How Green is Your Production?
Decatur Metro | September 16, 2010With all the recent analyzing and proselytizing of ethical consumption surrounding the goods sold by a potential Dollar General opening in Oakhurst, I got to wondering: why do we spend so much time obsessing about how “green”, “sustainable”, and “equitable” our consumer choices are, while wasting so little breath on our own production choices (aka our jobs)?
An extreme example, just to give you an idea of what I’m talking about:
You do your fair share of purchasing fair-trade clothing, local food, and cloth diapers, but your paychecks are signed by BP. The counter-example could be that your low-paying – but quite ethical and environmentally friendly – job requires you to purchase everything at lowest possible cost.
With so many of the world’s affluent class working “white collar” jobs, we’re now often more degrees away from what our companies actually produce than we are to Kevin Bacon, making it relatively easy to ignore how “green” and “ethical” our jobs are. So instead we self-identify based on the stuff we purchase.
However, if certain segments of the population choose to evaluate themselves based on their impact on the world (including your impact on other people), isn’t your participation in production just as important as your consumer choices?
Is this just a product of “consumer culture”?
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You do your fair share of purchasing fair-trade clothing, local food, and cloth diapers, but your paychecks are signed by BP.
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I have to ask — what is “extreme” about working for BP? It discovers and sells a commodity that is indispensibile to modern life. You see something unethical or inequitable about that?
Thanks, DEM, for the reality check…
Dude, I was just saying it wasn’t “green”. And if you’re into making ethical decisions about consumption, as many people are these days, I wonder why we don’t spend as much time talking about green production.
Just pointing out that we tend to pick and choose when it comes to these kinds of things.
But just for fun, I’d like to hear your argument for what exactly is ethical about “modern life”.
Oh, and I said it was an extreme example of what I was talking out, not that working for BP was extreme.
The way I read it, the fact that one’s paycheck is signed by BP is what makes the example extreme. If not, then I fail to see why it is an extreme example in the first place. I thought your point was that the good done by buying fair trade clothing could be partially undone by drawing a check from BP. Perhaps I am just not understanding your hypo.
As for an argument identifying what is ethical about modern life, no one has time to compile a list that long. But modern life certainly includes this blog, which is made possible by Apple, Intel, Microsoft, Ga Power, or at least some combination of the above. That seems ethical to me.
GE (or Viking or whatever) and Ga Power are keeping your food from spoiling as we speak. Ethical.
Natural gas powers many of our ranges, and certainly the ranges of the restaurants where many of us eat. Ethical.
BP is finding the stuff that permits you to drive to the airport to board a plane to Portland, or at least to fly the plane from Atlanta to Oregon. Ethical.
Oil, coal, or some other fossil fuel likely powered the factory that bended the steel to make my bike and my car. Ethical.
I could go on, of course.
I getcha. But I was trying to make a point about all the Dollar General folks making ethical arguments about what is sold there, and just wondering why people never seem to talk nearly as much about production as consumption.
Now I’m certainly willing to engage in a larger debate about how “ethical” or “unethical” companies that made “modern life” possible are, but that wasn’t my initial point. But if flying me to Portland is “ethical”, I’m not sure I understand the meaning of the word is. Sure, a refrigerator makes keeping things cool easier than it used to be, freeing up time for me to watch endless hours of Lost, but I’m not sure that’s “ethical”. Seems more amoral to me.
Seems more amoral to me.
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That’s probably right.
DM should have used Soylent Corporation…
I think you are being disingenuous not to acknowledge BP’s involvement in the headlines over the past five or six months or so. From my understanding, BP behaved irresponsibly and probably unethically before the Deepwater Horizon spill (and perhaps during the cleanup as well) and they have caused serious acute harm to the environment (in their efforts to produce a commodity whose use is probably inherently harmful to the environment).
BP sure is quick to dispense with workplace safety for this indispensable commodity.
Texas City refinery explosion before this latest BP tragedy:
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/business/7151576.html
Food for thought….
WICKED VIC! ….
(The remake is coming out soon, btw. )
These days, it seems like it would be a luxury to filter job opportunities through this lens.
You are 100% right. That would be a luxury.
Interesting…. We had a discussion similar to this with my husband when we were recommended by our financial advisor to include McDonalds in our investments because of their stock getting higher and higher. We decided against it for many reasons.
