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.

i will post this so you can know more

The League of Conservation Voters has taken on a new campaign. From the press release:

In train stations, at bus stops, online, even on our coffee cups, Chevron ads are trying to convince us that the key to ending our energy crisis is individual action. Over pictures of everyday Americans, taglines from Chevron’s “Will You Join Us” ad campaign read:

“I will leave the car at home more.”
“I will take my golf clubs out of the trunk.”
“I will replace 3 light bulbs with CFLs.”
“I will finally get a programmable thermostat.”
“I will consider buying a hybrid.”

All good ideas, certainly, but no matter how many clubs they’re carrying in their golf bags, no matter how many light bulbs they change, no matter how hard they consider that hybrid, the folks at Chevron could probably do a little more.

They have included ‘new and improved’ posters Chevron might want to consider. Here is a sampling!

greenwashing

Just found a new website: SUSTAIN LANE. It is a site dedicated to investigating and ranking the “green”-ness of products.

Right now, there is such a desire and demand for everything being eco friendly, that you need to be careful of “greenwashing”: being misled by a company regarding the environmental practices of the company or the environmental benefits of a product or service.

This site helps solve that problem by doing the investigative work for you.

Today they also launched their rankings of the greenest cities in the United States. It saddens me that my home town is #28.