Interview With A Green: Corporate Greenwashing

Question: So far we have covered what individuals can do to help reduce our impact on the environment, but many corporations are now jumping on the green bandwagon.  What is your take on this??

----------------------

Again, any improvement helps, but for the most part we must be aware that this is usually simply a ploy.  If corporations would only spend as much money and energy actually converting to green practices as they do trying to make less-informed consumers think they are green, they would find it is actually more profitable in the long run.  I recall reading where one company was totally amazed at how much it reduced their costs when they began recycling/re-using their spent chemicals instead of discarding them and buying more – even though we had been telling them that for years!!  Most corporations would rather continue their environmentally damaging ways while simply adding a new “greener” product line in order to capitalize on the additional profits they can enjoy from so doing.

If one looks at the history of corporations in Amerika, one finds that our forefathers were highly suspicious of such entities.  They had been abused by similar organizations back in their homeland.  When first allowed to form, they were meant to have a totally different purpose here, and this purpose had to be documented fully before Congress.  Our founders realized the importance of keeping these groups well in control and under their thumbs.  They had to obtain a charter, and any change whatsoever – from what was being made to where the goods were sold to who was in charge – had to be approved in advance by the legislature.  Yet somehow today the reach of these corporations has expanded without limitation (remember that thermostat used to keep the furnace under control??) to the point that they have far more rights and far more power than the supposedly sovereign populace has in most cases.  And some have more financial resources than many entire countries do!!

There are myriads of examples one could give regarding the extreme debauchery most corporations currently conduct on a daily basis, and the devastation to people and the planet that this has caused.  These outrages include pillaging the public such as when Dutch Shell crisscrossed pipes across Nigerian farmers' lands so they could no longer be easily cultivated, and placed sooty exhaust torches within feet of their windows – resulting in the hanging of Ken-Saro Wiwo and others who (non-violently) protested it.  Or Monsanto, who feels it proper to destroy the livelihood of neighboring organic farms by exposing them to genetically-mutilated cross-pollination, and then have the audacity to take the poor unsuspecting farmer to court for possessing proprietary plants he had not “paid for.”  GE still has not made restitution for its crimes at Hanover, where the public was an unwitting guinea pigs in covert nuclear release experiments.

We have all been long aware of the “profit first” motivation of such companies, and the effect of this attitude was made quite evident with the failing of the banks, and the collapse of the housing industry and Wall Street in general, which brought the entire economy to its knees worldwide while the CEOs got richer than ever.  Not to mention BP’s recent gulf oil catastrophe which was caused by putting earnings above safety, taking shortcuts, and not even having enough concern for what the consequences of an accident might be to put a reasonable contingency plan in place just in case it happened.

But I would like to take this opportunity to discuss a different aspect of corporate abuse – one that most people probably have never considered.  In my opinion, the most systemic failure of our free-market approach is that many of the costs involved in producing a product are externalized.  By that I mean that the direct consumer does not pay the full cost of the product – the rest is shoved off in the form of “hidden” costs onto others who do not benefit from the purchase, and typically those “others” are you and I…the taxpayers.

Those who remember the analogy of the Tragedy of the Commons understand the problem with this.  If a community owns a pasture, and decides to let ten farmers graze five sheep each in it, and a few get greedy and secretly raise the number of their herd to eight or more, then they reap the benefit without paying any price for it, while there is less for every one else – perhaps not even enough to sustain their permitted flock of five.  This is exactly what happens today due to government subsidies, tax abatements, and when pollution and other damage to the environment is not included in the manufacturing cost.  Examples are where toxic effluent is dumped (albeit legally...maybe) into our waterways with no compensation to the public who might like to swim or fish there, where the forests we might want to go hiking in are destroyed for private profit, when our neighbors are forced to breath in dioxin-laced air, or the landfill overflows and must be expanded until it presses against your backyard fence.

Therefore, my long-term solution to this situation (in addition to far more regulation and legislative limitation) would be to incorporate the entire or “true” cost in every product – not just the manufacturer’s direct expenses like material and labor and utilities, but also the price society must pay as a whole as a result of producing and disposing of the product, from cradle to the grave.  This would not easy to calculate in all cases, but we need to consider doing so to the best of our ability.

Now, many will complain that this will make everything more expensive for everyone, especially the poor, and will reduce sales.  Sure we will have to extend more help to the low income at first, but if the transition is slow enough the economy will eventually balance itself a little further up on the scale with higher wages in turn.  As to the overall cost, we have already discussed how we need to reduce consumption in this country anyway, but I would argue that every dollar added to the price in order to cover these hidden costs will save thousands of dollars in cleanup costs and money wasted in resolving the other problems created.  Those thousands of dollars are currently paid out of your taxes, which we all agree are too high.  The reduction in this tax burden would therefore more than compensate for the higher up-front cost of the product.  Besides, why should you and I have to pay for something we ourselves do not need or want, and are not purchasing, just so greedy corporations can reap a larger profit??  I know, the CEO needs his monthly vacation in Tahiti, but…

Well, that is my long term philosophy.  It will never happen in my lifetime, so in the meanwhile my best advice is to support real green companies whenever possible instead of those simply trying to “greenwash” you.

Next Page
 

This page was last updated on February 12, 2023

Always remember to "Think Green" because good planets are hard to find!!  

Previous Page | Next Page | Top Of Page | Green Living Home | Home Page | Email Me