I believe that the more money you make (especially if you work for a high profile-not-so-green-company such as BP, Unilever, Coke, etc) the more responsible you should be for your purchasing choices (because you spend more). Every single dollar is a vote for the type of product/economic model you are support. Eventually the big companies will hopefully change (or are changing) to reflect consumer choices. If all the employees from Coke start a campaign saying that all the profits from Dasani should be used to build wells in developing countries, I bet Coke would do it. Not to would be the worse PR mistake.
Eventually the big companies will hopefully change (or are changing) to reflect consumer choices.
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McDonald’s has sold over a billion hamburgers. None of those sales were coerced. It seems to me their entire business model is based on consumer choice. Ditto Coke.
If all the employees from Coke start a campaign saying that all the profits from Dasani should be used to build wells in developing countries, I bet Coke would do it.
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Good intentions, but bad example. Dasani is an absolute money loser for Coke, so no wells would ever be built.
I work for Coke. Coke has a plan that they strive to replenish 100% of the water they use by 2020. That’s a lofty goal and I honestly don’t know how realistic it is, but a good one none the less. An example… If there is a bottler in India that uses X amount of water, they will do things such as recycle the waste water(use it to cool equip in the plant, etc) or they may distribute rain barrels to local citizens so they can capture rainfall, which will be added up to try to equal the amount they use. Obviously replenishing 100% of water used at a water bottling plant is near impossible, but Coke has made a commitment to actually get serious about “being green.”
There are alot of other things the company is working on in terms of being “green” or “sustainable” but that’s just one example since Dasani was brought up. And with the amount of power this company has, it’s a good thing they are trying to be an example to others in the corporate world, imo.
I telework(work from home) and go into the office maybe 3-4 times a month. We have about 60% of the dept I work in that teleworks as well. That’s a huge green initiative, imo.
Coke obviously has it’s faults like any major corporation where the bottom line is profit, but they realize that “being green” isn’t something that companies can just talk about anymore, but it’s something that they can actually subscribe to and be a leader in and try to set an example for others to follow.
KG-
Coke’s green initiatives= VERY refreshing news!!! Re Gigi’s suggestion (& to prove Robbie wrong! :0) :
It’d be wonderful if Coke would reach out to Decatur’s sister city, the village of Bousse in Burkina Faso, West Africa, to replace their well. The well provided by a Decatur group years ago is no longer functioning. They are in dire need of a water source. A presentation was given on it at the April 5th Commission Meeting. The City folks should have the contact info for the well project.
*Info on Decatur’s Sister Cities: http://www.decaturga.com/com_about_sistercities.aspx
Bottled water is perhaps one of the most un-green things in existence these days.
Like I said, Coke has it’s faults and when the bottom line is proft, those things tend to happen.
Anyway, here’s an article on the plastic bottle recycling plant Coke is now operating in Spartanburg.
http://www.greenbiz.com/blog/2009/01/14/pet-project-cokes-big-recycling-plant
Bottled sulfuric acid.
“why do we spend so much time obsessing about how “green”, “sustainable”, and “equitable” our consumer choices are”
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DM, I think a psychologist would call that projection! (smile)
I said “we”. Wouldn’t projection be if I had said “Why do YOU all spend so much time obsessing?”
I’m not 100% sure, but it seems you are projecting your feelings on to other people whether you use we or you. I was half joking anyways…!
I know you were half-joking. But I guess I should have said “…some of us…” instead.
We all make our choices. I have a client that performs government services for agencies such as the EPA and CDC. A little digging revealed its parent company to be involved in oil and gas and engaging in business practices I don’t like. I took the client on anyway.
A lot of the money I receive from them gets spent in local restaurants and bookstores. Another chunk ends up in the pockets of local contractors working to keep my house from collapsing around me. The rest goes into my child’s college fund. Taking the gig seemed the right choice for me.
Ya know ” Green” is pretty much a BS term anyway.
Example: Solar photoelectric panels , they fall into the very green energy category right?
In fact, some of the most toxic chemicals known to man are used in the production (growth)
of the silicone crystals that are then sliced into wafers to make the individual cells used in the panels. We could also look at the mining and production of the aluminum and glass as well. How about the water used in that production cycle?
SO, if I put a solar array on my 2200 square foot house (that only two of us live in), does that make me green? Hey guys! check out my tiny carbon footprint, right?
I am clear we all can/have to do something, I am also amazed how self righteous the collective “we” can be about it.
BTW, my intention here is not to make anyone wrong just to suggest we look past the glossy sales material and try and get our arms around the actual “cost” of our actions.
At this moment in history we are all inextricably linked to petroleum.
This is what I call organic food for thought!