they can do the most good. Through sharp analysis and vivid examples, he shows how meaningful change becomes possible when ambition and purpose align. The book is an inspiring call to go out there and make a difference.
The 100 Trillion Dollar Wealth Transfer by Ken Costa
Topics: Sustainability, Finance Recommended by: Paul Hailey, Head of Impact & ESG at responsAbility
Over the next decade, an unprecedented transfer of wealth will take place as assets move from the baby boomer generation to younger generations. Never before has so much wealth—across housing, land, equities, and cash—shifted hands so quickly, nor has the receiving generation viewed the future of capitalism and the planet so differently.
Ken Costa explores both the trends behind this shift and its far-reaching implications, particularly as Millennials and Gen Z reassess how capital should be deployed in a changing world.
The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi
Topics: Resource Scarcity, Biotechnology, Food Systems Recommended by: Vinbosco Tomy, Associate Products & Structuring at responsAbility
Set in a future, flooded Bangkok, The Windup Girl follows Emiko, a genetically engineered woman struggling to survive in a world marked by climate collapse and extreme inequality. Food is scarce, powerful corporations dominate economies, and biotechnology shapes global power dynamics.
Fast-paced and imaginative, the novel offers a compelling lens on climate change, resource scarcity, and the possible futures of global food systems.
