You are The System

by Matt DeNoto

Corporations are scary things. Mindless, soulless profit machines that want above all else growth. They’re a bit like the viruses of the financial world, and for the last few decades they’ve been getting their way. Profit and growth have been priority number one, with everything else a distant second, including treating their employees fairly and taking environmental responsibility. They are powerful, and their power makes them extremely intimidating. It often seems futile to try and beat the system.

But corporations are ultimately controlled by people. And that may be their saving grace.

An idea came to me as I read about the recent Chevron shareholder’s meeting, where a small but passionate group of environmental activists tried to bring about change in Chevron’s policies, particularly regarding the legal suit Chevron is fighting in Ecuador over the pollution committed by Texaco, which Chevron acquired in 2001.

Unfortunately, as has traditionally been the case, the great majority of shareholders do not care about Chevron’s pollution in Ecuador and they do not care about Chevron’s commitment to human rights. They care only about the pieces of paper they own labeled ‘shares,’ and how much money those pieces of paper are worth. Anything which might lessen the value of those pieces of paper, be it the cost of cleaning up years worth of sludge poured into the water supply of an innocent village or acknowledging the environmental impact of current practices, is considered to be unacceptable. Shareholders, by and large, have no emotional stake in a company. They do not care if it does business fairly, or if it produces goods the world truly needs in a responsible manner. It’s all about those little pieces of paper.

The thing about it is, anyone can buy shares in a company. I began to imagine a movement whereby responsibly minded individuals banded together, chose a corporation in need of a reality check, and began purchasing shares of said corporation en masse. It might be difficult for the group to acquire a majority ownership, but simply the influence that might be exerted by a group not focused solely on profits could have a very interesting impact on the concept of a corporation as we know it.

Corporations are very good at making profits. And that’s okay. We want them to be able to make profits. We need companies to provide goods and services. We need them to compete and to innovate.

And we need them to take responsibility for their actions. We need them to stop fighting tooth and nail every time they’re forced to clean up a mess they’ve made, and then we need to put in place a system that encourages them not to make any messes in the first place. We need corporations to equate making money with making the world a better place.

We can do it. We can change the system. We are the system.

In case you’re feeling inspired, the web address www.environmentalshareholders.com is available for purchase.

good business, bad business

by Matt DeNoto

At the office where I work, we get a weekly delivery of the ‘Los Angeles Business Journal,’ a newspaper aimed at people with business-related interests. As I flip through the paper, one thing becomes very clear:

These people love their money, and anything that stands in the way is considered bad.

Obvious, I know. But it never really sank in for me until I started reading these stories about how much it hurt a busines s to have to follow this regulation or negotiate with that union. There was a story about how much it was costing a company to revise its balance sheets after an independent auditor found out how off their books were.

“Awwww, too bad,” I thought, “A company is losing money because it has to actually tell the truth.” Break out the violins.

But stepping back, the disparity between my perspective (as someone who puts the wellness of the world above the bottom line) and theirs shows just how far there is to go before we’re all living in a world where everyone considers the consequences of their actions. To me, it just seems fundamentally wrong to fight so hard against something as obvious as not emitting noxious fumes into the air or dumping harmful chemicals into the ground.

So how do we bridge the gap? In a twist that may or may not be ironic, they may actually be doing some of the work for us.

The uncertainty comes from whether or not you believe that a company’s media campaign actually represents the perspective of the company, or merely the image that company is trying to portray. Over the past few months, large corporations have been advertising themselves as Green, trying to tell us how they’re making the world a better place. GE has been promoting a commitment to the environment it calls Ecomagination. FOX Broadcasting has launched a series of PSAs with the tagline ‘Green it. Mean it.’ Even oil companies like Shell and BP have been putting up spots hoping to encourage the minds of consumers to link those companies with environmentalism.

For the sake of cynicism, let’s say that these companies are not actually interested in saving the planet. They’re just typical corporations that would happily dump their garbage in your pool if it would save them money. Even if all this ‘Green Branding’ is simply companies trying to profit from the enviro-‘fad’ going on right now, it’s still putting the Green philosophy out there, into the minds of the public. If it keeps up, even those in the population who have been resistant to change are going to find that those messages of change have worked their way in. Then the public will start to throw around the power it has always had: the power to vote with its wallet. After that, companies are going to have to practice what they preach.

Until then, there are still businesses out there now founded on principles of responsibility. And thanks to the internet, we can all start voting with our wallets now. For a whole marketplace of sustainable goods, visit World Of Good.