A lot of people are interested in preserving the environment. I admit I don’t do much about it (I’m more the armchair sort), but I am interested in it. To those who are out there doing it (planting trees, spotfixing etc.) - more power to you!! You have my respect. This post has nothing to do with you. This is about the people who are corporate bitches of the “sustainable business practices” variety. I will say this out loud and clearly – That shit don’t work. Let me explain why.
What does “sustainable business practices” mean? It means that we will continue to do business with just about enough tweaks to it so that it allows the self-same business to run a little longer. If the tagline gets us a few tax breaks, so much the better. I don’t know of any company which has drastically changed business models or made business decisions on the basis of sustainability. Sustainability is good PR, but it is faaaaaar down the table from the bottom line. The jobs I referred to exist for posterity, and to employ mavericks who are willing to work for low salaries and pointless objectives.
Think about it. In the first place, the concept that we can somehow undo the damage we have done to the environment is kind of suspect. We can stop it from getting worse if we abandon all polluting activities right this instant, but the ecology of a planet is an immense beast, and is not easily turned from its path. Apart from that, the scale at which we are screwing things up is huge. Optimizations to the existing products/processes can only buy some time before the jig is up. Besides, let’s face it – corporates don’t truly care about environment. This is not to say that people working there don’t care, but usually when “The firm comes first”, clean air comes last.
Henry Ford (the first) said – “For an idea to work, it has to be right in time, and it has to be right in price”. Meaning someone making very expensive horse-buggies in 1900 would be wrong in price, and someone making very cheap horse-buggies today would be wrong in time. Neither would work. Today, the idea of environmental conservation is right in time, but I think that it is still wrong in price. We simply do not have economically viable substitutes for most of the stuff that is going wrong. This is why I firmly believe that the tide will turn not by activism, but by technology.
Activism is a fine thing, but it is not the solution here. It simply does not scale well. What we need is new, clean technology that performs at least as well as the current polluting setup. Only once we have these alternates is when the battle can be joined in the earnest by switching businesses to use them and making the enterprises actually sustainable.
New products that are cheap and yet eco-friendly will be immensely disruptive to the existing system. This is historically consistent (significant changes in living conditions occurs with significant change in technology) and the only hope that we have of turning the development juggernaut on its head and setting it in the right (or at least somewhat) direction. But since it is disruptive, it will face opposition, and THEN we will need environmental managers to carry the standard into boardrooms. But first that solution(s) that can be peddled has to be discovered.
So, here’s my tuppence – If you truly, deeply care about environment, go study the sciences. Try to actually solve the problem. Don’t waste your time and effort getting a corporate degree in Environmental Practices (or whatever they call it). It will be irrelevant and useless.
What does “sustainable business practices” mean? It means that we will continue to do business with just about enough tweaks to it so that it allows the self-same business to run a little longer. If the tagline gets us a few tax breaks, so much the better. I don’t know of any company which has drastically changed business models or made business decisions on the basis of sustainability. Sustainability is good PR, but it is faaaaaar down the table from the bottom line. The jobs I referred to exist for posterity, and to employ mavericks who are willing to work for low salaries and pointless objectives.
Think about it. In the first place, the concept that we can somehow undo the damage we have done to the environment is kind of suspect. We can stop it from getting worse if we abandon all polluting activities right this instant, but the ecology of a planet is an immense beast, and is not easily turned from its path. Apart from that, the scale at which we are screwing things up is huge. Optimizations to the existing products/processes can only buy some time before the jig is up. Besides, let’s face it – corporates don’t truly care about environment. This is not to say that people working there don’t care, but usually when “The firm comes first”, clean air comes last.
Henry Ford (the first) said – “For an idea to work, it has to be right in time, and it has to be right in price”. Meaning someone making very expensive horse-buggies in 1900 would be wrong in price, and someone making very cheap horse-buggies today would be wrong in time. Neither would work. Today, the idea of environmental conservation is right in time, but I think that it is still wrong in price. We simply do not have economically viable substitutes for most of the stuff that is going wrong. This is why I firmly believe that the tide will turn not by activism, but by technology.
Activism is a fine thing, but it is not the solution here. It simply does not scale well. What we need is new, clean technology that performs at least as well as the current polluting setup. Only once we have these alternates is when the battle can be joined in the earnest by switching businesses to use them and making the enterprises actually sustainable.
New products that are cheap and yet eco-friendly will be immensely disruptive to the existing system. This is historically consistent (significant changes in living conditions occurs with significant change in technology) and the only hope that we have of turning the development juggernaut on its head and setting it in the right (or at least somewhat) direction. But since it is disruptive, it will face opposition, and THEN we will need environmental managers to carry the standard into boardrooms. But first that solution(s) that can be peddled has to be discovered.
So, here’s my tuppence – If you truly, deeply care about environment, go study the sciences. Try to actually solve the problem. Don’t waste your time and effort getting a corporate degree in Environmental Practices (or whatever they call it). It will be irrelevant and useless.
The post drives the point fairly home. Though it could have fared better if you could have sprayed in some relevant examples in both the spaces - clean technology and activism. Pros and Cons of both in terms of investment, ROI and interest would have made the story fairly more rounded.
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ReplyDeleteSo I assume lil pixies working in the woodwork brought this about.
AskAks - Engineers did that, people working with technology to produce better technology. Just like I said they should do. My respect where its due.
ReplyDeleteMy point was that although there is no denying these initiatives have their uses, they only slow down the pace of the issues confronting us. A generator using 30% less coal still uses coal, and the scale of expansion always outdoes the savings. The actual problem is mistaking these things for the final answer (if there is such a thing). The effort is laudable, but doesn't solve the problem. It does buy us time though. We need to make it count.
Also, vast initiatives like these are more the exception than the norm. The usual corporate initiative is on the lines of :"use metal instead of paper cups to save trees", "your monitors will automatically shut down after 10 idle minutes", "we now pack our shipments 20% more tightly to save fuel" etc..
It may be that a solution will never be found. But taking these breach-fillers as the primary defense is wrong.
Activism is what brings attention to issues which vested interests prefer to keep low key. Activism affects the public mood which forces governments to step in and enforce regulations, and direct resources to environmental research, which in turn leads to new technologies. The current furor about environment is mainly due to activism.
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